Crimes of the Century

My brother is up on trial. I don’t plan to be much use to them on the stand. Sure, they had me put my hand on a Bible – but there are parts of that book that don’t even make sense. Parents tying up their kids. Couple of girls getting their dad drunk, giving him the old hank-harry. Forget it. I remember when I was a kid, Mr. Roberts, our Sunday school teacher, showed up to class drunk. He stumbled into the room and, instead of saying Good morning or God bless you, he just looked at us for a while. He took off his winter coat and blazer real slow, like he looked almost scared, holding them out in front of himself and staring at them for a long time before crumpling them both into a wastebasket near the front of the room – then he took off the rest of his clothes and started screaming. No one knew what to do. Anyway, we were just kids, I guess – so we sat there and he stood up in front of us, holding his Bible open and telling us about some guy, who demanded a hundred foreskins from some other guy. He told us about some prophet who got teased by some kids for being bald, which pissed the prophet off so bad he prayed about it until two bears came out of the woods and started smacking the kids like trout. He kept telling us all these stories, each weirder than the last. He kept screaming, stray shots of spittle shooting out from his mouth and disappearing. Eventually, one of the volunteer ushers heard the commotion and left the Sunday service to see what was going on. He tried to wrestle Mr. Roberts out of the room – but before he could get anywhere near him Mr. Roberts took of running through the church, screaming bloody murder. When six more ushers cornered him in the in the parking lot and finally got him down on the ground, he was still screaming. No one ever understood why Mr. Roberts did what he did. I suppose it doesn’t really matter, though once I went through the Bible to make sure that the stories he had told us were actually in there. Sure enough, they were. Apparently, those bears killed like forty kids. And foreskins? I’m not sure that’s the kind of morality we need. Anyway, if you come in from out of town and start panhandling for foreskins, you can expect a short trip. So what should I care if I put my hand on a Bible? No one has even told me what it is my brother is supposed to have done.

Another thing? This tie is killing me. You know the way they get? Like you swallowed a quarter. I’m not one to dress up, but it’s been explained to me that I’m somewhat of an important witness. I can’t imagine how. I’ve never seen my brother do anything wrong, though I doubt the prosecution will buy that. This lawyer they’ve got is a real piece of work. He’s got this certain air about him. The way he stands. The way he folds his arms and touches his goddamn moustache. Like he’s saying: if my brother hasn’t done anything wrong, then why are we here? If my brother hasn’t done something unspeakable, then why are so many important people wasting their time? If he gave me the chance, I’d probably ask him the same question. If he gave me the chance, I’m sure I’d lay his garbage out flat. Get to the bottom of whatever it is he’s trying to insinuate about my brother. But, while I’m on the stand, this lawyer barely says a word. He stands with his back to me in the courtroom, sometimes turning to cock an eyebrow like he doesn’t believe a word I’m saying – but I haven’t said anything.

From the stand, my brother looks nervous. His lawyer must have told him that it was a good idea to shave his muzzle, but now his face looks raw and, in places, you can see where there’s blood on his chin. Just from the cut of my brother’s suite, you can tell that his lawyer probably isn’t going to be able to keep up.

It’s all bullshit anyway. No guilty man ever sees the inside of a courtroom. Once, I was packing seed for a distributor outside Danville, and there was this guy named Dewayne. A real degenerate. The first time I worked with him on the line, he was crowing to me about some night in New Mexico when he stuck his thumb so far up a woman’s ass he couldn’t get it out. He said they had to drive to the emergency room like that. His neighbors were always showing up on the floor, complaining that he was stealing their mail or that he’d kicked their dog to death. He was the type of guy who would show up early for his shift just to smack the bags out of the hands of the guys who were about to get off. He’d steal from people’s lockers. Piss in the sink of the break room. And one night we watched him beat a guy to death for no reason. It was the last whistle and Dewayne was shouldering past everybody on his way outside when he bumped into some new guy, a young kid who’d started a week earlier. The kid grumbled under his breath or maybe said fuck off. Whatever it was, Dewayne followed him for a few yards, then grabbed a piece of pipe off the ground and smashed his head open at the temple. The kid was in the dirt with the first hit, but Dewayne kept bringing the pipe down so fast that the mouth of it whistled in the air and gave off a hollow dung sound on the kid’s head. There were about ten of us who watched it happen, but Dewayne still claimed it’d be his word against ours. He must have made a good argument, because we just stood there watching him while he climbed the ladder to the silo with the body of the kid slung over his shoulder, planning to drop it back down on to the ground from a good enough height so he could tell the cops it was an accident. It took about six tries to get the body to land on its head. By the fourth attempt, Dewayne was covered in blood. It soaked through his work shirt and was all over his hands and face. It was so bad that in order to avoid suspicion when the cops finally came, Dewayne had to hold the body in his arms, pretending to mourn it. Oh no, Little Guy! He was shouting. Not you, Little Guy! The cops took statements and we told them that we all came after we heard the noise. When I quit a week later, it was Dewayne who took over most of my shifts. See? Bullshit.

The lawyer for the prosecution takes a plastic bag out of his briefcase. There’s something strange inside of it, but I can’t tell what it is exactly. I look at my brother and it’s obvious that he doesn’t recognize it either. When the lawyer shows it to the jury, they all gasp and start to write furiously in their notepads. The lawyer approaches the stand and holds the bag directly in front of me, but I still can’t tell what’s inside. My eyes won’t focus. There’s a glare. There’s a fold in the bag. The lawyer hands it to me and tells me to hold it in my lap.

I remember: there was this one story Mr. Roberts told us. It was the only one I couldn’t find in the Bible. It had to do with Adam in Paradise. Mr. Roberts said that before God thought to make Eve, he let Adam choose his mate from among the animals in the garden. According to Mr. Roberts, Adam chose an egret, and the two of them loved each other very much. All day long, they would walk together through reed beds, eating live frogs and building stick nests. At night, Adam would lie on his back and the egret would sit in a heavy ball on his chest, the egret taking the tip of Adam’s nose in his beak and gently pinching it as they slept. Their love, said Mr. Roberts, was the most perfect love that this world has ever known – but before he could finish his thought, the usher burst through the door and both of them were off through the church and out into the parking lot. Later, when I couldn’t find that story in the Bible, I was disappointed. As much as I distrusted the rest of the book, I wanted to know what happened with Adam and the egret. From there, I wanted to know how things got the way they did. That is, how we got from that allegedly perfect love to Mr. Roberts mewling naked in a parking lot, to Dewayne pulling into a New Mexican hospital with his thumb caught in some woman, to that kid falling five stories, limp as a still born.

This fucking tie is killing me. Do you know what I mean? Like the tip of a broom handle. Just pressing. Even with the bag in my lap I can’t see what’s inside. The lawyer doesn’t ask me to tell him what it is. Rather, he asks me to weigh it in my lap, to name an object of the same weight. I don’t know what to tell him. A sword? A head of lettuce? A flower? A swatch of carpet? I don’t say anything and my brother’s lawyer puts his head in his hands, sweeps a mound of papers to the floor. The lawyer for the prosecution turns to the jury and tells them that my brother is guilty – my brother who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Guilty, he says, of one of the worst crimes of the century, a crime so despicable and depraved that to give it a name would be for all good men everywhere to accept defeat, to let the murk of such evil break like a wave over every front door. The lawyer stands on a chair and starts waving his suit coat over his head, whooping. He celebrates and the jury begins to break out into spatters of applause. He tells them I’ve damned my brother with my testimony, beyond all hem hawing and double talk. Beyond all shadow and doubt. But I still haven’t said anything. Not a word.