The Vegan and the Wolf by Julie Steimle (red white and royal blue hardcover txt) 📕

setting the laptop onto her desk, turned them on and connected the two. While she was booting everything up, Vincent looked around the room at her decor. His eyes latched on the dreamcatcher he had given her one Christmas, the various herbal air fresheners she had left over from one of their other Green Club fundraisers, and other random things collected over the years. He smiled. Then his eyes set on her new computer screensaver.

“Where did you get that one?” He pointed to the rust-haired wolf on the computer screen.

“I took it,” Audry said, plugging in the USB into her computer port. “Last January—the very last night of my Master’s research actually.”

“Cool.” Vincent stared at it. “That’s a really good photo. I mean, look at his fur. That’s an amazing color. Did you colorize it or did you use a telephoto lens?”

“No,” Audry said. “I was in the den with it.”

“You what?” Vincent stared horrified at her.

Shrugging, Audry replied, opening the folder for the pdf file they had downloaded onto his laptop. “I was in the den with it. I took the picture before I tranquilized it and took a bullet out of its leg.”

Her cousin stared hard at her. Blinking, he then rubbed his eyes and stared at the wolf again who had little file and program icons all over its image on the screen. Audry then pulled up a window, covering most of it. Vincent reached over and closed that window. “Wait just a second. You took this picture, tranquilized this wolf, and then took a bullet out of his leg, and you are still dealing with your ex’s garbage?”

Audry chuckled at that, shaking her head. She opened the window again for the pdf. “I guess people scare me more.”

Vincent nodded. “You seriously need help.”

She opened the file. Staring at it, she drew in a deep breath and clicked on the icon to print it. There were four pages.

“Ok, let’s fill this out,” Vincent said, taking the top paper from the printer.

Audry peered at it, reading it: “I reside at…” Cringing, Audry filled out those details, putting in her address. “The Respondent resides at…” She put in Harlin’s address. The she read down the second item list. “The Respondent and I are related as follows [check all applicable box(es):]” She sighed, going down the list. She checked the box labeled: We were in an intimate relationship (NOT casual social or business acquaintances). Then it asked for her to describe their relationship. It only gave a small spot with three boxes to check. She checked the box that said: We never lived together. But she wrote in the space above it: “We dated seriously for over a year and a half. After I broke off our relationship, he began to stalk me.”

Reading over her shoulder, Vincent said, “Make a specific list of what he did when he stalked you. This isn’t convincing enough. I know he slashed your car tires once and attempted to ‘rescue’ you.”

Audry cringed. She had told Doug about that in the strictest confidence. Apparently he thought it was too important to keep a secret. “There isn’t enough space for that. All this form gave me were boxes to check.”

“That’s lame,” Vincent muttered. “Did they just not want to read?”

Yet, with a wincing pain, Audry checked several boxes under: The Respondent committed the following family offense(s) against me and/or my children, which constitute(s)…

Menacing in the second or third degree—which counted her and her roommates and the threats he made to them when they would not reveal where she was or whom she was with.

Harassment in the first or second degree—which was happening daily whenever she walked between classes and from work.

Stalking 

Attempted assault—as he tried to grab her on a number of occasions but she had pepper-sprayed him.

Criminal mischief—counting him slashing her car tires, which she had reported to campus police since it had happened one of a school parking lot.

She stared at the last ones with a grim frown. Audry didn’t want to admit to the final things on the list because they were mortifying. Yet she checked: Sexual misconduct and Forcible touching. He had sent her dirty pictures on his cell phone and he had grabbed her three times when he caught her alone, forcibly kissing her while trying to put his hands into her pants or up her shirt. She had kneed him in the groin once, pepper-sprayed him a different time, and Wendy had rescued her a third time when he had cornered her in the laundry room and bashed her full laundry basket over his head before calling the police. The only reason he did not get arrested was that he had left and the cop on duty had assumed it was just a squabble. And though he had once tried to hold her in a choke hold, Audry had broken away and sprayed him in the face before running.

She was done checking boxes.

Vincent hugged her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Looking to him, shuddering, Audry replied, “I was ashamed.”

He heaved an angry sigh, his fists clenching as he looked out the window. “I am really going to kill him now.”

Audry moaned.

“No,” he said. “No one has the right to do that to you.”

“But I don’t want you to get into trouble,” she said.

Chuckling painfully, Vincent said, “He should be the one worrying. Bruchenhauses take care of their own.”

They filled out the rest of the form.

I have filed a criminal complaint concerning these incident(s) Check.

She noted the complaint about her tires getting slashed. Harlin had been charged for vandalism. He had denied it. And unfortunately they had no proof beyond the timing of him showing up to ‘rescue’ her while in distress. Audry had called Tricia for help in that case, and she came with the campus police.

I have no children and there are no other children living in my home. Check.

The Respondent has acted in a way I consider dangerous or threatening to me, my children, a member of my family or household or person with whom I have or had an intimate relationship, in addition to the incident(s) described in question 3, as follows [describe]:  Check. And she wrote up briefly how he also threatened her roommates, classmates who were protecting her, and a man with whom he assumed she was having a relationship with—though no actual relationship existed.

And I have not made any previous application to any court or judge for the relief requested in this petition, (except [specify the relief, if any, granted and the date of such relief; delete if inapplicable]: Check.

Audry looked at the last item on the list. WHEREFORE, Petitioner respectfully requests this Court to:  

She circled the options that said:

adjudge the Respondent to have committed the family offense(s) alleged; enter an order of protection, specifying conditions of behavior to be observed by the Respondent in accordance with Section 842 of the Family Court Act; order such other and further relief as to the Court seems just and proper.

With a breath, she dated and signed it.

Vincent then took the paper from her fingers and pulled a card out from his wallet.

“What are you doing?” Audry asked as she watched him take out a pen and write in a name and phone number she did not know.

“I am writing on the name of our family’s attorney and his phone number,” he explained. Then he gave her a heavy look. “No one messes with a Bruchenhaus.”

Immediately Vincent urged Audry to go with him that very moment to the courthouse. He was not going to wait, and he was not going to allow her to put it off.

They took the bus.

The courthouse was an ugly large gray blockish post-modernist building across from Collect Pond Park on Lafayette Street in lower Manhattan. When they arrived, they spoke to someone for directions. Directed to the petition room in the building, Vincent nudged Audry to the window to tell them she wanted an order of protection. It was the hardest thing she had ever done. She never wanted to cause anybody trouble.

“Sign in here and wait until your name is called,” the clerk said, her own eyes barely even looking at Audry. She was too busy with paperwork and the computer screen.

Audry did so.

Vincent sat with her on the bench.

Most people around her were filling in the forms, which apparently they had gotten there.

It took a while, but finally her name was called by a clerk. Audry handed him her filled-out form, and he typed up her petition. Dull echoes in the room of feet against linoleum and the faint murmur of conversations not far off filled her ears as he asked her for details on the checked boxes about offenses against her, telling her to give specifics so her case had more weight. So, drawing a breath with a peek to her cousin, Audry explained the different incidents she had not told Vincent about. He paled, listening in. Grief and anger swept through his shoulders, as if it took everything in him to not hunt down Harlin right then and kill him.

Then the clerk had her clarify the protections she wanted.

Audry wanted him to stay away from her, her roommates, her apartment, and her work. She also wanted restitution for the damage to her car—specifically the cost of the tires he had slashed. They were expensive.

As soon as he finished typing, the clerk handed it to her to read over for errors. Vincent read over her shoulder, searching also for anything they might have left out. Gently pushing back the paper, Audry had him correct a few errors and then she sighed it, affirming it was all correct and true.

When that was done, the clerk sent her directly to a courtroom called the ‘intake part’. He told her that there the judge would read her petition and ask her a few questions about what was written.

So Audry and Vincent went together to the intake part.

It was a waiting room. A large number of people were also there, waiting to see the judge. There was an overweight black woman with a weave and heavy eyeliner and fake nails muttering with her friend over her deadbeat ex who owed her and her kid… something. Two seats away was this anorexic blue haired chick with a nose ring, a lip ring, five piercings on one ear, pale skin, and wearing oddly hanging layered tank tops, tight jeans, and combat boots who was averting her eyes from the conversation next to her. A couple more feet away was this effeminate guy with a huge black eye, which apparently his partner had given him recently. With him was his mother—who looked like she had stepped out of a Betty Crocker cook book. There were a few others, all of them looking angry, upset or distressed in some way. It felt weird sitting among them. Audry have never really felt like a victim before.

“It looks like this will take a while,” Vincent murmured, taking in the numbers inside the room.

Audry nodded.

Vincent took out his iPad and pulled up something to read. He also took out his headphones, giving her one earpiece while he took the other. He put on an audio book.

And it did take a while. One by one, plaintiffs went in to make their cases.

Eventually she was called.

Vincent said to her as she walked to the door, “Speak calmly, but don’t speak until the judge tells you to. Call the judge ‘Your Honor’. If you don’t remember something, tell the truth and say you don’t remember. Don’t interrupt him, and if he interrupts you, you must stop speaking. Remember, the judge is the authority in there and he might be a little impatient. But you can’t be.”

“Got it,” Audry murmured, trying to remember it all.

She went through the open door.

The courtroom was large enough for the simple court case. The judge was an older woman, but not lean and hollow-cheeked like Judge Judy. Her sharp blue eyes were raking over the document. Then