It’s odd returning to old writing, I wrote what follows more than a decade ago, and I hardly recognize myself. Still, I think it holds up pretty well. It was intended to be chapter 2 or 3 of a book of Virginia lawyer stories. Here it is:

In law school I met one of my good friends, Dave. While I am a Southerner of mostly Irish descent, and have consequently never enjoyed a tranquil day in my life, Dave is half Scottish and half British, and is generally composed and phlegmatic–so I naturally take enormous pleasure in seeing him get upset and brought down to my level.

We took a “legal ethics” class together our second year, which mostly explored what they call the lawyer’s “amoral role.” This amounted to the instructor’s turning out example after example of horrifying lawyer conduct, and then asking for a show of hands from the class of maybe 80, signifying what they thought of it. Every time 77 hands shot up in approval of whatever monstrosity had just been described; to them, there was nothing not a proper part of “zealous advocacy.” Then came the turn of the invariable standouts. There were three of us, and unlikely comrades: a Mormon; my friend Dave, an agnostic; and I, a Protestant. The professor then enjoyed grilling us about our wrongheaded fastidiousness.

One day, we were treated to a gruesome example. Two criminal defense attorneys had located the severed head of their client’s victim in a some remote spot, and, I believe, inside of a tree stump. They had removed the head, examined it, photographed it, taken copious notes, and then replaced it. No one knew what had become of the victim, but these zealous advocates reported their discovery neither to the police nor to the victim’s distraught family, and continued their defense. Once again: 77 for; 3 against. This time the professor singled out Dave:

“And so, David, do you think it was inappropriate for them to examine and photograph the severed head?”

“Yes.”

“And do you think it was incorrect of them to replace the severed head in the stump?”

“Yes.”

“And was it, ah, improper for them to conceal their discovery of the severed head from the police and from the victim’s family?”

“It was.”

“Very good. And now David, please tell the class why you believe these actions were wrong.”

But dear, unflappable Dave, with all the authority and force of Dr. Johnson, roared out: “Oh come on, I’ve had enough, you know damn well it’s wrong!”

If you do not understand the law student’s conviction that his entire future hangs on his professor’s good pleasure and good grade, and that to secure them, he is capable of almost any kind of cringing and fawning, you will not properly appreciate the awed silence of the class, nor the shock of the professor, which followed this outburst–but I need not tarry over this: the point here is to illustrate that Dave has a moral sense developed enough to overcome his phlegm and reticence.

And he took this moral sense with him to Wythe County, where it would be battered and outraged during a three-year term there as an assistant prosecutor.

Wythe is about 80 miles southwest of Roanoke and is situated on a plateau with an elevation relatively high for the state; population density is low and there is plenty of lovely, rugged scenery. The state park to the south has wild ponies in it. The county seat, Wytheville, cannot have changed much since the 50s, the National Register of Historic Places noting that many of the buildings were completed in the early 19th century and that the “Historic District has a high overall level of architectural integrity.” A block or so from the middle of town is what appears to have been a barn converted into a church, no longer in use, but still standing. It’s that kind of place.

The courthouse is Wytheville’s tallest structure. When I was unfamiliar with the town, I used to orient myself by its cupola. Here is the Register’s interested description:

“Imposing Classical Revival building, two-stories in height, of stretcher-bond buff-colored brick construction, with a complex metal-sheathed gable roof and center dome. The building has two monumental porticos, both consisting of two-story brick columns with Corinthian capitals and richly ornamented pediments. The front portico, facing South Fourth Street, is the deeper of the two, and it engages a second-tier balcony supported by scrolling metal brackets. The eight-sided dome is raised above the building on a base embellished with Doric columns and round-arched niches. Other elements of the exterior are 214- and 414-sash windows, a cornice with modillions and dentils, [and] clock dials on four sides of the dome. The interior features a center lobby with patterned ceilings, heavy scroll brackets at the intersection of passageways, and staircases with turned balusters and decorative square newels.”

The Register also notes simply that the building has a “modern one-story brick addition.” This brevity is as close as a bureaucrat can get to the language of travesty, so I’ll take a two-word stab at it as I report that it was not in the old building that Dave practiced, but in this cubist excrescence appended to it.

This obscenity I consider symbolically: since Wytheville, founded in 1790 and named after Virginia’s first subscriber to the declaration of independence, is also the locus of the confluence of interstates 81 and 77, it has one of the state’s highest rates of drug trafficking and crime, and during his residence there, Dave became a never-ending fund of stories, weird, horrifyingly biological, and indelible. I will record here three which I think of as Dave’s unholy trinity. Part of my object in these chapters is to describe the world as it is disclosed to a new attorney; do not think I am affecting preciosity when I say that the following are rough going.

There was one where the police gave chase to a car driving the wrong way on the interstate. When the car eventually crashed and overturned, out climbed a terror: a huge man, probably 6’6″, wearing only fouled briefs, whence he had extracted the excreta with which his face was bedaubed. Inside the vehicle they found a portable meth lab which had overturned, burning a hole through the back seat. I believe they brought the giant down with tasers.

A lot of life is a matter of simple risk calculation. I always think about this when I hear stories of this kind. Some of us have had occasion for the following sort of reflection: “Hm, I’ve had four beers. If I drink one more, it will be five, and I might have a good time, but then again I might not feel well tomorrow. I should forbear.” A similar risk analysis for those considering whether to ingest meth or “bath salts” would, I suppose, run as follows: “Hm, if I swallow this, I might have a good time, or I might eat someone’s face, rape a goat, or just smear my own filth on my face. I can’t know for sure, but I think it’s worth the risk.”

The next of Dave’s stories that has stayed with me concerns a fetishist whom the police found tossing life-sized baby dolls into traffic. Several people, mistaking them for the real thing, had called 911 in quite a state. They arrested him, and after locating his car, discovered another of his interests: visiting rest stops and collecting women’s used sanitary products. His back seat was piled high with them. At this point, his sanity was in question, so at the station, a strip search was ordered. To his genitals was taped a miniature baby doll.

My final anecdote extended, if not enriched, my vocabulary. I cannot do better than quote directly from Dave’s email, which I have preserved with great care:

“I was in the middle of a bond revocation hearing yesterday when the defendant emitted what can only be described as the sound of a dying mule, convulsed, and fell out of his chair. His head cracked into the drywall, leaving a large indentation/bulge in the wall. I actually had to go out of the back of the courtroom to tell the clerk to call for paramedics. He eventually came around, with blood all over his face (he’s Hepatitis C positive), and the paramedics wheeled him out to the hospital.

“I learned this morning that he went berserk in the hospital, and he was eventually brought down to a holding cell in the Sheriff’s Office. It was discovered that he had been “suitcasing” a contraband package in his rectum. But, as a Sheriff’s Office lieutenant told me when I ran into him at lunch, (picture a thick, southwestern Virginia accent) “the stuff they gave him up at the hospital done relaxed his colon so much he can’t get it out.” Later this afternoon I learned that, while en route to the jail in Dublin, the defendant had a “blowout,” and the package was retrieved. It was wrapped in black electrical tape and contained cigarettes and unidentified pills. Please God, get me a job in civil law.”

After classes, Dave and I would sometimes talk for an hour or two in the parking lot on the hill overlooking campus. Favorite topics included Calvin & Hobbes, 90s video games, and Arthur Schopenhauer, but the conversation always found its way to Star Wars. I can remember Dave remarking of my old, scarred, and filthy Volkswagen “You came here in that thing? You’re braver than I thought.” And in reply I would look down on the campus and intone, after Obi Wan Kenobi: “Washington & Lee University School of Law. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.” Even as a joke that seems naïve these days. But back then we didn’t know much about Wytheville.