Grudge Match A Chris Sinclair Novel

CHAPTERone Trials end with a verdict. The victim's family sobs. Jurors look stoic, or hug each other, or at last talk to reporters. The judge nods in agreement. He thanks the jurors for their hard work. Closure is achieved. The lawyers move on to the next case. "The defendant showed no emotion." This is the phrase always used to describe the lunk sitting alone, or still standing to receive the verdict. He lifts his chin, or drops his head. But his eyes don't fill with tears. He has nothing to say. The person on trial has just been stripped not only of his freedom but of his singularity, as he will soon be stripped of his clothes and draped in a jail coverall. One moment he is one of us, his fate uncertain, as are all our fates, his destiny unknown. In the next second he has become part of a subhuman herd: the convicted. The guilty. Now everyone knows. What you did, what you are. The newly convicted defendant grows an instant shell. He knows he is no longer quite present in the courtroom. He is on his way to a new life, the main feature of which is invisibility. He will no longer be among us. Even if the defendant emerges someday, he won't quite rejoin the race. Cut out from the herd, he remains one of the others. "Ex-con." It seemed a horrible, terrifying fate.Then why do they never show emotion, Chris Sinclair wondered. He assumed it was because they knew they were guilty. They had it coming. The jurors had found them out. Suddenly the trial just past was revealed for the academic exercise it had been. "Okay. You got me." Yes. We get you. And no longer have to think about you. Chris seldom did. It was rare for him to revisit a past trial, except as an anecdote. But one defendant had shown emotion. A man of average height but broad shoulders, he had sat with the required stoicism throughout his trial, but at the word "guilty," he had gone berserker. He had slammed his fists down on counsel table, and roared as if he'd been stabbed. His pain sounded physical. The defendant had picked up his chair, raised it over his head, and actually pulled one of its arms free. He had been advancing across the front of the courtroomtoward the judge or the jury, accounts differed afterwardsuntil he'd been stopped by the bailiffs, one of them rough and contemptuous, the other surprisingly gentle. The arms of the defendant's blue suit had ripped at the seams, as if he'd been revealed. His transformation had begun. The next time he had appeared in the courtroom, for the punishment phase, he'd behaved appropriately. The defendant showed no emotion. He was the one Chris remembered. * * * Years passed, and Chris Sinclair went on to other trials and other jobs. By now, Chris had been an attorney for twelve years: seven as an assistant district attorney, three as a defense lawyer, two so far as the district attorney of Bexar County, in San Antonio. Though his job now was administrative, he still thought of himself as a trial lawyer. A week spent in meetings left him peevish and restless. Many days, without knowing why, he drifted downstairs to the trial courts. There his fingers stopped tapping, his shoulders expanded, and he stood taller, with a faint smile of which he remained unaware. His physiological reactions were similar to an athlete's returning to his high school stadium. But Chris was lucky. At thirty-six, he could still compete. So when on a Thursday morning in October, he strolled into the 186th District Court on the third floor of the Justice Center and saw an empty chair at the prosecution table, he reacted without thought, walking quickly up the aisle and through the gate in the wooden railing. "What's happened?" he asked, stanBrandon, Jay is the author of 'Grudge Match A Chris Sinclair Novel', published 0008 under ISBN 9780765347879 and ISBN 0765347873.