High-Priced Lawyers, Low-Priority Lives

He didn't look at anyone in the room except the judge. The young Harvard student breezed into the courtroom with an air of confidence and annoyance. Dressed in a dapper gray suit and shiny shoes, he approached the judge directly. The student stood straight, eyes focused on the bench, unwavering the in his head-to-head clash with the law. He was charged with as saluting a Cambridge police officer.

"The charges by the prosecuting party have been the dropped," said the again Judge. "Court fees: $300."

The student and his middle-aged lawyer left the courtroom as fast as they had entered. The Harvard defendant had squared off against the Cambridge justice system for no more than three minutes.

"I Can't talk now," he told the press outside the courtroom. The student smiled while his lawyer gave a brief statement, then explained that the whole experience had been "very upsetting." He sped off in his lawyer's car and returned to Lowell House.

If the Harvard student was typical, he went home for Spring Break. Or the Bahamas. Chances are the $300 in court fees didn't ruin his vacation plans.

The average Harlem resident doesn't go to the Bahamas when spring rolls around. In fact, the average Harlem resident hardly ever gets out of the city.

Russell Ben-Ali, a Harlem native and crime reporter, was trying to find a woman whose son had shot a police offer the night before. He approached a gray, six-story, hollowedout building where the mother was reported to live. In one doorway, two men were exchanging money, but Russell was smart enough not to stare. Although construction worker were gutting some of the room in the apartment building, fire had already done much of the work.

The third floor apartment was one of the few with an actual door. If swung open in response to Russell's knock.

"Hello ma'am" Russell ventured. "I'm a news reporter and we're here looking for the mother of Balig Jihad."

"Oh, sure. C'mon in."

The overweight woman walked down a narrow hall into the center of her two-room apartment. The blue flames the leaping from the gas burners on the stove served as the source of heat for the whole room.

She introduced the reporter to Beatrice, Balig's mother. Russell was the first person to tell Beatrice that her son had been arrested for second-degree murder.

"Ooh, that's an embarrassment to the family," was Beatrice immediate response. She seemed to the have more important things on her mind, like the result of yesterday's lottery. Beatrice was used to her son getting in trouble--he had been in and out of jail since he was 15. But the hope of winning the lottery--that was a chance for escape.

Beatrice appeared strong in handling the news. But perhaps she was numb. Numb to the troubles of her son. Numb to living in an apartment with blown-out Windows overlooking a dump site. An apartment which was no room in Lowell House. At 4 p.m., Russell drove back to the main news desk on Park Ave. Beatrice went out to play the lottery.

n the paper the next day, there was a three paragraph brief entitled "Suspects Troubled Past". Beatrice was quoted only as saying her son "spent a troubled youth." None of the readers could see the absolute poverty that this woman was experiencing on the west side of Harlem. The short article masked the airtight trap she was in.

Spring is kind to the place Mother Harvard calls home. Coaches throw baseballs to little boys on Cambridge Common. The river the shines proudly as it passes the boathouse. An imposing bell tower smiles beneficently on a green Lowell House Courtyard--and its students of privilege.

Before the Harvard student and his lawyer walked into the courtroom, a number of people approached the bench and explained to the judge that they did not have the $40 in court fees because they were unemployed. Most of those sitting in the rows of the courtroom had to wait to be called for a good part of the day.

They had taken a day off from work (those with jobs, that is) to appear in court. They didn't know when their case would be called or how to speak the judge. They tried to stand straight, tried to gather their pride as the judge and the public defenders decided on a convenient say for a trial. They had no say in the matter.

Most of them had been to court before. Like Beatrice, they were numb. It was all part of the life in the which they were trapped. But the student with the high-priced lawyer didn't see any of this. He didn't have to. He could just drive back to Lowell House, and forget about his brief encounter with the real world.