2021 Fiction Competition Winner: Recusal
| Publication year | 2021 |
| Pages | 0026 |
| Citation | Vol. 26 No. 6 Pg. 0026 |
The Editorial Board of the Georgia Bar Journal is proud to present "Recusal," by Paul E. Franz of Roswell, as the winner of the Journal's 30th Annual Fiction Writing Competition.
BY PAUL E. FRANZ
The purposes of the Fiction Writing Competition are to enhance interest in the Journal, to encourage excellence in writing by members of the Bar and to provide an innovative vehicle for the illustration of the life and work of lawyers. As in years past, this year's entries reflected a wide range of topics and literary styles. In accordance with the competition's rules, the Editorial Board selected the winning story through a process of reading each story without knowledge of the author's identity and then scoring each entry. The story with the highest cumulative score was selected as the winner. The Editorial Board congratulates Franz and all of the other entrants for their participation and excellent writing.
I remember very little of Macon, Georgia, the city where I was born and spent my first nine years. I do remember our house was a modest two-story home with a screened-in porch overlooking a small front yard with a large white oak tree. In the summertime, my mother would sit in a chair on the porch, waiting for my father to return from work, and I would sit in the shade of the oak, whittling twigs down to nothing with a small folding pocket knife that I still carry.
I also remember the Ocmulgee River and skipping rocks across its lazy surface. Five, six, seven skips, the distances between splashes growing shorter after each skip until, finally, the river claimed my rock. I listened to the cicadas as I watched the expanding wavelets from the splashes disappear. The sounds of the cicadas, the splashes and the voices of friends forgotten counting the skips were all a symphony to the young boy I once was. I have never been back to the banks of the Ocmulgee River, but I carry that little piece of shoreline and water with me. Any place that touches you enough to gain a memory stays with you.
My father was also born in Macon. He left Macon twice: the first time to go to college and then to law school, and the second time to move to North Dakota. He returned from law school to work as a prosecutor, a position he held for five years before opening his own practice as a defense attorney in the early '60s. He never returned to Macon after we moved to North Dakota in 1969, nor did he ever return to the South or practice law again.
My father never discussed his work with me; I knew he was a lawyer and that he had trials, during which he would not return home until late in the evening and would be gone by the time I came downstairs for breakfast the following morning. He usually appeared to be very happy for a time immediately after each one concluded. Sometimes, after a trial, he would come home late in the evening smelling of cigar smoke and alcohol, and he would regale my mother by retelling certain examinations of witnesses that he or one of his partners conducted. That man in Macon I remember as not just my father but as some confident giant, his
A few days after my father's strange display of diffidence and frailty, I noticed something quite unusual in the study. The distinctive red picture frame sat on his desk. I walked into his study and lifted the frame for a closer look.
presence amplified by frenetic gestures as he recapitulated in his deep, earthy voice the cross-examination of some witness.
Several months before we moved north, I came into the dining room to find my father sitting at the table, leaning forward, his forehead resting on his clasped hands. On the table was an open box with a red picture frame and an envelope. A sheet of green paper marked by neat cursive writing extended from the envelope. The picture frame lay face down on the table. My mother sat beside my father, her hand resting on his back and moving slowly in a circle.
"Oh, Samuel," she said. Her voice was soft and flowing, and even though her words were not meant for me to hear, they still touched me like a warm, gentle wind. My father was a tall, broad man, but as he sat there, hunched over, receiving her caress, he seemed so much smaller than my mother.
She looked to me as I stood in the doorway, and she slowly shook her head "no." She was asking me to leave the room. There was a softness in her eyes that one might perceive as sadness, but that would have been a mistake. It was kindness, the type of kindness that one offers not for comfort but to bear another's burden.
I went outside. It was a hot June day, as was normal in Macon that time of year, but nothing seemed in place. My father had always been confident and self-assured, and the only time my mother used such a consoling voice was during my own childhood moments of despair. Confused, I walked down to the river and skipped rocks.
When I returned home, my parents were sitting close together on the porch. I took my usual spot beneath the white oak and found a freshly fallen twig to whittle. The air was still, and the cicadas were quiet that evening. My parents spoke in muted voices, my father occasionally punctuating their collective murmurs with sudden intonations evocative of both grief and doubt in a voice that no longer rolled like some faint thunder but instead seemed timid and reedy in half-whispers. Looking back on it now, it was as though my father was revealing to my mother vulnerabilities and insecurities he'd kept hidden for some time.
My father had a small study in the house. In it was an office desk and several bookshelves that held books of little interest to a 9-year-old boy-legal texts and a few novels. He would often sit at his desk with an open legal text and a pencil, methodically marking some brief or memo. His office was otherwise spartan; no pictures hung from the wall, and no knick-knacks or paperweights littered his desk or bookshelves. It was a place to read or write without distraction.
A few days after my father's strange display of diffidence and frailty, I noticed something quite unusual in the study. The distinctive red picture frame sat on his desk. I walked into his study and lifted the frame for a closer look.
In the frame was a black and white portrait photo of a very young black man. He was wearing a suit with a white shirt and thin tie. It was the kind of photo one might find in a high school yearbook. The lighting cast a slight shadow beneath the man's chin. He was thin and his hair was neatly cropped short, as was the style of that time. His eyes seemed alert, almost accusatory, but in a friendly way. His lips were slightly parted, as though when the camera shutter closed, he was just starting to form the first of many words. There was an easy confidence in this young man's expression that impressed me.
I stared at the photo for a minute or so and then carefully placed the frame back down into the same position on my father's desk. Why did my father choose to have this man's photo in his study, in favor of a photo of his wife or son? My thoughts were fueled not by jealously but by curiosity. I thought of asking my parents about the photograph, but then I recalled its dubious provenance. The image of my father resting his head against his clasped hands and my mother showing him a tenderness that I had never imagined a man such as my father could ever want to receive or need, instilled within me a reticence that overcame my curiosity.
A few months later, my parents called me into the kitchen. They were both sitting at the table, and they asked me to sit down. I sensed that no matter what my parents were about to tell me, I was not going to like it. Their announcement, however, was beyond even the boundaries of a young boy's imagination.
"We're moving to North Dakota," my father said. He spoke slowly, his voice flat. His eyes were slightly bloodshot. He explained that he had decided to become an English teacher, and he had a position in a small town near the Canadian border.
"North Dakota?" I asked.
He looked at me for some time, silent. My mother sat beside him at the table. Her right hand rested on his forearm and her thumb slowly and gently moved across his skin.
"I don't expect you to understand," he said, finally. "We just decided it was best if I had a new job." In his eyes, I could see the desperation. I was only nine, but I knew that this man needed me to agree and to forgive him. It was the first time I thought of my father as weak, and for making me think of him that way, I became angry.
"This is stupid!" I yelled. "I don't want to go!"
"We ... I need a new start. I'm sorry," my father said. Then his voice changed, and he spoke with finality. "We're moving in two weeks. Take that time to say goodbye to your friends."
He stood up and walked out of the kitchen, leaving me with my mother. "It needs to be this way," she said.
My parents purchased a small hobby farm several miles outside of the small town of Rolla, North Dakota, where my father would begin teaching English in the fall. Moving from the Macon, Georgia area to a farmstead with a barn and Quonset was not as traumatic as I feared. The farmstead was mostly wooded, unlike the endless wheat fields that covered most of the northern part of the state, and there were plenty of places for a young boy to explore. A local farmer grew durum wheat in the massive fields surrounding the small farm.
It was the elasticity of youth and my Southern accent that spared me of loneliness and despair. Despite my new hometown having a population of fewer than 1,500 people and my fourth-grade class having only 29 students, I made many friends. My fellow students found my accent fascinating. I missed my friends in Macon, but soon, their names evoked in my memory only faces faded into muted apparitions.
Even...
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