Don Brown

Don Brown is dead. Dead and gone and buried today. To say he was a grumpy old fart would not be accurate. If you only knew Don Brown and had no concept of what a fart was, you would think farts are not at all pleasant, which, of course, they can be. Dexter Patterson is a grumpy old fart. Not Don Brown. He was irascible and misanthropic. Sly like a fox. Qualities which I personally find endearing, but I didn't necessarily want to talk to him. When I saw this icon of a bygone era in the courtroom, I wanted to run and hide out of fear.

By the time I came to Conroe, he was already on the decline. But he still beat me like a drum in trial. It was an unlawful carrying of a firearm case. The guy was driving in his car with a handgun in the door pocket. In my mind at the time, my youthful, cocky, "we live in the Heights, recycle our trash, don't own guns and never will" mind, the case was clear cut. The guy was guilty. We set out to pick a jury. Don walked in at the last minute, wearing a light blue, suede, nubuck- style jacket with gold cording on the shoulders and lighter shade of blue Wrangler dress pants and, of course, cowboy boots. His white hair was slicked back. I watched the panel of potential jurors as they watched him. Regular good folks, the kind of people that our current commander in chief thinks cling to their guns and religion. It was like John Wayne had walked in the courtroom. And there I was. Twenty-something in my Ann Taylor belted suit. Mercifully, I knew enough to to think "oh shit, this ain't good."

I can't remember if he called me Stella or Miss Stevens, but when he talked he spoke with that peculiar East Texas accent that you don't hear too much nowadays, in an age where everyone is from nowhere. Regardless, it sounded snidely and condescending. Of course, addressing me by my Christian name only occurred when we were conferencing with the judge, to the jury I was the government's attorney. I was the government trying to take their guns away. The defendant was traveling (funny how he never mentioned that to the cop-- see how I am still a sore loser?) and it was his God-given right to have a gun in his car to protect himself if the need should arise. It would be a stretch to say the jury deliberated for10 minutes, because I could hear a lot of toilet flushing going on in the jury room and afterwards, they did not want to talk to me, just to the old gun-slinger, the meaner, crankier, wrinklier, Western version of Matlock.

My only consolation was that a few months later, my friend beat him in a DWI case. She did it with grace and charm, qualities that will get you a long way with a jury when your opponent is as mean as a put-upon rattlesnake. After the guilty verdict, she very sweetly asked the jury for the maximum punishment and got it-- minus about 10 days. After that trial, Mr. Brown called her "Maxumiiiiime -Caru-liiiine." And for years after, on a regular basis brought her huge sacks of candy.

He had a stroke. And he was on death's door, or so we were told by his putative son. But he came back. His skin was green, his nails were yellow, but he was back dammit. And I loved him for it. And a couple of years later he had another stroke. And again we were told, this is it, he won't make it. But he did and a month later was back in the saddle, maybe a little lopsided, but back in the saddle.

And so after the second stroke I just assumed he wasn't going to die, like my mom says "cosa mala nunca muere."

He wasn't mala, not really, not by a long shot-- just a cantankerous old fart, okay, maybe a sour, cantankerous old fart, with my apologies to Mister Patterson and the fart.