Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

Mr. Ludd?

I want to apologize to your honors for cursing in the courtroom. Like my attorney said I was just frustrated by the situation.

Well the situation was one of your own making young man. If you don’t break the law you don’t get arrested it’s as simple as that. I do not stand for that kind of language either. This is a goddamn courtroom not some corner hangout! I don’t care what you think those cops did or didn’t do to you out on the street; when you come into my courtroom you show me respect because I am a man of respect. I think your attorney will tell you that I am an exceedingly fair-minded individual. How do you think you become a judge other than by demonstrating an extreme, almost-criminal, degree of impartiality but I will not have my courtroom turned into a circus by the likes of you. When I am confronted with such a situation I will wield my considerable power swiftly and decisively… decisive swiftness. You are going to have to learn to respect authority. The officer who arrested you and myself we are authority, ask your attorney. Now, are you sorry?

Yeah I’m sorry.

Yes?

Yes.

Fair enough, he’s not a bad guy at that. Next time he’ll obey the signs.

Fucking—

That’s it! I find the defendant guilty of contempt of court and sentence him to fifteen days. Fifteen days to be served under the vilest conditions permitted by New York law. Get him out of here!

Step in! P.D. take charge one going in.

What were you thinking Rory?

I didn’t think he could hear me. Can I take it back?

Judge you have to permit him to make a statement in his defense before you can summarily find him guilty of contempt.

He had his chance, I said get him out of here! We’re done! Step up counsel I want to talk to you… son I really think that you are a great attorney in the making, if not great then certainly tremendous. But you have to learn when to leave well enough alone. None of these people is worth your career and another less patient judge won’t stand for your little comments after every ruling you don’t agree with. And something like trying to do a case without an interpreter is just plain wrong and borders on the unethical. Now if you ask around you’ll hear I’m a fair judge. One of the best really. The best in fact and I say that despite being humble. I’m famous for that as well. I’m very proud of my humility and if I had to pick one quality of mine that has continually stood me in good stead and which has allowed me to achieve the status I have, I think I would point to that, my humility that is; either that or my intelligence. Now it’s not every judge who would take the time to talk to you like this and I hope you realize that. That’s another good quality that I have and which I try to fertilize as often as possible. So remember what I’ve just said here tonight… said here tonight. Good night.

Morning.

So how much is his bail?

Twenty-five hundred.

So ten percent of that and Terrens get out?

No. Here, twenty-five hundred means you have to pay the full amount in cash. Can anybody pay that?

No that’s a lot of money.

I know but we’ll be back in court on Tuesday and maybe we’ll get lucky.

If they don’t have an indictment on that day they have to release him.

Where’s that?

Part N, second floor of this building.

I’ll be there.

She turned and split making me the last night-court person in a courtroom duly filling with lobster-shift personnel. Now this shift ran from the a.m.’s one to its nine so many of the people milling about me then looked like warmed-over cadavers reanimated by some evil genius that they may haunt the living and they cast their vacant eyes on me amidst air still charged with the dim electricity of Transgression, the invisible contagion that permeated the room; all of which made me let’s-say eager to leave but when I did and stepped outside the immoral cold so set upon my flesh, forcing my shoulders to drop and squinch together, that I nearly beat an immediate retreat but didn’t because it was getting pretty late if I hoped to snag one of the cabs that lined up outside 10 °Centre for the end of night court, especially after a voice from across the street stopped me in my tracks with: “You good man you! Good man, I call you tomorrow!” It was the guy who was convinced his wife wanted an irreversible divorce and whom I had sent to the precinct. Whatever they told him he sure seemed happy as he waved frantically while walking away and I realized I never even learned his name; some good man I made.

I saw there was only one cab left but rather than run or even trot I just followed my geodesic towards it like a soulless galactic body. Floating forward in this manner the vast sidewalk below of lightning-shaped cracks and flat, adhered pebbles, receded, section by section, into my past; in the dim light the many black islands of spent gum, various in size and shape but consistent in frequency, seemed like so many portals to null space. And at the Ptolemaic center lay a steaming lump of rags that only suggested humanity. For out of that amorphous shape emerged two leg-like structures ending in dull orange Chuck Taylors, one of which had been purposely ripped open near the ankle to expose a gapingly open sore that wetly reflected streetlamp light. But wait, maybe his entire body was an open sore and the circle I was staring at the only healthy patch. I looked away. Just before the cab was a round, waist-high kid dressed from chubby head to toe in aggressive pink and testing the limits of acceptable distance from the only nearby woman emitting any maternal air. He stared back at me as if I owed him money and sang distractedly in a troubling falsetto. He sang: You’ve got to accen — tuate the positive, eli — minate the negative… and wasn’t it like one in the morning on a Thursday night? I dropped into the cab and made my request. Suddenly behind me came an aural explosion directly into my bad ear: Hi! This is Judd Hirsch! I know a thing or two about taxis, ha ha… ha, and I know that you should buckle up for safety . I immediately thought of Latka Gravas altering his lifestyle to fit the fast lane with predictably grim results. Ah Latka! Ah humanity!

The driver was the very picture of energy, darkening at various times significant portions of the dividing screen with his seemingly limitless body while his bellow filled the rest of the cab in almost visible sound waves.

“You work in the courts huh chief?”

“Yup.”

“You one of them there DAs working night court son?”

“No.”

“Well you sure look like a lawyer. You know wearing that suit at one thirty in the a.m. and all, tell you that.”

Oh man. This was New York, you weren’t supposed to have to talk to anyone when all you wanted was to stand mute but this pause was going into labor and my interrogator had locked his eyes on the rear-view in predatory wait, so:

“Yeah I’m a lawyer but I’m with the bad guys.”

“What do you mean mac?”

“I’m a defender of the public.”

“Uh?”

“I defend the public from—”

“What?”

“I’m a public defender.”

“Really? Wow that must be something.” He mulled it over noisily. “A public defender in New York City. I mean this has got to be like the crime capital of the world right bub?”

“Well—”

“I read somewhere that someone is killed every hour in New York City.”

“That seems a bit—

“This is one violent city.”

— actually absurdly—

“Not for the weak.”

— high.”