James Morrow - This Is the Way the World Ends

George noticed that Reverend Sparrow’s face was rapidly shifting toward the purple end of the spectrum.

Aquinas rose and said, ‘I move that all of this witness’s babblings be stricken.’

‘Mr Carter has stated that my client was entrapped,’ said Bonenfant. ‘That is vital testimony.’

While the president of the court deliberated, Theophilus refilled his hat with software and sales contracts.

‘The testimony will stand,’ said Justice Jefferson. ‘However, we do not wish to hear any more of it. The prosecution may cross-examine.’

‘We decline to cross-examine,’ said Aquinas.

‘Oh? Why?’

‘Because life is short, your Honor.’

As when a fever seizes the brain and makes things grotesquely smaller, larger, fatter, or thinner, so did the perspectives afforded by the stand disorient George. The audience, a tame and predictable creature when viewed from within the booth, now looked ferocious. The judges had acquired a terrifying hostility. The court usher was stark and unforgiving.

‘What did you do for a living?’ Bonenfant asked.

‘I inscribed tombstones,’ George answered. ‘And sold them.’

‘Did this work have anything to do with national defense?’

‘No.’ So far, so good, he thought.

Bonenfant retrieved Document 919 from a nearby evidence pile. ‘The prosecution’s entire case against you seems to rest on this sales contract. Is that your signature at the bottom?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Did Theophilus Carter insist that you read these statements carefully before signing?’

‘No.’

‘ Did you read them carefully?’

‘Not really.’

‘According to the contract, you believed that scopas suits were encouraging America’s leaders to pursue a policy of nuclear brinksmanship.’

‘I didn’t even know what “nuclear brinksmanship” was. I’m still not sure.’

‘Did you believe, as the contract says, that scopas suits were distracting people from the real issues – STABLE talks, the MARCH Plan, no-first-use?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘This document was putting words in your mouth, wasn’t it?’

Commotion at the prosecution table. ‘And Mr Bonenfant is putting words in his client’s mouth,’ Aquinas asserted.

‘Ask another question,’ said Justice Jefferson.

‘To tell you the truth, your Honors’ – Bonenfant ambled back to the defense table – ‘my client is so palpably innocent that I cannot think of a single additional question to ask him. He’s yours, Mr Aquinas.’

As the chief prosecutor charged forward, the butterflies in George’s stomach began producing larvae.

‘You have told the court that you used to sell tombstones,’ Aquinas began.

God, has he nailed me already? No, I did sell tombstones. ‘That’s right.’

‘Was it your practice to have customers sign sales contracts without reading them?’

‘No.’

‘And yet you are asking the court to believe that you signed a scopas suit contract without reading it?’

‘I did read it, sort of. It confused me.’

‘“I hearby confess to my complicity in the nuclear arms race.” That sounds like plain English to my ears.’

A vulture expert. Everything would be fine as long as a vulture expert showed up. ‘It was the other parts that confused me.’

‘Do you or do you not understand the words, “I hereby confess to my complicity in the nuclear arms race”?’

George knew that his voice was going to sound weak and defeated. ‘I understand them.’ Weak, defeated. ‘I wanted my little girl to have a scopas suit. Is that so terrible?’

The chief prosecutor placed the contract at arm’s length, as if it harbored an infectious disease. ‘Can you point to a single action on your part that would lead the tribunal to doubt your negligence?’

‘Well, not exactly. No. But if you heard Mr Carter’s testimony, then you know that just about everybody else—’

‘Just about everybody else is not on trial here.’

Aquinas took a long, deliberate stroll around the prosecution table. George twitched like a skewered moth.

‘I’m curious, Mr Paxton,’ the chief prosecutor said at last. ‘How do you feel about your co-defendants?’

‘How do I feel about them?’

‘Yes.’

‘They’re my friends.’

‘Good friends?’

‘We play poker. Reverend Sparrow once saved me from some dangerous ensigns. Dr Randstable has been showing me the basic chess openings. General Tarmac helped me find a fertility clinic.’

‘So you like them?’

‘Sure I like them. They certainly aren’t war criminals.’

‘And how do you feel about their ideas?’

‘Their what?’ George asked politely.

‘Their ideas.’

‘If I’d been the one in Washington, I probably couldn’t have done any better.’

Aquinas scowled. ‘Again I put the question to you. How do you feel about your co-defendants’ ideas?’

The high-school students were back in George’s mind, merrily kicking off the abolition regime. Plop! went the Soviet SS-90 intermediate-range missile into the glowing magma of Mount Erebus. He thought: our case is going well, my friends did an excellent job of defending themselves, and now I’m about to blow it. Still, this is a court of law. I touched a Bible and swore to give the truth. ‘I guess I’d have to say…’

His intestines writhed around each other. Overwhite will never speak to me again. Randstable won’t teach me any more openings. Sparrow will stop praying for me. Brat will hate me forever…

‘I guess I’d have to say that my friends’ ideas were pretty bad.’

‘Pretty bad?’

‘Yes. Bad. Bad ideas. Terrible, in fact.’

Aquinas began warming up for a gigantic smile. ‘Why do you suppose your co-defendants spent so much time and energy on these bad ideas?’

‘That’s hard to say.’

The prosecutor’s smile grew. ‘Can you guess?’

‘Well, I suppose that thinking about bad ideas is more interesting and exciting than… you know.’

‘Than what?’

‘You know.’

‘Abolishing the weapons?’

‘Yes,’ sighed George.

Aquinas’s smile reached full potential. ‘No further questions,’ he said, slapping the sales contract on the bench.

A new and particularly bitter layer of frost had infested the glass booth during George’s absence. ‘I found you very sympathetic,’ said Overwhite tonelessly as the tomb inscriber settled back down in the dock.

‘Sincerity city,’ said Randstable without passion.

‘I don’t think it was necessary to mention bad ideas,’ said Brat.

‘Yes, I had trouble with that part too,’ said Overwhite.

‘Abolition regimes are inherently unworkable,’ said Wengernook. ‘Seabird admitted as much.’

‘You don’t need to keep saying that,’ George snapped.

Justice Jefferson put on her whalebone glasses, briefly studied the sales contract, and asked, ‘Might I assume that the case for the defense is concluded?’

‘Our final witness will take the stand tomorrow,’ said Bonenfant.

When his advocate glowered at him, George’s bullet wound felt as if it were reopening.

Thrust into a frigid hell with nothing to sustain him but a glass painting of his unborn child, infused with the feeling that his performance on the stand had been a disaster, sick with the thought that he had betrayed his friends, George was nevertheless as happy as any human has ever been. For walking boldly through the courtroom, eyes dead ahead, was the future mother of Holly’s stepsister. His spermatids thrashed with desire. Morning smiled at him quickly, subtly; perhaps she hadn’t smiled at all. She changed the world. The palace brightened. Everyone in the gallery, even the old ones with their bleak eyes and crushed postures, had a beauty George had not noticed before.