Dan da da da….. Dah. Dah. Dah. That is the theme from the A-Team. You remember the A-Team right? They were a rogue bunch of crime stoppers protecting the world from evil. Famous televison heroes conjures up images of bad ass good guys fighting the psychopathic and sadistic bad guys. The good guys on TV are really good. Batman and Robin, Jack Bauer on 24, Spiderman, Superman, NYPD Blue, and the list goes on. The bad guys on TV are really bad. Villians like Hannibal Lecter, the Penguin, and Heath Ledger in the Dark Knight (super scary) exist and their only intent is to victimize and brutalize innocent little old ladies.
This was my most recent experience with my town’s very own A-Team.
I haven’t met my client yet. I walk into a crowded courtroom filled to the brim with a sea of law enforcement officers. Wide shoulders, erect postures, guns on their belts, and a piercing gaze that follows me no matter where I stand. Sometimes I pretend they are a Mona Lisa painting and I move just a little and no matter where I move, there they are staring. I wonder if they think they taught us ninja skills in law school? Maybe that’s why they keep their arms just a little away from their hips, that way if I go all kung fu- they can quickly shoot me.
Anyway I grab the complaint and go into the room to meet the terrible law breaker. I overhear the crimestoppers talk about no deals because it’s a sex offense. O.K. I am ready for this. But I wasn’t ready for the man I met.
I walk into the room and there slumped in a chair the smallest, frailest, feeblest old man I have ever seen. He is so small and nothing sticks firmly to him. Not his skin on his face, or his rail thin arms, nor his clothes. This is true even though his belt is pulled tight and on it’s furthest notch. He is shaking and with great effort he looks at me.
He is charged with indecent exposure. That’s right. He showed his privates in public. No bother that it was in the middle of the woods in a secluded area with a stranger. No matter that the officer had to watch through binoculars to witness this lewd act which I am sure offended some poor family of squirrels. You see, this old man is gay. He has been in the closet his whole life and he hasn’t had sexual relations in over 20 years. But he was lonely, and he went to an area of woods where men of like minds gather for a quick feel or pull or whatever.
He tells me that he doesn’t want his daughter to know. His older brother is dying in Florida and if he is on probation, he won’t be allowed by state law to visit him. And as an added bonus, he will lose his public housing. I go out and ask the prosecutor to be lenient and suggest a fine. A large fine. The kind of fine which will keep this man on a strict diet of cat food for the next five years. Nope. No deal.
The A-Team is there and they are each taking a stand. Although they tower over me, they need to show me who is boss here. They take turns invading my space, adding their opinions of me and my case. They are like wolves surrounding a poodle. I speculate that they must know my secret - that I am a were poodle and I don’t need a full moon to transform. (See http://www.fivesystems.org/work/93034). I try to ignore them and go back to the task at hand. I need to help this poor old man get through an unforgiving system.
I kind of beg. I plead to no avail. This man has a record. That’s right…. In 1965 he was charged with possession of pot. Ah the inhumanity. He had pot in the 60’s! I can’t believe it! Intolerable. “Perhaps you should offer him the death penalty?” My joke was not appreciated by anyone.
So my sweet old guy will plead to probation. He will come into my office first and confide in me. He will get teary eyed and beg me not to judge him. We will share a tear as we try to find out where he can live. And I will stand next to him in court when he is sentenced. No one will come to speak on his behalf because no one he knows is alive anymore. No one except his brother but he is dying and he doesn’t even know his younger brother is gay.
No one will be there as he has to publicly stand in a courtroom and explain to a judge how his genitals were exposed and how he was touched by a stranger. And his hands will shake because of his health. And I, Ann the Defender, will stand next to him and I will ask the judge for leniency.
But there will be none.
I agree with the disposition of this case and would ask for the highest penalty if I were a prosecutor. I'd hate to see all of those families, and their children, with their binoculars, presumably in the middle of the night, in an area where those families and their children would never be in the first place, have to see Methuselah's balls.
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