True Porn Clerk Stories - Ali Davis [42]
Security tape in hand, we went through the metal detectors (People, for chrissakes. We all know the drill now. We're going to be having our metals detected for quite some time to come. Have your goddamned keys and your goddamned change and your goddamned giant metal belt buckles OFF YOUR PERSON AND READY TO PUT IN THE LITTLE BASKET. Must we really act like it's a surprise every time? I would ordinarily have been willing to cut people slack on that point, assuming that perhaps they are unfamiliar with airports or courthouses or are from foreign lands where people aren't quite so jumpy about being blown up [Are there any of those left?], but my friend Sheila the lawyer says that she used to routinely watch people be surprised about having their metals detected before court in the morning and then, coming back from their lunch break, be surprised all over again. I realize that in a way that must be a nice way to live, but for the sake of the rest of us, PLEASE WAKE UP.) and found our courtroom.
Our courtroom was the one for misdemeanors and it was packed to the gills. Megan and I only got seats when we explained to the bailiff who was trying to throw us out that we were actually involved in a case and not just hanging out.
The seats were a mixed blessing. We had a good view and reasonable physical comfort, but we also had someone in the very near vicinity who smelled a lot like stale urine. No, a lot like stale urine. I was very attentive during our time in court, but there was a renegade part of my brain that would not stop trying to figure out who it was. I had it narrowed down to either the woman on my left or the guy in front of me, but afterwards Megan definitively said it was the guy on her right. Though I was happy to have the mystery solved, I was vaguely horrified to realize that the woman on my left and the guy in front of me may well have had their suspects narrowed down to me.
9 a.m. hit, the judge arrived, and suddenly we were whipping through cases like nobody's business. Megan and I were out of there by 9:30, and there were easily 15 cases in front of us. Most of them were dismissed because the accusers hadn't shown up. Bang, dismissed.
I couldn't believe it at first, but then I realized it was pretty efficient. Clear out the chaff so that the people who are serious about it get more time from the court system down the road. (Marshall Field's, we noticed, does not fuck around when it comes to shoplifting. They had a guy stationed there whose whole job seemed to be showing up as the accuser.)
A couple of people pled out, a few more no-shows, the woman on my left (who, for the record, did not smell like pee) asked to wait a few minutes because her lawyer had stepped out and not come back, and then there was a mini-drama: three teenaged boys had their case (Trespassing? Harrassment? I can't remember.) dismissed because their (female) accuser hadn't shown up, but the judge ordered them to all stay the hell away from her anyway.
I was mulling over whether the accuser had been afraid to show up or if hijinks had just gotten out of hand and she didn't really want to press charges or what when the whacker's name was called.
Megan and I went up, but the whacker was nowhere to be found. I wasn't too surprised: his address on the police report was in Michigan and I hadn't seen him in the courtroom and it was, let's face it, a pretty humiliating charge.
The D.A. seemed pretty happy that someone who wasn't just a paid store representative had actually shown up. He put a warrant out on the whacker, told us it might be a while before we heard anything, and off we went.
Megan and I agreed that it had been an extremely interesting morning and wondered if they'd ever actually catch him. I was just delighted to have been