Obstinate.

does somebody know a good lawyer. in england they call them solicitors. and it makes you wonder what exactly they're solicitors of... the tacit answer that everybody knows anyway but nobody says. though you see it in the polished shoes that float above marble floors, the european cut of the suit, the $900 eyeglasses, the $50 haircut. the belittling sneer and tone of placation. and it's not that money itself is the problem, but you look at the luckless fools sitting on benches waiting for their moment to come, sitting in their tattered jeans and cheap trenchcoats and walmart leather jackets. though the timbos are always brand new looking, polished, immaculate. anguish on their faces, the trained reaction to drama that's been honed in front of countless hours of jerry springer, or eyes too vacant and imbecilic to be granted even that much. something went wrong, somewhere. we wouldn't have waited those three hours, if he had money. and the realization kills me, completely. it's a circus, the courthouse, and everybody is an absolute characature.

"there are no guarantees," is the phrase I heard more than any other in that hallway. always said by the lawyer with a look of grave intention. there was a man sitting next to me while I read, we were the only two for about 30 minutes, with the exception of the occasional office worker who would walk through on her way back from lunch. "cold enough out there for ya," he would say as they passed by. "hey, here comes blondie!" and I hoped that he would continue to take no notice of me, lest I have to force a pained smile upon receiving the gift of a platitude. enter the deputy with white hair and blue eagle eyes, cold, intolerable, wicked. and he represented truth and justice or some type of noble thing, and when the prisoner couldn't sit down because of the pain, he laughed, and pointed it out to another deputy not far away, and they both laughed together. and i thought what a piss ant existence. what a disgrace it was at that moment, to be human.

so the continuances continue and i find myself completely losing any remnant of hope for what once seemed so infallible a justice system. and of course there is always a crime at the beginning of the trail (but is the beginning truly where it all starts?) but so far throughout the entire process there has been no discussion of motive or event or circumstance or change since or rehabilitation or anything that one assumes must simply be a part of the process. just: the shuffling of papers and scrambling of feet and waiting, the interminable waiting; waiting. it's folly, believing in anything. i feel run over.

we made 'merica jokes on the way over and laughed until there were tears, he put his hand on my collar and rubbed and out of the corner of my eye I saw the look that I couldn't allow myself to acknowledge fully, the look that would have made my chin quiver, the look that i would have shot those deputies for. i have never known honesty to be so cutting.