by Jonathan Ferrini<\/p>\n
I left the Army exchanging my camos for a uniform consisting of a white vest, black slacks, and a clip-on black bow tie.<\/p>\n
I got the job from my commanding officer whose family owned a home on the shore of Lake Tahoe. He made an introduction to the GM of a five-star resort situated along the magnificent lake who put me to work as a combination busboy, barback, and maintenance man charged with unplugging clogged toilets and mopping up the vomit from drunken patrons. I also performed room service including late-night cocktails, scrumptious meals, and when asked, delivering prophylactics under strict rules issued by the GM,<\/p>\n
\u201cSee nothing, hear nothing, say nothing!\u201d<\/p>\n
Having my arms elbow deep in human excrement and vomit was a better gig than getting shot at and removing the flesh of my buddy pasted to my face like a freaky facial.<\/p>\n
I needed a job for the summer because the GI Bill was putting me through city college which would begin in September.<\/p>\n
The job included a bed inside a dormitory and two free meals per day thrown together by the chef with leftovers into a palatable, but often times unrecognizable, stew or food loaf covered with gravy.<\/p>\n
Working at beautiful Lake Tahoe was a perk. It was summertime. The cool breeze and beautiful sunsets were magnificent. I\u2019d stare out into the grand lake and imagine seeing the invisible line denoting the state boundary between Nevada and California.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d come to learn later in life it\u2019s the invisible lines which pack the greatest punch as we traverse life.<\/p>\n
I learned a lot that summer about the wealthy and those who prey upon them. Snooping society gossip columnists offered us gratuities for salacious information about our guests but my moral compass pointed towards confidentiality although my wallet pointed towards \u201cbroke\u201d.<\/p>\n
I met a beautiful college sorority sister who was kind to a down on this luck war vet. She was wearing a classy bathing suit, diamond tennis bracelet, and sunning poolside.<\/p>\n
Like the diamond bracelet, her eyes sparkled with happiness and youthful optimism. I\u2019m certain she was her father\u2018s pride and joy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like a word with you, waiter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, Ma\u2019am.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m your poolside attendant, Ma\u2019am.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not the typical college kid I find working here.<\/p>\n
\u201d You\u2019re a man-boy.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve lived a life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI did a tour of duty in Afghanistan, Ma\u2019am.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cMy name is Kay.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a tip for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you, Ma\u2019am.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re very generous.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHere\u2019s another, tip.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know this old saying better than anybody,<\/p>\n
\u2018When the going gets tough, the tough get going!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
She was a society girl and out of my league. One evening, I delivered champagne on ice to her cabin.\u00a0 I developed a keen sense about people in the Army and I didn\u2019t trust the handsome guy with Kay.<\/p>\n
I suspected he had a dubious past witnessing his adroitness with handling the syringe and heating the heroin into a liquid on a spoon meant for Kay\u2019s delicate forearm.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t do it, Kay!<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll get you out of here and away from him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re in over your head, waiter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m aware of this resort\u2019s confidentiality policy regarding employees.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want to keep your job forget what you saw here and get out!<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll find a one-hundred-dollar bill inside her purse.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou take it like all the rest, pusher!\u201d<\/p>\n
The needle pierced the vein with blood from her petit arm pushing back up into the syringe only to be flushed back into the vein along with the poison making her a slave to the next fix and a life of ruin.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you for your chivalry \u2018man boy\u2019 but I need an escape and asked for itttt\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a string of words I\u2019d never forget.<\/p>\n
I hoped she would awake from a bad trip, learn a lesson from a wrong choice, and never see him again. I made many bad choices including driving down a narrow street hiding an IUD. I watched my buddies following behind me within the caravan disappear into \u201cpink mist\u201d.\u00a0 I prayed Kay\u2019s life wouldn\u2019t be blown to pieces.<\/p>\n
Time passed quickly. I met my wife in law school. She became a district attorney and I scraped up a job as a public defender. Like the invisible line in the lake, there was an invisible line placing us on opposite sides of the justice system.<\/p>\n
We were married at the Tahoe resort where I previously worked. We stood on the dock and stared out into the magnificent lake underneath the bright moon and I looked for the invisible line.<\/p>\n
\u201cI met a society girl when I worked here in the summer before college.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was kind to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt disturbed me when I delivered champagne to her cabin and watched her boyfriend provide her first fix of heroin.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI wonder what happened to her, darling?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTheres a fine line between happiness and misery and I saw Kay cross the line into a life of despair.\u201d<\/p>\n
I saw old gray men who may have been my fellow employees still toiling away on the same jobs. They remained on one side of a line in the social hierarchy which I managed to stumble over. Our beautiful baby was conceived that evening.<\/p>\n
My job required I defend anybody including drug dealers whom I detested. As I gained seniority within the public defender\u2019s office, I attempted to be selective about those I defended.<\/p>\n
I was visiting a client who was incarcerated at the county jail. We were separated by a glass pane and spoke through a speaker. As I was finishing our conversation, I heard a familiar voice but couldn\u2019t place it. The woman was frightened.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease get me out of this jail.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve made a plea deal with the DA.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll pay a fine and be placed on parole for one year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been your family\u2019s attorney for many decades and I watched you grow up from a beautiful young woman into an addict appearing older than her age.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve crossed the line into the criminal justice system too often and left your parents no choice but to disinherit you.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour parents filed a restraining order against you preventing any future contact by you with family members.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish you luck and hope you\u2019ll get your life together.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTell my family, I\u2019ll always love them.\u201d<\/p>\n
My wife gave birth to a beautiful daughter who grew to became a scholar-athlete.\u00a0 A friend gave our daughter a \u201csleeping pill\u201d laced with fentanyl. Our baby overdosed and died.<\/p>\n
Our daughter\u2019s death destroyed our marriage. My wife\u2019s work was prosecuting drug dealers and I defended them creating an invisible line named \u201cresentment\u201d leading to divorce. My wife remarried and had another child, a beautiful daughter.\u00a0 I don\u2019t see or talk to my former love.\u00a0 I hope she\u2019s happy and no longer blames me for our daughter\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
I live alone and, perhaps, that\u2019s my penance. I went through a period of self-hatred for defending drug dealers but my therapist helped restore my sense of self-worth for defending poor people being prosecuted on bum wraps. I provided many vulnerable clients a second chance for a good life.<\/p>\n
I retired from the public defender\u2019s office but wanted to stay busy. I opened up a sole practitioner law office specializing in criminal law.<\/p>\n
I was approached by a big shot lawyer seeking a seasoned but affordable criminal defense attorney to defend a once \u201cshining star\u201d of society which crashed and burned like a meteor.<\/p>\n
My one room office was eerily quiet until an anorexic woman walked into my life. She had the remnants of a sparkle in her eyes which I recognized in a kind young woman sunning herself in Lake Tahoe.<\/p>\n
Kay was a ghost of her former self.\u00a0 I recognized opiate addiction. Her wardrobe resembled thrift store bargains thrown together.<\/p>\n
She was on bail and facing a second-degree manslaughter rap accused of murdering her husband who abused her for decades.<\/p>\n
Kay crossed the line from a life of privilege into my world of defending the frightened, incarcerated, and destitute.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow did you make bail?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI pawned the last of my grandmother\u2019s jewelry I kept secret from husband for a rainy day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pearls resembled tears from my grandmother\u2019s eyes as big as rain drops.\u201d<\/p>\n
A string of pearls reminded me of Kay\u2019s words to me as I watched her receive the fix. She married the punk providing the first fix and he bleed her inheritance dry.<\/p>\n
Kay\u2019s bail was put up by a handful of friends who cared enough to write a check but not be seen in public with her. She sat shivering still struggling with sobriety after a life of heroin addiction.<\/p>\n
Kay had fallen in with the wrong crowd as a young woman, and in particular, the wrong guy whose good looks and charm allowed him entry inside Kay\u2019s heart. They married. Her husband paid for a ring with his proceeds of a smalltime heroin pusher who began consuming his own product while taking Kay down the path of ruin as an addict. I\u2019d seen co-dependency before but this was one of the worst cases.<\/p>\n
Kay was repeatedly beaten by her husband to tap her society friends for handouts and charity. The beatings became worse including a broken nose and strangulation in her second trimester. She broke free and struck him down with one bullet to the head inside a skid row flophouse. Kay suffered a miscarriage inside the tawdry bathroom as police knocked down the door.<\/p>\n
I calmed her by laying out a self-defense strategy and channeled Kay\u2019s miscarriage into my grief over losing my daughter.\u00a0 I mounted a defense with my heart and mind working in tandem like a well-oiled machine. Kay would prevail or I\u2019d work pro bono defending her right up through final appeals.<\/p>\n
The jury returned a \u201cnot guilty\u201d verdict. Kay met me outside the courtroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to thank you for defending me.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn decades past, I\u2019d say \u2018bill our family accountant\u2019 but the few friends I have left set up a \u2018Fund Kay\u2019s Defense\u2019 online coffer.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease accept it as payment in full.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m broke.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t you remember our conversation many decades ago at the pool in Lake Tahoe?<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t have two nickels to rub together and you told me,<\/p>\n
\u2018When the going gets tough, the tough get going.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI never forgot your kindness and advice.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t remember.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve forgotten my youth but if we met, I\u2019m happy I was kind to you, and grateful you became a defense attorney which led to our reunion.<\/p>\n
\u201cJudging from the press gathered outside, I suspect my misfortune will be your good fortune with a growing law practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood luck and thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n
I motioned for a familiar deputy to escort her discretely out of the courthouse and into an uncertain future.<\/p>\n
I felt a cold chill at my back and turned to find my ex-wife.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been following this tragic case of a life ruined by addiction.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mounted a brilliant defense and I know you had our darling daughter in your heart guiding you every step of the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still remember you speaking of Kay on the dock at Lake Tahoe.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you ever find the invisible line?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt disappeared just now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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