Unexpected

      Her lawyer smiled as they walked into the courtroom. He pulled out her chair and patted the seat, bidding her to sit down. 
Satisfied that her appearance was sufficiently demure to tip the scales of justice, he sat down next to her and began to regard 
a sheaf of papers on the table before him.  
      If it was to be one of her crazy days, he hadn’t an inkling.
      But he was not trained to spy the cues of her condition in its incipient state.
      Mr. Attorney probably had never seen her rave.
      It wasn't Liz's way to seek legal counsel while in one of these spells.
      The judge asked if the parties were present and represented.
      Ah, there it was.
      The nostrils of that pretty little nose flared as she raised her eyebrows to facilitate five, maybe six, rapid succession blinks.  
      Was she slipping this early in the game? I might be wishing so hard that hope tinkered with my perceptions. 
       Rapid blinks were member of a set of harbingers that often portended her spells. Tics that had been taught to me by 
Mother Repetition during my ten year term with a wife given to recurrent lapses into mental illness.
       She was sometimes good at suppressing the symptoms, good enough that her lunacy had gone undetected by some of 
her dear friends.
      Would God, today, in this courtroom, provide that miracle and expose it?
       I wasn't asking the Almighty for insanity itself, for only Satan summons up madness, but rather that Providence aid in 
provoking a timely display of the aforementioned harbingers. A full blown frenzy would probably not be required. 
       The judge spoke of his distaste regarding adjudicating child custody questions. He finished his preliminary remarks 
without looking up.
       Victor, my counsel, stood and asked some picky question in highfalutin legalese.
His mastery of dry legal lexicon had apparently compensated for wit at the state bar exam.
      The last time I retained Victor’s able counsel in litigation, he had won for me a Bill of Divorcement, leaving Liz to seek 
consolation in the loser's portion, specifically, my house, new car, savings account, ample monthly support check and 
custodial parental status of our two children. My jubilation was further dampened when it was explained that I was required 
to foot her legal fees.
      "To the Victor go the spoils?" I queried trying to comfort myself with some gallows humor.
      "It's the way these things work," Victor shrugged.    
       And now I was back in court represented by that same dismal legal mind. Who’s the bigger fool between us?
       Victor sent me a knowing wink while still waiting for a response from the judge.
        I sneaked a look at Liz.
       She fixed a gaze on Victor, drawing her eyelids together like a marksmen about to squeeze off a round.
       She aimed the same at me then fluttered her eyelids and pumped her brows.
       The judge hadn't noticed. I wondered if he had noticed anything in the courtroom. 
       He still hadn't raised his eyes to look at those present. It sunk in that Liz's quirks might possibly go unnoticed by 
this less than watchful magistrate.
       The situation called for a full bloom "screamer" lest the gavel drop leaving my
children in the custody of the mother-at-issue.
       The judge finally acknowledged Victor’s questions at which time Liz’s attorney was prompted to rise and rebut.
       The judge grunted and gave Liz’s team some sort of legal benefit which I failed to understand.
       I felt a pang of courtroom déjà vue.
       Liz ducked her chin into the turtleneck of the heavy sweater she was wearing
and ever-so-gently cleared her throat.
       This wasn’t noteworthy as far as human events go but it was most welcome by me who recognized this little 
"ahem" as a sibling of the eye flutters, brow pumping, nostril flare, riveting stare, et al.
        Her lawyer launched into a moving sermon on the virtue of mothers in general and Liz in particular.
         I whispered to Vic that I saw great potential in Liz's mental condition at the moment.  I explained that I had working 
knowledge of those provocations that cause her displays of madness.
        Liz’s attorney told the court about his own dear mom, the art of nurturing and babies at their mother's breast 
plus a list of maternal virtues, all which he attributed to Liz. Our son being nine and the daughter seven, he might 
have saved the breast-feeding pitch.
        If I could only confront Liz, I felt sure that the Devil and I could bring her to rave.
        Liz's attorney, eyes moist at hearing his own sentiments, finished and sat down.
       Apparently, he wasn't going to put the Mother-of-the-Year on the stand to confirm her patently obvious virtues.
       Damn.
       Maybe he sensed that she was losing her moorings.
       I told Victor to get me on the stand.
      My mind raced to recall those topics that would most “advance her condition”, a  phrase spoken to me by a 
Spokane Psychiatrist while giving me a list of do's and don'ts when confronting a something-something-schizophrenic,
 the genus and phylum to which Liz belonged.
       Liz would never consent to visit a shrink but my play-by-play accounts of her
spells seemed ample information for the good psychiatrist to make his diagnosis back in the early days of our 
connubial internment.
        Victor shook his head from side to side while assuring me that he'd already contrived a brilliant strategy.
       Again, I rued my choice of lawyers.
      Retaining this imbecile a second time was probably prima facie grounds for my own committal to an asylum. Victor 
was certainly no match for Liz's camp when she was sane and probably at no great advantage with her perched on the 
fringe of insanity.
      "Get me up there, Victor!" I fairly shouted through clenched teeth.
      "I'll get a recess, we'll talk about it," he countered.
       "No recess. She'll take a pill or something to calm down. Get me on the stand or get me another lawyer!"
       Victor, in a rare moment of ingenuity changed his strategy, slammed his notebook shut and rescued this crumbling 
lawyer-client relationship.
        He stood and said that which was required.  
       The judge beckoned me to be seated on the stand.
       I guessed that my best course was to recount the episodes that depicted Liz's unreliability in her crazy times 
(Victor's strategy) while giving prime concern to provoking demonstrable insanity, here and now, in my ex-wife 
(my strategy.)
       Victor gave me some time to think via a modest introduction and plausible
account of the highlights of my life: held a steady job, no felony convictions, registered voter, etc.  The man 
embarrassed me.
      Although this was a time for scheming, not regretting, I silently rebuked myself for never forcing Liz to see a psychiatrist. 
 Oh, for some tangible court-room-admissible proof of her mental problems!
      In my pocket was a receipt for a $566.17 payment to a Memphis cab company. The payment was made in the summer 
two years ago by the aforementioned Mother-of-the-Year in order to facilitate a three day search of various Greater Memphis 
convalescent homes during her attempt to locate and free Elvis (the King) from sinister captors who were keeping him 
drugged while Colonel Parker’s descendents drained his estate.  Elvis had been dead for three years, but my dear wife 
knew better.
       Victor's eyes narrowed as he turned and inquired if I, the former husband and
father, "might offer the court any reason why Elizabeth might not be a fit mother?"
       I began by describing my first encounters with Liz which took place during our college years. It was Liz's unpredictability 
that attracted me.
       I told how my naiveté postponed the realization that her periodically zany conduct was less explained by youthful 
spontaneity than what Dr. Brunling, the Doctor of Psychiatry in Spokane, later diagnosed as something-something
 schizophrenia.
        Liz's attorney objected.
        The judge, without looking up, advised me to avoid further accounts of second-hand psychiatric analysis.
        I had barely related the first of Liz's more bizarre college antics when her attorney objected again.
        I looked to Victor for help.
       He came to my aid with nothing but a sympathetic shrug.
       The judge advised me to relate matters “more germane to the worthiness
of the mother today, here and now."
       Liz cleared her throat. 
       Significant.
       Successful objections notwithstanding, the screws were beginning to loosen.
       Again she cleared her throat.
       I had dreaded that uniquely human sound every day for nearly a decade.  But now my heart thrilled at the soft
 but distinct purr.
      The throat clearing started gently but grew sharper as Liz's waged the battle against the dark forces of irrationality.
       At this stage she would speak economically, if at all, in order to save her concentration to maintain her 
disintegrating psyche.
       I took up my favorite child abandonment episode with some garnishment. I reported the story playing heavily upon
 those features that struck the most guilt in Liz.
       A louder than normal “ahem, ahem" from Liz drew a glance from most of those present save the ruling custodian 
of justice sitting up on the bench.
        Victor interrupted to inform the court of our singular flimsy bit of corroborating evidence of Liz's bare-footed, 
bath-robed jaunts through the neighborhood. He held up a signed affidavit from a dear neighbor lady asserting that
 when most of the neighborhood moms were making beds and doing breakfast dishes, Liz was striding down the street 
in night clothes.
        “AHEM. . .  .AHEM.“
         The attorney passed his glass of water to Liz then made an objection to my hearsay.
        The judge told me to leave the topic alone.
        “Okay,” I complied. It was time to go for the jugular. "Elvis," I said looking out of the corner of my eye for Liz's 
reaction.
       At the mention of his name, her head jerked and she shot me a glare of terrible duration. “AHEM.” Her nostril flare 
was at maximum.
       "Elvis?" the judge inquired.
       Viola!  He had finally raised his two honorable eyeballs in wonder of my utterance.
      “Presley," I elucidated and then went on to tell the court how it was the aforementioned Blessed Madonna’s habit to 
lock herself in the bedroom from dawn to dusk for the purpose of playing and replaying her Elvis' Golden Hits collection, 
all the while forsaking her maternal duties.
       Liz threw her head back and took a deep breath.
       “The children never really had a mother after Elvis’ death," I sighed for effect, then I began to narrate her search for 
Elvis in Memphis ending with the expensive taxi ride.  “The receipt is here, Your Honor,” I said extracting a pink piece of 
paper and slowly unfolding the same while locking a gaze on Liz, who began to emit a gagging sound that even I had 
never heard before.
      Her attorney gripped her arm and held the glass of water to her mouth attempting to end the sound.
      She shook off his hand splashing the water across his chest and stood up quivering with emotion. Her eyelids were 
fluttering and her brows were jumping up and down. 
      She pointed at me and shrieked, “He's not dead!  You're all dead to him!"
      Let the record show that her sweeping gesture indicated that all those present were deemed deceased by Presley.
      The judge pounded his gavel.
      Liz's attorney pulled her back down into her seat, then objected vigorously.
      She drew her head down into the turtleneck and sobbed.
      The court was left to speculate on the fine distinctions to be made between my accomplishment today and that of 
Perry Mason had he been in my shoes fighting for the custody of his children against a nutty wife.
     The judge called both attorneys to the bench. They exchanged whispers.
      Liz continued to sob.
      God, I wanted out of that room.
      Victor returned. He leaned over and whispered to me that Liz would have to be evaluated before blah, blah, blah.
 We were through for today.
      I broke off his report and strode for the door.
      Once in the hallway, I made for the nearest window.
      The air seemed a healing tonic in contrast to the re-breathed stuff in the courtroom.
      The afternoon sun warmed my face.
      I drew a deep breath. My chest shuddered as I exhaled.
      Tension drained away.
      The maxim about “winning being everything” held a kicker. It was painful too.
      I heard Victor's voice from behind.
      At a tap on the shoulder, I turned around to meet Liz's red, watering eyes.
      Victor said, “She wants to talk to you” and he jerked his thumb at Liz.
      I began to speak to her but Liz interrupted by speaking my name in an uncharacteristic rasp.
      Tears rolled down her cheeks.
      A surge of pathos shot through me.
      She knew what I had done. And it made her more pitiful.
      I would probably have embraced her if she hadn't begun fumbling in her purse.
     “It's not the end, Liz."  It came out sounding so trite but my intent was genuine.
     I reached out and held open the jaws of her purse. "The judge says you'll have to get treatment, therapy, some 
sort of help with this thing."
     She shook her head and kept digging in her purse until she brought up a handkerchief
     “You'll see the kids again when you've got this thing under control. You will," I promised, my own eyes watering due 
to heartfelt sympathy.
      "Why?" she cried thrusting a hanky towards me.
      I shook my head to decline her offer but she persisted in holding the hanky up to me.
      Suddenly the hanky jumped and blue smoke issued.
      I can't remember hearing the pistol's report but the burning in my chest tipped me off that I'd been shot.
      Victor threw his hands in the air as if under arrest. Then realizing that I was Liz's sole quarry, he lunged for the gun
 and wrested the same from her grip.
        I fell forward still clutching her purse. Someone rolled me onto my back.
       My chest hurt but not like I imagined a gunshot would feel.
       "You looney bitch!" I screamed.
       Victor knelt over me.
       "Keep still.  It's only a .22."  He held the gun up for my inspection.  "You'll be O.K."
       A policeman took the gun and backed Liz up to the wall. 
        I looked up at her. “They'll lock you up for that!  You'll never see the kids. Never!”
       She wasn't crying anymore. She was glaring back down at me, her eyes circled with the black smudge of eye liner. 
She looked like a witch. The foulest of woman.
        The cop bent over my face and told me that an ambulance was on the way.
        I could feel the cool granite floor drawing heat from my body.
        I shivered. My mind seemed to clear as it hadn’t for years.
        Somebody asked me something.
        I understood but didn't answer because it seemed unimportant.
        I didn’t think that I was dead due to the fact that my brain still deliberated upon this fresh misfortune and
 how it came to pass.
       Faces of strangers were peering down at me. I felt a bit silly.
       It's redundant, even definitional that crazy people do the unexpected.
       I wondered, “Where in the hell was that ambulance?”  
       But how much of the unexpected can one be expected to expect?

THE END