As I feel the cold wind biting my face, I think just now of this predicament. Six counts of assault and battery, resisting arrest. The reality of the situation stings as I pull up to my lawyer's office building. I leave the bike on the rack between a few others, hoping no one will notice that mine has no lock. Just one of those small expenses I can do without. For my kid I think. Another stinging thought--my boy. I walk up the narrow steps to the small waiting room of four partnered lawyers. Maybe they're partners, maybe they just share office space, I don't really know. I feel the cold slowly release from my body as the red fades from my face. He has tactics for getting rid of me. I ask questions, pose possible situations. In the waiting room, on the bike path, at home alone waiting for my ex wife to drop off Darren, my mind runs through scenarios at trial. My mind doesn't race--a racing mind neglects certain things, it leaves some stones unturned, in the name of velocity. My mind carefully examines every angle, powered by anxiety, it views every tangential route as possible doom. Of course these thoughts don't occur to me as such: I just think, "I'm fuckin' stressed about this court shit." Any idiot who picks a fight outside of a row of three bars with a standard issue police presence hasn't the refinement necessary to form cogent sentences. But intelligence transcends lack of verbal ability and courseness. Proof of this is how I handle my lawyer.
He arrives at 8:05, a tall waspy middle aged man. Up the narrow stairs which dumps, like a tributary, right into the waiting room. He mildly recognizes me with a head-nod-grunt and strides towards his office. Two minutes later he returns and we meet in his office.

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Another Monday morning arriving late. Reasons and causes penetrate my mind all-at-once. Each event so familiar, they appear like landmarks in memory: Morning routine alarm, shower, shave, food, vitamins, dress, teeth, weather channel. I didn't make the 7:28, had to wait for the 7:38 local weather. Ever since they went to the "local on the 8s" format...Cut that line of reasoning off. It does no good to complain about the weather channel. Look at why you're complaining--because a "local every half-hour" format leaves less room for manuevering, you either catch the 7:00 or the 7:30 or you don't catch the weather at all. Knowing this adds the slightest amount of extra stress, but this is just enough to hurry me through the routine, to keep me from hitting the snooze bar. The solution to this problem is to add a little bit of extra stress, or consequence if I don't catch the 7:28 weather forecast. Tommorow if I miss the 7:28 forecast, I'm not permitted to watch the 7:38. One day I'll miss the forecast of rain and look foolish without an umbrella and shawl. Blair, Cutting and McGuire will see and I'll face disapproval. This only needs to happen once to keep me fastidiously watching the 7:28. These thoughts morph into my morning clients--three this morning, but nothing special, nothing really needing to be done just yet. As I walk into the waiting room I notice my 8 o'clock, bundled up in Old Navy clothing waiting anxiously. I hang up my coat, fetch his file and skim it before I summon him from the waiting room.