Luca's Story Ch. 14
Chapter XIV--A Case of Ethics
_GLINDA
I hope you're happy
Now that you're choosing this_
_ELPHABA
(spoken) You too
(sung) I hope it brings you bliss_
_BOTH
I really hope you get it
And you don't live to regret it
I hope you're happy in the end
I hope you're happy, my friend:_
_ELPHABA
So if you care to find me
Look to the western sky!
As someone told me lately:
"Ev'ryone deserves the chance to fly!"
And if I'm flying solo
At least I'm flying free
To those who'd ground me
Take a message back from me
Tell them how I am
Defying gravity
I'm flying high
Defying gravity
And soon I'll match them in renown
And nobody in all of Oz
No Wizard that there is or was
Is ever gonna bring me down!_
-Kristin Chenoweth, Idina Menzel, "Defying Gravity"
"Miss Luca, your response to Mr. Levowitz's question?" Judge Nathaniel Markham said. His voice was deep, and had the slightest hint of a Texan drawl to it. Then again, with a black beauty of a horse as he was, it was only appropriate he have one.
"I'm sorry, could you repeat the question?" she said. Luca was still quite far gone from reality. She had literally walked from the one wing of the court house where her parents were bitterly entangled in their divorce settlement in a meeting chamber to another wing where there was a huge court room filled with furres and scalies of all kinds, all of whom were staring at her. She hardly felt like she was even there, though. It was like a dream.
"I asked, Miss Luca, do you think Zee Polaski was in a stable state of mind at the time he attacked Mr. Keller?"
Luca looked over to the table for the defense. Next to the chair now made vacant by Mr. Levowitz sat Zee. His head was down, his face darkened by the hair that hung around it. It had gotten quite a bit longer in the past month. Was that how long it had been? Luca thought to herself. The weekend where Zee attacked Keller, where she found Ronnie soaked and half-dead on her front door step, and where her parents met the end of their marriage to each other had only happened a month before. It felt like forever now. And yet it felt like five minutes ago. Luca couldn't really tell which.
Luca thought about the times in the hall where Zee passed her without a word. He had shame in his face, she could see. But still, he avoided her at all costs. Harold and Beccah got similar responses from her. Vaguely she remembered slipping grades. She remembered a couple talks with the principal. And councilor after councilor after councilor. Rarely did either of her parents come to those meetings. They were too busy hashing out the battle lines.
"Miss Luca? The question?"
"Right, sorry. I... I don't know, exactly. I mean, as time went on since it all started--"
"Since what, started, Miss Luca. For the benefit of the jury, clarity is important here."
"I ah... Well since the time everyone found out, I guess."
"You guess?"
"Well yeah, that's when he started to change noticeably, at least. Zee started to get quieter. He smiled less. He wouldn't look at me as often. And he kept training, and training, and training. He refused to take a break even for a day. When I saw him after the race, something seemed to snap. He wasn't happy with his victory. He was crying. I could see there was turmoil in his face."
"And you feel that it was enough to make Zee lash out?"
"Yes. I've never seen him that angry or upset before."
"Your witness," Levowitz said to the prosecutor. The lean, sharp-looking weasel gave the floor to a hulking behemoth of an elephant. Even as elephants go, Mr. Sinclair was a hefty individual. His chair had to be replaced by a sturdier steal piece after the wood almost screamed its protests to his weight.
As he approached the stand, Luca could smell him only too well. It smelled like the inside of a two-week-old used pair of gym shorts. The smell brought a certain level of clarity back into Luca's world.
"Luca, I understand that you have gone through quite a traumatizing time over the past month and a half."
"You could say that," Luca said dryly. As the elephant turned away, pacing across the courtroom, she finally managed a full breath of air.
"Now you say you've never seen Zee so upset before."
"That's right."
The elephant shrugged. "So then how do you know that that was his breaking point."
"You could see it in his face."
"You seem so certain, but you two have only been going out during the larger part of this school term, am I right?"
"Yes."
"So then what makes you think that you know Zee so well that you can just know his mind?"
"When you passed your bar, were you happy?"
Whispers in the crowd, the judge pounded the gavel for order. "Your honor, my witness is being hostile."
"I hardly see a simple yes or no question as being hostile. I'm going to allow her to ask you this."
The elephant looked frustrated, being thrown off his track like this. "Yes, I was happy."
"And were you as large then as you are now?"
"You're honor!" the prosecutor protested again.
"Now, Miss Luca--"
"I have a point to this, I swear," she said. Again the gears seemed to be turning in her head. Color was coming back to the world ever so slightly, at least for the time being.
"Then get to it. Mr. Sinclair, what is your answer?"
"Yes, I've been this large," he said with an angry tone under his voice. "It is a touchy subject for me," he warned.
"If you held up your test results, triumphant and happy with yourself, how would you have felt if you turned to see a large group of people holding up a huge sign that said 'God still hates you, fatass?'"
"Why you little bitch!" Sinclair shouted. He seemed about to step forward to strike her. Luca did not budge. The bailiff took several steps towards Sinclair in a warning gesture.
"The preceding conversation will be disregarded in deliberation," the judge said serenely. "Now Miss Luca, I'm just about ready to have you thrown into a cell of your own for inciting violence in my court room."
"My point is already made, your honor. I apologize."
The court room was silent. Sinclair looked from Luca to the jury, dumbfounded. He then went back to his table. "Your witness," he mumbled as he passed Levowitz.
Levowitz, looking somewhat pleased with the way things were going, stood briefly from his chair simply to say. "Nothing further, your honor."
It was an hour or so and a very short jury deliberation later that Zee was being escorted down the court room steps. The jury had decided Keller had no case, since he was the one that provoked Zee into the state of rage he was in. All charges were dropped. The civil suit was yet to come, however.
Luca was still sitting in the courtroom after it emptied out, having relegated herself to the far rear bench. Zee had only glanced at her with a guilty face and eyes that wanted to say they were sorry, but couldn't quite do it. Tears fell quietly into Luca's lap.
Several minutes had passed before one of the doorways at the front of the court room opened. The judge that was presiding over the trial stepped in, looking like he had forgotten something, when he spotted Luca in the back.
"Hello there, Miss Luca," he said genially enough, walking towards the sad little lapine. He stood at the end of the row. "Mind if I take a seat."
"It's your courtroom," she shrugged, her eyes staring blankly at the back rest of the bench in front of her.
"Well," Judge Markham said, sitting down beside her, "technically speaking, it's the people's courtroom, Luca. Er, you mind if I call you Luca?"
"Call me whatever you want," she sighed, palming a picture of Zee she'd had sitting next to her.
"What's that?" Markham asked, seeing only the corner of what she was hiding away.
"Just a picture of Zee. When he was my Zee, that is."
"Ah..." Judge Markham said, leaning forward against the bench in front of him. "I hear you're gettin' caught up in quite a storm."
"I guess that's one way to put my life." Luca slid the picture away into a pocket on the left breast of a conservative-looking cream colored blouse she was wearing. Just as she did so, an official-looking female stepped into the double doors at the back of the courtroom. Poking her head in, Luca saw it was the Ocelot woman who was apparently some sort of assistant to her father's lawyer.
"I'm sorry, am I interrupting?"
"Yep," Markham said simply. "Miss Luca will be out in a minute, Miss Teresa."
"My apologies, your honor," Teresa said, disappearing back into the hallway from whence she came. Luca only looked on in silent apathy.
"Looks like you've got to wind yourself back up, little lady."
"What do you mean?"
"We're all like toy soldiers, Luca. Sometimes, the gears are gettin' slow, the coil is unraveling. You have to just wind it back up and keep on marching."
"For what?"
"For yourself."
"That sounds a little selfish."
"Sometimes, Luca, you have to be. And at your age, it's even more necessary. You have to grab the reins of your life before you let it grab yours."
"How can I control what's happening?"
"You can't decide whether you're riding through a dustbowl or a spring shower, Luca. All you can decide is whether you'll be woman enough to put on your big girl panties and ride through it or sit back on the old tire swing watchin' the rest of the world go by. Here," Judge Markham pulled a card from his pocket and placed it between himself and Luca. It was a simple card that had his name, title, and a phone number. "I don't give this to just anyone. It's my personal line. You need help or just an ear to hear your troubles, just call me up, alright?"
Luca nodded as the stallion stood up and strode off down the center of the courtroom. "Why are you concerned with my well-being?" she said.
Judge Markham turned, a smirk on his face, and shrugged. "Maybe I'll tell you when you call me. For now, worry about your own problems, Luca."
Luca followed Teresa several steps behind and to the right of Teresa, the judge's business card tucked away into her shirt pocket. The material over her skirt rustled ever so slightly against her fur with each step. Once in the wing where her parents were still busy hashing things out, she found herself facing Rachel, her older sister.
"Oh my god!" Rachel said excitedly, rushing up to Luca and giving her new "sis" a huge hug.
Rachel was like Luca: gray-furred with long, floppy ears and red curly hair. Except Rachel was the tallest of the family, standing at just under six feet tall. She scooped Luca up into her arms with a hug that was tighter than Luca ever remembered her older sister giving, but she was all too grateful for it as she returned the hug. "Heya sis," she said with a voice that sounded like the polite kind of happy greeting one gave at a funeral to a fellow but familiar face. "A little late to the party."
"Yeah, I would've come a month ago, but you know exams and everything," she said, sounding like the full-of-yourself kind of freshman she was. It made Luca smile, though, she knew Rachel was just so completely stoked about being an MIT student. "Luckily my professors all let me take my exams early."
"I'm sure they couldn't argue circumstances with you on that," Luca said with a sour kind of humor, sitting down on a bench outside the meeting room. She could hear her parents tersely talking to each other, knowing they were one misstep away from screaming at each other again.
Rachel sat beside Luca, hugging her close. "I'm so sorry, Luca. I wish things didn't turn out like this. Not so soon after your coming out." Rachel was probably the only one of the family that realized Luca was different from day one. The two of them had always been close, even if they were three years apart. "How was the other trial?"
"Zee's innocent."
"Well at least there's that."
"It doesn't really matter. He's still a dick for what he did."
Rachel simply nodded her agreement and stroked Luca's hair. "Yeah... Well how about this: after this is over, how about we give each other manis and pedis at grandma's house?"
"I'm not staying at grams."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm still living here in Queens. Didn't mom tell you?"
"No... Actually, come to think of it, she changes the subject every time I bring you up."
"Yeah, she was pretty upset when I said I was staying here. She wanted a united front, and I kind of broke ranks."
"Well you should really reconsider. I can't believe dad did that, and to think of staying with him after that? Especially considering what he's done to you before this... I just don't know how you could--"
"Rachel, please," Luca whispered, squeezing her sister's hand in her own. "Just let it be. This decision was difficult enough as it is."
"As it should be. You can't be helping dad's case in a time like this."
"I'm not helping dad's case!" Luca said too loudly. The entire wing probably heard her. Dropping her voice to a hiss, she continued talking. "I am trying to live a normal life here, Rachel. The only friends I have now are in New York City. I don't know anyone in Harford, and there's no way in hell I'm tagging along when mom heads back east to New London."
"Jeez, Luca. After all this, I didn't think you would have been so selfish."
Luca stopped short of a sharp reply, the last word seeming to hit home for her. Her face hardened. "You know, I think I'm done explaining myself to everyone all the time. I don't need to live my life by any standards but my own. You're the one that encouraged me to start doing that a long time ago. If you and the rest of the family seek solidarity, go ahead and have it. I seek a life where I get to grow in my own way."
With that, Luca stood, throwing her leather bag over her shoulder, and stormed away. She ignored the protests from her sister, and shrugged Teresa's hand off of her shoulder when the young assistant tried to stop her.
Exiting out the back door in order to avoid the melee that dominated the front of the courthouse, Luca nearly tripped right over that same otter reporter that had the Advocate note pad. "Miss Luca!" he exclaimed, whipping a pen out of his pocket. "Alan Rathcliff," he said in informal introduction, extending a paw to her. "Glad to finally meet you face-to-face and not amongst the throngs of reporters."
Luca took the paw politely. "Pleasure to meet you," she said shortly, and kept marching down the steps. "I'm sorry, I don't have time for press."
The otter stared after her, but then slid the pen away and closed his notebook, rushing to catch up alongside her. "What about a fan?"
"I seem to be getting quite enough advice lately."
"I'm a very quiet and unobtrusive fan, promise. Though forgive me for already breaking that trust, because I just want to tell you that this direction will take you right out beside where the masses are gathered for the televised conference about Zee's trial."
"Great," Luca sighed in frustration. She looked back and around, finding herself quite trapped in the alley. Going the other way would only lead to a dead end.
"Well I can help you, if you want," Alan said. "I found a secret way back here so that nobody else would get my idea and follow."
"That desperate for a story?"
"No... Actually, just that desperate to meet you," he said with an earnest smile.
Luca paused, not sure what to make of this male. "Well... ok, then. As long as you're not leading me into some trap to get my ass kicked--or worse."
The otter looked at his wavy, well-kept locks of hair, indicated his fashionable if not very flamboyant clothes, and then looked at his notebook. "You know, I don't think any gay-basher in the world would resort to looking this gay and go through so much just to kick your cute ass."
"My what?"
"Nothing," the otter said. Without letting Luca utter another word, he grabbed her hand and rushed her off towards a side alley that was barely noticeable. It had a large dumpster sitting in front of it, and the pair had to shimmy through behind it to get to the narrow passage. Once there, Luca found herself in a dark but not very creepy way that perhaps three well-muscled males could stand abreast of each other as they strolled. The pair went down that way, and Luca found herself one building over from the entrance to the very subway she took to get here.
"Wow, you do know how to get around," Luca said with a laugh.
"I'm not sure that should be taken as a complement or not, but thank you anyway," Alan replied.
"I--Yeah, sorry, that does sound bad," Luca giggled. "Thank you, though. I really appreciate it."
"You're very welcome," Alan said. "And it was a pleasure meeting you."
"You too," Luca said, brushing a strand of hair aside as she shook Alan's hand again. As she watched him turn to go walking away, something compelled her, and she found herself saying, "hey, wait!"
Alan turned, looking a bit confused, but hopeful. "Yeah?"
"I'm hungry. You want to get a bite to eat? I might even let you ask me some questions."
"Sure," Alan said, smiling in such a way it could almost make a girl swoon.