By R.H. Nicholson

 A gray smudge smeared across the city as a steady drench poured on the usual congested traffic. Taxis swerved in and out of lanes. Bicycle messengers pumped with helmets pointed down dodged commuters ejecting from the subway and irritated dog walkers balanced bumper shooters and little plastic poop bags. Wide-eyed tourists gawked up at the skyscrapers and electric billboards.

Amidst the traffic, a limousine pulled to the curb in front of the Century Center, a 1901 art deco masterpiece, a giant concrete dancer with golden fans spread across her façade. The driver popped out in a navy suit, jogged around the hood of the Lincoln, and, unfurling an umbrella, opened the back door for David James Blanchett, esquire. Super-lawyer, powerbroker, celebrity hatchet man. He was dressed exactly as a man of his stature is expected to dress, from his haute hair style to his Demesure oxfords, toting a Florentine diplomat bag, pressing his Silvio Fiorello necktie to his chest to protect it from the rain. The doorman pulled back a heavy gold-handled door to allow his entrance, the security guard already holding open an elevator. 

“Good morning, Mr. Blanchett,” he called out. 

“Not liking this weather, Lucio.”

J.D. Blanchett strode into the lift as the guard shooed others toward another car. When the doors slid open on the 75^th floor, he paused, as he often did, to admire the signage across the glass doors: Blanchett Legal Services, LLC. He was damn proud of his career, forged at Columbia, clerking for Justice Stevens, achieving partner at forty, and especially of his leveraged buyout of his father’s two partners when the old man retired. He believed he was a self-made man. He approached the sliding automatic doors, flanked by potted Ficus plants, and, striding briskly and with arrogance, smacked into them. Bam! His head ricocheted back, his foot thudded, his briefcase slapped into the barrier. 

“What the hell!” he gasped.

The receptionist sprinted from her desk and passed through the automatic doors in alarm. “My goodness, Mr. Blanchett, what happened?

“The goddamn doors didn’t open!” he reached up to examine an emerging knot on his forehead. 

“The sensor must have malfunctioned,” said a young attorney, Matthew Graves, drawn by the loud noises.

“Think so, Einstein?” Mr. Blanchett spat back sarcastically as he stood stunned in the entryway. “The doors always open. They just…open,” he mumbled.

“I’ll get someone here to fix it right away,” the receptionist, Allison, assured him. “Are you alright? Should I call your doctor?”

He shrugged her off, “No, no. Just get it fixed NOW!” 

Matthew Graves held open the door, and Mr. Blanchett walked through holding his head as though it might fall off.

“The team is in the conference room waiting for you,” Allison directed him. “Coffee, cream, one small ice cube?”

Mr. Blanchett burst into the conference space and found his team huddled around a rectangular cherry monstrosity, a table fit for a state dinner. “Where are we?” he asked as he plopped his portmanteau on the table and sat at the head, the table strewn with canary legal pads, pens, various beverages, a tray of Danish, and file folders.

“We know Mr. Zamenstra was driving his Porche 911 west on Wallace at 10:40 A.M. enroute to the stadium. Officer Derek Hinds pulled him over. The officer later stated Zamenstra was driving erratically. He approached the car, and, according to said officer’s video feed, Zamenstra was thrashing about in a panic, appeared to be irrational in a manner consistent with the influence of drugs, possibly hallucinogens,” new hire Cameron McAvoy relayed, crossed his arms, and nodded at another associate.

“The officer directed the suspect to exit the car, but Mr. Zamenstra did not comply. Officer Hinds said in his interview that he believed the suspect was, quote, “High as a kite” and did not understand the command,” Hunter Phillips, an overeager law clerk, read from a file.

“Then it gets really weird,” Cameron picked up the story again. “Officer Hinds reached in to force Zamenstra from the vehicle, grabbing him by the shirt, and I’m quoting the officer: “He flailed around, screamed something I couldn’t make out, looked me right in the eyes, collapsed, and died.”

Mr. Blanchett pressed a tissue to his forehead and kept checking it for blood but found none. He glanced through the conference room glass at the broken automatic doors and glared at the miscreant contraption. He could feel a headache fomenting. “Can someone ask Allison to bring me some Tylenol?”

Cameron McAvoy slipped his head out of the door and summoned Allison. After a moment of silence someone intoned, “The family wants charges against Officer Hinds and the police department for manslaughter. They also want racial profiling charges, civil rights violations.”

“We have to get this right,” Mr. Blanchett warned. “The fucking quarterback of an NFL franchise, a Black man, dies mysteriously in a traffic stop by a white cop on his way to a game. The media will feast.” The room grew still. “Preliminary autopsy?”

“No drugs, no alcohol,” Matthew Graves answered.

“What else?” Blanchett asked.

“He had a Glock in the glovebox. Permitted. Phone recovered. At the lab right now,” Cameron spoke up. “Family will be here in an hour.”

Mr. Blanchett unleashed a list of orders, from digging into the officer’s background to a review of the video and audio and a timetable of Marquay Zamenstra’s movements that day and the night before. He wanted members of the team and coaching staff interviewed, his friends, his bookie if he had one, girlfriends, anyone who might shed some light. But as he barked these directives he stared at the glass doors that had injured him, failed him, denied him unfettered access to his kingdom. After the team dispersed, he slipped into his office and into his bathroom. There he examined the welt on his head, touched it, winced, took off his right shoe and sock, and lifted his foot onto the toilet seat. The big toe was red and swelling, the little top vein throbbing. Maybe I should go to the hospital, he thought. I could have a concussion or a broken bone. When he emerged into the outer office to tell Allison to call his doctor, he noticed a repairman in a bright lemon tee shirt knelt beside the open office doors, pressing and pushing with his fingers.

“What’s wrong with the damn thing?” Blanchett hobbled over and asked the young man.

“It doesn’t work, sir.”

“Very funny. Why not?”

“Too soon to tell, but preliminarily I suspect it’s the electronic sensor in the floor. I’ll have to excise the carpet and spring the box to be certain. Might need a new one or it just might need recalibration.”

“Recalibration?” Blanchett echoed him.

“Yeah, it means re-set,” the repairman said.

“I know what is means, smartass.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“So, what’s your suspicion here?”

“I theorize, and mind you I’m just hypothesizing, that your sensor was state of the art when installed but is now outdated. I fear we may not be able to find a replacement.”

“In other words, this will cost me a shit ton of money?”

“Probably. But I know a guy. I might be able to get you the hook up,” the repairman offered.

“The hook up?” Mr. Blanchett’s voice lifted.

“A special deal, a largely unknown option, an inside transaction not available to everyone.”

Mr. Blanchett chuckled at this young man’s unexpected verbal skills and ripe sarcasm.

“I know what a “hook up” is. What’s your name, son?”

“Jamarr,” he answered.

When Jamarr stood up he revealed his considerable height and powerful presence. He placed his hands on his hips, lowered his head, and tilted it. His muscles rippled under the lemon shirt. He looked like an athlete. Mr. Blanchett noted his impressive hands, just like the famous David statue, he thought. He wanted to say, No offense, Jamarr, but why did your parents choose such a Black sounding name? Didn’t they know it would work against you in life? Blanchett folded his arms, his Brooks Brothers shirt crisp and starched. He imagined Jamarr saying, “Well, mister, you might not have noticed, but I am Black. And not ashamed of it, thanks for asking,” with an edge in his voice. He’s smart, Mr. Blanchett thought as Jamarr began to gather his tools and make notes on the invoice, turning his back on his customer.

“Say, Jamarr, I’m just curious. Why is someone as obviously intelligent as you doing this kind of work?”

“Excuse me?” Jamarr turned back around and faced Mr. Blanchett, holding his frustration although the level was rising. 

“Not that there’s anything wrong with this. Hell, we need repair people. There’s dignity in all work. But it seems like you could do better. I’m guessing you didn’t go to college.”

“I do go to college, sir,” he said, clenching his fists, then relaxing, “Night classes at Woodside Community. When I can afford it. You do realize college costs money, right?”

“They still have minority scholarships for people like you don’t they?”

“PTP?” Jamarr realized his reference was cryptic. “Pity the Poor, yeah, fuck that. Besides, believe it or not, I earn too much income at this gig for those.”

“Do you talk to your mother with that mouth?” Mr. Blanchett asked.

“My momma doesn’t ask impertinent questions like you do,” Jamarr shot back.

I should have you fired right now, Blanchett thought. I could call up your supervisor and have your ass on the street by lunchtime. But that wouldn’t fix his damn doors.

“Touche. Okay, why don’t you see what you can do with your ‘hook up’. Make this secret transaction with your dubious, underground connection. I’ll double your fee if you get the doors fixed today. Deal? When you get back report to me right away.”

Mr. Blanchett limped back into the office and told Allison to have Cameron gather the team together in ten minutes. “I want an update. I need to know what I’m telling the Zamenstra family,” he groused.

---

As Jamarr drove back to the warehouse, he took deep breaths to release his anger. How that smug, wiseass cracker had spoken to him. The condescension. The racist overtones. The attitude of superiority. He shouldn’t have to deal with this shit in the twenty-first century. But this was his reality, and this job paid the bills. It afforded him time to take classes at night and on weekends. It allowed him to relieve his momma of some of the horror, the emotional and financial carnage she suffered after his daddy was struck down by a lunatic gunman at Saver’s Corner when he was just trying to  buy a lottery ticket. But this white-privilege lawyer had offered him double payment. 

In truth, the repair was not very complicated. He made this kind of fix every day. It was easy money, tuition money. Automatically, he pulled into the chain-link fenced lot, parked the white company van. He would sweet talk Liza into going back in the dilapidated warehouse and snagging him a C124-ETB Electronic Trigger Button from stock. Maybe today he would even convince her to go out with him.

“I’m only interested in dating accomplished men,” she had said, whatever that meant.

Jamarr got back to the Century Center before the day was over. He found the electronic doors on the 75^th floor propped open with the Ficus tree pots. Allison was not at her station, probably gone to lunch. He crept into the empty office and was contemplating his move when he noticed a knot of gesticulating people in the conference room, ties askew, top shirt buttons undone, jackets thrown over chair backs. He heard a panoply of voices through the slightly ajar door and determined one of those voices to be Mr. Blanchett.

“… no evidence that suggests Marquay Zamenstra was on drugs, he wasn’t speeding, he made no threats to the officer, but when the officer tried to speak to him, to interrogate him, he went berserk and then died. There has to be a reason,” Mr. Blanchett’s voice boomed like the courtroom maestro he was. “Find it!”

The people unknotted themselves and filed out of the room, completely disregarding Jamarr, zipping past his florescent yellow shirt as if he was a ghost. After the last team member breezed by, he poked his head inside and bashfully asked, “Are you representing Marquay Zamenstra’s family?”

“What of it?”

“I have a thought,” Jamarr offered.

“Doesn’t everybody. Maybe stick to broken electric doors, okay?” Mr. Blanchett looked exhausted, flustered. He downed a dram of brown liquid like someone stranded in a desert and placed the empty glass on the table with a loud thud.

“Did they find a second cell phone?” Jamarr asked.

“Say what?”

“Marquay grew up in my neighborhood. I sort of knew him. He had an alter ego, another personality that spouted outrageous suppositions, bizarre conspiracy theories, and braggadocio about his sexual exploits. But he operated under an alias, The Jizz, so his idiocy wouldn’t be connected directly to him in the mainstream press and on social media. He kept a second, secret, cell phone for that expressed purpose. Did they find it?”

“Don’t mess with me, boy,” Mr. Blanchett warned. “Sorry, cancel the ‘boy’. I know better. That just slipped out.” He stood up and, Jamarr thought, looked older and less in control than before.

“I do not jest. It might prove beneficial,” Jamarr surmised. Their faces only a few inches apart, the two men looked directly into each other’s eyes, and something shifted. An unquantifiable attribute of their nascent relationship, their give and take, their repartee, their view of each other, the balance of power, had changed.

Jamarr seized upon another subject to escape the uneasiness. “I located the part you need. I can have it installed before you decamp for the day.”

“Yeah, yeah, I don’t care about that now,” Blanchett rushed from the room and began calling out names. “Cameron, Matthew, Allison, somebody get the DA on the horn, now!”

---

The next morning Jamarr bid his mother and sister good day and walked to the 37 bus for his trek to work. He clocked in with his ID badge though he no longer resembled the photo, his beard shorn off, his hair shorter now to make him appear less ominous to the general populace. He glanced around the corner at Liza, lovely as ever, and shuffled past the break room but stopped when he heard commotion from his co-workers huddled before the wall-mounted T.V..

“How crazy is that?” someone cackled.

Jamarr took the bait and asked, “What’s crazy?”

“Mr. Law Man just announced Marquay’s cause of death. Seems they found a second phone under the seat, and he’d been recording himself on it when a bee or a yellow jacket or some such flew into his car. He was scared to death it would sting him because, get this, he was deathly allergic to bee stings.”

“My man went into something called anafantastic shock, swerved everywhere, and died when the officer tried to check it out,” another employee at Emerson Electric Services interrupted.

“Jamarr, did you mess up that that Blanchett guy’s automatic door? He just called. Said get over to his office right away.” Liza importuned, her French-tipped fingers clicking on the door jam.

When Jamarr landed at the 75^th floor of the Century Center and the elevator doors slid open, he surveyed the impressive wall of glass that welcomed people to Blanchett Legal Services, LLC. He sighed and steeled himself for whatever vitriol J.D. Blanchett would hurl at him. But when he approached the glass doors they opened like magic. He walked through with a slight sense of vindication. 

“He’s here,” Allison spoke into an intercom on her control panel. “Good morning, Jamarr. Mr. Blanchett is waiting for you in his office.” She pointed the way.

     Blanchett’s office looked like a photo spread in Successful White Lawyers Magazine, leather and mahogany, cliched abstract paintings, shelves with trophies and framed photos of people with perfect teeth. J.D. sat behind a massive desk, a sleek laptop before him. “Jamarr, my boy, glad you could come.”

“Is something wrong with my repair?” Jamarr asked.

“Oh, that. It’s fine, no problem. But that tip you had about the second phone paid off big time. I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Mr. Zemenstra’s death was a freak accident, a tragic act of nature. And we solved it. We got justice for the family and managed to save the police department’s ass all in one fell swoop. And all because of you.”

“I’m glad it worked out. So, why did you summon me here like a recalcitrant schoolboy?”

“Recalcitrant. You are a hoot,” J.D. chortled. “I like you, Jamarr. You have moxie, mad skills as the kids say. And you’re smart. I admire that. Come work for me.”

“Thank you, sir. But I’ll pass. No offense, but I consider lawyers to be blood suckers, vultures who manipulate the law to siphon innocent victims’ money.”

“Ouch! You do have a smart mouth. But also, a quick mind, and I hate to see it wasted. What if I paid your tuition? After you graduate you can leave if you want.”

“That’s a generous offer. But I don’t want charity. I just want a fair shake, to know I can succeed because of my own talent and drive. Isn’t that what everyone wants, to be judged on their own merit rather than a stereotype?”

“Look, Jamarr, that’s a sweet notion, but it’s naïve. That’s not how the world works. I’m giving you a shot at your dreams. You might not get another. Take it. Or don’t. I’m not going to beg.”

“Thank you for the offer. I know you think you mean well,” Jamarr stood and reached out his hand.

“Hey, the door’s always open,” J.D. said.

“Except that sometimes it isn’t, right?”

The men shook hands and Jamarr turned to exit. J.D. Blanchett watched as the automatic doors effortlessly opened to allow the young man’s egress out into an ever-so-slightly changed world.

R.H. Nicholson taught writing for forty years but is now (finally) focused on his own work which has appeared in Ignatian Magazine, Adelaide Literary Journal, Echo Ink, The Blue Lake Review, The Back Porch, Big Window Review and elsewhere. His debut novel Justice House Shadows will be published this summer. He and his wife live in a small Ohio River Valley town with their geriatric cat Fezziwig.