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Maps for the Times | Tinker! | Day in Court | Disappearing Act
Day in Court
A speeding ticket leads to a restoration of faith in a changing Central Oregon.
Less than often, more than once, headed back out to our High Desert ranch via Highway 20, I would be pulled over by the same state trooper. “You again,” he would say. Humoring him, I’d point out that if he delayed me too long the ice cream would melt, gesturing toward the month’s worth of groceries stacked high in the back of my station wagon; that husband and children were waiting and my babysitter probably worn to a frazzle. He’d usually wave me on good naturedly, but not before we took a moment to take in the eastern horizon basted in the rays of the sun setting behind us, behind the spires of the Cascade Mountains. He never wrote me a ticket.
The trip from the ranch to Prineville, Madras, Redmond, and Bend and back was a 300-mile circle, took a full day. Tractor and swather parts, chicken feed, milk supplement, and veterinary medicine. I’d hurry through the smaller towns to make it on time for a late lunch with girlfriends in Bend followed by a quick game of tennis, outside if the weather was good, often at a friend’s well-appointed ranchette, and if it was winter, in the Crane Shed, an old lumber storage building—an enormous basilica of a thing that had outlasted its usefulness and no longer stored cut lumber. Instead, someone with a sense and style of humor that seemed to be more prevalent in those days had installed a couple of makeshift tennis courts. If you put a quarter in the slot the lights would go on for an hour and, despite the dank cold and the pigeon poop, a decent game of tennis could be had. In 2007 the crumbling wooden structure became Bend’s cause célèbre when a developer wanted to tear it down to make way for a new upscale mall. A protest was mounted and a plan to preserve the old Crane Shed as a historic building was presented to the city council. But having calculated the worst-case fine he’d receive versus what his buyer would pay, the developer marshaled an army of gigantic front-end loaders and Cats and knocked the shed down under the cloak of darkness before the City of Bend had come to any decision. The millions he received in the sale easily offset the paltry fine of $60,000 he was charged for his misdemeanor. The proposed development for the site has yet to materialize given economic downturns. The massive lot sits empty, affording an unobstructed view of the Deschutes River and the Cascades. Sagebrush and a few clutches of wild rye start to make a tentative comeback. Returned nesting ground sparrows quarrel over house sites.
Between trips to town I’d keep my tennis game sharp, playing every once in awhile on the McCormack’s tennis court at their ranch on Bear Creek. Cows would pause on their purposeless trip down the dirt road that flanked the court to apply their tiny brain to the question of why those humans were fenced inside such a small, grassless pasture. Coming up with no satisfactory answer, but no doubt pitying our lot, they moseyed away.
Sometimes I took my infant children with me on the runs to town, plopping them in a playpen in back of the station wagon, armed with zwiebacks. This was before the days of car seats and seat belts. They’d roll around inside, ricocheting off the padding, delighted with the turns. They’d chortle at the trooper when we were stopped. After taking in the sunset, sometimes he and I would take a moment to compare our versions of life, love, and the pursuit. I saw only possibility, I told him. He waved me on home.
But today I was driving to Portland. I had by now lived in “town” for as long as I had lived on the ranch, my children grown and, for better or worse, on their own, their tormented father dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, my second marriage in a shambles, and I forcibly relieved of my naïve belief that things would turn out as I had hoped or dreamed: happy familial commotion, an enduring relationship, dare I say life on a ranch? On this trip I wasn’t headed to town to buy farm implement parts. Instead I was driving from Bend to Portland and using that drive to put my parts back together, glad to think, reflect about the who, what, where, and why of my life that had played out on this High Desert stage.
I drove through the Crooked River National Grasslands, a prairie that, as it approaches Madras, settles out into perfect fields of agricultural promise, giant pivots staggering like Frankensteins in stiff-legged circles. They irrigate rich harvests of mint, garlic, wheat, and seed crops planted right up to the front door of tidy, contrite farm houses begrudgingly permitted a small corner of land next to looming machine sheds that shelter dinosaur-sized machinery. Madras is a microclimate, a farmer’s heaven ever since a post–World War II project delivered water to its thirsty plains and long growing season. It is a town of unusual ethnic diversity: Native Americans, thanks to the Warm Springs Reservation to the north, Mexicans, thanks to the seasonal labor that spawned a permanent population, second and third generations of homesteading Caucasians. With its dry surrounds that encroach just beyond the irrigated fields; its low-slung, stucco buildings; its wide, dusty streets named after letters in the alphabet as though the town was to be only a temporary encampment, Madras has more the air of a sun-bleached southwestern border outpost than a town in the center of Oregon, an Oregon so often thought of (by those who don’t know) as a state of lush green and endless rainfall.
But Oregon is, in fact, mostly desert. Oregon is mostly this gritty, beautiful, hardscrabble landscape. Madras in some ways most truly represents the region socially, economically, and environmentally. Its Central Oregon cousins seem to have taken on false identities or lost them. Sisters pretends to be a Western town with false fronts and building codes that require that the ruse continue. Prineville, once a mill town and a monument to the genius of Les Schwab, who built his tire-manufacturing empire there, is now in search of an economic identity since the closure of the mills and Schwab’s death and the relocation of the headquarters. Bend seems preoccupied with a more hip vision of itself, chasing a tourism-based economy (dubbed “industrial tourism” by Edward Abbey) that is proving to be as ephemeral as the morning dew. No, for a dose of what’s left of the real, go to Madras. I didn’t anticipate what a bracing dose I would get.
I had just passed the auction yards coming off that straight stretch of farm land. The yards are the last ones left in the region. It used to be every town had their own. Redmond, in my lifetime, once had two. At the Madras yards, the elevated boardwalks still crisscross above pens filled with livestock. Buyers, in caps or cowboy hats, boots, and blue jeans, walk slowly back and forth like penitentiary guards as though the cattle, horses, sheep, and pigs might be planning some sort of insurrection. They hook a heel of their cowboy boot on the railing fence and pause long enough to hear the wind, to feel the dry heat, to smell the fresh-cut alfalfa lying in windrows in the surrounding fields. They write some numbers down on the ubiquitous small spiral-bound pad of paper carried in their ink-stained shirt pocket, and then lazily, coolly head back into the auction barn. Inside the sawdust-covered arena, the hazer on horseback herds the confused and scared animals in frantic circles. The singsong monotone of the auctioneer is spliced with a loud “Hey!” or “Hut!” when he spots a bid signified by the surreptitious touch of a cap brim, the tilt of a pencil, the lift of a chin. “Sold!” And the reluctant performers are escorted abruptly off stage, kicking their heels in protest against the nipping cow dogs.
Highway 97 is a national highway and yet is dangerously only two lanes wide. Loaded cattle trucks swing wide to turn their big semi loads slowly off the highway into the auction yards. School buses stop to let children off. People drive all manner of rigs at all manner of speeds—a plodding, extra-wide tractor going from one field to another; old farmers in beat-up Chevy pick-ups in no hurry to get anywhere; reckless teenage drivers; migrant workers, ten plus, jammed into an overheated van, scarves hanging down from under their hats like sheiks. The stretch of 97 between Bend and Madras is referred to as the ribbon of death, it has claimed so many lives. The highway jams together the pace of the country with the breakneck mode of getting somewhere fast, things to do on city time. I was on city time. Checking my watch, I realized I was running late. I stepped on it, sixty-five, seventy-five miles per hour, left the livestock auction in my dust. Then I noticed the flashing light in my rearview mirror. This trooper, unlike my friend from my ranching days, was in no mood for conversation. He cut me no slack. The hefty price tag on the ticket led me to decide to appear in court to see if I could get my fine reduced. On the appointed day I tiptoed slowly back to Madras, fifty-five miles per hour all the way.
At reduced speeds it’s amazing what one sees. Red-tailed hawks diving for sage rats. The stooping ballet of the farm laborers, now out of their van, necks and faces covered, genuflecting toward the earth, a posture as old as time, memorialized on canvases across the world, symbolic of the relationship between land owners and their workers, gentry and peon. I saw horses startled by a dust devil, galloping, heads and tails high, across their pasture. I was struck by the perfection of the black angus cattle against the green of the fields. Such a day! The sun sipped the moisture out of the ground through a straw, filled the air with smells of growing things.
The courthouse in Madras, constructed in the 1960s, is made of cement, strong and massive, reinforcing the message of permanence and, in this case, the rule of law. On my scheduled day in court, and a few minutes late, I walked up the buffed linoleum steps, my hand gliding along a carved wooden banister. Large windows with vertical panes of glass framed the juniper-studded hills. The embedded perfume of years of Mr. Clean pinched the air.
I gave my name as I entered the room and took my seat in one of a row of oak pews separated by a wide aisle that led up to the thronelike chair of the judge. The court recorder sat at a table below on the right and on the left, one woman sat alone in the separate pews reserved for the jury. I didn’t know her function and studied her for a clue. She was trim, short hair in tight round curls, Sunday morning Methodist curls. She wore a floral, belted dress, flat shoes, bifocals. She could have been seventy or even older. She sat schoolmarm straight, a pad of paper and pen in her lap. I still had no idea why she was there.
The judge was announced by the court reporter. “Please rise.” All of us did. He ceremoniously entered the courtroom, throwing his long, black robes out behind him as he settled into his chair. In silence we, a motley crew of Mexicans, Native Americans, Caucasians, all sat back down. Already there was something otherworldly, out of space and time about this courtroom space and this appointed time.
There were nine of us scattered among the pews. Some mandated to appear, others like myself volunteering to do so, others there as support to their friends. As the last to arrive I would be the last to be called and so I sat and watched as each defendant walked down the aisle to stand before the judge.
When I was small, traveling by train in New England was common. My mother and I spent a lot of time in train stations going between Andover, where we lived, (“And over, and over, and over!” the conductor used to call when we pulled into our station) and Boston, Massachusetts, where most of her relatives (my aunts, uncles, cousins) lived. On those trips she introduced me to one of her favorite pastimes, inventing stories about the people waiting for the train. We sat next to each other on the wooden bench, whispering our invented histories about the man with the cane, the young mother and her fussy baby. I still survive long airport delays with this distraction, and in the Madras courthouse on this day I had plenty of fodder, and time, as I awaited my turn.
Across the aisle from me was a picture-perfect young teenage couple. Their fingers twined and untwined, their thighs pressed against each other’s, her head against his chest—as many body parts touching as was publically acceptable. He wore jeans that traced his muscled thighs, his manhood. A cotton shirt hung loosely off his shoulders. She was sheathed in tight pants, her perky ripeness contained inside a halter top, her eyelids painted bright blue, and a fountain of blonde hair twisted into a barrette and pinned at the back of her head.
When he was called and got up to walk toward the judge, she leaned forward desperately as though unable to breathe without him. She gripped the edge of the pew, watched intently as he strode toward the judge, pulling his cap off his head at the curt instruction of the court reporter. He stood upright before the judge, yes sir, no sir, maintained he had been falsely accused by the police officer, that the report indicates a collision and there was none, instead his empty gooseneck horse trailer had hit some gravel on a turn and fishtailed but he was driving under the speed limit. His girlfriend silently mouthed every word he said, inching her way along the pew closer to the aisle, closer to him. No other vehicles were involved and he did not hit the guard rail. The officer had accused him of things he did not do. Farm kid, I thought. White bread. Entitlement. Marry young, maybe the girl he was with, carry on farming the land his father farmed, his grandfather farmed. He’d been driving tractors and balers since he was ten. Knew seasons. Knew the hardship of losing a calf, a crop. Men had their job: work hard, play hard. Women had theirs, supporting their husbands. Life was black and white, in bold letters, easy to read and understand. In keeping with happy endings, the judge dismissed the case. The boy sauntered back to his pew, gestured to his girl, and the two walked out side-by-side. He playfully hooked his fingers in the belt loops of her tight pants, pulling up on them slightly. She laughed.
Next, a young Native American woman, maybe five feet tall, stocky, joined by two white girls there to support her. Lots of whispering and commotion among them. She giggled after every answer to the judge. Like a teenager. Only she wasn’t and it wasn’t her first offense and she had not paid a previous traffic violation. The judge levied a high fine and a stern warning. She and her friends left, noisily reasserting their version of the story and of the world. But the reality of the decision that day would catch up with her. I could see it. Her version of the world would not stand a chance. She was naïve and vulnerable and she was asking and relying on directions from people as lost as she.
“Come to the Meet Market!” was embroidered in red letters across the back of the shiny, purple jacket worn by the next defendant, part of “Meet” covered by a stringy ponytail. The smell of cigarette smoke followed her up the aisle. The judge addressed this rough-hewn woman in a weary, familiar tone, asked her why she was again driving with a suspended license, had failed to take care of other misdemeanors. Was she aware this behavior would land her in jail? “I drove cuz no way else to get to work. Ain’t gonna hitch, ain’t gonna walk, I’ll tell you what. Not all the way from the rez.” The judge and his threats didn’t worry her. She had twenty-four hours to come up with the money for the past tickets? What a joke.
“I don’t got that kind of money.”
“The court can assist you with a payment schedule.”
Her body language made it clear that the possible repercussions were nothing compared to what she confronted at home with her husband, who sat in the courtroom, his belly resting on his knees, his thick, brown arm slung over the back of the pew, nothing compared to life on the reservation as a white woman.
There was one more to be called before it was my turn. His dark pants were pressed, his white shirt clean, a crucifix around his neck. His dark hair was slicked and neat, some gray appearing above his ears. He wore boots, the heels worn so far down on the outside, his knees splayed slightly. The elderly woman with the gray pin curls, who had sat through the proceedings, now got up and came and stood by the defendant in front of the judge. Why? I wondered. He turned his cap in his hands, stood head down before the judge as though he had entered church.
He had. At least that’s how my invented story about him went. His future was in the hands of this priestlike figure seated up above him. He was used to bowing to authority, to work. He wanted to believe in this system, any system, just as he wanted to believe in God. That the right thing, the just thing can happen. Will happen. That he will experience it before his time is up. That he is seen, recognized by powers greater than himself. Maybe he would find a place that received him, absolved him of his troubles, soothed his brow, held him, would recognize him for the honest and hard-working man he was. No mordida. No graft. No hardship. No unfairness. Things would fall into place. All that had gone before would now make sense—leaving Mexico, getting his papers, years of farm labor in California and now in Oregon. That his wife would get the medicine she needed for her diabetes. That he could afford false teeth. That his children and grandchildren would uphold the values he stood for. That the droopy pants and chains and backward caps of his grandsons meant nothing, were just a style. This courtroom, salvation. This churchlike space, redemption.
When the judge asked for his name, the elderly woman by his side effortlessly and instantaneously translated what the judge said into Spanish and then what the defendant said into English. The court translator? I don’t know what I thought one would look like, but this apple-crisp woman was not it. She repeated in Spanish without inflection or emotion the judge’s observations that all the required documents from his years working in California had been submitted, showed no infractions, that, on review, he was properly licensed. The judge paused and reflected for a moment, leafing through the papers. The room was absolutely silent. The judge tapped the end of his pen on his desk, leaned back in his swivel chair, looked directly at the man before him. “Case dismissed.” The Mexican man did not move. The translator repeated what the judge had said. “Case dismissed.”
The man, his cap in his hands held against his waist, respectfully bowed his head. “Gracias.”
I couldn’t restrain myself. I yelled out “Bravo!” as he walked out of the courtroom. My faith in the order of things, the possibility of happy outcomes, not just for the entitled but for Everyman, had been restored; the perfection of life’s theater, the cautionary tales and parables every moment affords. “Order in the court!” reprimanded the judge. “Next defendant: Ellen Waterston. Please approach the bench.” My fine was reduced. I drove back to Bend slowly, much more slowly, and richer, far richer.
Ellen Waterston lives in Bend. This essay is part of a collection, Where the Crooked River Rises, to be published by Oregon State University Press later this year. Waterston has also written Then There Was No Mountain, a memoir, and two books of poetry, Between Desert Seasons and I Am Madagascar, the winner of the Willa Prize in Poetry in 2005. She was the winner of the 2008 Oregon Quarterly Northwest Perspectives Essay Contest.
