Knee-Deep In Legal Matters

  Days, weeks, possibly months past as I sat in my cage in the Department of Behavioral Sciences. With no sunlight or human contact it was hard to tell. I was fortunate that there was nothing at hand with which to do myself personal injury, because I was at wit's end and had become desperate, imprisoned like a criminal as I was, deep in the bowels of the university. The only thing that kept me going through this ordeal was the slightest degree of a faint and distant hope that one day I would get out, and I could get my lawyer to bring criminal charges against the college. I fantasized about destroying the PhD programs, dismantling the university and its reputation; so severely, that my vindication would come in the form of their precious mba rankings going straight through the floor and into the dust. The mind plays tricks…

  Just as I was near entirely consumed with my revenge fantasies of criminal prosecution, the lone door to my cell flung open and two white coated figures snatched me from the floor and hauled me to the office of the dean of the college. I stood, confused and disoriented, before the dean of the college, Professor Skinner, and four mean looking campus security officers. The jig was up, the dean informed me. My bogus credit cards I had used to pay for my admission to the university had been declined, and I was no longer welcome there. I was to be immediately expelled, and a peace-bond had been placed upon me by the college forbidding me from coming anywhere near the campus. The security guards grabbed me, each taking a limb, and carried me to the exit at the rear gate. The dean walked sternly at their heels, and as we neared the gate he told me that they had figured out it was I who had exploded the bomb earlier, from the security footage, and I was transferred from the hands of the college security officers directly into custody of the actual police standing just outside the gates, and placed under arrest to face criminal charges of terrorist activity with intent to cause personal injury. I should have just gone to online university, but I guess it was too late for that now.

  I was “read my rights” and taken “downtown” where I was booked, stripped, searched, and given my “one phone-call” which I used to contact my attorney, “Double-Double” Medjuck, but to my dismay, I got a recording telling me that his number was no longer in service. Now I was really sunk. What was I going to do? I was facing some serious criminal charges and this is the type of thing people need lawyers to help them get out of. I expressed my dismay to the desk Sargent, as he led me to the cell block, but he told me I was actually in luck. It seems that due to the heinous nature of my terrorist acts I was originally to be placed in “PC” or “protective custody” where they send  rapists, serial killers, child molesters, the lowest of the low of the criminal world, but that PC was totally filled beyond capacity so I was to be placed on Special, Double, Extra-Protective Custody, an even more secure section of the prison where the very worst, most unspeakable criminal degenerates are sent, the ones too extreme and horrible, even for PC. He said I'd have no problem finding an attorney in there, in fact, they had just busted up a convention and Double-Extra-PC was populated entirely with lawyers at this time. 

  I wasn't too sure how I felt about this, I needed an attorney, but this extra-secure, double severe protective custody thing sounded scary, and as we drew nearer to the cells a frightful, animalistic din arose. Disgusting guttural noises and sub-human screams filled my ears and a stench of blood and feces seemed to permeate the walls. We walked past cages where lawyers and attorneys engaged in vile degrading acts, sneering and grabbing at us as we went by. A Crown Council Attorney offered lewd suggestions to me from his cell, beckoning me to come inside and join him, and a criminal defense attorney in another cage threw a cup full of human waste at us, just missing me by inches. A torrent of abuse poured from his mouth, and he promised us both great personal injury, in explicit, gory detail. We finally arrived at the main holding pen, or “range” as they call it, a giant, gymnasium sized cage that held about 200 men, each a legal professional. 

   They say prison is basically a “crime college” but this one was more like a “criminal law school”.  A university of corruption; with PhD programs in felony, malfeasance, and wrong-doing. You could get your degree, and apparently, their mba rankings were the best around! 

    The guard shoved me into the cage, and slammed the door shut behind me, brandishing his night-stick at the lawyers and attorneys who clawed and groped at him through the bars, smashing at their knuckles and hastily making for his exit. Now I was alone to fend for myself, terrified at the scene of bedlam around me. There were personal injury lawyers playing some sort of gambling game with their business cards, and civil prosecutors reading out made-up writs of appeal to no one in particular. Some climbed the bars, or fought with each other amongst themselves, while others simply sat in a stupor, drooling, obviously too far-gone and beyond hope, mentally and emotionally broken to the Nth degree. I tried to keep to myself but was hounded by dozens of solicitors, pulling at me and prodding me incessantly. I was backed into a corner, outnumbered and paralyzed with fear when a hulking giant of a barrister intervened. He roughed up a few of the advocates and claimed me as his “fresh meat”, and his alone. They deferred to his dominance and shrank away, and he suddenly took on a more seductive tone with me. He put his arm around me, almost gently, and introduced himself. He knew why I was incarcerated (he had contacts amongst the “screws”) and he suggested I would be needing his services as a medical malpractice lawyer, to bring counter-suit against the university, and the directors of its PhD programs. The college had obviously done me great personal injury and we should sue! He handed me his card, smiling, when out of nowhere there was a great conflagration, and I saw a flash of silver, as he was jumped from behind by another attorney who proceeded to stab him repeatedly with a home-made “shiv” The lawyers all hooted and hollered as he was shanked again and again, until he was nothing more than a bloody mess of wounds lying lifeless on the floor, his business card shoved rudely in his dead mouth. His attacker stood hunched over him, panting heavily, dripping with sweat, spat on the carcass and quickly passed his weapon to a cohort who just as quickly made it disappear. Then just as the guards arrived he straightened up and regained his composure, and I saw that, lo and behold, it was Medjuck! My attorney was here, and now maybe I would be saved. He winked at me as he told the guards that the victim had “fallen” and that nobody had seen anything, to which they eyed us all with a degree of suspicion before giving up and carting away what was left of the dead barrister, and warning us to “keep it down”

   Medjuck turned to me and smiled. He was flanked by two nasty looking articling students who served as his henchmen, and he was obviously the “top dog” in this prison ward. He put his arm around my shoulder, told me to come with him to his “office”, and when he moved the other lawyers shrank away from him in fear and parted the way for us to walk to the far end of the range to an area cordoned off with bed sheets. Inside there was a cot for him to recline on and pictures of Judge Judy adorned the walls. He settled into his regular legal eagle mode and with finger-tips pressed together, examined me like so much meat in a butcher's shop. He snapped his fingers once and one of his stooges fished a plastic bag filled with sick looking purple fluid from out of the toilet-bowl, and proceeded to pour us two cups. He silently beckons me to drink, and I take a tiny sip of the foul raisin wine, trying not to gag.

   Medjuck explains the situation to me. I have problems. Big problems. So big, in fact, that prison is probably the safest place for me right now, much safer than “outside”. So that end is covered. But there are other complications to consider. As my attorney, he is unable to serve me at all unless he is “outside” This is essential, he explains, if we have any hope of suing the university for my personal injury. He's getting kind of fired up on this point, or maybe drunk, probably both, but he goes off a little. He has a bit of a grudge to settle with the college and their PhD programs. He wants to squash it like a bug, throw their mba rankings in the dirt, and take down the whole institution to the point where it is reduced to existing as a mere online university, a shadow of its former self. He laughs a little at his idea, but straightens up just as quick. He's on to his other favorite theme…funding. He needs to raise bail to get out of prison so he can begin our legal proceedings in earnest. He leans in on me. He knows I own property, and he wants me to mortgage it to raise the bail. 

  “But I already put a mortgage on my place Doubles. Don't you remember? I took out a mortgage and gave the money to your brother, the doctor. Can't you get it from him?”

  Medjuck sneers and looks away. “My brother has left the country.” He spits, “He's in Argentina doing charity work, something to do with children, the 5^th Reich, I think he called it. At any rate, he is unavailable to help us at this time. Can't you refinance your mortgage, get a second mortgage? It is absolutely necessary to the success of this case that we get funds immediately, so I can proceed in a timely fashion.”

  I suppose I have to agree, after all, he is my attorney, and he certainly knows best. I tell him I can give the go-ahead to take out a second mortgage, if it will help the cause. Hell, I'll take out a third mortgage, even a fourth if I can just clear my name and sort this whole mess out once and for all. At this he nods at one of the articling goons at his side who reaches into his pants and produces a cell-phone wrapped in cellophane from his back-passage. When he hands it to my attorney, Medjuck grimaces and shakes his head. He doesn't want to touch it, considering where it has been, so, with a slight degree of annoyance, he directs the flunky to hand the phone to me. 

  Holding the poopy phone as delicately as I can, several inches from my face, I call my bank and make arrangements for the mortgage to go through and the funds to be transferred to Medjucks account, and no sooner had I ended the call a screw appeared at the front of the cage calling out, “Medjuck! Drop your cock and grab your socks! You made bail!”

   I'm a little overwhelmed, this all happened so quickly, but my attorney, ever the professional, pats me on the back, and as he is leaving, says; “A little advice… and for this I will not charge; if you plan on returning to college in the future, consider pursuing your degree at an online university, it may be your only option…” then shaking his head and straightening his yarmulke, chortling all the way, he skips out the door, leaving me once again, to fend for myself.