Jones V God, Def.

No one was surprised when Orion Jones filed a lawsuit against God in the Clay County Courthouse. Shook their head, yes, but not in surprise. As a lawyer, Orion Jones tended to pick up the quixotic cases. Meaning, he would have represented the windmills in seeking damages from their delusional assailant. He collected losses like stamps, but the poor and downtrodden still came to him for two reasons. One, he had once secured a $106,000,000.00 dollar settlement from the Benton Williams Coal Mines a few counties over. As a side hustle, B&W had begun storing dangerous chemicals and radioactive waste down some of their abandoned shafts. After three dogged years of investigation, affidavits, and threats against his life he brought the hammer down on the company and the local economy. Two, and more importantly, he believed in his clients. Even when he knew they were lying.

In the end, it all came down to the contract. Rather, one particular clause. He wrote it up towards the end of the trial against B&W’s executives. Executives who, it must be said, had looked quite presentable and approachable in their new suits sourced from the local tailor, Sears. Their own well dressed lawyers having recommended they leave the Vanquish and Armani at home. Orion’s suit, one of three he owned, all over a decade old, held up poorly against his stress and sweat. His prematurely graying hair was also on the losing side of the battle. Seeing the darkening pools, hearing the stutter in Orion’s voice, the presiding judge granted a recess until the morning to collect himself.

In a nearby conference room, Orion got on his hands and knees at the edge of the table where he had laid out three sharpened pencils and a yellow legal pad. Those approachable executives had, through an unrelated third party brought in from another state, offered him millions to walk away. Or, not only would he lose the trial, but his wife in some horrible fashion that they would leave up to his imagination. Instead of bargaining with the devils in the other room, he made a deal with God. Scribbling furiously across his pad, he agreed that in exchange for doing the right thing and putting his love’s life on the line (a move God had seen fit to use himself from time to time), God would provide him the inspiration and fortitude he needed to win and bring justice to the community. As was often the case, it was not a lack of evidence, but a lack of judicial scruples that had kept this from being an open and shut case. In addition to justice, he would win enough to let him and his wife lead a nice, if austere life of helping others after he donated most of his fee to a local, non-denominational shelter. Orion did not presume to pick which of the local churches may have been God’s favorite. Finally, the money must be enough to care of his wife’s basic needs after he passed away. Because he would die first. Sooner, admittedly not his preference, or later did not matter. But first. That was an ironclad provision.

In an unsurprising twist, Adrian Jones, nee Hopper, had grown up in Benton County and lived most of her life there until she made it to IU on an art scholarship. Maybe it was a little unfair to expect God to keep her alive when so many men, in the name of profits, had done their best to kill her and everyone she knew. But, the contract was written and signed in ballpoint blue. Soon after, the lawsuit was won, justice was done, checks were written, and apologies scripted.

For Orion and Adrian, the nearly ten years that followed were filled with evenings of him poring over files when he could tear himself away from watching her sculpt, crochet, cook, or paint. Whatever brought her joy in that moment filled his heart, too. They wanted for little and had little, but God had kept his end of the bargain. In all that time, Orion never once wished he had asked for more. When they started spending their evenings in the hospital, he made other wishes, wrote out new contracts that God seemed intent on ignoring. In the end, he put away his files to hold her hands that struggled to find the energy to write unfinished poems or toss out half done illustrations.

At the funeral, family and friends sketched out her life in moments and spoke in free verse on the joy and love she had engraved on their hearts. Over and over, they said how much she had adored Orion, a match made in heaven. When Orion stood up at the lectern, he smiled at his wife. All the pain she’d endured, still etched into the lines of his own face, had been erased along with the vitality that had lifted him to the sky when he’d seen her across campus the first time. He pulled out the contract and read the relevant clause. Then he promised her he would do what she had always encouraged, fight for the little guy. Even if he was the little guy.

After a thrilling game of legal hot potato, Judge Emmanuel Torrance caught the case, ostensibly because Judge Ammon had been lucky enough to come down with a nasty flu and prostate cancer (just stage one). As any god fearing man, he was wont to toss the case out for lack of standing. Who could stand against God, after all? He let it go forward for two reasons. One, he knew Orion Jones to be a contract virtuoso. And two, as a widower himself, he knew what grief could do to a man.

On the appointed date the courtroom was nearly empty. Judge Torrance sat at his lacquered bench, the bailiff stood stoically to his right while the stenographer clacked away to the left. Against the wishes of the fourth estate, Judge Torrance would not let any reporter in to cover the pain and sorrow of a man he’d known for decades. Pencil and pad in hand, the courtroom artist sat in the gallery and began an outline of the empty scene. When he started in on Orion, he sent up a prayer to Adrian for forgiveness. In all media, she had been the master of this particular subject, and he doubted he could bring him to life as she had.

Orion made his opening arguments. There was no one there to defend God. Maybe everyone thought he could do it Himself. Or just hoped that He would. As He made no appearance, He was tried in absentia as all gods are. Orion submitted affidavits from half a dozen priests. Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans and more that everything is done according to God’s plan. Ergo, insurance adjustors could hide behind an act of God, but God could not. Orion had attempted to serve a summons on Jesus, whom he thought would have pertinent information. To that effect, he had gone to a local bible study, where far more than two or three had gathered in his name. Jesus chose to duck the opportunity to make his return and the pastor did not think he had the right to accept the summons on the lord’s behalf.

Judge Torrance inquired about the contract itself. Orion had signed it, but God had not. The plaintiff argued that God rarely signed documents, choosing instead to make promises, sometimes punctuated with natural phenomena, i.e. rainbows and burning bushes. He did grudgingly admit that neither of those had occurred or anything of the like. Also, he reminded the judge that as long as the actions and intentions of the parties involved align with what was agreed on, then the contract was valid.

This led the adjudicator down a path of other questions. How can you know God’s intention? Maybe his intention was to give you only part of what you wanted. Orion reminded him that if parties act as if some terms applied, then all terms apply. His wife should still be alive or, if not, then he should not be there to argue his case. Was it notarized? Yes, Orion said, Judy Wilkins down at the library was kind enough. The atheist? Orion felt she would be more impartial than her sister Rachel at Third Methodist on 5th St. And she gave him a discount.

The time for closing arguments arrived. Orion chuckled and told the court he was as surprised as anyone else to be here, because it was Adrian that had brought him back to God. Sure, he’d believed as a child, just as much as he’d believed in Santa Claus. Maybe a little less. As he’d grown , the rainbow colored glasses he’d worn cleared up. He started to see how people really were underneath their Sunday best. So, he set God aside for the law. Another fickle master, to be sure, but easier to understand and more amenable to change. Then he met Adrian. She would always thank God for how well her day went, even when it was just so-so, and for her art. Now Orion didn’t want to give God any credit for the beauty that came from her tender hands. But Adrian would just tell him that everything she made was because of the beauty, love, and fear that she saw all around her. She didn’t make it. Orion hadn’t made it. No one she knew had made it. It must have come from God. Now, as an attorney, Orion felt there were a lot of holes to this argument. As someone who loved Adrian with every cell of his body, he found he could be grateful to a God that had seen fit to bring the universe to a point where she was the result. That is what made this breach so egregious. For the creator to have struck out this piece of art, erased her ahead of her time, well that was just not right. If God had seen fit to strike him with lightning, set him aflame in some ten car pile-up on Highway 41, or dropped a piano on his head, he would have considered the contract met. But he had not.

Despite all of that, Orion told the court he bore no animosity towards God, but felt a duty to ensure that He understood there would be consequences for breaking a contract. A contract is just a promise enforceable by law and if we are to trust in God as the money backed by the full faith and government of the United State of America extolls us to, then we must hold Him accountable.

The Judge called for an adjournment with a quiet strike of his gavel. He retreated to his chambers. Orion gathered up his papers, shook the hand of the bailiff, gave a nod to the stenographer and snuck a peek at the courtroom artist’s sketch. He was no Adrian, but she would have been proud of the attempt. Mulling things over the last half of a tuna sandwich, Judge Torrance called Ammon and told him to get over his flu, put the cancer on hold, and handle his cases for the rest of the week. He went off to his lake home and sat out on the water in his little tin rowboat. Who was he to hold God accountable for anything? Would it matter if he did? He thought of Orion, how he’d said he held no animosity. He’d had plenty when his Janet had died. The anger at God’s Plan. Six years on and he still felt the rage emanate from him, swore he could see it rippling out across the water. Was that why he had chosen to hear the case and not just throw it out? Was it just some petty way to get back at God? Or was a contract a contract? To their chagrin, the fish he caught had no answer and so into the cooler they went.

Upon his return, Orion, the bailiff, the stenographer, and the artist congregated in the courtroom. Judge Torrance, at some length, gave a sermon on the law and accountability, reversing course enough times to wear out the stenographers fingers. Orion sat up straight in relaxed reverence knowing the meandering would come to an end in one of two places. The judge’s voice cracked and cried for water, but he felt this was a time for self flagellation, so he powered on while the bailiff looked longingly at the door, salivating over the sandwich waiting for him. As long as he could get to it before Bailiff Wilford. Finally, weakened by thirst, Judge Torrance pronounced his verdict.

He found in favor of the plaintiff, Orion Jones, for if God was not meant to keep his promises, how could such a lowly thing as man be expected to keep his? Orion thanked the judge, who said he would need some time think of just recompense, though he would take any recommendations. Orion shook his head. For while God has everything, he also has nothing and Orion was not a vengeful or spiteful man. The judge breathed a sigh of relief and hurried home to cook up some of those fish from the lake.

Storm clouds gathered over Union Hill Cemetery, where Orion sat on a small bench near his wife’s gravestone, adorned with a fresh bouquet of daffodils and wild bluebeard. He told her about the next case he was considering. Miles Harry wanted to sue the aliens that had abducted him, but wasn’t sure how best to proceed. Out of his briefcase, he took one of the sketches from the trial and pointed to a flash of light the young man had seen fit to include. Orion was sure it was Adrian, and thought she looked wonderful. As he wiped away a tear, a whip of lightning struck a bush nearby, setting it ablaze. Orion looked into the flames, ancient but new, and ruminated on how we are all connected by the fire. In the end all living things have the potential to burn. We can all be the light.

After a few moments he said, “Of course you can appeal.”

Buckets of rain poured down over him and the bush, soaking him to the bone. Smoke from the bush curled his nostrils. Orion felt sorry for the messenger. High above, a rainbow thick and vibrant enough to make you believe in pots of gold or celestial promises arced across the blue sky. Orion blew a kiss to his wife and walked home, looking forward to his next day in court.