Jack's attention returned to more mundane matters. The defense attorney was known throughout the building as Bearded Rage Guy. This was easier to remember than his name, which he kept changing. When he first surfaced as a defense attorney, he went by Richard Berkley. About ten years ago he changed it to Neil somebody, Jack couldn't quite remember what, exactly. Now he used the name Al Archer. It was just easier to call him Bearded Rage Guy. It fit him. He was, in fact, a bearded guy. The "rage" came from a defense strategy he often employed. In this strategy he used "not guilty due to mental defect" based on rage as an excuse. The defendant, by virtue of his membership in some identifiable group, was so overcome by rage he couldn't help committing whatever crime he was charged with and therefore had a mental defect. It was pure crap. Everyone knew it, including, fortunately, most of the judges. Unfortunately, in this case, the judge was going to let Bearded Rage Guy use this as a defense.
This was Judge Squarehead. Jack refused to say his real name unless absolutely forced to. That name referred to his large, cubical head, which was obvious for anyone to see and which contained, in Jack's view, the brain of a senile opossum. On drugs. Actually, his head wasn't a perfect cube. He had a pronouncedly convex forehead, which made him look a little like the intelligent alien from some science fiction film Jack had seen when he was a boy. Jack knew that, in Squarehead's case, the increased forehead did not mean increased frontal lobes. It was nothing but solid, unyielding bone, about an inch and half thick. Jack had fantasies of driving golf balls off of that protuberance and seeing how far they'd bounce. Anyway, at a motion hearing four days ago, Bearded Rage Guy had argued to Squarehead that his client had uncontrollable rage due to a lifetime of daily insults and humiliations he faced as a little person in a big person's world. Due to this accumulated rage, he had been unable to stop himself from erupting into deadly violence when faced by the ultimate insult and humiliation from a big person.
"That's ridiculous, your Honor!" Jack had retorted, "I'm a middle aged, white, divorced workaholic, who faces insults and humiliations every day. If I cold-bloodedly murder someone, is middle aged white guy rage a defense?"
"Could be," Bearded Rage Guy had said helpfully, "When it happens, come see me. We'll talk."
Squarehead had tilted his head to one side, which he probably thought made it look like he was considering Jack's protest with Solomon-like wisdom. To Jack it merely looked like he was having trouble balancing that vast cube of a head on his neck. He had regarded Jack for a minute with his weak little pig-like eyes, then had said, "No. I see some validity there. I'll let it go to the jury."
"Oh, fine! Tiny rage," Jack had muttered, more or less to himself. He was furious. When he had gotten back to his office, there was a message for him from Arthur. He had read it twice, then had gone to Arthur's office. Once there, he had lowered himself onto the couch and had spat out, "That pompous moron!"
"What's the matter, Jack?" Arthur had asked mildly, "Motion hearing go wrong?"
"I'll say. That moron judge is gonna let Bearded Rage Guy put on a "dwarf rage" defense."
Arthur had considered this. After several seconds, Jack had peered at him closely to make sure he hadn't fallen asleep. After awhile Arthur had answered, "Well, it oughta be a small time defense. It's a lot better'n him saying that an elf had jumped out of a drawer and spit hot cider into his client's ear. I reckon the expert witness list will be very short." He had followed this by several muffled snorts which Jack had supposed to be incompletely suppressed laughter but which had sounded like pig farts. Jack had cringed at the elf reference. This had been one of Arthur's lamest and most witless lines ever, and repetition did not improve it any. After another slightly long pause, Arthur had begun telling a lengthy and pointless anecdote about a stupid judge in a case he had prosecuted when he was a young lawyer.
"Back when God was in short pants," Jack had thought sourly.
After an eternity, during which he offered Jack no scotch, Arthur had wound up his soliloquy and Jack had made his escape from the office, feeling not one bit better than when he had entered. He then had stomped back to his own office. On the way he had reviewed, in his mind, what he referred to himself as the "Mysteries of the Universe." These were questions that, if answered, could provide him with increased job satisfaction and, perhaps, the salvation of his prosecutor's soul. Why was Arthur in New York in the first place, the very apex of "Yankee-ness" in the country? Why, after twenty years in New York, did he still sound like he had a mouthful of corn pone when he talked? Sounding like he did, how had he managed to become District Attorney here? And, lastly, whom did Arthur most resemble, Alice's Queen of Hearts, or a Grouper? Jack had frowned and thought, to himself, that he needed a drink. That night he had gotten drunk.