Hollywood is Newark, NJ with Palm Trees
Act III
The judge collected his papers, walked out of the courtroom, and into his chambers.
The chambers looked like a cramped basement office with an extremely low ceiling. His desk was buried underneath a mountain of files and loose papers, which complemented the other random stacks of files and papers that were strewn about the room.
Bartholomew “Bartty” Feingold was born and raised on the Southside, in the Weequahic section- before the riots. He practiced in the county for twelve years as a solo practitioner, before being appointed to the bench in the summer of 1987.
He’s had opportunities to move up, possibly into politics, but that was a long time ago. Bartty’s aspirations didn’t escalate any higher than where he had been able to reach thus far. At this point in his life, he’d impressed all the people he felt he had to.
At his desk, Bartty stared blankly at a piece of paper, and let the words on the page slip through his mind faster than he could read them.
He rubbed his eyes, sighed deeply, and tried to re-focus.
It was the sentencing order for Samantha Castellano, the woman being manhandled by her lawyer in his courtroom a few moments ago. He felt as if he should’ve said something; intervened somehow. He felt helpless.
He hated feeling anything at all, and his inaction was just further evidence of his worthlessness.
No matter how many white hats you put on Bartty Feingold, you’ll never find redemption- never.
The intercom buzzed.
“Yes, Esther?”
“It’s your wife,” Esther said.
Bartty paused, removed his glasses, rubbed between his eyes, and put his head in his hands.
“Put her through,” he said in a muffled tone.
There was a faint click.
“Bartholomew?”
Bartty hated hearing his whole name.
The formality of using someone’s name in its entirety felt impersonal, disconnecting.
“What can I help you with?”
“When are you coming home?”
“When I’m done with work,” Bartty said in a calm, unassertive tone, looking to contrast the annoyed tone of his wife.
“Don’t lie to me,” she screamed into the phone.
Her tone went from a shrill scream to low and menacing, “you’re a lying son of a bitch, you know that Bartholomew Feingold. You’re out there fcuking some whore, aren’t you?”
Bartty took the receiver away from his ear, cupped it, and closed his eyes.
“I’m not having sex with anyone. You, of all people, should know that.”
“DON’T LIE TO ME!”
“I wish I were,”
“You’re a idck.”
“That may be the nicest thing you’ve said to me in weeks,”
Amelia Feingold’s voice cracked and she sounded as if she was about to burst into tears, “Why aren’t you home now?”
“I’m still at work.”
She started sobbing, “Why are you so mean to me?”
“I’m sorry.”
“I love you so much, and you treat me like this.”
“I’m sorry,”Bartty said looking through some papers on his desk, without reading them.
She stopped crying, and her voice suddenly became shrill, “You know what, go fcuk yourself, Bartholomew!”
“I wish I could, at least I’d be getting laid. “
The phone went dead, and Bartty stared at his computer screen. Not for any particular reason, other than he needed to look at something.
He didn’t have any of the answers for this; He never did. When she got this way there was only one thing to do.
He had to go home.
Bartty Feingold seemed to never be able to find the time to stop feeling sorry for himself. It seemed to be his default position. If it wasn’t something at work weighing on his conscious, it was something at home, if it wasn’t either of those things then it was- something else.
The only time he felt like he wasn’t being beaten down, oddly enough, was in downtown traffic.
Sometimes, in some of the more desperate moments, he’d find himself asking, “Why God, Why me?”
But he’d come to his senses, and realize that he didn’t have anything to do with it and think, “Why not you?”
This is the sound of settling.
He’d deducedyears ago that it was okay, not to be okay. At least he could say that he tried, but that’s never enough.
He wasn’t depressed, he was just finished.
Bartty gathered his things and hit the intercom, “Esther, I have to leave. Let Judge Marzone know that I’ll have to take him up on that drink some other time.”
Esther’s weak, shrill voice sounded through the speaker, “Of course, Judge Feingold. Do you have a moment before you leave?”
He didn’t, but outside of the courtroom the word ‘no’ didn’t seem to be in his vocabulary.
“Sure, come in.”
Esther’s old frame shambled through the door.
She was wearing big red glasses.
Bartty was sure she hadn’t changed her style of eyeglass frame (or anything else she wore for that matter) since the late 60’s.
“What can I help you with?” Bartty asked, packing several more files and papers into his briefcase.
“Well sir, I wanted to let you know that my daughter and her husband are moving to Florida, and I’m going with them.”
Bartty stopped shoving things into his briefcase, but didn’t look up at Esther.
“Oh, Ok.”
He resumed shoving papers into his briefcase, most of which he didn’t need or had any intention of reviewing. He needed a distraction so he didn’t have to look up.
“I’ll be putting in my notice tomorrow, sir. I’ll be leaving at the end of the month.”
Esther relayed her message in a weak and unsure voice. She was ringing her hands and waited for Bartty to respond.
Bartty looked up at the flickering fluorescent light lining the chamber ceiling and asked, “Have you ever needed help when you were all alone?”
“Excuse me?”
“Isn’t it strange how we talk least about things we think about the most?”
“I don’t think I follow, sir. You’re not making any sense.”
Bartty closed his eyes and shook his head.
“It’s nothing, forget it. I’m going to hate to see you go Esther. It’s been a pleasure working with you.”
Bartty came from around his desk and extended his hand.
She took it, and released it almost immediately.
They looked at each other in silence.
Esther’s lips were pressed together, in a slight grimace, which curled into a smile that ended up wavering between a smirk and the original grimace.
She started wringing her hands again.
Bartty’s eyes softened. He took a step closer and clasped Esther’s shoulder.
“You will be in tomorrow then?” He asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Bartty grabbed his coat, picked up his briefcase, and headed toward the door, “I’ll see you then.”
#
Depression is like living in a body that’s pugnaciously trying to survive a fight against a mind that is hell bent on trying to fcuk it all.
This was Amelia Feingold’s struggle.
Amelia had some difficulty during “the change,” but that wasn’t so bad. Even earlier, she remembered getting a little depressed when Anna was born, but that was nothing major. She just attributed it to her being her last.
No. This was different.
The sadness was way more pronounced and complete, as if she’d never feel cheerful again. But then she would, on and on, infinitum.
She didn’t want to be like this. She knew she was driving Bartty, and everyone else around her, crazy with her incessant tirades. Most of the time, she couldn’t remember why she was upset in the first place. Sometimes it was warranted, because Bartty had his own struggles, but sometimes it was completely arbitrary. They were beyond toxic to each other, and to save both of their lives, Amelia should have left him long ago- but she didn’t. When she wasn’t tumbling down her own hole of self-destruction, she needed his pain.
But money softens the fall of life, and he had become a side-effect of her medication. She had grown to detest his ambivalence and lack of ambition, but was too afraid of being alone to do anything about it. Bartty Feingold was a man blessed with great endowments, but was ruined by indolence and self-doubt.
Amelia hung up the phone, flopped onto the couch, and began to chuckle. She didn’t find anything in particular funny, just existence in general.
She composed herself, lied on the couch, and turned on the television.
Talk shows, God… where do they find these people? Are they real or acting? They’re acting- I’m sure of it. I mean, who’s life is this pathetic. They all have to be on drugs or something. Like that young boy down the street… Edward or was it Johnny… his mother had the drinking problem she thought no one knew about. She was married to the doctor… Dr. Finklman? The Finklmans. They were nice people…
Her thoughts went on and on in this circular motion for almost an hour, thinking blissfully about this neighbor or that child, until the talk show went off. She gave no thought to the phone conversation she’d had nearly an hour ago, or its consequences.
When she had these episodes, she wasn’t oblivious to what happened, but she figured there was no use hiding from a hurricane under an umbrella.
The news started.
Our top story of the day involves another mass shooting at a school in…
With the beginning of the story, she could feel the darkness returning. The newscaster went to report on a gunman that entered a local school and started shooting. Amelia’s calm disappeared.
I can’t just sit here. I have to do something.
She jumped off the couch and raced around the house, picking things up as if she was going to use it for something, looking at it, then deciding that she needed something else. She wasn’t quite sure what she was looking for, exactly.
I’ll know it when I find it.
Amelia ran up and down the stairs, continuing to pick up and put down almost everything in the house that wasn’t nailed down or too heavy to lift. She went through all the pots and pans in the kitchen, throwing a good deal of them out into the middle of the kitchen floor. She overturned chairs at the kitchen table and tossed plates out of the cupboard trying to get to what was behind them.
It has to be here somewhere.
She went on like this for another twenty minutes, until she plopped down on the kitchen floor, exhausted.
Her chin fell to her chest, which was heaving up and down as she was trying to catch her breath.
There was a chef’s knife on the floor next her.
She must’ve thrown it there when she was looking.
She picked it up, and looked at the steel shine in the midday sunlight. She started to cry again, and she didn’t want to. She just wanted it to stop.
All of it.
Amelia grabbed the knife and quickly raked it across her wrist. It didn’t take much of an effort to break the skin. The blade cut through the skin and into the arteries and veins beneath.
Blood oozed out of her arm and onto the kitchen floor.
The visual shocked her. She expected blood to spurt out like a geyser and all over the kitchen, but as the calm stream of blood flowed out of her arm and onto the floor, she felt the life in her body leave with it.
She put the knife in her hand and raked it across her other wrist.
Another stream of blood flowed out and mingled with the other blood that had accumulated on the floor and was pooling around her feet.
Amelia let her arms fall to her sides, and she slid down until she lied flat on the floor.
Several minutes later, Bartty walked into the kitchen.
He looked down at his bleeding wife and calmly pulled out his phone.
“Yes… It’s Judge Feinhold… Yes… Please send the ambulance around the back this time… I’ll have her ready… Can we do this without the police this- … I see… Ok… I can hear them pulling up out back… Thanks again.”
