Billy Jack Hurley, the Letter A, and the Vernal Equinox - A Story About What Lies Below the Ink

One week prior to his felony criminal trial by jury, with yours truly at the antithesis end of the adversarial helm of the dialectical equation, my client, the "defendant," Billy Jack Hurley, decides he'd get himself a face tattoo, obvioulsy without consulting the undersigned. Right there above his now spectacularly prominent left cheekbone, for the world to see, twelve and two alternates at a time. Goddammit, Billy, what the hell is that?! He had showed up at the office, grinning, no upper eye teeth, as if proud of the logo. My criticizm continued until I opted to slowly withdraw the vicious critique in inverse unison with his evaporating, pre-critique grin, and, in its place, an emerging and violent grimace of a face that could forecast with dead accuracy the impending violent foray of an occasionally dangerous and very unpredictable man with a girthy criminal record. In short, you don't want to have to fight this dude. The biohazard alone is sufficient deterrence for the undersigned. So, the subect of the tattoo was over, at the time of his taciturn choosing. Until . . . . Fast foward to Sunday: After we worked his case out on Friday afternoon on objectively favorable terms, I called his mother, Barbara, to report the result. Five of six felony presentments dismissed. I had already decided to invest some time with her because the case was a six count heroin, meth, Xanax, weed, school zone presentment, plus I knew invariably that the discussion would lead to the subject of cultural aftercare (probation/parole), and medical aftercare: mental health/substance abuse countermeasures. A path I've travelled well. During the conversation with Barbara, the tattoo story came up. The frustration with my own client potentially fucking up my case with a face tattoo one week prior to jury selection had waned and had taken on a comedic yarn of its own. After I recounted it with Barbara as some kind of comic relief (deep down, Barbara knows her son is 90% unlikely to ever get sober, which will mean that his life will be primarily lived in custody), she started discussing, on a "granular" level, the tattoo itself. At that point I remembered that I had gotten a chance to get within a foot or so of it on Friday afternoon as I was representing Billy in court. I had noticed how intricate the ink was, as if from the provenance of some kind of Asian aesthetic symbol with very intricate lines. So, I interrupted to tell Barbara how attractive it actually is, and then asked her if it was prison issue. She told me, "no, Paul," that Billy had it done freeworld (on bond). "It's the initial of his son's first name. The letter A." Now to the point of the story. As it turns out, Billy got the tattoo, not as a "fuck you" to the Third Judicial District of Tennessee, as I immediately concluded one week prior to trial, and not even as the primary, otherwise noble way of honoring his son, but to cancel two institutionally inked teardrops, from an earlier time. I had totally forgotten that Billy had a double teardrop emerging from his left eye. I've seen so many of these that they just don't affect me anymore. And now that I recall it, and further recall telling Billy that he would need to consult with my associate, Maybelline, on the morning of trial for a proper redactyl, the ephipany is revealed: Billy had decided to cover the tear drops (with their mostly faux-deadly criptique message to other inmates), with, well, something simply better. And he created a duality of purpose by using the opportunity to literally overwrite his shortcomings, and thus pay a little more attention to his son, who is being raised in the elsewhere by someone else. As it turned out, there was much, much more to the story of the pretrial face tattoo. I'm so heartened that I had the time to just listen to it. Today is the vernal equinox. Symbolic of rebirth, sobriety. To you, Billy Jack Hurley (pseudonym), I utter the word, "Godspeed." Billy. You're going to need it. And here's to the letter, A, and the little boy who inspired it, whomever and wherever he may be.