5. SPEWING JUSTICE

     Court's scheduled WAAAY too early for any degree or pretense of civilized behavior. We awoke waking the dead from the night before, nursing and collectively mourning our D.B.Cs. Calling a taxi to escort us to the Dark Lord's Abode, we telepathically shared visions of adjudicators in poncey wigs, morphing into "Here Comes da Judge" / George Clinton in crazed Parliament Funk. We disguised ourselves for this special appearance by wearing dark shades (who am I kidding? we always wore dark shades). Normally, I'd talk a cabbie's ear off, at this hour? Fuhgeddaboudit.

    We sat glazed, enduring the dizzying ride, chilling with the daunting prospects of our immediate future. The driver pulled over in front of the megalithic COURTHOUSE BOX - gleaming with imminent menace, its face (the reflective black hole of mirrored cop lenses) exuding a sense of tangible, highly foreboding EVIL. We opened our prospective side doors upon arrival, leaned over the curb in unison, and HURLED! retching biley spew into the sloping gutters. Dead Brain Cells.
     The cabbie sped off swearing "Saint Ciboire". After five years living among Montreal's anarchist Catholics and their odd  religious profanities : “Criss” (the Christ), "Ostie" (the Host), "Calice" (the Chalice), "Tabarnac" (the Table, or Tabernacle), "Sacre Coeur! Sacre Bleu! Sacrement! Sacrifice!" - I still wonder who or what the hell is "Saint Ciboire"? (the receptacle in which the Host is stored). Onlookers greeted our entrance into the fiery Hell-Hall with a wide range of emotions. We casually carried (spitting) on........step by marble step.

Palais de Justice, 1, rue Notre-Dame, Montreal

     "Do the Hustle!"1 scanning the roster of sessions scheduled for the day, enmeshed in the bizarre contrails of the accused, bearing harsh testimony to the charade : the straight-jacketed criminally insane being escorted to barred chambers, balding, pot-bellied lawyers toting briefcases, toupeed Necromancers (the Prosecution!) in swirling black capes, reporting infractions to their Overlord Death, street peeps in droves, pushing souped-up shopping carts, big-hair prostitutes and pimps, in feather boas and fake furs, biker meth-lab Angels and S.C.U.M.bags, pony-tailed narcs in cheap suits sipping scalding coffee in styrofoam cups, and lest I forget, the customary pigs scarfing and dunking donuts on-the-run. Mine eyes rolled wide and my nose recoiled at the deflated parade of sweat / stain / stench.

     We entered the Eye of the Storm, a collapsing vortex of the Condemned and the Damned, shuddering in Exaggerated Fear of Impending Doom. The oldest story in the Book shuffled its pages, as its tied hands prepared to roll the weighted craps die. Innocence and Guilt rolled beyond question, retribution boiled down to Varying Verisimilitudes and Deafening Magnitudes of thee Inescapable Incriminating Evidence, i.e. Circumstantial (of that "ol stigma” of having been caught). 

    Customary bribes on stand-by, good old-fashioned God-ordained punishment idled in holding patterns, to be duly metered out, in compensational blocks of Time, Inc.; the likes of which included : locks, stocks, and barrels,  electric chairs, stoning (not the kind we enjoy), injection (ditto), whips, clips, and enforced self-flagellation, Hangin' Judge rope burns, firing squads, chopping blocks, and lethal doses of Zombie venom. 

    I hallucinated Justice as a naked, blind-folded, Oracular Sphinx; cheap-talkin' with a doobie hangin' off Her lip, and a tongue-flickerin' snake winding around Her breasts, as she proffers the joint as Truth Serum in Her Garden Sanctuary. I know our lot of Assassins would agree to abide by Our Luck-Be-A-Lady2 Liberty’s Decrees and Dispensations.

     I entertain no recollection of the recounting of details of our case, until, shocked and bemused, I heard the Prosecutor read the psychopomp's psychiatric assessment. She had misconstrued my entire raison d'être, substituting her own fears of insecurity/ inadequacy/FEAR OF DEATH, stating I was "completely controlled by the desire to obtain drugs, at any cost to the welfare of herself and others", and concluding "the accused will do anything to get high and secure her daily fix."  (well, not anything, I thought I had made that perfectly clear). I cringed as the word "fiendish" reverberated throughout the courtroom's subconscious. Shades of "Reefer Madness!" Our Sacred Quests were, once again, "O, Lord......Misunderstood”3

     The Judge, who wore no wig, and left no impression (beyond a vague shadow on the wall, in fly language), sentenced us to 30 hours of community service picking up garbage (a satisfying task befitting junk connoisseurs). The compulsory visits with the probation officer which followed? Now there's a probing relationship! Fingers brushing my hand in the ritual sharing of the pen to sign-up for.......more good behavior? the conversion of my memory? the obligatory NA meeting? a reality-TV intervention? death by a thousand cuts? Tabarnouche Ecocoeurant! 


1 "The Hustle!" - Van McCoy & The Soul City Symphony
2 "Luck Be A Lady” - Frank Sinatra
3 “Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" - Eric Burdon & The Animals