Chapter 16

Paul’s turn:

Heart Attack City. Life with Barb does have the benefit of encouraging exercise, and not just THAT kind of exercise. That’s a good thing because while I was waiting for Barb to do the testing, my phone rang. I looked. Hank. Barb’s grandfather.

“Hi, Hank. What’s up?”

“Today’s Barb’s SAT, correct?”

“Yessir. I’m doing a few errands while I’m waiting for her to call me.”

“Figured as much. Can you two come over for a visit? We have somebody who wishes to talk with you.”

“Certainly. Who?”

“Retired judge. We’ve been talking with him about your situation, your legal situation.”

“Hank, I hope you’re not opening up a can of worms.”

“Paul, c’mon ... I’m no fool. We were playing bridge. Conversational level, not that cut-throat, win at all costs, game that we get into sometimes. We were talking about work history and him being a judge AND a lawyer, he likes to talk and he has a lot of stories. One of ‘em was about a young girl, fifteen, and a forty year old engineer. Her family was out of the picture, they were in love. He fixed it. They’re married. Been married. Children.”

“Really?”

“Yes, son. Really. I mentioned that we know of a similar situation.”

“And?”

“He wants to talk with us. Swears that he won’t make things worse. Might just fix them. But Paul, I need your word – you and our Barb – forever thing?”

“Sir, you watched me. You watched us. You’ve seen the two of us together for a couple of months. That’s our Barb. I wouldn’t have gotten close to her at all except I never got that ‘standard teen girl’ vibe from her. Not from the first day. Not this morning when I dropped her off at the high school. She’s my LIFE. Dammit, Hank, I know guys aren’t supposed to be that way about women, but seriously, when Barb walked into my life, she’s IT. I can’t imagine what came before.”

“Paul, we believe you. What’s Barb say?”

“That we share a circulatory system.”

“Sounds like Barb. So, you two come visit. Talk with the judge.”

“We’ll do that, Hank. I hope you’re right. I don’t relish jail, and I’d kill myself trying to take care of Barb.”

“I believe you. See you this afternoon.”

I was at the library entertaining myself with magazines I seldom see. Phone buzzed my hip. It’s on ‘silent’. Library, right?

I look. Text from the love of my life. “Done. See you in the pickup lane.”

Ten minutes later she hopped into the passenger seat of my truck.

“Well?” I asked.

“I thought those sample tests were a scam, you know, to get you to buy into one of those SAT prep programs.”

“And you now believe differently?”

“I thought it was a bit on the easy side. Just didn’t feel like an exercise that determines the arc of one’s future life.”

“Speaking of ‘future life’, mine, possibly behind bars, your grandparents have befriended a judge and he wants to talk with us.”

“Okay...”

“A JUDGE, baby ... why are you not surprised?”

“‘Cuz I kinda knew...”

“You knew what?”

“Gramma told me about this friend of theirs who’s a retired judge. She said he likes telling stories and one of his stories including waiving age restrictions so that a young girl could be married to her guy who was an engineer twenty-odd years older than her.” She sighed, continuing, “ ... and they’re STILL together, got a kid, she’s an engineer with a doctorate and they come visit him from time to time.”

“Seriously?”

“Apparently. So when Gramma heard the story she asked some questions then sort of let the cat out of the bag about me and you.”

“They want to talk with us. You could’ve told me. Why didn’t you?”

“Because you’re already nervous and I didn’t want to get a postcard from Brazil.”

“Barb, I will never leave you. The cops would have to drag me off in cuffs, but I’d be there with you until they did.”

“This judge might be able to fix that.”

“The judge is an officer of the court and could have me arrested on the spot.”

“Gramma says he’s sympathetic. Relax. You and me, okay? GOOD things happen to us.” She reached over and touched my arm. “We’ll be okay. Probably BETTER!”

I was STILL apprehensive.

She, on the other hand, seems EXCITED.

We showed up, Barb having notified them of our pending arrival.

Hank answered the door, letting us into the living room where we found Beck and another lady and a gentleman who appeared to be a few years older than Hank.

“Paul, meet James Lanford, retired judge. James, Paul Richard. And...”

James’s face brightened. “Oh, yes, I remember you. I spoke to your class last year about the law and the Constitution.”

“Yessir,” Barb replied brightly. “I remember very well.”

“Sit,” Beck inserted. We were introduced to James’s wife, sat together on the fortuitously named ‘love seat’.

“Your grandparents tell me we have a situation,” James said to Barb. He looked at me. “They say YOU, Mister Richard, are an honorable man.”

“I try to be, sir,” I replied. “Sometimes life throws puzzles into the game, though.”

He smiled. “Like Barb, the fourteen year old redheaded muse?”

“I’m his muse,” Barb popped. “He’s mine. He’s a published author. My first book is about eighty percent complete and a publisher is looking upon me favorably.” Sweet smile. “And since I introduced myself to him, I try to be more of an asset than an impediment.”

We talked. The judge – I wanna think of him as ‘James’, but I recognize the difference – questioned the two of us, carefully skirting any discussion of the level of intimacy in our relationship.

“And now you’re looking at a job in West Texas?”

“Yessir,” I answered. “A few weeks, then we’ll be back here. We’re trying to determine how we can do that without the risk of being discovered.”

“Sounds like a lot of risk.”

“We think we can pass me off as a college student. I can be low profile.”

“Dangerous,” James intoned. “The laws...”

“Malum prohibitum versus malum in se,” Barb stated.

“You speak Latin as well, Barbara?” he asked her. Her grandparents had a slightly stunned expression they were sharing.

“Research from my writing. In tenth century Ireland Latin was the language of the learned. And I’ve just about used up most of my vocabulary. I can pose lex talionis as well, but I don’t think that’s part of this discussion.”

“Okay, then, little darlin’,” he smiled. “You’re being all educated now. Elucidate.”

“I thought about this. I don’t know if marriage of minors falls into things that are simply prohibited by law, malum prohibitum, or wrong of themselves, malum in se. I suspect that the key is not a matter of chronological age, but rather circumstances, of which age is but one factor.”

“Very interesting,” he said, old eyes taking on a sparkle. “Do continue.”

“If the minor in question is being forced or coerced, if she is not mentally or physically mature, then marriage is wrong, law or no law, and that is textbook malum in se. When legislatures know that authorities will lack the ability to examine cases on an individual basis, they take the easiest path and prohibit ALL cases that do not meet an easy to define criterion. Age is the obvious determinant to tag. That’s malum prohibitum writ large.”

He chuckled. “So, Barbara ... law school or the legislature. You’d do well in either.”

She smiled demurely. “Oh, neither would match with my tolerance for battle.”

“So where do you think you fall in your discussion?”

“Historically speaking, marriageability was determined by the parents of both parties. Frontier families often married children off at ages that would not be legal today. Same in historical Old World societies. In either of those, I and Paul would be standing for marriage and nobody would raise an eye.”

“And today?” he posed.

I’m watching Barb in charge, so observation is my best move. I’m sure my turn will be along soon. However...

“If I were to enter into a physical relationship with Paul, a perfectly acceptable choice – he’s gainfully employed, mature, no criminal record, no substance abuse other than the occasional social drink or a stunningly strong homebrew ginger ale – and I, a precociously mature female who has designs on a long future together, we would make HIM a felon and me an unfortunate and deluded minor female. Who was it that said, ‘The law is an ass’?”

He sat back in his chair. “You don’t KNOW?”

The little thing bobbed her head in a bowing motion. “No, kind sir. My education is incomplete.”

“Charles Dickens, in Oliver Twist. Mister Bumble said it. But there are sources that attribute it much earlier to one George Chapman in 1654 – Revenge for Honour was a play he published.”

“You studied THAT?” Barb asked incredulously.

“Indeed. When one uses a phrase it is incumbent upon him to know its origins. And ‘ass’ is in the English sense – a donkey – and not the American sense – buttocks. That would have been ‘arse’.”

“Gramma, he’s like YOU!”

Gramma smiled. “And he’s a terror at bridge, as well.”

“So, Miss Barb,” the judge prodded, “where SHOULD you be?”

“In a world of thinking individuals, I should be getting a wedding band on my finger from this guy. Of course, that world is fiction. Here we are.”

The judge turned to me. “Do you have any idea of her mind?”

“Every day is a new page. I’m sure you know of her and MIT on-line courses.”

“And this morning she was taking the SAT. Yes, she has a very proud pair of grandparents.”