An odd confluence of events led to this post. I heard on the radio about the latest Congressional travesty (i.e., the House suing President Obama) while sorting through boxes and boxes of the things one accumulates over six and a half decades of life. While still fuming and trying to handle feelings of disbelief that this is what our paid and duly elected representatives do with their time, I came across an old journal from 1998. Most of it was personal ramblings, meaningless to anyone but myself, but then I came across this entry, which struck a chord that resounded through the intervening sixteen years. I cleaned it up a bit and clarified some things, but otherwise left it in its ranting rawness. Enjoy my little folly!

Journal entry

6 p.m. CDT

12 August 1998

Evanston, Illinois

I feel like a teenager. I draw my feet up under me, cover my face with my hands, and silently scream: Oh gosh, I’m sooooooo embarrassed!!! Maybe “teenager” is too generous. Maybe my reaction is actually more like that of a pre-adolescent child.

What am I reacting to? Why, President Clinton’s testimony before Ken Starr’s grand jury, which took place today—what else could it be? Why, you ask, am I so embarrassed by this, which has no direct bearing on me personally? Is it because the president has admitted to having some kind of stupid affair with a silly, star-struck (not Starr-struck) bimbo? Or is it because he lied about it under oath (forget the legalese hair-splitting and call a spade a spade), thus committing perjury?

No, I’m not embarrassed about that. If I were embarrassed about public figures having affairs with bimbos and lying about it I’d spend so much time being embarrassed that I’d never have time for anything else. No, I’m embarrassed to be living in the most powerful nation in the history of our planet at a time when that nation has nothing better to do with its time/money/power than to harass its own president, first about a trivial incident of private crudity that happened years  before anybody outside his home state ever heard of him*, next about a somewhat questionable real-estate deal that was concluded and forgotten, by anyone with a life, more than ten years before anybody outside his home state ever heard of him**, and now about the abovementioned silly, star-struck bimbo, who came to light in Mr. Starr’s tireless pursuit to unearth every sordid, uninteresting detail of the abovementioned incident of private crudity.

I didn’t always react to this kind of news in this way. Back around the time Gary Hart*** was cavorting on the Monkey Business with Donna Rice, I was living in Germany. At that time I was quite disappointed with Mr. Hart and his display of bad taste and stupidity. My Dutch and German friends, on the other hand, thought this incident was too trivial to take notice of, beyond a bemused shrugging of the shoulders. “Who cares?” they asked, in their worldly, continental sophistication.

“Well,” I huffed in reply, “it’s a sign of the advancement of women.” They looked at me as if I were crazy, so I smiled—a supercilious American, one-upping them in superiority—and explained. “It shows that we’re finally taking women seriously, and men’s dealings with women. It means that when a married man has a fling with another woman, it’s not just some weakness like smoking or over-eating. It means that women are finally true human beings, not vices to be dismissed in the same breath with gambling or drinking. It shows that when a man lies to and deceives his wife, it’s important, as important as if he lied to or deceived his constituents.”

Of course I’m giving the condensed version of the conversation, not that it ever made much sense. In the end my European friends nodded as if they understood but caught each other’s eyes and shrugged, once again bemusedly. Americans. Silly adolescents.

The strength of my haughtily expressed convictions was sorely tested in 1992, when I had returned home to the States, and was once again surrounded by people as naively idealistic as myself. That’s when I was confronted by the spectacle of Gennifer Flowers disclosing the shocking—simply SHOCKING!—news that she had been then-presidential-candidate Bill Clinton’s extramarital lover for years.

You might think, given my previous opinions, that I would have been disgusted with Mr. Clinton. But instead I defended him in conversations with others, and voted for him that November and again in 1996. What happened to women as human beings, not vices?

Maybe it was because the affair was, by Ms. Flowers’s own admission, over and done with years earlier, not an ongoing, in-your-face flagrancy such as the Hart/Rice/Monkey Business bit had been. Perhaps it was because my mother took the “he shouldn’t be president if he’s a philanderer” attitude, which triggered rebellion in me (yes, even at my age**** these things happen). Perhaps it’s because Ms. Flowers spelled her first name with a “G,” thereby disclosing a desire to be “different” and thus draw attention to herself, which made me instinctively dislike her. Perhaps it’s because I was so sick of Republicans in the White House that I would have supported any Democrat candidate who wasn’t a proven serial killer. 

All this, yes. But most important for me was the obvious facts of Mrs. Clinton’s knowledge and forgiveness of her husband’s behavior. Most important to me was that the Flowers affair was over, and there was no need whatsoever for Ms. Flowers to have come forward; her pathetic grab at the limelight told much more against her, in my view, than it did against Mr. Clinton. “It’s not our business,” I said to somebody who had the misfortune to be listening to me, “it’s a private matter between the two of them [i.e., the Clintons] and if Hillary can deal with it then who are we to judge?” The issue was closed, as far as I was concerned.

But then, through a chain of events too ridiculous and convoluted to enumerate here, Kenneth Starr entered the scene, intent on making mountains out of each of Mr. Clinton’s molehills, and in so doing brought to light the star-struck bimbo. Here Mr. Clinton showed himself to be a fool, a bigger fool even than Gary Hart, whose example should have shown Clinton that times had changed since the days of his (Clinton’s) idol, JFK, and that his (Clinton’s) private adventures in the White House would not go unnoticed or unreported. Yes, Mr. Clinton, that was dumb.

But now they want to impeach a president for lying about an affair? Oh please. Is there any point to this except to make Clinton look bad? Has any man caught in an affair ever admitted it? Who has the right to even ask about the matter except his wife? Who else’s business is it? They say it’s the American people’s business, even though it has been established that Mr. Clinton never murmured any state secrets into the bimbo’s ear while engaged in “not [having] sex.” At least he didn’t share a mistress with a mobster. What will this accomplish except to make Americans appear like a bunch of stupid, squabbling hypocrites to the rest of the world? How many members of Congress, the judiciary, the military, and so on down through the poorest and least powerful sections of American society, have such unblemished personal lives that they should feel entitled to pillory our president for his personal failings? Who can cast the first stone? While I do not subscribe to the notion so often—and so pompously—trumpeted as the reason behind Starr’s witch-hunt, that the president is our “moral” leader and therefore should be held to a higher standard (take moral direction from any career politician? Egad!), I do find it obvious that our president is our most visible and influential representative to the world. By allowing the actions of Ken Starr and his cronies to go unchecked and insufficiently challenged we show ourselves to be not the upholders of morality that some would have us be. Rather we show the worst of America: silly, immature, imbued with a puritanical refusal to understand the human failings that plague all of us in one way or another, with a money-grubbing propensity for finding our own fame and fortune by standing on the shoulders of a drowning man, and, perhaps worst of all, an all-too-great tendency to fabricate controversy where there is none. Pity Mr. Clinton, who was unfortunate enough to be elected during a time of peace and prosperity, without a war or even a nice, invigorating recession to bring Americans together and make us quit fighting amongst ourselves.

So it is that in recent weeks I have had less and less enthusiasm for the news and have been increasingly grateful that one of the local TV stations shows reruns of “The Simpsons” when the national news in running on most of the other stations. At least for a while I can sit back and wholeheartedly laugh at Homer et al. without being brought back to earth by the sickening realization that the grotesque comedy/tragedy unfolding on the screen is real. And oh gosh, I’m soooooooooo embarrassed!

**the Paula Jones scandal

**the Whitewater scandal

***former senator from Colorado

****49 at the time of writing

---

This story was inspired, today, by my morning trip to Ike's Coffee & Tea, at 100 N. Stone in Tucson. It was a jury-duty Friday, and I had to keep up my caffeine levels in order to stay alert. The line was long, but even with plenty of time to kill I was sufficiently dead to the world that it took me a while to notice the extraordinary looking man standing just ahead of me. I managed not to stare, but his appearance was highly suggestive and sent my imagination running wild. I hope the ideas come through clearly, despite the hasty writing. As always, comments are welcome. Compliments are MORE welcome, of course, but anything constructive goes down well. The title is in reference to the uneasy border situation that affects all of us, especially in Arizona, whether we want it or not. Also,  I should add, the Spanish phrase was supplied by one of my jury colleagues, an elegant bilingual lady, who politely assured me that the phrase means "Shut the **** up."

The Border

I stood behind him at the coffee shop. He was a tall, heavy-set Hispanic man—you could sense the type-2 diabetes getting ready to take over his body. How long before he lost his feet? He ordered coffee and a huge, gooey pecan roll, and I stepped forward to order my cappuccino. At that point I looked up at him, and noticed.

It’s then that the machete flashes, seemingly out of nowhere. Suddenly someone is screaming, a gut-wrenched explosion of unbearable pain—no, not unbearable, after all, we are all still here, talking about it. So let’s call it a startling pain, a body-shocking, fear-making, deep-down, fundamental, something-is-terribly-wrong sort of pain, the sort that most of us are fortunate enough never to know. All the pain that led up to this, the shattered eye-socket, the extracted toe-nail, all that is nothing. This is the important pain. Nobody can forget it. Nobody should. Blood gushes from the wound—how could anyone survive such a wound?

And yet, there he was, ordering coffee.

An ear lies on the floor, in a pool of red. It’s deep, that red pool, surprisingly so, and it’s already starting to thicken. Amazing how quickly that happens. A voice cuts through the chaos of blows and screams. “Callate el osico.” Despite the speaker's continuing exertion, it’s a disciplined, unexcited voice, one that doesn’t bother to be angry—anger would require too much emotional energy. The speaker expends only the violent, physical kind of energy, the kind that takes no toll on him. He can work long hours without tiring. But despite his words the screams start again—they can’t help themselves. “Callate el osico.” The litany continues over the screams which carry on, regardless, “callate el osico.”

But that was long ago. Months, surely, probably a year or two before we stood in line at the coffee shop, the Hispanic man and I. There was a hole, about as big around as a child’s finger, on the right side of his head, amid scars that screamed the silent memories of a body broken. On the left side was an ear. It looked perky, even jaunty or defiant. Sort of happy, as it stood there on the big man’s head. What did they want from him? What did they learn? How much did somebody give to get him back?

He left the shop, turned to the left. I went straight ahead and didn’t watch him disappear. Intact. No screams followed us. Blessed are the survivors.

Hello again. Again I am posting a story that was written for a creative-writing class, this one as an exercise in telling a story in present tense. The class instructor, a published, far more successful, writer than I, was enamored of the present tense; in his opinion, present tense immediately created a stronger emotional impact, making the reader feel as if s/he were "right there," in the midst of the action.

I don't agree with this. To me, reader impact and the "right there" sense depends on the emotional investment of the writer, and his/her skill in conveying that investment, and has nothing to do with a gimmick such as using one tense or another. No less important, of course, is the tenuous, wonderfully indefinable connection between writer and reader--if a reader is not on the same wave-length it won't matter at all how skillful the writer is. This is what makes art meaningful. If readers' reactions could be controlled by using one tense or another, one color over another, or one tone over another, then art could be mass-produced and would have no more meaning than any other mass-produced commodity. And how dull life would be if we couldn't argue about whether Dostoevsky is "better" than Tolstoy, or if Bach is superior to Mozart, and so on.

So anyway. This is the story I wrote in present tense. It's a nasty turn on a perfectly innocent idea suggested to me many years ago. Please comment.

The Injury

Sweat beads up on Christine’s face as she strains to do as she is instructed. It trickles down her back and sides until her white silk blouse sticks transparently to her skin, and her palms soak the grips of the apparatus she leans on. But her left foot will not move.

Christine sighs, pauses, closes her eyes, trying to stop the frustrated tears from sneaking between her lashes. Why do they keep putting her through this? This isn’t physical therapy—it’s torture, pure and simple. Hideous, excruciating torture, rendered more painful by its pointlessness. And by the memories it triggers.

She can still see the countryside flashing by; she can still hear the putt-putt of the old VW as she crashes angrily through the gears, listening without hearing as, from the passenger seat, Daniel says, “Chrissy, we’ve got to talk. I don’t know how to tell you this, but . . . you remember Linda? the one I used to share an office with?”

Christine snorts. Who can forget Linda? Lovely Linda, with the ruthless legal mind, the auburn hair, and the shapely legs in the skirts that are barely longer than her jackets. Linda the career woman who has no interest in having kids, who never reminds him that he had promised so many things, for richer for poorer, ‘til death us do part. And a family. Christine silently keeps her eyes on the road.

Daniel lets a silent moment pass, then begins again. “Well,” he says, “Linda and I . . . JEEZUS CHRIST, CHRIS!“ His voice is suddenly taut with fear, and she turns her head to stare at him.

That was the last thing she remembered before waking up in the hospital, in traction, with a broken pelvis, a shattered leg, and a dull pain where she had once had a uterus. She never saw the truck that shot out from behind a stand of tall corn, ignoring a stop sign, and when the driver of the truck sat, sobbing and uninjured, at her bedside, she patted his hand and comforted him, while one of Daniel’s partners prepared to sue him for all he was worth. In a few days Daniel had recovered from his far less extensive injuries and took the truck driver’s place at her bedside, his blue eyes wide with guilt and forgotten vows. Christine gasped in greater pain than she actually felt as she leaned over to let him kiss her, trying to remember when he’d last done that. Panting, she lay down again and listened to Daniel’s strangled voice saying “The doctor says you might not ever have full use of your foot again. I’m so sorry.” Christine had stared, trying to understand him, but failing, as she always had. What did her foot matter?

“Come on now, Mrs. Hardwell. You must keep trying.”

Christine starts, and smiles almost involuntarily. It’s Julie, the new therapist, who’s administering the torture today, for the first time. Julie’s just out of college, with a sort of innocent prettiness in her creamy, freckled complexion, and the slight overbite that makes her upper lip seem too short to reach the lower one, somehow giving the impression that she’s smiling even when she isn’t. Julie speaks quietly, encouragingly, altogether a much nicer therapist than the old biddy with the tired, iron-gray bun at the back of her neck, who barks out commands like a drill sergeant. Or the fat young man who always finds a way to look down Christine’s blouse, and to sneak his hands much closer to certain parts of her body than Daniel’s hands have been in quite some time. But, like the others, Julie is no miracle worker.

“Julie,” Christine sighs, “why am I doing this? The nerve in my foot was severed, and nothing can make it whole again.”

Julie shoves her upper lip down over her teeth, trying to look stern. “Mrs. Hardwell, you know what Dr. Jackson said. That might be true and it might not; lots of people have regained full or partial movement after an injury such as yours, and we won’t know how it’ll be with you unless you keep working.” The lip pops up and Julie smiles, for real. “Now, try it again, Mrs. Hardwell.”

With another deep sigh, Christine leans on the apparatus, hardly listening as Julie repeats the instructions, telling her which muscles to flex, to try to tease some response from the dead nerve in her foot. And, as usual, confronting the injury brings on memories of its cause.

As Daniel sat at her bedside, she had looked up, thinking, perfect in recollection, pricked with an idea, and asked, “What was it you wanted to tell me, just before it happened?”

Daniel’s stunning blue eyes had been almost teary, and his strong, cleft chin—that Christine, like so many other women, had always found to be swooningly masculine—almost quivered as he struggled to reply. Then he gave a short, deprecating laugh. “What? Oh, that.” The idea broadened to illumination as he swallowed and looked away. “Nothing,” he said. “I don’t even remember anymore.” Christine smiled.

“That’s it, Mrs. Hardwell, that’s . . . that’s fabulous! Do you feel anything?”

Julie’s voice breaks in on Christine’s recollections, her sweet blue eyes sparkling, her rosy lips open, as she witnesses the first miracle of her new career, the sort of miracle that could elicit a gasp of wonder even from the iron-gray old biddy. Christine’s left foot, bathed in sweat, is moving. Just a little, it’s true, but all the same, it’s a start.

“Oh, Mrs. Hardwell,” Julie breathes, practically in tears, “you must feel something now, you must—don’t you?”

Christine stands absolutely still, her sweaty hands holding tightly to the soaked rubber grips of the torture apparatus, her eyes wide, her lips parted in the same expression of beatific surprise that also transfigures Julie. After six months of traction, bedpans, and bedsores, and another five months of leaning on a cane, dragging a useless left foot, heavy with a brace that always sets off the metal detectors at the court house—for the first time in nearly a year she feels something. For the first time since she last stepped on the recalcitrant clutch of her old VW, her left foot responds when she wills it to move.

For a moment her eyes light up with a vision of a cane-free, pain-free world, of running with Daniel along the beach as they did when they were courting—is that really less than three years ago? She tries again, for the first time interested in this torturous process, yes, it’s worth any pain, any amount of sweat . . .

“How’s it going?”

Daniel has arrived to take her home. His baritone voice still thrills her with its edgy sexiness. Like good, strong coffee. That’s how her sister had once described his voice, not bothering to keep the envy from her expression, and Christine still finds it to be an apt, if unexpected, simile. She greets him with a radiant smile. Look, honey, she wants to say, look—I’ve made progress today!

But her smile fades. Daniel isn’t looking at her. He’s looking at Julie. At Julie’s creamy complexion with its dusting of freckles; at her maddeningly imperfect, completely charming smile; at her strong, shapely legs, unencumbered by braces. His stunning eyes light up; he moves a step, to stand closer to Julie than is necessary, and she blushes and steps away. But her pretty upper lip can’t reach the lower, and she can’t suppress a smile as she darts a sideways glance at him.

Christine’s eyes close, her shoulders slump, as Julie remembers her job and speaks excitedly to the husband of her client. “Mr. Hardwell, she’s made progress today.” She turns to Christine, her eyes dancing. “You felt something just now, didn’t you, Mrs. Hardwell? That’s right, isn’t it?”

Christine stands tall in the therapy apparatus, and looks at Julie, with her sparkling eyes, her cute upper lip, and pink cheeks. Christine looks at Daniel, who is looking at Julie. Christine sighs, slumps again, shaking her head. “No,” she whispers, “I felt nothing at all.” More loudly now, she continues. “Take me home, please, Daniel.” And she watches as the familiar guilt returns to Daniel’s expression, and he steps forward to help her. Julie, suddenly flushing, her lip pulled down, moves out of the way, saying nothing.

In another moment Christine is clutching Daniel’s arm, leaning on her cane, her left foot dragging uselessly along. Daniel’s swoon-worthy jaw sets, and he pats her hand and comforts her moans of suppressed pain as he takes his wife home.

Back by popular request!

Well, if four different people constitute "popular," then the title is appropriate.


What that means is, four different people have recently encouraged me to start writing again, so here you are. I'll start by posting some old stuff, including short stories and serialize a few novels, while a work on some new stuff.


So here you are. This was written for a creative writing class in 1997. Comments welcome!

c    Virgo Rising

by

M.   S. Olsen

People can really be disgusting, you know?

Ever watch somebody chew gum? At best it’s a rhythmical rolling of the jaw, like a cow working on its cud. It makes you wonder if they’re eating on the sly, or if they’re saying something they don’t want you to hear. At worst, it’s a jaw dropping to chest level, to give you a view of the interior of somebody’s mouth, and you never wanted to see in the first place, did you? Sometimes the chewer’s tongue hangs out with each stroke. Sometimes they make those hideous cracking noises, or maybe they constantly blow bubbles, and you hear this popping, and you jump a little and have to find your place and start over again. Grown-ups do that. So do kids. So did George.

If they’re not chewing gum they’re fussing with their sinuses. You know—their noses run so they sniff. Sniff. Sniff. Sometimes they sigh and make rueful gestures to convey a sense of nobly bearing up under the tyranny of an inconsiderate nasal member, as if you should feel sorry for them. If you do take pity and offer them a Kleenex they smile and say “Thanks, but I have one.” Sniff. Sniff. Or they have post-nasal drip. You know that stuff—it feels like you have a growth at the back of your throat. Personally, I’ve always thought of post-nasal drip as one of God’s little jokes, like cockroaches, and there’s no way to get rid of it altogether. But some people make you suffer along with them. They snort. Loudly. Way back in their throats, like they’re grasping that little growth and with a sort of gurgling growl they pull it down until they can swallow it. George used to do that. All the time.

Actually, they swallow it if you’re lucky. If you’re not lucky they spit it out. Right on the street. A lot of the time they don’t even make any attempt to hide it. You know, if you’re walking along a city street and you don’t watch your step you could step on somebody’s loogie at least once in every block. If you don’t watch out, somebody might spit right on you, because people who are that crude never bother to make sure they’re not spitting on something, or somebody—they’re concerned only with their sinus problems.  Women do this now and then, but men are the real culprits. This grows worse as men get older, too. They reach a certain age and they think there’s nothing that matters anymore except hocking a loogie, as loudly and as prominently as possible. Like that creepy old pawnbroker in his creepy little dungeon where I bought the .22, that some loser had never redeemed. That man’s hands were curled up like dried leaves; he could hardly write anymore, not with those hands. And he must have held the all-time record for the worst mucus fixation ever. He couldn’t even finish a sentence without pausing to snort, to cough up a big wad of whatever, then turn to spit on the floor. It took him five hockers to get me through the registration form. Five hockers for a lousy little .22, so small it could fit in my purse. I suppose I should have been grateful—after all, at least he didn’t spit on the counter. George did that once, at a restaurant where he thought we were getting poor service. He said that was the only tip they’d get from him. What can you do with a guy like that?

Little things. Wars and political disputes don’t make much difference in most of our lives. But those little things will kill you. Tiny, human things. Sometimes . . .

Oh, don’t get the impression that I’m just some raging, man-hating radical feminist in combat boots. Oh no. Women may not be as bad about the spitting business, but they have their little problems, too. Don’t you just hate the way some women sneeze? Teensy little tepid things, that they force out through their noses. As if they’re too dainty to cut loose with a good sneeze, or that maybe they’re so refined that such a crude thing as a sneeze would never happen to them. The woman they put in here with me, she sneezed like that. Ha-tsss! Makes you want to hit her, doesn’t it? Actually, it made me almost feel nostalgic for George. His sneezes used to be so loud and juicy I would just about jump out of my skin. I used to hate it. I used to ask him, politely, to tone it down. But he, like most men, never gave a thought to anyone else’s comfort, so what could I do? But for a while I sneezed more loudly than I used to, just to make a point with this woman. Not that she ever understood. George never did, either.

But really, even the worst woman is nothing compared to any man. Anybody who’s ever watched TV with a man knows how awful that can be. Click! Click! Click! The channel changes every few seconds. And do they ask you if you mind? Do they ask if it’s okay with you if they change the channel? Hah! You know the answer to that. Once I got so fed up with George that I jumped on him and wrestled the remote away from him. But he was a lot bigger and stronger than I was so he got it back without much trouble. And then he said I was so cute when I was mad and tried—unsuccessfully, of course—to turn the incident into a seduction . . . Well, I don’t know about cute I was, but I was definitely mad. I ran to the bathroom and locked myself in, thinking I would sit there in the dark for a few minutes and cool off.

Which reminds me. Really, why why why can’t men put the toilet seat down? Honestly, do they think the bathroom looks attractive like that? Why would anyone want to look at the underside of a toilet seat, with those little yellow spots (or, even worse, brown ones—ew!) splattered all over it? Why would anyone want to even touch it? If they need to lift it, that’s their problem, but if they had an ounce of consideration, even an ounce . . .

Well, anyway. You can imagine what sort of man George was with regard to toilet seats. So instead of sitting there quietly in the dark, I splashed right down into the water. Right into it. One thing I must, in fairness, say for George is that at least he flushed consistently, which is more than can be said for some that I could name. But for heaven’s sake, I was wearing a brand-new skirt, and it was soaked, just soaked, and it didn’t cool me off one little bit. In fact, I was downright irritated when I walked back to the living room. I mean, who wouldn’t be? If he thought I was cute before, I must have been utterly adorable then. George took one look at me and doubled over laughing.

That’s another thing. The way some people laugh. They bray like donkeys or giggle like hyenas. Or women—you know, some of them are too dainty for a good laugh, just like they’re too dainty for a good sneeze. That woman—you know, the one who used to sleep in the top bunk here—she laughed like that. She was in here for vehicular homicide and she acted like the Queen of Sheba, tittering with her hand in front of her mouth, as if she was afraid somebody might see her teeth.

But anyway, George was one of those hyena people, and my purse was right there on the coffee table, and the .22 was in my purse. And it was certainly regrettable what a mess he made, splattering all over the couch and the wall behind him. It would have taken hours to clean all that up, especially to scrub the upholstery. But I barely had time to get started before the police arrived. That old busybody next door—you know she actually has a hairy mole on her nose? A great big one, too. I’ll never understand why she didn’t have it removed. But, as I was saying, the .22 didn’t make much noise, but she probably had a glass pressed to the wall so she could eavesdrop more efficiently.

And then . . . oh, how could anyone be expected to put up with that public defender? Honestly, the hem of his jacket was hanging loose, and he never bothered to have it fixed. No, I’m not making this up. Who wouldn’t have fired him? And the district attorney—he snorted and sniffed like there was no tomorrow, constantly blowing his nose on a filthy handkerchief. And in two weeks he never once changed his pants. It was awful, the same ill-fitting, wrinkled pants with frayed cuffs—how could a man like that ever win a case? Probably the jury identified with him—a worse bunch of snorting, sniffing, gum-chewing idiots is hard to imagine. They actually tittered and brayed at his feeble attempts at humor. Of course I had to stand up and tell them what I thought of them all—what else could a reasonable person do?

At the very end, though, came the worst part. I had to stand up and face the judge, and it was just too much. Before he started speaking he hocked a loogie into his hankie—it was just awful. And then he blew his nose into the same hankie! To make it even more disgusting, he didn’t wipe his nose thoroughly, and I spent the whole time staring at his nose, because what the vulgarians of the world sometimes refer to as a, ahem, booger was hanging there, quivering with each word. And you know, he was so inconsiderate he wouldn’t even listen when I said I’d never, ever be able to sleep if I had to have a roommate. And the privacy—there’s none! None at all—how could a decent woman be expected to live under those conditions? But he wouldn’t even let me finish. That disgusting old man just banged his little hammer—he probably thinks he’s a real power in the universe every time he does that—and ignored me.

And—well, they only have themselves to blame. I told them it wouldn’t work. The Queen of Sheba may have been a titterer and a tepid sneezer in the daytime—that was bad enough—but at night she showed her true, crude self. She snored. Every cliché you’ve ever heard about snorers, that was what I had to put up with, every night. Eardrum-shattering, paint-peeling snorts, all night long. Even worse than George. I asked for a transfer, but nobody listened to me. They said I couldn’t be fussy in my situation. “Fussy”? Me? I was asking only for some human consideration. And the Queen herself—when I asked her to sleep on her side, to keep her snoring at a minimum, she was aghast. She had the nerve to say she couldn’t possibly snore, her husband had never complained. Hah! As if he would—he probably snored even worse than she did. He was probably one of those insensitive boors who can sleep through an earthquake.

What could I do in that situation? Needless to say, they wouldn’t let me have my .22—I didn’t even bother to ask. But, you know, it’s easy enough to sharpen a hard, plastic toothbrush. You just have to rub it against an iron bedframe for a while. It takes some patience, but what else is there to do in the middle of the night, when the person above you sounds like a human chain saw? In fact, it took several weeks, but it was worth it. I didn’t even pay any attention to the blood dripping down the wall. I knew they’d make me clean it up in the morning, but that was a small price to pay for a good night’s sleep.

But things just don’t get better, not for long anyway. Tonight I asked for lobster for dinner, and you know what they gave me? That fake stuff, that’s made from soybeans or something. I was simply disgusted. And they actually handcuffed me to this gurney, as if I’d try to run away. And you know, they still won’t listen. The people on the other side of the window—they think they can fool me, but I know it’s not a mirror, and I know there are people sitting there, watching, like ghouls, probably chewing gum and spitting. And the way they’ve set it up, probably those disgusting slobs can see right up my skirt. Can you imagine? I asked them, nicely, to turn me sideways, but I might as well not have wasted my breath. And worst of all, I told them I can’t stand needles. I told them, very politely. But would they listen? Sheesh--. People are disgusting.