Feeding More Steak to the Alligators
Once upon a time and all good stories start with Once Upon a Time, it was Friday, the day chosen for yet another court appearance. The Outlaw wakes up at dawn, smokes a couple of cigarettes, and stalls the shower. Finally, he crawls out from underneath his futon, splashes his body with water, and puts on his Sunday Betters. He leaves all the artillery, back at the Hideout, with his partner-in-grime. The Public Defender would like more proof-of-income, if you please.
“If you don’t come back with some sort of membership card that tells us that you are employed as a tax-paying, vote-throwing and jury-sitting citizen,” says the Judge, “I am going to throw you into jail for contempt!”
“Thank you, your honor,” replies the Outlaw.
He arrives back at the Hideout, feeling a little better. He has his first conversation with the Hillbilly Cinderella, since the FBI arrived. His heart jumps through the hoop of fire. He tells her that he loves her, repeatedly. She goes off to the Orphanage, and he goes off to the liquor store. Upon his return, the Skyline Kids arrive, knocking at his door. Writing and working, he wanders the halls and the alleys, finally locking himself in his space. Reaching high up onto the tops of his milkcrates full of books, our Outlaw brings down books upon his head. On the way down, the books fall into the man, who falls into the glass, which falls into the other glass sculpture. Suddenly, there are books, glass and chairs flying around the room.
The police arrive, outside. They are responding to a possible domestic violation, at his address. He doesn’t hear them in his madness, so they kick the door in, flooring him with a Ninja-hold on his finger, and putting rugburn on his chin and knees. They cart him off to jail, in only his underwear. He almost has to throw down punches in the general lockup with two little boys making cracks to hide the fear.
Back to jail, do not collect two-hundred dollars. The police leave the Hideout in a state of demolishment, with the door slanted out of the frame. Finally, early in the second morning, they give him a shirt, to go with his Styrofoam slippers, and he appears in front of the judge to plead guilty to interferring and disobeying a lawful order. The Skyline Kids take advantage of the moment, removing his digital camera, his lost girlfriend’s CD player, all of his money, beer, cigarettes, and even his food.
“It says here in the police report that they heard you screaming ‘I am going to kill you,’ and things breaking.”
“There was no one else in the cave with me, your honor.”
“Time served,” the judge says, looking skeptically over his glasses at the Outlaw.
“Thank you, your honor.”
After 36 hours in the City Jail, he arrives home to find his world in not only chains, but chaos. Thankfully, his furry partner-in-crime and grime is not too severely wounded in the melee. Crime Boss is not a suitable career aspiration. He cleans up the fallen books, and the broken glass, with the help from a couple angels. He files a police report on his stolen belongings. After a shower, and a rehinging of the door, he is kidnapped and escorted to the suburbs. They watch a Star Trek: The New Generation marathon on cable television, and have Kentucky Fried Chicken delivered to the couch. At the proper time, and not a moment before, they prepare to go to the Gothic nightclub. Arriving at The Wreckroom, the usual Sunday crowd awaits. Tim in his bleached hair, and Todd with his fashion sense, are laying down the beats in the basement.
They find a seat with Rubber Chuckie, the rubber and vinyl fetishist, and his domme-wife, Roxanne. Sipping on vodka and cranberry juice, our outlaw begins to unwind from his vacation behind bars. The happy couple invites him back to their house for a threesome. He takes them up on their offer. All the good crime-fighters work the night shift, keeping the streets safe from villains, as we sleep.
“I think that I am going to change my name to Regret,” she says. “Are you romantic enough to believe in an afterlife?”
“There is nothing liked being kicked in the balls, when you stand three foot tall.”
“What is the definition of a diversity of tactics? Is it possible to live in a violent world, and not be violent? Is it possible to steal, if you do not know the conceptual constraints of property and ownership? It costs a great deal of money to detain, arrest, process, and feed a prisoner, not to mention the bureaucratic processes set in motion when someone is charged. The more people arrested, the more the judicial system can justify erecting more prisons, and filling them. Foucault is rolling in his grave.”
“It does me no injury for my neighbor to say that there are twenty Gods or no Gods; it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg,” said Thomas Jefferson.
“If you are truly religious, you are religious, all the time, and no act that you perform is without religious significance and justification,” she says.
“Is this a religious war?” he asks. “Is ‘indivisible under god’ to be considered hate-speech? I always used to ask myself why god hated trailer parks, but then I watched the Jerry Springer television show.”
“A false religion is a religion that has failed to master modernity,” she says.
“A faith at peace with freedom and modernity is a faith that has given up its franchise and has made itself into something occasional and cosmetic, like the Springer Show.”
“Them coppers will never take me alive, I tell you!” he exclaims with a sneer.
