For the Birds

The heat broke and gave us a crystal clear day of sun that filled my head with so much longing for the Cape that I sailed right past my exit on the way to work and had to get off at the next one and sheepishly follow my way back.

While I did spend most of my day inside, I had to drive to the Bronx for a deposition and even there amidst the bus exhaust fumes and the street vendors and the hot dog roach coaches and the flavored ice pushcarts, there were smiles on the faces of those that chose to spend their lunch house outside.

I had to depose a records person from the City of New York. These people are employed by the City in various departments and do the research and produce the reports concerning cases where the City is sued. They testify at the depositions and the trials. The depositions are usually quick as most often there are no records to produce.  The depositions are stacked up for every two hours and the City witness just remains in a small depo room while the court reporters and we lawyers change with every case.

These are not complicated or lengthy depositions, but they are formulaic and if you haven't done one in a long while, you may forget what you need to get on the record, especially when all the reports produced nothing. The witnesses are tired and bored and know that they are expected to do nothing more than recite how they conducted the search. No personal questions will be answered! No legal questions will be answered! Nothing outside the scope of their search will be answered!

Today, though, the witness was a woman with a loud, clear voice. She smiled. She gently guided the young attorney through his paces. She suggested how to mark the exhibits and counted the pages for the court reporter. She reminded the plaintiff's attorney that he might like the permit numbers read into the record.

When she smiled she flashed several gold fittings around her incisors and one front tooth. Less than "grillz", which cover the entire tooth, these were like earring jackets -  I don't know if she could change them out to match her clothing but she was wearing a lot of gold jewelry. She made me laugh when she was turning over some documents and she caught the plaintiff reacting with surprise at something he saw as she turned the pages over on an exhibit.

"Don't get excited, honey, it just means that there were no violations, not that no records were searched." He looked taken aback. "I saw your face, I know you got all excited!"  We all busted out laughing. I can't say I've ever laughed in a City records person deposition before.

Later on I rode down the elevator with her. She had her bare arms crossed. "I got to get me some warmth", she said. "Oh, me too", I replied. Good idea to eat lunch outside." "Yeah, 'cept then I got to worry about the birds.  I got so many thing to worry about and I got the birds, too!"

I walked through the revolving door behind her. Outside, on what is called "Perp Plaza",  people were hawking water and sunglasses, and a healthy contingent of guys with nowhere to go were standing against the building, waiting for the jury line getting into the criminal court across the street to die down.  The witness walked off into the crowd. I don't know if she got herself a sandwich and walked up the street to the park and caught some sun  until she had to go back at 1:00.

Me, I walked up the street to the parking garage, on high alert, looking up in the sky for birds.