Archives for December, 2010

The other day I felt hungry for the sun. A sudden spasm of need around the emptiness in my belly.

Larry and Catherine have separated and are now battling for custody of their two children, Taylor and Brandon. Catherine is now living with Sam, Larry’s former friend and current coworker. Larry now lives with Sandra.
These are some selections from how Justice Quinn, of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, decided their case.

Bruni v. Bruni, 2010 ONSC 6568

[1] Paging Dr. Freud. Paging Dr. Freud.

[18] Larry gave evidence that, less than one month later, Catherine, “Tried to run me over with her van.” [Footnote 6: This is always a telltale sign that a husband and wife are drifting apart.]

[19] On November 21, 2006, Catherine demanded $400 from Larry or her brother was “going to get the Hells Angels after me.” [Footnote 7: The courtroom energy level in a custody/access dispute spikes quickly when there is evidence that one of the parents has a Hells Angels branch in her family tree. Certainly, my posture improved. Catherine’s niece is engaged to a member of the Hells Angels. I take judicial notice of the fact that the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club is a criminal organization (and of the fact that the niece has made a poor choice).]

[23] On October 18, 2007, a nautical theme was added. According to Larry: “Donna Taylor, Catherine’s sister-in-law, yelled out her window that I was going to be floating in the canal dead.”

[24] As can be seen, Catherine and her relatives are one-dimensional problem solvers.

[70] On fourteen occasions, within eighteen months, the parties drew the police into their petty disagreements – a sad commentary on their inability to get along and a shocking abuse of the Niagara Regional Police Service. Although this statistic probably sums up all that one needs to know about the parties, I will elaborate for the doubters.

[71] Larry, who regularly drives by the residence of Sam and Catherine, “often shoots the finger”[21] at Sam and, on about three occasions, has yelled: “Jackass, loser.” [Footnote 22: When the operator of a motor vehicle yells “jackass” at a pedestrian, the jackassedness of the former has been proved, but, at that point, it is only an allegation as against the latter.]

[73] On August 14, 2007, Larry sent three text messages[23] to Catherine within a space of four minutes, saying: “The game is just starting. Prepare yourself for a long winding road”; “Busted! Always look in your rear view mirror”; and, “Blood isn’t always thicker than water.” Two days later he texted: “Loser! Home-wrecker!” [Footnote 24: These do not strike me as the statements of someone who is concerned about precipitating a Hells Angels house call.]

[78] I find that Sandra does not exert a positive gravitational pull in this dysfunctional family constellation.

[82] Sandra testified that Catherine “gave me the finger while driving on Bunting Road.” [Footnote 28: I am uncertain whether this would be considered a hand-held communication device, now illegal while operating a motor vehicle, under recent amendments to the Highway Traffic Act.]

[85] Sam’s attitude toward Larry undoubtedly has been influenced by Catherine, as Sam has been dining at her table of hatred for more than three years; however, this explains, but does not excuse, his deplorable conduct.

[90] On another occasion in July of 2009, Larry said to Taylor: “You put shit in this hand and shit in this hand, smack it together, what do you get? Taylor.” [Footnote 30: I gather that this is Larry’s version of the Big Bang Theory.]

[91] It is to be remembered that, following separation, Larry was confronted with an angry, hurt, confused and rebellious daughter who had been receiving advanced animosity-tutoring from Catherine. [...] Given Larry’s near-empty parenting toolbox, it is not surprising that he handled the matter awkwardly.

[137] A brief recap is in order: Catherine rejected the advice and recommendations of Niagara Family and Children’s Services, Ms. Katz and Mr. Leduc; she ignored my several protestations during the pre-hiatus part of the trial during which I was critical of how the parties spoke of each other in the presence of the children; she disregarded my order that she and Larry were not to denigrate each other in the presence of the children during the hiatus; and, she participated in three court-recommended counselling sessions. After all of that she, nevertheless, sent the text message. Now, in the witness box, she purports to be bathed in the light of repentance and reason. I think not.

[158] I come now to the issue of spousal support, historically the roulette of family law (blindfolds, darts and Ouija boards being optional).

Footnotes:

[2] At one point in the trial, I asked Catherine: “If you could push a button and make Larry disappear from the face of the earth, would you push it?” Her I-just-won-a-lottery smile implied the answer that I expected.

[3] I am prepared to certify a class action for the return of all wedding gifts.

[9] Donna is a devotee of the literary device known as, “repetition for emphasis.” I do not know whether Donna is the niece who is engaged to the Hells Angels member. If she is, they may be more compatible than I initially surmised.

[26] The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines “dickhead” as “a stupid person.” That would not have been my first guess.

[33] I do not know why courts find it necessary to alter the meaning of words. One would think that if the legislators had intended “shocking” they would have used “shocking.”

I’m grateful for hope.

The other thing would be patience.

A couple of years ago, I used to think a lot about the notion of grace — or thought a lot about the word, would latch onto it when I saw it in novels or in theory, and would turn it over and over in my head, listening for the curve of its smooth edges. It’s a beautiful word, and speaks to a beautiful possibility, and my obsession with it emerged from a self-consciousness around my own clumsiness around hearts and other tangibles.

It’s a beautiful notion, and impossible.

These last few months, something about Vancouver and the people I have met here, has started me thinking about generosity. I am a slow learner, unable to learn by rote what others seem to know intuitively. But even I couldn’t fail to learn by accident the capacity people have to give.

It occurred to me this morning, on an interminable and heartstoppingly cold subway ride, that this new thing I’ve learned is one small piece in that old puzzle, that if I can be generous in motion and energy, maybe I’ll stop walking into walls and hurts too. A minor epiphany to have at my age, but I didn’t know this at this time last year. Small steps, stumbling.

“I must go back briefly to a place I have loved
to tell you those you will efface I have loved.”
– Agha Shahid Ali

All my exams are at 9AM and on a good day my commute is an hour long. All my exams are open-book and on a good day my notes are compiled for printing a whole sleep before.

So this last week has found me pulling all-nighters many months after my body had finally learned to forget 5AM bedtimes and replace them with a circadian pattern to rival any senior’s. Printing my notes in time for the finals means heading bleary-eyed and headaching to the 24hr smokestore some blocks down the street well before sunrise, pausing at the intersection 2 doors before its grated entrance to fill myself in the dark on the unbelievable smell of bread from the still-locked Korean bakery. In the store’s backroom, there are 6 computers hooked up to a printer.

The first predawn morning, I am the only person at the computers. I stumble through the counting of sheets and then their stapling and outside into the rain, where I wait for the bus, feeling Vancouver’s winter seep up the cracks in my shoes and through my socks to my toes.

The second morning, 24 hours later, there is an elderly man at the computer I’d mentally assigned to myself and he is playing Farmville, whitehaired and bearded, with veins wrapped vine-like over his hands and up his arms. With headphones in, he is deaf to me and does not look up when I enter or as I exit.

My third morning, the following weekday, someone has changed the wallpaper on the computer to an okaycupid heart and left open a browser window on a site devoted to sharing newborn pictures with friends and family. The baby looks like the oldest of bald old men. She is a girl, and though I can’t see them, but the description says her eyes are blue.

Every morning, the cashier is a young brown man with an Indian accent, dark skin and poorly cut hair, a thin mouth and sharp cheekbones. The second day he tells me he is doing his MBA at UBC. He does the night shift to fit in time for school. I look confused, and he explains his shift ends at 7AM, but his partner is always late. Today, the printer malfunctioned and printed out 10 more copies than I needed of a 12-page summary. The sheaf of papers lies sharp inside my hands and leaves slick plastic residue on my fingers. He has me pay for 8 sheets and then tells me to take all others too “so my boss doesn’t see.”

I am much too sick to be writing this exam.

By 2.30PM, the sky and all the water it can hold has blotted out the sun. I’m on my way to whichever coffeeshop is closest, and I walk by a man in knee-high gumboots with a windbreaker hooding his eyes, canopied by the world’s largest umbrella. December is a month of questionable virtue, and I cannot bring myself to tie my shoelaces. They drag grey through the puddles and over the sodden concrete.

I’m in school. It is December. This is finals season. I have 4 exams and 3 papers to complete over the course of the next 2 weeks.
Next week, I’m going to be sitting in on the Polygamy Reference case happening here in BC; my legal mentor (of West Coast LEAF) is intervening. Last night, I put together a national listserv for progressive law students and junior lawyers in Canada; I spent much of today stemming the flow of emails that flooded my inbox. Last week, I was part of a demonstration outside Citizenship and Immigration Canada in downtown Vancouver calling for the release of the MV Sun Sea refugees, over 400 of whom are still in jail three months after being detained upon arrival, including mothers and children (more on that day in another post). By next week, I will have had to have sent out a nauseating number of resumes and applications if I intend to secure a summer law job in Toronto. My Directed Research Project next semester, which will be supervised by my Law & Religion professor to whom I owe the 3 papers, is a photoshoot about the culture of law schools, but I’ve fallen out of touch with my camera.

It’s finals season. There are a million things about the law I need to learn, and very little of it will be relevant for the purposes of law school exams and essays. But things are interesting, and I’m grateful.