Matt looked around at the thinning crowd in the courtroom. At this rate, the judge would clear the day’s docket before lunchtime.
Garland leaned over and whispered in Paul’s ear.
Paul nodded.
Matt wondered what had been said.
“IN RE PAUL OLSSON!” called the clerk a second time.
Garland stood majestically, buttoned his suit jacket. “Garland Stone-Dancer for the petitioner, Judge.”
The judge scowled at Garland through bifocal lenses. “A hyphenated sur-name, counselor? How faddishly modern and simultaneously un-Oklahoman.”
“It’s Native American, judge, so definitely not modern and simultaneously as Oklahoman as it gets.”
Matt suppressed a laugh. Garland did not suffer fools. All the same, Matt wondered if confrontation was the best strategy where this judge was concerned.
The judge frowned. “I’m not buying the hyphenated Indian bit, but I’ll meet you halfway, Mr. Dancing Rock. See how that works? No hyphen required. Now, I assume one of these gentlemen” –he pointed his gavel towards Matt and Paul—“is your client. Am I supposed to guess which one it is?”
“It’s me, Judge, Your Honor, Sir.” Paul scrambled to his feet, bungled a salute, and then shoved his hands in his pockets sheepishly.
Garland sighed, as though embarrassed by Paul’s behavior, then stepped sideways, putting distance between them. “My client’s the goofy one, Judge.”
The judge eyed Paul with suspicion, then growled at Garland. “Dancing Rock, is your client even eighteen? I won’t hesitate to fine you for contempt if you’re trying to pull a fast one on me.”
“It’s legit, Judge. Mr. Olsson’s birth certificate is attached to the pleadings.”
The judge rifled through the paperwork, held up the birth certificate to the light. “A name change, is it? Why would a barely legal kid need to do that?”
“That’s what I’d like to know, too, Judge. I took this case pro-bono as a favor to a friend. I don’t get it, but the kid wants a sealed name change. It’s in the pleadings.”
Matt was puzzled. Why was Garland being such a dick?
“Sealed?” the judge snapped. “I’ve presided over dozens of name changes. Maybe even a hundred. Only two have passed the smell test to be sealed.”
Garland shrugged. “That’s what he wants, Judge. I told him we shouldn’t waste your time. I’ll be glad to make a motion to strike that if you want.”
“Hold your horses, Dancing Rock! I don’t know how your tribe does business, but here in Oklahoma, we don’t like to give a guy the bum rush. Now, hush and let me review the pleadings.”
The judge busied himself skimming the documents before him.
Garland checked his watch, as if he were ready to pack up and leave.
Paul, still standing, fidgeted, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.
Matt—seated on the hard bench, in the dumpy courtroom,in the smelly basement of the granite butt plug that was the County Courthouse, in the capitol city of the Sooner State—just regretted this whole shit show, all of which was his doing. None of this was as he’d imagined it when he’d hatched the idea at Nicholas’s and Bradley’s Halloween party, of arranging this freebie name change for his friend.
He’d assumed Paul would be thrilled with the plan. Nope, not until after Christmas break back at home with psycho dad.
So, game on with the name change, which Matt—there he went assuming again—thought was a straight-forward process. How hard could it be?
Cue the lawyer.
Option 1: File your paperwork, then put notice in a newspaper advising everyone of your plan, including current name and proposed new name. Wait ten days, then show up at court and roll the dice and hope you didn’t get a peckerhead judge. Fine and dandy if you were just some schmuck unlucky enough to have been christened Ichabod or Beelzebub or you were a moon-worshipping hippie who wanted to be reborn a Celeste.
But, if what you really needed was something akin to witness protection, a new identity—if you were a Paul, in other words, or an abused wife or girlfriend—then maybe the newspaper thing wasn’t a good idea.
Option 2: File your paperwork and ask a judge to seal it, as in letting you pass “Go,” collect your new name, and skip the whole newspaper notice bit. Obviously, judges had to make sure you weren’t trying to skirt the sex offender registry or outrun creditors, but, barring that, per the law, this was an option—just not one the judges liked.
