Silent Warrior, Chapter 18

“In the case of The People vs. Scott George, how does the defendant plead?”

“Not guilty, your honor.”

Every eyeball in that courtroom gazed upon Scott with judgment and scorn. Dressed in a suit and tie passed down from his father, Scott could feel their hatred radiating off of his soul. His defense lawyer said not guilty, but his mind said otherwise. His face was more readable than Mr. Simpson’s desecrated chalkboard and the message written on it over and over again. So this was what defiance was like, Scott thought to himself. This was what happened to anybody who dared to be more than mediocre and ordinary. He could feel his dreams being crushed like poison pills under the weight of this courtroom’s table knife. His face drooped with depression and self-loathing.

The judge banged his gavel and said, “We will now hear the opening arguments from both sides. Mr. Prosecutor, you have the floor.”

A lanky gentleman who towered over the rest of the courtroom personnel took the center stage and held his hands in front of him, eyeballing everyone with seething persecution. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he started. “The defense will have you believe that this is just a simple case of a vengeful teacher lording it over his pupils. But I now ask you, who is the vengeful one here? A man who gives out C-minuses like it’s Christmas or an even younger man who plays mind games of his own by having sex with that man’s daughter? That’s really all this is: mind games.

“And guess what? Judging from Miss Adrienne Simpson’s absence from this courtroom, I’d say those mind games are working. Don’t forget that she is the victim in all of this, not Mr. Scott George. She is the one who will live with this mistake for the rest of her life. Fifteen years old is not an age for losing one’s virginity. It is an age in which she should be exploring the world around her. It’s an age in which she learns from greater sources of wisdom than an 18-year-old boy posing as a grown man.

“Members of the jury, don’t let the defense minimize this incident as some kind of BS technicality. This is a serious offense Mr. George committed and he must pay for all of the damage he’s done. Thank you, your honor.”

As the prosecutor took his seat and straightened his tie, Scott absorbed his harsh words like a sponge soaking up toxic chemicals. His posture grew worse, his saggy face became less defined, and it wouldn’t be long before the floodgates underneath his eyes opened for the final time. Final seemed like an appropriate word to him, whether that meant getting stabbed in prison or doing the job himself. The not guilty plea sounded less and less genuine with every second that passed.

The defense lawyer, a stocky man who would measure up to his opponent’s chest easily, took his turn at center stage and engaged his audience with a stern tone. “And why shouldn’t I minimize it?” he asked. “Is it because the status quo needs to be satisfied? Is it because technicalities are more important to us than the real issues of today’s justice system? Let’s not forget the real reason Adrienne Simpson isn’t here today. It’s not Scott George she’s afraid to face. It’s her own father, the one who made this 9-1-1 call to begin with.

“This is HIS war. All is fair in love and war, right? No tactic is too underhanded. No victory is too minor. As a history teacher who specializes in the art of war, Mr. Simpson lives by these mantras. But let’s be honest: if Scott George was only seventeen years old and Adrienne Simpson was fourteen, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. What is Mr. George supposed to do: break up with her and then start their relationship over again once she’s of age?

I know that this argument gets thrown around a lot in legitimate rape cases and for the most part it’s a valid statement. So let’s keep that statement valid by giving Mr. George a fair shake. Save your judgment and vitriol for someone who truly deserves it. Thank you, your honor.”

Scott picked his head up and wiped the sadness out of his eyes, if only for a minute. His lawyer patted him on the shoulder and assured him it would be okay. Would Scott believe such a thing was possible? Would anything be okay ever again? Would the damage continue even after the not guilty plea became an undisputed reality?

“Mr. Prosecutor, you may call your first witness to the stand,” ordered the judge.

The skyscraper of a human being took center stage once more and said in a commanding voice, “I’d like to call Ms. Aloysius Striker to the stand, please.”

Scott mouthed the words, “What the fuck?” as the living presence of his most brutal nightmares skulked to the witness box. Sure enough, there she was: no puppet strings, no puppet body, no worms, yet she still gave Scott violent shivers throughout his system. He could feel the maggots swarming in his intestines like villagers running away from a fire-breathing titan.

“Ms. Striker, I’ll start off by asking how you’re related to the defendant,” said the prosecutor.

“I’m Alan Young’s step mother,” she said in a trembling sob. The maggots grew even more restless inside Scott’s bowels. He didn’t know whether to shit himself or projectile vomit across the room.

“And who is this Alan Young you speak of?”

“He knew Scott George ever since they were in elementary school together. My step-son never got the education he wanted and it was all because of Scott’s vindictiveness. Alan never stood a chance. He was always sent to the principal’s office over minor occurrences. Scott used the system to his advantage and made sure my baby boy suffered for as long as humanly possible.” She wiped a singular tear from her eye and asked, “How is my step-son supposed to learn anything when he’s being held down?”

Scott whispered the word, “Bullshit!” and his lawyer patted him on the back to calm him down.

The prosecutor leaned on the edge of the witness box and said, “So what you’re trying to tell the jury here is that Scott George is a powerful man. He has so much power that he can use it for anything he wants, whether it’s for good grades or for making sure those he deems unworthy feel his wrath.”

“Objection, your honor.”

“Overruled. Please, Mr. Prosecutor, continue.”

“Before I was so rudely interrupted, I was going to ask you, Ms. Striker: based on your interactions with the defendant as well as your step-son’s interactions, do you believe it’s possible for Mr. Scott George to be manipulative enough to take a young girl’s virginity out of spite?”

“Objection, your honor!”

The rest of this conversation became a cluster-fuck of gibberish to Scott as he paid more attention to what his intestinal worms were going on about. They slithered around like spitting cobras and hurled their venom about. Scott’s head felt like a balloon ready to pop. His mind was also crawling with these toxic worms. And cockroaches. And faceless cheerleaders who proudly proclaimed they wanted to, “Bring out the gimp!” Sweat drizzled down his forehead and into his eyeballs, which were already going blacker than the lungs of a coal miner, an appropriate analogy for someone who could barely breathe.

And then it happened. Scott George plopped onto the floor limp as a noodle. The cacophonic rage swirled around him some more as he overheard his lawyer shouting, “Get some paramedics! He needs help!” Scott believed no amount of medical attention could give him the help he needed. An oxygen mask was only a fashion accessory. An IV needle was more of a weapon than a bastard sword. The paramedics could flood the courtroom with all of the equipment they wanted, but he made no mistake about it: nobody was coming to save him.

If there really were maggots and worms in his system, they would cannibalize him and leave him on the side of the road as a gigantic turd. How appropriate considering he felt like the lowest form of human shit imaginable. He didn’t know whether the judge wanted to send him to prison or a bottomless toilet. Either way, the future was dead, just like the democracy Mr. Simpson always rallied against.

He could hear Adrienne’s voice in the back of his head comforting him with soft, unintelligible words. How he wished for the feel of her silky hands against his cold skin. Fuck the legality of it all: love was love. But the judges and juries didn’t care about love in the first place. To them, it was just as expendable as democracy and the future themselves. Scott wanted to awaken from his blackness and check to see if Adrienne was really there, but what was the point?