BOOK THREE – The Opera: We Were Mothers Once,... Chapter Twenty – Six

1 196BOOK THREE –The Opera: We Were Mothers Once, and Young Chapter Twenty –SixAn Opera in Three Acts –But with Five PartsActs One and Two: Parts One, Two and Three –Their Overture“My life has been stolen from me. I am living a life I have no wish to live. How did this happen?”---Adeline Virginia Stephen (Woolf) as portrayed by Nicole Kidman in the 2002 film, “The Hours”It’s not even a dark and stormy night nor more than 14 years since, but I still cannot remember all of my lines. Againthis remembering and forgetting thing here. The Show might be on all right, but I cannot remember for you Mirzah, for you Zane nor for you Jesse, allof the history that are the lines of the script of The First Trial. Good thing I guess it is then that I have every mother –fucking, flashback one of those lines in the three, red cardstock –bound manuscripts, each about 1,200 pages in length. That is, those three would be its trial transcripts. And these three exist at all because, well, I own them at all because ... because there was an appeal. There was a formalized, to –the –State’s –appellate –courts appeal. Most folks don’t know about a civil court’s, a family court’s trial transcripts. They do not know. And the reason that most folks don’t know is simple and, actually, quite fortunate. Fortunately, mostfolks never, never end up going to trial or even find themselves in litigation inside a courtroom at all –over anything, let alone, over theft perpetrated by a perverted thug upon a burgled and brutalized band of souls, over several soul murders. They do not. Some, even sometimes more than half of, contractual marriages end; but they do not end litigious, let alone, litigable, that is, in litigation and actually in, inside, a court. At trial. But when there is an appeal from a civil trial judge’s decision, which truly is far more important to allofthe parties and players than the trial or its documents are, why then, thatis when the lines appear. Those in hard copy. Copy that is actual words, witnesses’ words; a manuscript materializes. The lines of anopera’s script! Then and only then. Never at the actual time of the trial nor after the matter is decided and put to rest without appeal are there actual sheets of words which were said at trial for anyone to, well, ... to read! Even though all of the wordsare, to you, to any of you, free, public and obtainable information –or... allegedly accessible to you anyhow. There is an exception to this –an exception to when there is no appeal, but only one of which I am aware: when specific court officers, that is for example, the trial court judge or either party’s attorney, want a page or so for himself or herself to read or to study after the day’s or the entire trial’s proceedings are concluded. If the initial request for proceedings’ transcripts is not that of the trial judge but is, instead, at the behest of either party’s attorney, then the trial judge has to approve the lawyer’s request, however; pages don’t just appear because either the petitioner or the respondent or their respective attorneys want them to. And then, only that short piece of the proceedings is ever transcribed into hard copy and then, only that short piece is ever given over to the particular judge or attorney and not over to anyone else. When these very particular court officials are through with these pieces then, those few hard –copy sheets may not even be kept; for all I know they are shredded or just tossed in toto. Not women and not mothers buta man is by far, far and away the person to use his willto choose, that is, to make a decision. Thehuman being. Not the DEhuman being. The largest number of district civil court case adjudicators are male; check with any of the 50 states’ civil courts on this one fact alone! And I am not even explaining about justice in other countries here. So a man almost always decides; he judgesthe civil court cases of marriage dissolution and then, of course, the subsequent custody of that dissolved union’s children. Far, far and away. Even in America. Still. 197Why the distinct procedure of handling mydistrict civil court case’s words –and, of course, yours too –is so enormous and so significant and is one, certainly, about which I during The Opera’s first act, The First Trial, had no mother –fucking idea, is that a judge does not, does noteven have hard –copy pages of testimony, mostof that stuff legally termed “evidence”, mind you, to study. At all!To review and to study and to think back on long and hard or to research back and forth the people and the dates and the places and the events of all of the involved matters ––or even to have as just a short, confirming reminder in his brilliant little hand, ya’ know, that might help him to rememberback on not only the facts stated but especiallyalso on all of the nuances, the hints, the shades, the traces –of the ways the people in attitude, bearing, comportment and carriage at trial were –orsoooowere not––telling The Truth! The whole truthand nothing but ... The Truth!Assuming something big, really, really big, of course, this pointing out of the utter absence of these hard –copy trial transcripts does: that he, the judge, for the express purpose of correctly dispensing out ... justice ... caresto remember these things about trial, that is. It assumesthat Your Honor Himself wantsto have totally straight all of the facts and exclusive tinges to the spoken words of myparticular case at time of trial! As you can further imagine, there is one more most massive quandary with this specific authenticity assumption here. And it takes really only the simplest of understandings this last, most profound problem does: that what was “testimony” spoken at trial, that what he said and what she said, indeed of course, isfact ... This’s what the judge’s having such hard –copy sheets of trial testimony transcripts –in hand –to review at all would assume. Ya’ know, the veracity of the things that just somehow manage by way of oath –taking or affirmation to get said, petitioner and respondent, witness after witness –and put onto stenographic machine strips –at time of trial for the judge to then even have in tangible form to be able to review and to study and to further research. The Truth. Allegedly.Of course, without sheets of transcripts what just gets said could stillbe UNtruths, and that most certainly does occur; but this occurrence would not be written up, so to speak. Those falsehoods “testified” to the thin air wouldn’t necessarily be remembered by a judge by the time of his writing up a decree, now a law... weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks ... later!Believe me to be sure: a terribly friggin’ loooong, long time ... later!But then if they were remembered and then, because of that, they did becomepart of “the findings of fact,” “the conclusions of law” and “the final decree,” why, there’d be no way of easilygoing back into the real record–—thosestenographicstrips require a decoder and a lot of trouble –––to find the lies and the fairy tales and the deceits? There’d be no way, now would there be? Whether the lies managed to get incorporated into the decree –accidentally or ... purposefully, why, it’d just be too difficult to ferret them all out again, wouldn’t it?And then, afterwards, as regards technicalities and falsehoods, those outright lies? I am thinking, “What if things are wrong in the evidence that then get entered into the decree –and become ... law? The lies do get into the mix of things from whence comes from out of that judge after so much time has passed ... the final order?Can the decree then –the law–benullified on, tah –dah, ‘a technicality’? Or, is one just, well, ya’ know, ... fucked?!” And then I am further left conjecturing, “Well, now if Dr. Edinsmaier gets up there in that witness box, sits there on that so –called stand and states, O my yes, every single day under a big, big show of oath –taking garbed in his swell –looking and o –so mighty fine, pillared doctor clothes and states in such livery that this and that and that and this are so thus and so. ‘Yea, verily, verily, I say unto you, Your Honor, these five things, blah, blah and yada, yada, yada and so forth and so on, did, indeed, happen!’ well then, I am thinking, is the judge, is Mr. Also Pillared Judge Man, going to send out into the community some unbiased third party official from the Second Judicial Court, like Mrs. Wren, the judge’s personal assistant who’s always there and keeps herself right around the judge himself in actual physical presence or like that other guarding,security guy, George, ya’ know, these two court people whoevery single dayhear all of the “testimony” words, too, these words which are termed “evidence”,to bring him back, to bring back to him,the Judge, absolute solid, tangible materials and people, those from Herry’s neighborhood, his workplaces, 198my workplaces, the kids’ school, the childcare providers, alcoholics anonymous meetings, the piano teachers, the soccer club and Little League gangs, from Quaker Meeting and so forth and so on? Tangible actual facts that can verify and prove precisely true those exact five things Dr. Edinsmaier just “testified” did, in point of actual fact, happen? Ya’ know, blah, blah and yada, yada, yada...those very five thingsHerry just now avowed from out of his mouth?”Or, is the judge going to do nothing and just believe every frickin’ thing that Herry tells him? Because it is so –called sworn –to “evidence”? And, very especially, by “virtue” of the two mother –fucking facts, of course, that Herry is #1 male and #2 a pillar in the goddamn community –just like the judge himself is!?! That is, also a pillar and also in that very same community! And, very especially too, just exactly like the judge certainly perceiveshimself in both countenance and demeanor to be inthat very same community!?! Who is going to bring us all back the proof that what Herry says, under oath, is fact, is ... well, true? So that an accurately informed decision, a legal decree, can bewritten. So that it will then be based upon all matters and things correct and right!?! And therefore, be itself, ... right... as in just, as in justice, ya’ know!?! Who is going to bring us all back this proof, let alone, in a really, really timely manner?So that this now –correct decree is written rightly –even weeks and weeks and sometimes literally months after the trial concludes –—where and when the words of it were actually said! That one right therejust stuns me: that such a thing can happen at all. With little, little kids growing up and up and up, that such a delayed –ness, such a delayed messof justice, allegedjustice, can happen at all! I am just blown away by that. Who is going to provide the probity, this tangible truth to Herry’s testimonial tattle lickety –split such as is exactly the genre of time frame out of which soap opera operatives and operations occur? Lickety –frickin’ split.Weeks and weeks and weeks often, very, very often, go by before he, Mr. Also Pillared Judge Man, gets himself freed up enough or just plain mother –fuckingly gets around to finally writing up the decision, his decree; and about this I am not at all exaggerating. It is or can be weeks and weeks...moooonths later, I am saying, and b’gosh b’golly, why –he has noooo fucking memory helps! No civil court trial transcripts to help him the fuck remember what fucking shit was said and, by remembering from reading and re –reading about it then so much later, just exactly howit went down inside the fucking courtroom months earlier! Now, you say, “Weeeell, Legion ...His Honor the Pillar may’ve taken notes on those soooolegal –sized, yellow pads of his and with, O yes, ... with that so –gilded, stogie –sized, black Schaeffer ink pen given to him as a congratulatory gift when he was nominated by hispal, the State’s former governor, to that very district court judgeship of his. And those notes? Those be his memory helps, right, Legion?”Of course, to which piece of whim–wham, to whichfrickin’ whit I upbraid with, “Bunk! Bunkum! Bupkus! O JYeah, I saw both the pen and the yellow pads all right but, you see, what I didn’t see was daJudge’s writing anything down on them. Ever. I never saw him write down a mother –fucking, goddamn thing! Not in any one of the three quite mother –fucking acts, er, trials, I’m telling ya’!” And I, of course, state this –because that is exactly what I witnessed inside hiscourtroom. Every single time. Always. Behind that leather and lemon –lustrous, bronzed brown bench of his, he His Most High, was most certainly poised to take some, to jot some down. True enough. Yet then again, His Honor up and wrote down not one thing. Not one goddamn thing. So how could there’ve been later a reminding note of any kindfrom out that fucking fat, gold –filigreed pen of his?! Ever?!* * * *Not in this fiction in three acts, Dear Readers, and scarcely ever either in or after the civil trials of others. And here again, mostfolks donot knowthis to be “the findings of fact.” Most people do not know that from out the backend of the court reporter’s little 22 –key, yet about a $4K contrivance called a stenograph, comes nothing ––nothing at all extrudes out of it but a two –inch –wide paper strip with tiny phonetic, code –like letterings of gobbledygook shorthand, the meaning of any of whichjabberwocky is 199most literally known ... only to her, “the Court’s” reporter. Well, sure, that ... of which we can –materially –see. But what we cannot see is that the piles and piles and piles, the heightening mounds of these creased paper strips actually stack up behind the machine, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth there, in a little molded tray ... and then –materially –that’s it. That’s all. That is, quite materially, allshe, the reporter, wrote! Er, typed. Noneof the strips in these piles and mounds is everretyped up into 8½ x 11 sheet pages ––transcribed, that is, into a broadly and perhaps universally understood language of any kind ––except that, first, someone files an appeal and then someone, usually that samesomeone or somebody of her family, friends and supporters, ... pays! O JYeah, there’s the rub again. The money! None of the recorded strips’ letterings from out the rear of these stenograph machines is deciphered by a decoder, usually the court reporter herself or himself. None is dictated onto blank cassette tapes or, now other more modern audiological devices;and then none is listened to most likely through earphone headsets nor manually typed up on computer keyboards that store there on hard drives electronic documents which, voila, end up being printed off as white sheets of readable copy paper of the standard office size! And, therefore, let’s hear another voila: noneend up capable of actually being picked up, held in our hands and read by the rest of us public folk. And studied. And understood. And ... remembered!Ya’ know, if there is one thing males do notremember (in contrast to females’ experiences with not remembering),it is, for certain, whatever they will themselvestospecifically wantingnot to remember! Cognizant, active passive aggression along with arrogance and entitlement Dr. Phil counsels us that this fuck is in people, the vast percentage of them male ––even he admits. The arrogance and the entitlement I lump under the one befitting characterization termed narcissism ––also long, long such a male deal. Like remembering to bring home the bread that his wife, looking out for herself and her children’s upcoming supper, phones him up and asks him to do. And, consequentially, he agrees to do! He says that he will! He says that hewill...literally ... bring home the bread!But the wife, considering the fact that she herself knows he ‘just’ seems to ‘forget’ a whole heckuva lot, she is looking out for him and his ways, too, by remembering to waitto call him about the bread until the late, late afternoon, just moments before he leaves his microscope and his pathologylaboratory so that surely he’ll have just a wee, short time of it after receiving her request until remembering then to stop for and pick up the loaf between his medical office desk and her home. The store is on hisway home, not hers. She remembered tocall. She remembered to waitto call. She waited and waited. And stiiiill,she remembered. Still remembered near the end of her day, near the end of his day ... to call him. The steaming –hot spaghetti with such a fine, aromatic sauce made ever morespecial by her adding those extra chopped onions and extra bell pepper chunks and extra fresh mushrooms is served. And yet, still yet again, there isshe finds, not one toasted garlic bread slice that she had so remembered to specifically plan for –anywhere in sight to be purveyed. She didn’t quite knowwhat to call it –either his not remembering againor how she feels about it. Now, however we do know; and the ‘it’ of his violence has a name: narcissistic passive aggression. The guy is ... aggressive and, therefore, violent. Again. She knew from the time she was a little, little girl –about six or seven years old –just how against her this type of act made her feel. As did he also then know, that is, how it wouldmake her feel beforehe did it to her ... that is, the wakeof whatever would be the action of his self –centered aggression. So too, he knewabout the garlic bread deal. The guy is violent. And has so messed with her and her home. Again. “Whoops, no! No. No. Noooo! Uh –uh.”I am no longer dazed nor perplexed; the actual act of writing this fucker down has just now –here –snapped me out of that. These books and pages, these bloody, redder ones, not the Sheriff of Nottingham’s royal –like blue ones but these scarlet three are from afterthe act, the Second Act that was, indeed, The Second Trial, that Act’s appeal, an appeal that is itself, however, the third part in the order and mix of acts and parts to the entire Opera, that is, Part Three inside Act Two! 200And those azureones I just mentioned? Those particular,five similar but cobalt –colored, cardstock –bound ones, those aren’t from Trial One either; they’re from the appeal after Act Three, er, that would be Trial Three, the Third Trial but itself Part Four! There wasno appeal filed nor occurring after Trial One, the First Act. Only the trial. That was it for the operatic Act One. And Part Five? Well, then thatwould be the appeal after the Third Trial or Part Four within Act Three. And so I do not have the lines, then do I, from Act One –since there was no appeal of it these pages of trial transcript, er, lines of testimony, they don’t even exist!? Verstehen? Hmmm, Om’gosh, for a moment there, I was getting utterly confused: the nine,plain,cardboard boxes’ worth, their quite literal weightiness when hauling them out and around, the books, the pages, the lines, some of the dates, the hours and the hours and the hours, the mother –fuckingly incessant hours. But not about the people –not about the characters, the participants, the smuggish thug –thieves, the several Acts’ players, the actors and the actresses, the takers, the several others of the Whole Show who soul –murdered and stole from me and from my babes allof our time with each other and –unbelievably–who took from all four of us their utter childhoods: allof ourlives. Allthree Truemaier Boys’ entire adolescences, all of their middle school experiences times three, all of every single high school year times threeand, for one of them at least, the murder of all of brilliant Mirzah’s complete memory before he was 11 years old. And for whatthis theft and this murder? Why?! Why was this––ever––A Good Thing to Do?! Why was this, for adults and for adult behavior, nearly all of themadults through all of the Show’s three acts and five total parts, that is, through each of the three distinct district court trials and each of the two appeals after the second two trials, for all of these adultswho knewthen... why were these holocausticacts of theirs, these thefts and these soul murders ––ever––The Right Thing to Do? And, I so stagger to think, “Why?!Why was anyof this ... just? Justice?!” Most certainly I do. I do. I do soooo remember the feelings, myfeelings, for this happening, for this which is the wakeand the messof their collective will–that which came out from all of these people –these villains –who knowinglyandwho willfully did this. To me the DEhuman. And to the DEhuman’s three babies.About these feelings? Not a mother –fucking thing about these feelings of mine is confusing. Not one. * * * *White knuckles gripping the steering wheel. Jesse, always so sweet –sounding when his little boy voice would come across and over the beige Shitbox Dodge’s front seat bench to me when he was just four, five, six, seven years old. But,now,he was 14, an adolescent. Whom, along with neither one of his brothers Zane or Mirzah, I had not seen nor talked to in almost 18 months’ time. Stunning meJesse’s voice isat his present day age of 14with nearly its same sweetness. Jesse is telling me softly from another backseat in another “United State,” one so alien to me, that Herry, through Herry’s lawyer Mr. Shindy Scheisser, had contacted a Los Angeles or New York City made –for –TV film outfit of producers in their very high –dollar desires –inDr. Herod Edinsmaier’swake, again–of making me out (Zane, the next day at a different and teensy –weensy park’s picnic shelter, filled in a few of the blanks in Jesse’s chronicle) to be his movie’s actual murderer. I was to become the manslaying slaughterer in this endeavor, these several men’smoney –making television film scheme of three acts with five parts! “The contract, I saw it, Mama, it hasmany, many pages, and it’s for $100,000 plus 5 percent. What do they mean, ‘plus 5 percent’, Mom?” He, at 14, knewalready what $100,000 meant; about that part of the mother –fucking ‘contract’he did not have to ask me. Folie à deux is a psychiatryterm in, of course, French. Herry knows French. Well, he used to. Perhaps now he in his middle age doesn’t remember all of it that he used tolove to show off. Folie à deux literally means double insanity, and not quite so literally Noah Webster statesit to bea condition in which two closely associated people who are both mentally ill share the same delusional beliefs. 201In the same manner then as with any individual and non –thinking person in regard to all religions and to her or his ‘worshipping’ therein ––delusive, that is ––this definition fits the minds and hearts and thinkings and doings of Ms. Fannie Issicran McLive in her role as the Sheriff of Nottingham with Dr. Herod Edinsmaier, the Kingdom’s King. Or, Herry the King with Mr. Shindy Scheisser. Or, Shindy the Noisy Puppet with Fannie who in The Opera is remembered for her double role. In addition to hers as that of the Sheriff who, like the noise –making jointed figurine, also giddily responds to the money and treasure involved and so most willingly implements inside the Kingdom the King’s dicta, Ms. Fannie Issicran McLive is also just the Next One in the King’s Stash ––the King’s Stash of Fuckable, Male –Identified Females. Or, Herry the King and Judge Sol Wacotler Seizor the High Aggrandizier. The role of Judge Seizor is distinguished in Act Three: Parts Four and Five from that of Judge Harley Butcher onlyin the denotation that Judge Butcher in Trial Number Three becomes Judge Sol Wacotler Seizor and takes onthere for himself thenthe designation of Judge Harley Butcher the High Courtier. Judge Butcher, through some clarification that isAct Three: Part Four merely champions and parrots back the minds and hearts and thinkings and doings that is the wakeof the folie à deux between Herry and Judge Sol Wacotler Seizor. Throughout all Three Acts of these separate or conjoined machinations of the High Aggrandizierand the High Courtier, let it not first be forgotten that both Judges Sol Wacotler Seizor and Harley Butcher were lawyers before they became judges so that both are, therefore, after becoming judges ... stillpuppets. Still puppets among the Pillars of the Community known as ... the Kingdom. “Hmmm, except the fit of the definition of the folie à deux condition has to exclude the minds and the thinkings of these folks,” I reason. You see, the deal is that these five fellows, all owning –true it is –such the tiny minds that they clearly do possess, are ... well, neither mentally ill nor delusional. All five of these players are as sane as ––and manifesting the same lucidity of mind as, say ––Adolf Hitler or Saddam Hussein or as that most classic of male –identified females, Mehitable, who could have written the literal and seminal text on such of her ilk. This sanity of theirs is not to be mistaken for what is just, for what is justice, for what is protection, for what is “in the best interests,”for what is going to be a Good Act, a Good Action decreed and then enacted and implemented.Mistaken for what is the wakeof clear –thinking. Clear –thinking ––in the sense of what The RightThing to dois, what a Righteous Ancestor in Training would do––is theoppositeof these characters’ intent, their minds and their thinkings. And, therefore, justice andprotective best interests the oppressed opposite of its wake.My feelings are not confusing. I am a mother fucked, yes, and, therefore very often said, especially by these five of rather royal repute –or so they would have you and each other to behold them as royalty –of The Opera’s characters even now, even right now today, to soooo confuse things. But my feelings about the Show, about this one, about The Opera? True it is:I knowwhat they are.Straight up.“Findings of Fact” I do not confuse: Most of the stuff and all of its people, The Opera’s cast of characters i)The children. Always and only the same ones, of course, throughout all Acts, all Trials. The secular things so not physically in the singular courtroom and whom I alonechoseto grow: Zane, Jesse and Mirzah. The things notin the room who are my babies. I alonechose. I alonechose.I alone choseto grow these couple of cells –times three! ! !–into... people.ii)The judge, daMan, daJudge, both for Trials One and Two. There was only the one. That is, daMan was the sameone. Whatever is up with that shit?! The saaaameone! “O,” I know, “This is supposed to be smack in line with the appearance that ... “justice”is blind. Not just anyone can figure it out, “my case” being the “it”. No, no, no –only those who are the lawyers before they were the judges and then only those lawyers who are “neutral”, who “take” the law and do with it what its words codified and certified and down onto official paper dictate that the State of Iowa can do with it. And onlythat. So that anyone and everyone “judged” gets the same and equal treatment under such. There is no expansion nor enlargement nor increase. There is no amplification in one of the two parties’ loot of “justice”. Allget the same amount of “justice”dispensed, not?” Thatis 202why daJudge can be the very same daMan. Judge Sol Wacotler Seizor. Judge Seizor the Aggrandizier. iii)Testifiers. O JYeah. The witnesses. Witnesses the Verbal Evidences would be their collectivetitle. Some the same, some new ones for Trial Two, that is, Act Two: Part Two. And it doesn’t matter whether for or against the petitioner or for or against the respondent. Theirs in The Opera will be of the role to provide “evidence” –what the Statelegislates as that because it is something called “sworn testimony” and then from which daMan uses it since it, the “evidence”, must (mustn’t it?) be “the findings of fact,” to implement his decisions. To implement, daJudge does, by way of that “evidence” first becoming mixed into something known as “the conclusions of law” before daMan’s finally stating it, “the decree”, for all to read and to know. Ya’ know, the final judgment. Theirs, the witnesses’ spoken words at time of trial, will be that which is pulled back from out of the thin air into which it is first uttered, first attested to, and then onto a court reporter’s stenographic strip and either, once said, not ever seen as English word utterances again orthey, the words, willbe seen –also as “evidence” –as those inside the blood –hued and bloodied binders of Act Two: Part Three, that is, the visible words within the appealafter Trial Two. iv)More evidence. O JYeah. Not everything that the State codifies as “evidence” is the spoken word, of course. Passels of it, quite tangible material, occupy several of those nine cardboard boxes that are the equally palpable wakeof the entire Show. Ya’ know, like myRolodex with its individual inventory –of –Legion assignment, Mr. Larry Brouhaha’s therapeutic joke, the one this is which is ‘officially’ now marked asExhibit 9 and as equally ‘officially’ now dated as 11 May 1989. These material materials, no matter how private and personal, will ... well, will no longer bethat, ya’ know, private and personal. Never ever again. Not even the respondent’s medical records nor counseling documents nor tapes made of the telephone conversations that are the advice and wisdom of Grace the Confidant, Grace Portia the True Friend or with Margaret Sagely, Margaret the Other Mother –if there are any –ya’ know, that sort of thing. These evidences appear in and within and deep into the body and the core of The Opera at all because of another State –codified civil court trial thing called Discovery and Interrogatories! A massive mess this legal procedure –that were he, the man of pillared medical community status and conscience, never to have ‘visited her home,’ could not have been left there by him then. If the twat had just settled out of court and before trial, why, this mess, this mucking, fucking dirt, Herry –Daddee wouldn’t have gotten a holdof –in order to be able to then piss it up, over, onto and all around her. He wouldn’t have been able then to make this next mess of his; he simply wouldn’t haveneeded to. With this material “evidence” of hers –through Discovery and Interrogatories ... But she wouldn’t, would she, the stupid –ass heiferwouldn’t right off let him takefrom her the growths from out her very own belly so she knew what the consequences of the wakeof taking on his wrath would surely be, didn’t the cunty wench? The shrewy harpyknew what the mess was she was forcing him to wrench from her. After all, she is over eight years of age, isn’t she? He knows the pussy knew. Petitioner knows respondent knew. However, and a huge ‘however’here, ... it wouldn’t have mattered had the whore known or not known. Daaaah. The wrenching business is man’s business, Bitch.v)And almost lastly, the Parties. Us. We are the stars of The Opera, of course. For the most part and, in my case, for a little while at first anyhow I star. Then? ... Then I soooo do not. I shall be the soprano, and you already knew that. And Herry will be the tenor. That’s a big fucking shame: I utterly love all of the tenors whom I’ve ever fucking heardsing. Wouldn’t ya’ know it? Well, to reconsider though, that makes literallyan awful lot of sense as a matter of fact. All of those bad boys I so burned after both first in pursuit of them and then, after, in the ashes oftheir wakes, the messes that they left me with –once they’d visited themselves upon me and mine! Hmmm. Alongside us, the fleshy parties, alongside Legion True and Herod Edinsmaier, of course, sit and sometimes stand the Band of Big Boys, our employees.They are really ‘the parties’in another flesh and in The Opera, that is, are not themselves at all. So Mr. Jazzy Jinx isDr. Legion True and Mr. Shindy Scheisser isDr. Herod Edinsmaier; and whatever is sung, said, done, acted 203out or occurs by them isdone in my name or in Herry’s. Carefully it shall be noted right off here, however, that two flesh –and –blood bodies does not equal two voices necessarily and, in the case of the thing in the room that is me, two bodies either means Jinx’s voice (except when I am actually testifying)or ... well, none at all: no voice. There is, in said band of identity bandits here, furthermore, a very distinct –appearing female. And one more male –identified and very nondescript person who is also female but just sort of out there –waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting –waiting on daMan as per usual–in the house wings somewhere almost all of the time. Both of these women, Ms. Carlotta Klutz and Ms. Fannie Issicran McLive (pronounced ‘MacKehlvee or MclIIIIIvv, either way, just choose one) have memorized Mehitable’s chapter on How to Maintain... if a male –identified female. Once one of these women ascends the ladder of luxury, a rare event when the stats (... AmTaham’s numbers there!) are made truly known, in this instance, Carlotta as one who rose up in the areasof both legal influence and affluence, there has to be a way figured out and already set in place for these females then to securely stayup at its top, not? That would be Ms. Klutz’s ‘specialty’ ––more so even than family law: making sure that she stays at the top ––no matter that she has so conveniently filed away and forgotten on just who –the –hell’s feminist bootstraps she has managed to crawl the fuck up to the ladder’s top! The other of these two women, Ms. Fannie Issicran McLive, clawed her way to the top when she found her 01 July 1989 high –school class reunion talons dug into the lofty level of luxury literally right there on the lap of Herry. That was a ladder not at all too high to climb asallya’all know Herry’s height, and thus right where his crotch would belocated, a ladder with its rules on maintenance of said top level that Ms. Fannie devoured inside Mehitable’s subchapter entitled The Next One in the Stash. Ms. Fannie’s was a mounting implement used in gold –digging and one that actually projected itself downward. Her ladder’s trajectory took off downward such as into or inside a deep, abyssal mine –the likes of which she believed could be found down into and inside Herry’s pants somewhere, its pockets, that is, or ... otherwise. We do not even see Ms. McLive until Act Two; in it she sings herself from the wings as loudly and as proudly as someone so plain as she can possibly spout starting then within The Opera’s Part Two there.vi)Finally, we have the characters known as ... The Jury. “Ooops, am I confusing things again?” I warble, then further trill, “O O O noooo, no, no. Just testing you I am. Mocking you? I am moooocking you? Never. Never. I? I do not do ‘mocking’, no, not me, not me Legion. And it isn’t me who does ‘snide’either. That? Thatwould be the petitioner, the appellee ... the appalling appellee. So when I tell you most seriously, it is exactly that: ‘most seriously.’So please, please, please, listen up here: There is no jury!Uh –uh. That’s riiii -iiight. None. Zip. Zilch. Zero. ‘Member the ‘findings of fact’that I did not confuse were ‘all of the people’? Well, since there is no official jury then, this is where You the Audience of Readers have almost an equal starring role I say! Nearly equal. Nearly equal. You the Audience of Readers will be ... tah –dah ... ThisOpera’s Jury,” my overturing arietta concludes. * * * *The Opera opened with background; it was, of course, called the Overture. Some of it evidentiary and material, tangible since it consisted of paper documents required and submitted to “The Court,” an office –working, secretarying fembot critter ––who actuallyprepared it properly with official stampings and bindings and foldings and filecodings before its landing in daMan’s inbox at some point beforethe opening scene that was Part One, that part being the entirety of Trial One, therefore all of Act One. In The Opera we never see any such of these femdroids who reallyare the various machinations of “The Court.” Not one –save for Ms. Wren, daJudge’s personal aide, who never left his side except to summon or to direct or to delegate per daManbutwho, nevertheless, accomplished all with amazing gracefulness and especially noiseless panache, rather an oxymoron, that last, regarding the characteristics of Ms. Wren. Which is why in the cast listing she wasn’t mentioned as a member. Her role was merely as that of an extension of daJudge’s right arm reaching out from behind his beautiful bench; and, therefore, hers did not, of course, on its own merit warrant a listing separate from his in the cast roster. 204One such document of Herry’s,now officially called “evidence,”was the counterpart tomine: that essay answer which Mr. Jazzy Jinx had nearly first off asked me to chronicle about my life and submit to him. Herry also wrote an autobiographical statement atMr. Shindy Scheisser’s behest which on 13 February 1989, became part of “the case record” too, of course, the Trial One case record filed –coded as #9215 –8801; and it was called the “Affidavit of Petitioner.” In its earliest beginning words as in all such subsequently properly entered court documents ofthe Good and Wonderful Doctor’s, we read thusly, “I, Herod Edinsmaier, being first duly sworn upon oath do depose and state that I am ...” and so forth and so on. So right off, right there. In the very, very beginning.Taking into account now, You the Jury, You the Audienceof Readers, that it is easier to lie to and to deceive in an American court of civil law ––depending upon who you are––than it is to lie to and to deceive your spouse, your boss, your teacher, your preacher and, some would say, even yourself, one reason for this ease is that the person, the liar, does not have to rememberthe lies. The actual details of what went out there and when –into the court and the courtroom as statements! Get themsaid or get them written down and properly court –handled and, voila, ––depending upon who you are(this is thecrux), ––your statements becomeaccountable –they become Truth–because they are now testimony under oaththat the State and its implementer, daJudge, both reckon as evidence. Must be, huh? Not? Ifyou, one of the parties, happen to be a liar, however ––and again presuming your pillaredness ––that automatic sway of your carriage in the community before daMan, that is, the swaggerin which you mimic in countenance and demeanor how daJudge perceiveshimself to comport about within that same community of yours, why, you do noteven have to remember your lies. That, the not having to remember at all into the future what it was you said or wrote or when, that is as easy as the actual lying part of the action! If, for example, you looklikedaJudge, that is, you are a preacher, a priest, a doctor, a teacher, a professor, a bank official, another lawyer, another judge, a cop, a corporation tycoon or even one of its lightweights, a sports figure or, even better, one of the coaches, a worshiped entertainer or celeb and, most especially in many instances now for men of community conscience, have allied yourself with a feminist woman, why then you are already reflexively, automatically supplied the liar’s credentials and even that plastic –laminated wallet card that is your free pass into ... ‘the case’record. You do nothave to remember what you say or what you write down or when. Period. DaJudge sees you as he sees himself –which is to say: he doesn’t really, really –really and Truly–see you at all, Doctor Mister Wonderful Pillar of the Community, Dr. Herod Edinsmaier! Nor ... does he wantto. Uh –uh. daJudge wouldthen most assuredly have to turn that pointy male index finger of his completelyaround upon himself or at least look at the right hand’s third, fourth and fifth fingers that, with his leveling of that first, bony digit at me, are already directed back at himself. And at what he could do. And did. As from the Prophetess’s words of Women’s HistoryScripture, “They could and they did.” His Most High, Judge Seizor the Aggrandizier would, wouldn’t he, then have toexaminehimself?! The upcoming ‘justice’yet to be dispensed to me, Dr. Legion True, the Truemaier Boys’ mama, is already,by appearances alone ... blinded, methinks. By who is and who ain’t. Blind, that is. Does Judge Sol Wacotler Seizor, looking in actual physical appearance if not also resembling a helluva lot, withhis famed and legendary astuteness inside that Storm County courtroom at least,how the philanderingBenjamin Franklin is pictorially portrayed in your and my history texts, ... does Judge Sol Wacotler Seizor really want to see into himself and (legally ... or otherwise!) examinewhat it is he could –and did–do to Mrs. Seizor? The first Mrs. Seizor, that is? The Mrs. Seizor, birthing mother of daJudge’s four daughters whom, when she was seen drinking in public a couple of times, Spouse Sol Wacotler Seizor had had ‘conveniently’ stashed away into an insane asylum for crazy, depressed alcoholic women –whilst he simultaneously spirited away from her her four babies into the love nest which he’d had the Next One in his Stash making ready for him as soon as daJudge returned home from that asylum chore and before the start of his latest workday at the bench!?! A few years back now!?! 205Will Judge Sol Wacotler Seizor be happy, then, to examine blindly as well, along with Mr. Jazzy Jinx and Mr. Shindy Scheisser, Herry’s world a few years back now, too? Herry the Doctor. Herry the Good and Wonderful Doctor. The life that included in it a toast during “Healer” Herry’s early but already “Doctor” –titled times at a marrying brother’s seaside bachelor party when Jesse and Zane were barely, but just barely,out of diapers. And Mirzah wasn’t. A toast of which I was later told ––told againas Herry –Daddee’s version of foreplay upon the carcass that was the Truemaier Boys’ mama and concurrent with the Good Doctor’s ordersto the not –nearly –his–equal,Doctor Legion True,to perform for him a blow job, one of the copious number in 14½ years of his consorting with me ––and of which I am sure Herry –Daddee’d love now to teach to his own adult sonsthat went something like, “Here’s to the breezes that blow through the treeses. And lift the girls’ skirts above their kneeses. Tease us, please us, spread diseases. Fuck that snatch. Down the hatch.” Down the hatch? Now would that be then, of course, the one referring to my and my future fucked sister –in –law’sfated acts of fellatio, each one of us forced to swallow copious or puny amounts of semen, or would that be pertaining to “the hatch” merely as in, “Let’s drink up the wedding champagne, erImean,the bros’ steins of brew?” Think, do You Jury, that theswaying and swaggeringJudge Seizor truly wants to take a long, in –depth, look –see examination into all of this ––this ‘violence’ ... this ‘domestic violence’ ––today as he begins to adjudicate for this very community –the one in which he is perceived as and in which he most especially sees himself as a pillar,too –the Iowa District Court for Storm County’s Case #9215 –8801? * * * *Herry’s four –part affidavit, his life story the way he writes it to The Court anyhow, is sectioned off into “A. Personal Background,” “B. Marital History” and “C. Personal Problems.” The shortest ––section C’s “personal problems” portion––contains only two paragraphs, the first one a 51 –word boo –frickin’ hoohah on Herry’s “suffering” from drinking fermentation products a lot and the last contains five sentences which are all ... only about me! Ending that second paragraph supposedly regarding his“personal problems” does with ... “Legion’sproblems have been longstanding in nature and ...” and ... well, the rest of that later on when I so rememberto discuss how it is ... ––Zane recounts to me in Grubtrop, West Virginia’s little parklet ––... how it is that Legion becomes ‘the Edinsmaier killer’in the true –life, made –for –television movie which Herry, through Shyster –Attorney Scheisser’s contract shenanigans with film producers, ‘directs’!The final fourth affidavit segment, D, is the longest one: two and a half full legal –size pages on “the Safety and Well –Being of Children and Moral Climate.” Also it? Section D? ... By no great stretch: Dr. Herod Edinsmaier’s ‘funniest’section.In the beginning of this particular affidavit, the very first document or words said or written which Herry ever gave over to The Court and that I was given through Discovery and Interrogatories a chance to readtoo, I missed it. “I was born on ... yada, yada and in yada, yada. My parents are Juggern Aut and Detanimod Edinsmaier.” Dr. Herod Edinsmaier himself states that he wasn’t even born ... first... toa woman!That he wasn’t even born ... first... tohis mother!Herry so patriarchally documents downJuggern Aut, his father ... first! Of course! Of course, Herry does that!“I know, I know. Okay, I know: throughout all of recorded history children have not been born first to their mamas. This––about children ‘owned’ as only men’s DNA –sanctioned possessions ––... this Iknow,for chris’sake. But hey! Give Herry the benefit here,” I bangedmy left forehead with my leftpalm. “He’s allied himself with a feminist woman –me! –after goddessdamn all! Herry knowsbetter!” And still. Stillthe father, another of daMan––Juggern Aut Misein Edinsmaier in this case ––is positioned, even if just down on paper in addition to his spot at every damned dining table, in the very...first ... place. “How many medical and other advanced degrees does it take, Doctor Edinsmaier, to become one savvy enough and swell enough to have written thevery, very beginning of your life down insteadas, ‘I was born on ... in ... , and myparents are Detanimodand Juggern Aut Edinsmaier?!’ How the fuck many, Herry?!” “How many initial degrees in realization, in awareness, from your having taken yet another educationclass, in knowing, Dr. Edinsmaier? Something you’ve knownsince loooong before you were eight years old: that