As Told By Tuck & Axel

A Change of Tide

A Change of Tide-Tucker

I had always wanted to be a lawyer. I was drawn to the idea of fighting for something. I wanted to be the underdog, the guy no one believed in, but somehow always wound up on top. That's why I entered the pre-law track with a focus in defense.

One day after Christmas sophomore year, I was sitting in a large lecture hall being talked at by a professor I admired greatly. He was an ex-defense lawyer, and a current professor of law. I lived by the lessons he gave like they were my own Nicene Creed. He was the most respected and intelligent man I had ever studied under. He had a habit of asking questions to the audience, and picking a name out of the 66 kids in the room to answer that specific question. The pressure of being chosen was an incentive of sorts; it forced us all to study our notes from the previous lesson in the fear that we may be called on next class.

At this specific moment, Professor Leighton was scribbling furiously on a blackboard that only a fraction of the class could see. I, like usual, was seated in the second row of the lecture hall.

"Now," Leighton began, turning back to face us. "Let's go back to 1998: a case in which a woman is accused of killing her husband by means of poison in his dinner. The evidence is solid. What is your first step in defending the wife, your client?"

The sound of the massive metal doors to the hall slamming open diverted every single head to the back of the room, instead of on Leighton's question. I remember sighing, mentally cursing whichever dimwit plebian was thirty minutes late to Leighton's class. Leighton himself shared this sentiment. He took a step forward and narrowed his stare on the boy who had just entered and had began making his way towards the front.

It was a few seconds later that I realized this boy wasn't just any boy. This boy was my boy. This boy was Axel, a boy who had zero business in any law class of any sort. Well, no business except for me, that is.

Everyone watched him as he made his way down to the front of the room where he presumed I would be. I felt my face get hotter and hotter as his steps grew nearer. I focused down on my notes, shielding my face, praying, hoping, swearing he didn't recognize me. I couldn't be embarrassed in front of Leighton; I had planned to ask him for a recommendation! I remember thinking I was going to castrate Axel when I got home.

I was too busy mentally ripping off my best friend's balls to realize he had spotted me. The class, including Leighton, was still utterly silent as Axel made his way through the row I was seated in, mumbling "excuse me's" as he went. At least he was being polite.

When he reached me, I didn't look at him. He plopped himself down in the chair next to me, then dropped something onto the notebook I was doodling his death threat's on. It was my phone. I could have shot him right there.

"You interrupted this class to give me my phone?" I don't remember ever being this angry with Axel. I was doing one of those angry-gritted-teeth whispers that my mom always did whenever Pete and I were fooling around too much in church.

Axel looked at me, confused, like he didn't think it was a big deal. I couldn't punch him in the face like I planned to, because Leighton spoke up.

"And who might you be?"

Everyone was still staring at Axel. At me and Axel. Axel looked around quizzically, as if to say, who, me? YES YOU, YOU FUCKFACE.

Axel stood up after a few minutes, realizing he was the one being addressed. "Uh, I'm Axel."

Leighton cleared his throat. "Well, welcome, Axel. Now how would you go about defending her?"

The class snickered. I hung my head in shame. This was not going to end well.