by David Kempf
“Oh shit,” said Dougal. “Yeah, that is what you said.”
“Daniel was so stressed out,” DeVito said.
“Yeah, it was kind of a sober blackout. I don’t think he remembered much after I stood up for him in court,” Dougal said.
“I see,” Davenport said. “You don’t understand this woman. She hates the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights. A monster hiding behind the robe. Likes to pretend she is god and all of the people are there for her to play with where men’s fates are decided by her malicious will.”
“Jesus,” Davenport murmured.
DeVito cleared his throat. “The police help each other out so they don’t get caught drinking and driving. They help me because I am there drinking buddy and short of murder or a fatal accident, the drunken fool judge is persona non grata.”
“Well,” Davenport said firmly, “if you end up in jail it will be your fault just like your buddy Daniel.”
“No,” Dougal protested.
“No?”
“I have a phone installation business. Daniel is just a hack writer who writes trashy novels.”
“If you hire me, I will not let you say that to a judge.”
Dougal looked defiant and insulted.
“Look, Mr. Dougal, even the president of M.A.D.D. got a DUI. My God.”
There was a long pause.
“Funny you should say that, Mr. Davenport.”
“Why?”
“I happen to be a member of D.A.D.D.”
“What the hell is that?” Davenport asked full of curiosity.
“Well, you know M.A.D.D. is Mothers against Drunk Drivers, right?”
“Of course.”
“D.A.D.D. is Drunk Drivers against Drunk Drivers.”
“That, Mr. Dougal is simply the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my life,” Davenport said sadly.
***
Mirror, Mirror.
It’s that time again.
Had to buy a new mirror.
I think I hate you.
You can’t hold yourself.
Go fuck yourself!
The woman was alone again. Well, barring the old face she was gazing at, her reflection, which she was probing for wrinkles. Her last husband had abandoned her when he caught her with yet another stranger. Oh, how she loves to fuck strangers.
Her Honor was a bit like a man in that she enjoyed fucking everything that moves.
She grew quiet and still.
Stop looking at yourself in the mirror…
“I need to put a stop to this,” she whispered to herself.
You won’t like what you see…
The once lovely woman hallucinated (or perhaps dreamed?) her old young and beautiful face in the bathroom mirror. Beauty comes and goes but she was once a kind and compassionate idealist in the old days. Throwing someone in jail for the disease of addiction would have been unthinkable for the young and idealistic judge who once was.
Those days were gone and almost now forgotten. Rehab, community service, helping others to recover and losing your license. This is what she once stood for but reelection and the possibility of losing power always loomed over her like a mortal threat. Jail, permanent criminal records, obscenely high court costs and wearing a huge and uncomfortable ankle bracelet. Christ, what had she and the system become? A racket that never treated the disease of addiction. Her Honor once made an incredibly hypocritical YouTube video where she called addiction a “monster” and then asked kids to write letters to the poor schmucks in jail.
Who are you, kidding, darling?
You put those poor souls in jail.
The real monster is you.
Cybil knew it was all about her. She had to be center stage or not in the show at all.
“Christ, what the hell is that?” She thought she saw a creature in the mirror behind her. The reflection of another female face. Perhaps it was her future ugly face or merely a hallucination. One thing was for sure. She wasn’t about to say Bloody Mary three times.
She would light no candles for any rituals.
Her face continued to age. It was only a brief glimpse of her idealistic youth. She would have to be just another selfish sadist in a failed system. Other judges fucked in their office and drove home drunk every day with police protection.
“Am I so bad?” she whispered to herself once again.
She turned on the sink and washed her hands. Cybil looked in the mirror at her wet hands. For a terrifying moment, the water looked like dark red blood. Then God only knows why she picked up a razor blade. The one she used to shave her mustache. It miraculously transformed into a sharp knife.
Do it you stupid bitch…
End it…
Whore. What sane woman is married that many times?
Thirteen judges, 13 jokers, 13 unfit hypocrites on the bench, 13 is an unlucky number…
April 13th Daniel was sentenced.
All of these terrifying images were going through Her Honor’s once good and conflicted mind. Now she was a soulless sellout.
Nothing was really behind her but she envisioned bloody hands touching her naked body and candles lit all over the bathroom as it extended into an imaginary hallway.
Was this a nightmare?
Was this her as she really was?
Her Honor did not want the world to see what she truly was. She would just have to swallow her pride and hide behind a mask of justice and congeniality. This would not be the first time she swallowed something unpleasant, hundreds of boys in the backseat of cars scared her memory.
The face of the monster would have to remain hidden.
What the hell was happening to her?
Were these revelations or hallucinations?
There was blood on the gavel again.
Dark red blood and then it turned back to water.
Her face was rapidly aging like Dorian Grey.
Then it appeared like a rotting corpse in the mirror, her hair vanished and her eyeballs turning into empty black sockets.
She heard noises, no screams in the darkness.
Voices of the past, voices of the damned, lives ruined by her and all of the stupid laws of America, her gradual racism and greed created by her egomaniac power madness. She was under a spell and she never knew why.
Her drunken idiot father?
No.
Her ridiculous amount of lovers and failed marriages?
No.
This could not be real. How could she see if her eyes were rotted out blackened sockets?
Her face was symbolic of a failed system of bias, extortion and racketeering.
THE DECOMPOSING FACE OF JUSTICE.
It was over almost as soon as it began.
The illusion was gone.
Her Honor’s real aged face appeared back, she could once again look at her own reflection and not cringe. Well, she grabbed a bottle of vodka from the little cabinet beneath her feet. She drank about half of it all at once.
Now she could look herself in the eye once again.
She was wrong.
The bitch did not like what she saw.
Her Honor was such a hypocrite.
Her fear drove through her now. Her madness. MADNESS descent into madness…
FEAR.
The fear she was too irresponsible, selfish, childish and stupid to be deciding men’s fates. A drunk, a narcissist and career politicians sitting up on the bench. The inmates are running the asylum.
Cybil turned off the lights, almost involuntarily. She saw the wicked face of a cackling old witch behind her. It had deep, dark circles under its reddish eyes and almost razor sharp teeth in its decaying open smiled mouth. Was this Bloody Mary in the mirror? Was this her future self? Could it be a distortion of her own self-image?
She quickly turned the lights back on and there was nothing but cold reality again. Just an old woman looking at her own reflection.
Then a terrible thought came to her.
Fuck the First Amendment.
Fuck the Bill of Rights.
The Judges were in charge now.
Cybil remembered a t-shirt some pretentious college professor used to wear when he was walking in the park.
CAREFUL, OR YOU’LL WILL END UP IN MY NOVEL
We are not amused; she remembered thinking at the time. This Daniel character could end up writing about her in one of his trashy novels. He might, you know, get a little paper revenge. Vindictive childish prick. He was probably one of those ACLU types who were trying to make the American Court System appear primitive, racist, bias and cruel. Like it was some kind of disgraceful racket.
Now she was thinking if she was really lucky then Daniel might try to escape. God, she would love that. Yes, she was hoping Daniel escapes. That one idiot escaped last year and then she put him upstate. She knew how popular the man who escaped would be upstate. County was good for him. Cybil had her way with that fool. It wasn’t his day but it sure was for Her Honor. What a satisfying day that was indeed. She enjoyed contemplating Daniel escaping and feared him writing about her. She was enraged and wished she sent him upstate. There was, of course, another option. Just skip the week in jail and give him straight house arrest. This sentence would surely assure her part in his next book would be the length of a sentence. No. She preferred his will being broken and him getting beat up, hopefully gang raped in the shower, yes that sounded nice.
When he came out of prison a truly broken man, these highfalutin ideas of freedom of speech and writing the great American novel would cease to exist.
She didn’t like Daniel one bit.
Writers were dangerous.
Besides, this was not some Ray Bradbury time travel story. This was real life. A slap on the wrist for some drunken fool would have no future consequences.
***
Hey kids, Lilith again. Boy, this woman sure is stupid. She seems completely unaware that she is working my will. Well, okay, that was my doing. It was my beautiful face she saw in the mirror behind her. I am going to have my way with this one. Ultimately, all humans who believe themselves to be in power are merely my playthings. Oh, I just finished wiping her memory with a spell so she will think it all a dream. The fool who calls herself a judge has me seeping deeply into her subconscious.
I must confess that I delight in whispering evil ideas into the ears of the weak minded and vain. A slap on the wrist won’t change anything? Oh really? We’ll see about that. Oh foolish mortals. Yes, I know, a painful cliché but I said it anyway.
Home again at his apartment with a fashionable new ankle bracelet, Daniel called his father. He was ashamed of what he had done but sort of proud he got through a week of jail like a champ.
“Dad, hello…”
“Hi Dan, did you drop the soap?”
“Oh, you’re funny. You should be on stage.”
“Son, now you have a criminal record, you’ve sabotaged your reputation. Holy smokes, you’ve really done it this time. I mean I think that you just don’t get it. If people would just get… ahh, what’s the word for whipped they used in constitutional times, you know, the old days…”
“Flogged?”
“Yes.”
“You’re insane.”
“No, I’m not. I just read Peter Moskos In Defense of Flogging and it made perfect sense to me He’s a professor so he knows what he’s talking about.”
“He’s also an ex-cop which makes you wonder a bit about what they think of constitutional rights…”
“Sure.”
“Why are you telling me this, dad?”
“I wrote state senator Blake Specter about this thing and…”
“What did you do?”
“I wrote the state senator with a proposal. Instead of wasting away, rotting in prison, getting beat up, getting raped, it would be better…”
“Oh, please tell me you didn’t.”
“I made him a proposed that they bring back flogging. It’s intensely painful but it’s more humane. I agree with Moskos that we should at least give offenders a choice in the matter.”
There was silence between father and son for a moment.
“Dad, you don’t have a leg to stand on. This is nonsense. You’ll never hear back from Specter.”
“Daniel, I already have the prize, a letter stating he would give it some thought and consideration.”
Oh dear reader, Daniel’s father was telling the truth. Specter said that he would consider this. The things that I could tell you about human nature, I could tell you many things, none of them good. Specter was a fool but he was also ambitious and nothing is worse than an ambitious fool. That one letter planted a desperate seed in the minds of those in power. It would take some serious time to evolve but as sure as a full moon at harvest it would come to fruition.
Her Honor (on the phone): “Hello, Senator Specter, this is Judge Cybil Lessman. I found your proposal fascinating. I don’t mean to sound pessimistic about the innate goodness of people but I think you have some compelling ideas here. I agree with that professor, that Moskos guy. If we can find an alternative….”
“I don’t think we realistically can,” said the senator.
“Well… frankly I can’t think of anything else.” Her honor was getting wet under the robe thinking about judges having power like this over others.
The harsh punishment from the good old days was going to make a comeback now. Happy days here again and like I said it took some time…
Senator Blake Specter Jr. was the man of the hour. A natural born sadist, secretly going to underground clubs where he would spank women until their lovely bare bottoms had welts on them….
Oh goodness, what a guy. He was following in the dark footsteps of the Marquis de Sade except this time it was official policy.
What was once considered a horror was now the order of the day. Even devout Christians flinched thinking about the cat of nine tails cutting through the back of Christ. Flesh was torn from bone. It was almost as unspeakable as the crucifixion itself. If they only knew how much more merciful Roman crucifixion was compared to the days of Alexander. In those days victims were tortured with a spike up their anus. They had to sit up and down on it to draw another breath. Their legs were spread eagle in order to promote the idea they had no shame. It was quite an erotic experience in terrifying pain. Men would ejaculate over and over again until the centurions or someone in the crowd castrated them.
The future was now. A man saw his stepdaughter at the beach, in a bikini, a lovely young thing whom nature had built to voluptuous perfection.
“I’m sorry for what happened to you,” he said.
“I need to be alone,” she said tearfully.
The man waited a moment and then went downstairs to his secret place. It’s where he watched her with cameras. He saw her stunningly beautiful body. He was delighted to watch it on five monitors. He had one for her tits, one for her ass and one for the radiant “down there” as modest women said in the old days. The good old days were not so good but humanity never learned anything from the past. Now he saw her naked back, full of amazing bruises from her flogging. Just thinking about her suffering made him rise to the occasion. The loving stepdad pulled out his cock but not for long. Two, maybe three strokes would do it.
All of this nonsense about the golden calf when I knew all along that men worshipped the sadistic orgasm.
So the story goes….
In less than one lifetime, so much more happened in the world of judicial cruelty in the so-called land of the free. Given a history of racism and ignoring poverty I was impressed with their shameless willingness to take a terrible step backwards. So sad and harsh the souls of men, so eager to embrace cruelty… I cannot lie. I was much impressed with the dark hearts of human wickedness. They had the gift of free will and still made a choice to crucify the better part of themselves.
The man’s name was Phillip Farnsworth and oh how he loved to watch the young lady who was flogged. Her name is incidental. Farnsworth made some interesting
calls to people as well. Terrence Long was a TV producer who specialized in “reality” TV shows. Farnsworth attempted to copyright the idea with the Library of Congress before he contacted Long. Human nature would never miss the chance for a good double-cross. No way. Mr. Long would have his way; taking Farnsworth’s idea. Once again. the word shameless comes to mind. Farnsworth went and hung himself. The plan or rather the idea Farnsworth had eventually turned into a dream come true. The public flogging for DUI’s, petty theft and even cheating on exams was not open to the public. Even attempts at taking cellphone pictures and videos were punishable by jail or ironically flogging now. Sadly, the salt of the earth souls never stood a chance. They would have no more tomorrows.
You see, dear reader, it goes like this… Americans are sexually repressed and much more comfortable with violence than erotic freedom. Think about it. Women are told to hate sex but yet with enough money, the all American god, they will take off their clothes for pictures and movies, prostitute themselves and marry men they aren’t in love with. Hell, sometimes they even hate their husbands. I wish all women could be as free as I am. The sexual fantasies that both sexes have are hardly ever wholesome. They are dark and wicked, my preference.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” said President Specter (yes, the grandson of that specter and presidents were essentially dictators now).
“Yes,” Mr. Long answered. “We have the lawyers, the politicians, the financial backers and most importantly the prisoners.”
The TV show was simply called Flogged when it first aired. The fiends behind the scenes had to put up with a lot of flak and public outcry in the beginning. This was true because of the ugly undesirable victims who were being flogged; Homeless people, pitiful alcoholics, the mentally ill and the mentally retarded and a host of impoverished unfortunates. It was interesting what the powers that be came up with next:
“What about the prostitutes?” asked the president.
“What about them, sir?” Long asked him.
“All of them so far have been so ugly. Vile creatures…”
“I see your point, Mr. President.”
“There is a young lady of the night Vivian Walker, she’s a looker.”