Sycamore Row

grabbed his hair and yanked him over, but the car had a stick shift in the console and he got all caught up in it.We were both tangled up and mad as hell, cussing and clawing like a couple of cats. I had him in a death grip when the trooper said through the window, ‘ ’Scuse me fellas.’
    “We froze. At the station, the trooper talked to both of us and declared us to be equally drunk. This was before Breathalyzers and such, back in the good old days.” He gulped some tea, then attacked a small heap of fried okra.
    “So what happened?” Jake finally asked.
    “I wouldn’t call my dad and Welch wouldn’t call his. A lawyer was visiting a client in jail and heard about the two drunk Ole Miss law students in a cell back there, sobering up and missing classes. He went to the judge, pulled some strings, and got us out. The dean was waiting on us at school, threatened to kill us or at least disbar us before we even graduated. With time we got it all dismissed. The dean knew I would be too valuable an addition to the state bar to give up on.”
    “Of course.”
    “Needless to say, Welch and I go way back. A lot of skeletons. He’ll take care of Simeon until the will contest is over, then get rid of him. Dude’s going down anyway, not much anybody can do for him.”
    “How much damage to our case?”
    Lucien, the pessimist, was convinced the damage was irreparable, but Jake wasn’t so sure. Harry Rex swiped his face with a cheap paper napkin and said, “You know how trials go, Jake. Once they start, the judge and lawyers and witnesses and jurors are all locked in the same room, all within spitting distance of each other. They hear everything, see everything, even feel everything. They tend to forget what’s on the outside, what happened last week, last year. They’re consumed with what’s happening before their eyes, and with the decisions they’ll have to make. My hunch is that they won’t be thinking about Simeon Lang and the Roston boys. Lettie certainly had nothing to do with that tragedy. She’s doing her best to get rid of Simeon, who’s about to leave the county for a long time.” A swig of tea, a bite of corn bread. “Right now it looks worrisome, but in a month or so it will be less so. I believe the jury will be so riveted by Seth Hubbard’s will they won’t spend much time thinking about a car wreck.”
    “I don’t think they’ll forget that easily. Wade Lanier will be there to remind them.”
    “You still plan to lobby Atlee for a change of venue?”
    “That’s the plan. We’re meeting this Friday on his front porch, at my request.”
    “That’s a bad sign. If he wants you to come over, fine. But if you have to ask, then it probably won’t go so well.”
    “I don’t know. I saw him at church Sunday and he asked how I was handling the situation. He seemed genuinely concerned and even willing to talk about the case after the sermon. Very unusual.”
    “Let me tell you something, Jake, about Atlee. I know you’re close to him, or as close as any lawyer can get, but there’s a darker side there. He’s from the old school, the old South, old family ties and traditions. I’d bet that deep inside he’s appalled at the notion of a white man taking the family money and leaving it to a black woman. We may one day understand why Seth Hubbard did what he did, or we may not, but regardless of why, Reuben Atlee doesn’t like it at all. He’s got what he’s got because his ancestors passed it down. His family owned slaves, Jake.”
    “A thousand years ago. So did Lucien’s.”
    “Yes, but Lucien’s crazy. He wandered off the reservation a long time ago. He doesn’t count. Atlee does, and don’t expect him to do you any favors. He’ll run a fair trial, but I’ll bet his heart is with the other side.”
    “All we can ask for is a fair trial.”
    “Sure, but a fair trial in another county sounds better right now than a fair trial here.”
    Jake took a drink and spoke to a gentleman who passed by. He leaned in lower and said, “I still have to file a motion to change venue. It gives us something to argue on appeal.”
    “Oh sure. File it. But Atlee is not moving the case.”
    “Why are you so sure?”
    “Because he’s an old man in bad health and he doesn’t want to drive a hundred miles every day. He’s still the presiding judge, Jake, regardless of where the trial takes place. Atlee’s lazy, like most judges, and he wants this spectacle of a case right here in his