Nineteen

Nineteen

“What a piece of work is man” Hamlet, Shakespeare.

I saw a short film a few months ago, about this young man making a glove, after sewing it, he drew eyes, nose and mouth on it, and then he wore it. The glove’s features turned evil, and it punched him in the face, the young man was surprised, he tried to take the glove off, but it started hitting him harder, so they engaged in a vicious fight, the glove became bigger and more frightening, as the young man started running away from his own hand in a desperate attempt to escape, finally after a painful struggle, he destroyed the evil glove. At the end of the film the young man is laying down all injured in a hospital bed, face all swollen, and his arms and legs all in cast. He grabs a marker and started drawing eyes and nose on his arm cast!

Today I went with a friend to court as he was taking care of a parking ticket, we arrived at a huge courtroom with many floors, large halls, suites running around, and a lot of tension. We get to the room, ordinary court room, brown, big red curtains, huge paintings with Latin phrases that I assume say “fate, justice and destiny” or something of that sort, an older male with gray hair is setting higher than everyone else with a cape on, not superman’s, but super judge’s cape, with serious expressions on his face, a bunch of younger men and women in suites standing in front of him, with a lot of papers and a smell of cockiness a bit fills their vicinity! On the right hand side, nine people in handcuffs are sitting on a bench looking at us (the audience) in the benches facing the show. They were five black males, two Latin males, one white male, and one white female.

A name is called and one of the prisoners gets up and slowly walks to the judge with cuffs around his ankles and hands, making a loud noise with the chains dragging on the floor and clutching with one another as he walks, no one seemed to care, a guard had his hand on the back of his belt that holds his hand cuffs as he walked, something that painfully resembled walking a dog, suddenly I was feeling a sad, uncomfortable and hurt looking at someone walk like this.

While the man’s attorney starts his plea and everyone is tuning in anxiously waiting for the verdict, my eyes catch something else on the right bench, the female, the girl, sitting in cuffs, was crying so hard, silently, she looked so sad, her eyes were shot red, tears streaming uncontrollably down her face, her cuffed hands keep going up and down helplessly trying to wipe them off her tired face. She looked about nineteen, long, brown wet-looking hair, and pale skin, white T-shirt, and black pants, a regular girl. Her crying didn’t seem to grab anyone’s attention but mine, I tried to look away, but she was in such pain and sorrow I couldn’t. Her eyes kept looking around the room as if she was looking for a familiar face but couldn’t find any, she looked so lost! The expression on her face was a mixture of terror, sorrow, and just severe sadness. I wonder what this poor young girl did, maybe she was a victim and taken in by mistake, maybe someone set her up! Crime of passion perhaps, whatever it is, I sure hope the judge would see how sad and full of remorse she is, so he’d be kind and have some mercy on her!

About an hour goes by between loud attorneys and incoherent law talk! The girl is still crying her heart out, at this point I was dying to hear what her case was, I’m sitting there hoping the judge won’t call my friend’s ticket before her case, while moving my curious eyes around the prisoners bench, I’m taken back by one of the Latino guys staring at me, his eyes were so dark and sharp, he had long black hair in a pony tail, and a bunch of tattoos, he smiled at me a big ear-to-ear smile, but not those smiles you get from the morning baker, or from your co-workers at the water cooler, but a confident, scary, smug-like, almost sarcastic smile, I got scared like a rabbit and turned away so fast that I almost hurt my neck! My heart sunk so deep in my feet as he smiled at me, he just scared the hell out of me, something about his smile was so frightening and disturbing, I didn’t dare to even look at the bench again.

Another 30 minutes go by, I’m still scared to look at the bench as the smiling Latin man is still very rudely and baldly staring at yours truly. The girl is still silently weeping and looking around the room, finally the judge calls her, she gets up and drags her cuffed feet across the room, I listen closely to what her lawyer says; “my client has pleaded guilty of the charges and request a second chance your honor blah, blah…”, “your client was caught with one hundred thousand dollars worth of cocaine in her house! Not to mention that her three kids live with her at that same house, the oldest is seven, and the youngest is but two years old, why should I give her any chance to be around those kids?” the judge replies in an aggressive tone, “your honor, she already spent time and knows her fault, she wants to mend her ways” the attorney pleads as if he really cares, I follow the play with eyes so wide of surprise, and ears attentively listening. The judge asked the woman something in a lower voice that I didn’t catch, the she answers back bashfully and briefly, I hear “my kids will be homeless”, and “I’m only nineteen”, my baby brother is twenty one!!! Anyways, the judge replies with another question and her attorney interrupts her saying “yes your honor” and hands him a bunch of papers, the judge looks at them, then sentence her to 12 months in prison among other things, from the happiness on her face I assume she already spent some of that time if not all, she goes back to the bench, with a huge smile on her face, on the other side of the bench sat three drug dealers, all looking at her, she sits down and immediately starts talking to them with astonishingly high spirits!

Few minutes go by, and her voice keeps getting louder as she laughs flirtatiously with the men on the other side of the bench, and I see what clearly looks like she was giving one of them her number! SHE WAS STILL IN HAND CUFFS ON THE BENCH, IN THE COURTROOM. I couldn’t help but feel angry! Seeing her only six minutes earlier balling her eyes out, tears streaming down her face, the lost look, all that, amazing! I start to wonder if the 12 months in prison is way too short of a time for such a crime! I understand that the judge probably wanted to give her and her three kids a second chance, but… something just didn’t seem right about the whole thing. Her laughter was getting louder by the minute, that the judge addressed her saying “silence in court” with an angry tone.

Finally my friend’s case is called, and he gets it over with, we walk out and head to the car. Looking at people faces is mind puzzling. A large number of them had a bored look on their faces! Like they’ve gone through this process a lot, it is then brought to my attention that most of these people are returning customers of the court! They catch them, put them away, release them, and then catch them again! Just the courtroom was scary enough to me to make me never run a yellow light! The whole process of catching, prosecuting and releasing just wasn’t working, almost seems pointless.

When I was a little girl my father, who is a judge, took me to court with him once, I sat outside in the car for a few minutes, it was drug charges hearing as well, I saw the bus drop off a long line of men, all in handcuffs, they had a scary look about them, fear, tension and misery filled the air, that even me as a little girl felt them so deeply. Back then I remember wondering if this whole process works! If they learn their lesson and move forward, it was depressing, I wanted to get out of there As soon as possible, pretend I never saw that, make believe it’s all good and peachy, that they all eventually find their path, the same feeling I was experiencing now, nineteen years later.

Noha