Temporary Orders

A light rain was falling the day Mona failed to show up for the hearing. By the time Beth returned to her office five blocks away, her French twist looked more like a French poodle. She tossed her umbrella and briefcase onto the floor, and as they landed water sprayed across the carpet. She plopped down into her chair, not bothering to remove her trench coat. She didn't know why Mona's absence had taken her by surprise. Really, it was a classic domestic violence case: Woman enters Neighborhood Legal Services with bruises, or even a cast on an arm or leg, does everything right to get a temporary order, promises to return to make the order permanent. By the hearing date, bruises are faded, cast is gone, guy apologizes (and really it was her fault anyway since she made him so mad) and client is sure it will never happen again. Beth had witnessed the litany more times than she cared to count.

Somehow, Mona had seemed different. She was taking concrete steps toward independence, faithfully attending evening nursing classes and holding down a job at Montefiore Hospital. But Mac had been harassing her there, phoning in tirades at anyone who picked up. Her supervisor had warned her. And she was pregnant. Mac's threat to her job, her health, her baby had steeled Mona's determination. Or so Beth thought.

Nathaniel poked his head into Beth's office. He was another veteran of Neighborhood Legal Services, senior to Beth. He wore his thinning hair in a ponytail and was partial to jeans and a Grateful Dead T-shirt on days like this when he had no court appearances.

"Any luck?" he asked.

"Depends on what you mean by ‘luck'."

Nathaniel raised his eyebrows, wordlessly posing the question again.

"The boyfriend got lucky. Mona was a no-show."

"Quelle surprise," he said, deadpan. "Did she call at least?"

"No. But I'm sure he apologized and everything's just hunky-dory now," she said, putting her notes in her hiatus file, the one she used for cases that seemed likely to go away but for which she was not ready to commit to permanent storage.

"'Hunky-dory'? How optimistic. Just remember, it takes two to tango," he said with a glibness Beth had come to appreciate. His attitude helped him cope with the inevitable disappointments from clients who ignored good advice and ended up evicted, deeper in debt, abandoned by what he liked to call "the system."

"A drink later?" he asked. Nathaniel's partner was on a sales trip, what Nathaniel liked to call a junket, in Vegas for the week. Beth knew he disliked being alone, and she knew he knew she wanted to vent about yet another client's stupidity. The drink would suit them both.

"Sure," she said, "I'll stop by later."

Beth tried to put Mona out of her mind and plodded through the stack of files teetering on her credenza. A few more protection from abuse cases. Two custody cases. Three immigration hearings. A series of eviction notices. Beth delegated some cases to junior staff members, some for pro bono referral to one of the law firms that offered the assistance of its associates. She returned phone calls, revised pleadings and answered her email, which seemed to multiply itself exponentially every time she left the office.

By the time Beth looked at her watch it was going on seven already. She packed up her briefcase and looked at the phone. A call to Mona and she could be done with it.
After the second ring, a woman's voice answered.

"Hello Mona? It's Beth Oliver, from Neighborhood Legal Services? Did you forget about the hearing today?" Mona said no, she hadn't forgotten. She didn't need the order anymore. Mac hadn't been around and she wasn't afraid and thanks for all your help.

Okay, job done, Beth thought. I hope she knows what she's doing. At least it’s one less case to deal with. She pulled on her trench coat and grabbed her things. She knocked on Nathaniel's door and found him holding the phone between his left ear and his shoulder, talking into the receiver, "Uh huh, uh huh..." while he banged away at the keyboard. He looked at Beth and held up one finger, mouthing the words "hold on." She waited a minute in the lobby until he joined her.

"Freaking city," he said as he pushed open the glass doors. "They use eminent domain like some kind of giant hammer to get what they want. Pushing people out of their homes. Why does the city think this is OK? Can you tell me?"

"Money? Power? Greed? Give me a sec, it's gotta be one of those."

They headed outside and down the block toward the corner, as Nathaniel recounted his client's side of story. The street was lively with a twenty-something crowd turned out for the blues festival happening in various nightclubs in that part of town. By the time they reached the bar, he was cracking jokes comparing the Mayor to Mao.

After they had settled into a booth at Blue Lou's and ordered two Coronas, Beth sighed. "Doesn't it ever get to you, Nathaniel?"

"You'll have to be more specific, honey. The lousy music? They call this ‘blues?'"

"You know what I mean, you idiot. Clients. Freaking clients! I mean, clearly they know on some level they need help or they wouldn't be in our office. You spend all this time with them, you try not to get personally involved but it's hard not to feel some kind of sympathy when you see her sitting there all beat to hell, you try to help...Hell, you know you can help..." Beth stopped talking and peeled at the label on the bottle, which she rolled into tiny aluminum balls and flicked off the table. Nathaniel took a drink from his glass and looked at the ceiling, as if the answer to this question might be printed in the bar right there above their heads.

"I like to think of myself as an ER doc," he said.

"You get queasy at the sight of blood, Nathaniel."

"Yes, but try to stay with me here. See, in the ER they understand their job isn't to fix a person's whole life. No, their job is to patch ‘em up and ship ‘em out. They address the immediate problem. The gunshot wound in the ass. The cracked skull from not wearing a helmet on the motorcycle. They get the heart pumping after defib and send them on their way."

"Right. So our clients are in defib, is that what you're saying?" Beth never liked medicine, never liked the stratification of responsibility, the piecemeal nature of the cure.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Especially ones like our Mona. She's in defib. You put those paddles on her chest and zap! got her going again. The rest, honey, is up to her. She can go see a cardiologist. She can go on a diet, or stop smoking or whatever, and clear up those arteries. Maybe she does. Or maybe she just likes those Big Macs too much to give them up. Either way it's not our job to make her do anything."

"I'm not talking about making her do something. I'm just trying to get the logic here."

"Logic? The city wants to kick people out of their homes to make more parking spaces, polygamy is thriving in Utah, people are blowing themselves up in the Middle East, I'm in love with a salesman, and Mona thinks the temporary order is all she needs. There is no logic, Beth. People do what they do. If they ask for our help, fine. If they don't want our help, we move on to the next case."

"Nice philosophy."

"You should try it sometime."

"Let's just change the subject, okay?"

"Okay," Nathaniel said, looking around the bar. "How ‘bout them Steelers?"

Beth took a long drink from her bottle and scanned the room. "Yeah, how ‘bout ‘em?" Her eyes came to rest on a man sitting at the bar. Even seated at the bar, he appeared taller than average, with a paunch that looked out of place protruding from an otherwise lanky build. Shaggy brown hair stuck out from under the edges of his ball cap, and the shoelaces of his enormous Nike basketball shoes were untied. Like so many of the other men, and women, in the bar, he wore a Steelers jersey blazoned with the number seven, the quarterback.

"Look at that guy at the bar," Beth said. "He wishes he could be a quarterback. I wish I was Sandra Day O'Connor but you don't see me hanging out in bars wearing a black robe."

"Sandra Day O'Connor?" Nathaniel said, "I would've thought you were more the Ruth Bader Ginsberg type."

"Whatever," she said, still looking at the man at the bar. "Wait a minute, I think I know that guy!" She lowered her voice and leaned in towards the center of the table. "That's Mona's boyfriend!"

"You met the boyfriend? I thought you said he didn't show up today."

"No, he came to the first hearing for the temporary order," she whispered. "He wasn't dressed like a Steeler wannabe but I'm pretty sure that's him!"

The man at the bar was looking in Beth's direction. Her skirt had inched its way up about mid-thigh when she first sat down and this seemed to have attracted the man's attention.

"He knows you're looking at him, you realize this of course."

Beth took another drink from the bottle and tried not to meet the man's eyes. "I'm gonna say something to him."

Nathaniel grabbed her wrist. "No, you are most definitely not going to say something to him."

"Why not? I'm not on the clock. I don't even represent Mona anymore. This is purely in my capacity as a regular person, not as a lawyer." She pulled her wrist free and headed toward the man at the bar. He smiled and started to say something before Beth cut him off.

"Hey, d'ja work up a nice thirst beating up any women today?" The man looked surprised, and showed no apparent recognition.

"Excuse me?" he said. "Do I know you?"

"Never mind who I am. I'm just sick of people like you taking advantage of defenseless women, then ..."

"Beth, let's go," Nathaniel interrupted, pulling her by the arm toward the door.

"No, I wanna know how a guy like this gets his kicks from beating up his girlfriend," Beth said, her voice rising with every word. People seated nearby were starting to stare.

"Look, lady, I don't know who you are, but I never beat up any woman in my life!" He stood up, unfolding his six-foot-plus frame from the bar stool and crossed his arms across his chest.

Nathaniel leaned in close to Beth. "It's probably not even him, Beth! Let's go!" He pulled her out the door and into the rain that had resumed falling. "That wasn't pretty, Beth. What, did you want him to punch you in the face? Would that have made you feel better?"

"Maybe, if that's what it takes to land this guy in jail! Trust me, that's one hearing I'd show up for," she said, pulling her arm away from him.

"A little advice," Nathaniel said, leading her by the elbow again, this time toward the street corner. "Restrain yourself next time, or you might be the one landing in jail. Not to mention the disciplinary committee of the State Bar."

Nathaniel's comment deflated Beth's defiance. She knew he was right. "I'm going home," she said. She hailed a cab and left Nathaniel standing in the rain, his hands in his pockets, looking like a father disappointed in the antics of his wayward teenager.

When Beth got home her message light was on. "Hello, Beth? It's Mona," the voice on the machine said. "Look, I'm sorry about today. Please, call me back if you can."

Did patients usually call their ER docs at home? Beth didn't make the kind of money an ER doc made. But she did feel on call for clients like Mona. Why hadn't she just taken that job at a big corporate firm like so many of her law school classmates had? All those clichés about "making a difference," about "giving back," just sounded hollow now. All she really wanted was for the client to listen, for the client to benefit from her experience, from her goddamn dedication. And here was a client who could listen, who could benefit, but chose not too.

Beth dialed the phone. When Mona picked up, Beth surprised herself by saying "Where in the hell were you today?" When Mona didn't respond right away, Beth kept going. "Jesus, Mona, I'm doing this for you. What was all that talk about your job? How you were tired of being afraid? What about the baby?"

"The baby's going to be all right," Mona said. "Mac's not coming back."

"He's not coming back? He's not coming back?" Beth said in disbelief. "What makes you think he's not coming back? Of course he's coming back. They always come back, Mona."

After a few moments of silence from the other end of the phone, Beth spoke in a calmer tone of voice. "I'm sorry, Mona, I shouldn't have said that." More silence followed. "What was it you called me about?"

"I called to thank you for helping me. With the temporary order."

"You're welcome. I was just doing my job."

"It was more than that. I just wanted to tell you that if you don't hear from me it's because I've moved back to Toronto. So I can be near the rest of my family. I didn't want you to worry, or think anything bad happened."

Toronto? You're running away? What about your job? What about standing up to that bully? Beth wanted to ask. Instead she said, "Does Mac know?" She didn't mention the encounter in the bar.

"I told you, Mac's not coming back." Mona's answer had a finality to it that told Beth to drop it.

"Well, okay then. Good luck to you, Mona. With the baby and everything." Beth hung up the phone and looked out the window. The streetlights bounced off the pavement, shiny and black from the rain, and empty but for cars parked up and down both sides. A few windows in the apartments across the street were lit up, and here and there the light was an eerie blue where televisions had been left on. A siren wailed in the distance, someplace downtown across the bridge, and Beth thought someone, someplace is in trouble. Whoever it was, she hoped a good ER doc was on call to help.