The Subprimes by Greenfeld Karl Taro

Author:Greenfeld, Karl Taro [Greenfeld, Karl Taro]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-04-10T07:00:00+00:00

THE NEXT MORNING IS MY court appointment, downtown on Temple Street. My Über Justice attorney, who according to my Kik map was ten minutes away, turned out to be twenty minutes late, which is not bad considering how difficult it is to move around Los Angeles. What is more worrying to me is that she looks like she is about twenty.

“You’re my attorney?” I ask.

“Paralegal,” she says. “Almost the same thing.”

She is an immense black woman who wears a vast blue jacket over a pink shirt and blue slacks that must take up an entire eight-man tent’s worth of fabric. She has a pretty face, long braided hair, and a cheerful smile that fades as I ask my question.

“I’m Miss Glenda Solay, and yes, if you are Richie Schwab, then I am the Über Justice consultant here to represent you regarding your nuisance summons for . . .” She scrolls through her tablet screen. “Misdemeanor Endangerment of a Minor.”

Upstairs, the arched hallway is crowded with defendants. Glenda and I have a quick conference, standing inside the recessed area formerly used as a pay phone bank.

“You paid for our Total Innocence and Exoneration package, and at Über Justice there is nothing more important to us than your freedom from unjust prosecution,” Glenda reads from her screen. “Now, can you describe in forty words your exculpatory circumstances.”

“What?”

“Why you’re not guilty. Speak into the tablet.”

“I can’t.”

“You can’t speak into the tablet?”

“I can’t do it.”

“Mr. Schwab, you paid for the Total Innocence and Exoneration package,” says Glenda. “If you wish to change your plea, we cannot refund the difference.”

“No, not that, it’s forty words or less that’s hard.”

“It’s not exactly forty words. It can be forty-three or forty-four.”

I try. “I was walking up the street and saw some children playing football and we stopped to join them. Oh, and I was with my son, Ronin. We played tackle football for a while and then—how many is that?”

“Thirty-nine.”

“Including ‘how many is that’?”

“Now you’re at forty-four.”

“The important thing is that what we were doing was playing football. Nobody was hurt.”

Glenda sighs and switches off the recording. “I can’t do my job if you can’t explain the exonerating circumstances. The complainant who called the police reported hearing squealing, and then reported seeing you, Richie Schwab, tackling young boys and rolling on the lawn with them.”

“We were playing football. That’s what football looks like.”

“Were you wearing pads? Helmets? Was there a stadium? Because that’s what football looks like.”

“No, we were playing football in the front yard, for fun, without helmets or uniforms because who uses those things?”

“Every time I’ve watched football, there are helmets and uniforms and, for that matter, commercials and announcers.”

“That’s professional football, or maybe college, but this was kids—”

“Ah, Mr. Schwab,” she interrupts and points to something on her screen. “I have to relay to you a plea being offered by the district attorney’s office. If you plead no-contest right now, your fine will decrease to $350.”

“What do you mean, right now?”

“You have forty seconds to accept this offer, after that, the fine will increase.

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