Reversible Errors by Scott Turow Page B

phrase, a human being who'd never become. He was a brilliant boy, bound hand and foot by his own unhappiness, and he knew it, often claiming that his fundamental problem in life was that you couldn't hold a Stoli, a cigarette, and the TV remote with only two hands. He was probably gay, but too cowardly to face it. Certainly his interest in sex with her had not seemed to last much beyond their engagement. By the third year of their marriage, his sexual disinterest had led her to other men. Rod knew and did not seem to care. In fact, he went to pieces whenever she mentioned divorce. He could not face his mother with that. She was a severe, bloodless, upper-class type, whom he should have told to fuck off ages ago. Instead, he allowed her to judge. Until the day he died. The cause was a coronary, which the early deaths of his father and grandfather had long presaged. Despite all the warnings, Rod never exercised and went to the doctor only to mock him, but for Muriel, the loss had been unexpectedly monumental, not only of Rod himself but of the glory he was to her when she was nineteen.
    Having married a man old enough to be your father, you look back and say, I had issues. Yet in retrospect, her core motive still felt identifiable and familiar: she had just wanted to get somewhere with her life. Rod, feckless and drunk, and Talmadge, a force for the eons, had less in common than a rock and a plant. And the fifteen years since she'd first married was a literal lifetime. But the omen of how mistaken, how invisible she could be to herself in these things continued to haunt her. With Larry, however, she was determined to appear resolute.
    "I can't believe Talmadge is such a big deal to you ," she said.
    "I don't know," he answered. "It looks like I'm on the loose." He was getting divorced, he said, and seemed to mean it this time. Nancy and he had gone to a lawyer together, a woman who'd first tried to talk them into sticking it out. There were no problems with property. The only issue was his boys. Nancy was too attached to leave them and had actually proposed getting custody, but Larry had eighty-sixed that. For the time being, they were stalemated, but figured to settle eventually. They both wanted out.
    "It's sad," said Larry. He seemed to mean that, too. He didn't bother looking at her. To his credit, Larry had no appetite for cheap sympathy.
    Outside they heard the jailhouse music of jangling chains. A guard knocked once and steered Collins Farwell into the room, shackled from the waist, and bound hand and foot. The officer placed Collins at an adjoining table and padlocked his ankle chain to a black hasp bolted on the floor.
    "Wanna time-cut, man," said Collins, as soon as the officer was out the door.
    "Whoa," said Larry. "Take a few steps back there, bud. Maybe we ought to say howdy."
    "I said I want a time-cut," answered Collins. Off the tiers, his accent was noticeably whiter. He addressed Muriel, apparently realizing that it was the P . A . who'd make the decisions.
    "How much dope did you have when they busted you?" she asked.
    Collins rubbed his face, where the kinky stubble of several days had gone unshaved, probably a fashion statement. Within the jail, Collins couldn't be questioned without fresh Miranda warnings, which had not been administered. In the tortured logic of the law, therefore, nothing he said here could be used against him. Muriel explained, but Collins had been around the block often enough to understand that on his own. He was just taking a moment to ponder tactics.
    "Had half a pound, man," he said, finally, "till the narcos took their pinch. Six zones now. Left just enough so it's still an X." Collins laughed as he contemplated the depravity of the police. They'd sel l t wo ounces on the street or blow it themselves. He was still headed for life without parole.
    "How about you tell us what you've got?" Muriel asked.
    "How 'bout you tell me what my time-cut is, and stop acting like I'm some dumb