They say it pays to have good liar on your side. Still, I was wondering why the liar was smirking and inattentive all during my testimony. I was expressing the exact truth - no more, no less. Who the hell can argue with that? I reasoned.
"Death for a dollar" was the defendant's loudly advertised motto of trade. It was printed on his business cards! Give him a buck and he'll off anybody you want, no questions asked. At the time of his arrest his calendar was booked three months out. It's an angry world we live in. He bragged to the officers, "The only thing I don't kill is time."
But for all the killer's skill I caught him red-handed. As a janitor I often hide on my breaks just so I know I won't be disturbed and I can spared the pain of human contact. The basement of building is filled with boxes and I assemble them to form an igloo of sorts only I pull in the last box so there's no clear entrance to my hideaway. I even manage to pull a chair inside my cardboard castle.
I do leave large slits between the boxes to spot any potential search parties. Only this time I spy a fellow stowaway. I see the killer beast put two shots in the head with a silencer and a grin. I remember thinking in the movies this is where the witness always sneezes or does something stupid. But this was no fucking game and I froze solid with nary a breath out of me. Not sure how long it was before I came out. Maybe an hour - maybe two.
No one has a clue I'm inside that tall stack
So yeah, here I am on the witness stand with this guy dead to rights and the beast’s liar is smiling and chatting and showing off Lakers tickets. I'll show you! The facts are on my side! The old saying of "The scrupulous argue facts and the unscrupulous argue the argument" simply doesn't apply this time. This ain't no political race! No society can survive without trusting the truth.
I had no idea what was on the liar's mind as he confidently approached me for cross examination. The only thing I could guess was he must have some sort agenda outside the truth. But for that, he'd have to be a man of true low moral character. And in that case, he'd be exposed for all with no credibility! The jury will roast him alive! This is a court of law!
I leaned back in my chair, offended by his cheap cologne and cheap personality. "Tell me, sir - and I only call you sir out of my natural inclination towards class and polity - tell us exactly how you saw these alleged events you so fantastically made up."
OK, I'll cut this guy off at the knees! "I saw them with my own two eyes, clear as day. That's how!" Stupid bastard walked right into that one!
"Oh is that fact? Then I suppose you can tell me how your eyes work that enable you to see such things?"
"What? They just work! How should I know how they work? That's a stupid question."
"You say they work, you just don't know how. We're just supposed to take your word on that? Risk a man's life on something you can't explain! I'm sorry, sir, but I need an EXPLANATION!" I stammered in shock, confused. "Who here can see through this man's eyes?" The lair pointed towards various jurors. "Can you? Can you?" The jury gasped in realization as the liar continued.
"This is a court of law, sir, and we're not interested in your point-of-view, just the facts! This is no place for someone with an agenda outside the truth!" The jury gasped again - two strikes.
"But that's you doing all that!" I correctly protested. "Doesn't everyone see that?"
"Again with the 'seeing'," mocked my tormentor. "Can you tell us how you see that too?"
"I just do," I weakly murmured, devastated by my isolation.
"'I just do' says the man with no explanation. I have to tell you, sir, your personal perception of truth does not hold water with a jury of high integrity such as this one."
"A jury of integrity would see right through you!"
"Impugning your fellow man does not serve you well. Do not paint us with your own sins. And furthermore, does the name Brian Kellogg mean anything to you?"
"Well, I went to high school with a kid with that name is all. Don't remember much about him." A glimmer of hope. I barely knew the guy, this should bury his credibility at last, whatever he's trying to do.
"How easily you forget when the truth doesn't suit you! He's standing just outside this courtroom ready to testify you tripped him in the hallway in the spring of 1987 and then proceeded to laugh. You, sir, have sinned!" The sinless jury gasped yet again. Three strikes - and I knew I was out.
"Who here wants to live a lie?"
During deliberations, the just jurors took note I never called the liar "sir" and that surely this lack of decorum made me a man of low moral character. (I didn't call him "dickhead" either, shouldn't that count?) When the guiltless verdict was announced, the beast was set free and I was arrested for perjury. I write you this story today from my prison cell.
Not a day passes I don't think about that day in court - that fucking alleged bastion of truth. Fuckers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is all the world mad? The judge and the prosecutor - my allies before the trial - both turned on me, loathing me for "lying". The press jumped all over me to "prove" their own adherence to integrity. The world can't die soon enough to suit me!
*****
That was eighteen months ago I wrote that. Now I run into one of the jurors here in jail - convicted for rape, of course. Must have hired a bad liar. Anyway, the sorry bastard tells me this story:
"We got a helluva rush sending you up the river for telling the truth! I half got a boner from it! Rape is hawt! Fuck man, there was no way we were going to convict. Outside of a couple of knuckleheads, no way was we gonna vote for telling the freaking damn truth rest of our lives. What are you, nuts? Just plain selfish? Anyways, we all got together at a bar later that night and laughed our asses off. Sucker!"
But then my rapist fellow inmate asks me if I ever appealed my verdict - perhaps he wanted to soothe whatever remnants of a conscience he might have. I replied, "To who would I appeal?"
"Good point," he giggled. "Nobody wants to get fucked by the truth!"
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The world is a criminal enterprise
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