New Braunfels, TX – Friends of Keegan Armke, people he did business with partied hearty and grooved with, remember him as the kind of guy who would think nothing of donning a full-length fur coat in cold weather, party all night long - on top of the world - then for days sink to the depths of depression.
A 1996 head-on collision with a drunk driver nearly cost him his life, caused extensive scarring, put him in a back bedroom at his parents' house for months, shook his confidence in the world. He had to start all over, and he chose to go into business with his father, Kenneth Armke, Sr., raising, selling, and shipping exotic tropical fish to customers all over Texas.
It was a business he chose, one that started as a hobby during his convalescence.
From their location on I-35, the family imported fancy beer steins for sale at the community's annual Wurstfest, and continued in the used car business.
Armke, Jr., supervised a staff, met a payroll, managed the businesses on a day to day basis, until one day when 21 uniformed law enforcement types – he's very specific about the number - showed up to serve him with a Temporary Restraining Order that prohibited he and his wife Telise from coming within 500 feet of the property, his father's house, or taking charge of anything owned by the corporation. “They froze our bank accounts, locked us out.”
He chokes back a sob, wipes his eyes on his sleeves, says, “It was totally unexpected.”
He gestures around the large, double-story beaux artes ceremonial courtroom where 19th century show trials were held and today's Comal County Commissioners meet, says, “You never get to do anything here.”
He means no one acting in an official capacity as an attorney is really interested in listening to his emotional recollections; judges, attorneys, court staff – all are interested only in resolving, by the record and under the rules of civil procedure, a commercial conflict between former corporate partners, one that involves money and property, the blood, treasure and thunder that makes the world go round.
Said visiting Judge Don Burgess, an especially jolly and mild-mannered man, during a hearing that had concluded only minutes before, “There are various claims and counter claims. There is certain property and money at stake...It's a challenge to even seasoned attorneys.”
That's putting it mildly. Lawyers and judges with rhinoceros hide for skin have fled the case, seeking relief from its twists and surprises. Every judge in town has recused himself, beginning with District Judge Dibrelle Waldrip; lawyers have made impassioned pleas to be allowed to withdraw.
Speaking on the ides of November, Judge Burgess said, “For the emotional and mental well-being of everyone, I'd like to end this case before the end of this year.”
The two lawyers that represent banks and Armke, Sr., in their claims leapt to their feet, as if suddenly burned by red-hot pokers, bringing Armke, Jr., to his, and began to babble about the minutiae of the discovery process as to what the property is worth, who owns what, exactly who will appraise it, and how the proceeds from its sale will be divided.
The court reporter, with a worried look quickly turning savage, half stood, waved her hands in the air, and said, “Please! One at a time!”
All involved knocked it off forthwith. Court reporters and court clerks are just the people you don't want to antagonize when you're settling lawsuits. They're as important as the judge because nothing really enters the realm of reality until it's file-marked, certified, and recorded on paper.
Even Judge Burgess appeared somewhat chastened, and he has no dog in the fight at all, lives at Austin, has hundred thousand scholarships endowed in his name – a man of honor.
He cleared his throat, glanced at Keegan Armke, then addressed him the way you would address someone with his finger on the trigger of a TNT vest, and said, “Have y'all read my order?”
No response. “Have you?”
He thumbed through the file on the bench, found his mark and began to read the part where it said if the parties can't agree – and they sure as hell can't – he would appoint a forensic accountant – and so forth. Then he scribbled out an order to that effect, handed it to the Deputy Clerk, and said, “Get this typed up and serve everyone, please.”
His tone was pure honey.
And then came the question that made them all look at the ceiling, at a random spot on the impeccably sanded and finished hardwood flooring, into the middle distance, or the tips of their nails.
Keegan Armke drilled Judge Don Burgess with his eyes, lamped him like a laser, and asked if there is a possibility the Court could help him obtain the services of a Court-appointed attorney.
You could have heard a pin drop.
Everyone looked at the jowly presence of the smiling, jovial jurist on the elevated bench, a man whose face suddenly fell as he sat like a benevolent lion, a Deputy District Clerk to his right and the court reporter to his left - a woman who made no secret of how hard she was working to get the words of each party straight in the echoing, vast spaces of the old double-storied courtroom with its second-floor balcony and 40-foot ceilings, triple proscenium arches, and electrical lights that replaced the original gas lights long, long ago.
“Unfortunately, in the State of Texas, there is no provision in civil matters for a court appointment of an attorney by the Court,” he said in level, neutral tones.
Suddenly, there it was, the elephant in the living room no one is talking about, the possibility of criminal charges leveled against a man whose family has alleged vast larceny.
Silence. Awkward. Lingering.
The moment passed, and Judge Burgess went on to suggest the local bar association, a pronouncement that made the two attorneys who flanked Armke in his spot at the defendants' table again hunt a place to look away, a spot that would not cause them to betray their feelings. They tried hard, but could not hide their suddenly soured expressions.
Armke mentioned asking the State Bar for assistance in finding competent counsel, and the mood became only more gloomy.
This is a man whom bulletin board bloggers openly labeled “one of the biggest cocaine dealers” in the area after his 2008 gun-wielding altercation and Grand Jury no-billing with a lover's husband, the one that left Leo “Chip” Pitman dead with multiple gunshot wounds to his back.
Only minutes before, he told the judge and the attorneys he is preparing a multi-page complaint to forward to the State Bar, seeking the disbarment of his former attorney.
In a subsequent interview, he cried openly, accepting a bandana from the scribbler's hip pocket to mop his streaming eyes and nose as he recalled his brother, deceased since 2012, saying, “Keegan, they hate you.”
His affect is florid, animated, his speech rapid, gestures expansive, often ending in grief and lusty sobs.
He continued, “I can't walk away from it with what they're trying to do to me...I would look at myself as a slave.” His eyes reflected the tortured soul of the galley slave, the quarryman from the pyramids, the field hand picking cotton with a spiritual to sing, his whip-scarred back bared to the blazing southern sun.
He blames all this on his father, a man he labels with the 40-dollar word of words - “sociopath,” or, that is, a person who has no feelings of remorse, no social conscience, no recognition he could have ever erred.
“He's a sociopath – scientifically. There's no care factor in my father...I would have killed somebody for my dad...He turned on me...It's not about money. It's about power and control. Sociopaths, they want to kill you once you see them for what they are. It's almost like I was his wife. I know that sounds stupid,” he said, losing his battle to hold back his tears, as he broke into wrenching sobs.
On the street outside, we agreed to have lunch, and then an ancient blue-haired woman in a death star, creeping Cadillac Coupe de Ville the size of a small yacht got between the scribbler's old pickup truck and Armke's gleaming Hummer, and he became lost in the traffic of the neat-as-a-pin German-American community with its stone buildings and churches, lush foliage and expansive sidewalks and plazas.
Calling his cell yields a cheerful, robotic message that proclaims the “mailbox associated with this number” is full.
He sent an e-mail later, in the middle of the night, promising extensive documentation of his side of the story, but has never contacted me since.
Exeunt.
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