The Delusional Case of David VS David
"It's not important that checks and balances exist," David interceded on behalf of the television, "only that they appear to exist."
Indiscriminate news poured from the family room and into the kitchen as David washed the single plate he'd used for dinner. Little balls of dried rice clung obstinately to its cheap plastic."Important to who?" David asked the pundit in his head.
Gazing inwardly, he groped for the sponge using only his memory to guide his hands. Scrubbing without force or focus, he thought about accountability. How some people are held to it so tightly that they never escape its grasp, and how others seem to befriend it for a while, bask in its good graces, only to abandon it outright for a more gratifying belief system. To court accountability for a chance to fuck her more beautiful sister, impunity. Oh how sweet impunity seems to the unscrupulous, how fresh and pure, how innocent, how eminently corruptible. We all think we want our will unhindered. The ability to act in accordance with whim. But without Character, without values to restrain or encourage action, we would cease to be ourselves. It is only through action that our characters are revealed, and only through character that we are distinct.
The plate found its way into David's empty dishwasher accompanied by its fork. In what might have been years but was probably only minutes, David discovered that he'd been standing over the dishwasher with furrowed brows, staring accusingly at the plate while he thought; his face was incredulous, as if he expected the plate to jump out of its soapy prison and roll its way through his front door and toward the undefined. Yet flashing in David's mind were not images of floating anthropomorphized dishware nor happy porcelain prancing gleefully into sunsets and away from his gloomy apartment. Instead, inexplicably, rattled conjectures about what percentage of the cat population contracted cat-cancer. He stared directly into a suds sliding slimily down the plate's white face, slightly yellow with MSG and pork grease, and posited, "Probably somewhere between twenty and thirty percent." With that inquiry settled, he nodded his head in satisfaction and shuffled into the family room.
There, news flashed and shone.
Greens, reds, blues, and yellows played on David's placid face, the action on screen unreflected in his features. "What a world," he thought, "A world in which even cats aren't spared cancer." And yet, what punishment had he received for his wrongdoings? What consequences had his actions ever caused? In his opinion he was on the lam, a fugitive from justice, scrolling the internet and ordering take-out one stolen day at a time—he sighed—just waiting for the universe to crush him. At this a finger waggled in David's head. "Why do you always go there?" he scolded himself, "end every thought with some fucking nonsense about the universe crushing you?" Stern mumblings rumbled into his ears, he felt distinctly grey, and images of Richard Nixon's frowning façade unfolded into David's imagination. "I'm disappointed in you, son," Nixon's purple jowls seemed to say, "We had high hopes for you here," and then was swallowed up into a swirling swarm of memories and regrets...
Anderson Cooper broke onto the screen, and in so doing broke onto the surface of David's focus. Immaculate, and framed in a patriotic blue which lent David's family-room a cavernous aspect, Anderson began his apology, "Tonight on Three-Sixty," he said, "we turn to Flint in an effort to quantify the disaster. Water is to be treated, homes to be fitted with filters, however the number of children affected by..." and David's attention began turning toward himself, his eyes even entering that blunt, deadened aspect associated with catatonia. How had he treated the people in his life? Was he a good man? He shook his head. He didn’t think so. If only it were possible for him to be fixed, fitted with a filter. But, like Flint, he thought, he was poisonous in his very construction, so that no amount of treatment or filtration could mitigate the harm he inflicted on those he came into contact with.
"Remember that Pokemon card you stole from Liam in first grade?" he reminded himself cruely; and then he saw himself as a lawyer in a light brown suit, hair greased back professionally and mouth grinning with aggression. This self-prosecutor pointed accusingly at David and asked, "Or what about that nice girl you cheated on in highschool? What was her name? Shannon? Surely you remember Shannon?" And David found himself in a mahogany witness box facing a crowd of Davids with crossed arms and frowning faces. To David's left, but on a slightly higher plane, reclined a David sporting long black robes and a curly white wig. Glowering, and grasping his gavel like a Viking would his thirsty battle axe, David had the impression that his Judge's mind was made. To David's right, and in their own special box, sat twelve Davids in two tiered rows of six, all dressed differently, but idling identical pens that hovered over identical notepads. Dazed, David's eyes swam through the back of the courtroom until the prosecutor cut into his field of vision with a vicious side-step, palms turned up and shoulders shrugged as if to say, "Well?"
"Umm... yeah. Yes, I remember her, of course I do," David sputtered, shifting his eyes towards the black and white stripes of his jumpsuit, fetters finding his wrists.
The prosecutor whirled to address the room, "And do you remember the circumstances surrounding Shannon's dismissal from your affections? Do you recall, how on a dark and windy night, she burst into your room, distraught, only to find her true love, he whom she had trusted with her innocence, in bed with another woman?"—the jury box scratched with scribbles—"Need I remind you of her tears, or the way she seemed to crumple to the carpet upon seeing your entwined bodies?" pivoting, "Gentlemen and gentlemen of the jury, the defendant, David, is a heartless man and a criminal of the soul. A lawless philanderer who, with reckless negligence, perpetrated one of our Character's most heinous transgressions: the manipulation and subsequent destruction of trust. Which, by the way, he had been given under legal contract, recognized and notarized by a court of law."
Prosecutor-David produced a piece of paper, folded into thirds, from his left breast pocket, and, with unforeseen acrobatic ability and dramatic deliverance, jumped and spun a full three-hundred and sixty degrees to land in front of Judge-David, slamming the document onto the lip of his mahogany counter as if it were a cash tip on a brass bar. A raucous rumble resounded from the crowd accompanied by a gasp from the jury box. Prosecutor-David strutted triumphantly from the bench as the document was handed down to David for inspection. It was a love letter he had written. Stained with dark tears and red lips, the document detailed David's dedication to Shannon, and sure enough, there stood his signature at the bottom. Right next to an X and an O.
The prosecutor went on, "And this is only the beginning, gentlemen and gentlemen of the jury. The list of David's transgressions against both man and law knows no limit. He's stolen anxiety medication from his grandmother, affection from his sister's friends, and Slim Shady albums from every Target in a ten-mile radius. He shows little respect for possessions, sure, but displays outright contempt for intimacy. Oh, he's resented his lovers, he's abandoned his friends, and he's forsaken his oaths! He's jealous, covetous, spiteful, and slothful! Once, he initiated a rumor about an individual he disliked, and once, he had the audacity to fantasize about his friend's girlfriend."—the crowd was growling and spitting—"Yes, yes, gentlemen and gentlemen, it's true, and I have it on good authority that he's driven under the influence at least twice. Yes, the defendant, David, the man on trial in this courtroom, is a reeaaal scumbag." The prosecutor turned towards Judge-David, "Your honor, I recommend we punish the defendant to the full extent of the law. Not any prison will do, no...no, only Shame Island could possibly suffice for such a detestable criminal."
A hush sucked all noise from the courtroom.
And guilt welled like a punctured aquifer in David's chest, strangling him with emotion. What had he done? What had he done? Clutching his hair, David cried, "It's true, I'm guilty! I'm a criminal! Take me away!"
The crowd was on its feet as Guard-Davids in riot gear pushed a grim metal cage down the courtroom's center aisle. The jury clicked their pens at 80 beats per minute—click, clack, click, clack—creating a marching sound that vibrated like war-drums in David's ears. The room was shrinking and the Davids were descending upon him, pushing him towards the cage as its bars swung wide to accept him forever. David began to wail, feeling the cold metal on his sweat-strewn skin. Just as locks were turning, hopes were fleeing, and Davids were imagining eating gruel from meal-plates until their death, the double doors at the entrance to the courtroom were thrown open. In strode a David in a dark-blue three-piece suit, with horn-rimmed spectacles and a hand raised in agitation, booming, "Get my client from that cage at once! What right have you all to call this justice?"
Defense Attorney-David hurried to the bench, grabbed David's arm and pulled him from the cage. David stumbled bewildered back to his box as the defense he didn’t know he had rounded on the Judge.
"Your Honor, I demand a mistrial!" Defense Attorney-David cried, "My client was tried and sentenced without representation. This entire proceeding is a sham and a miscarriage of justice! A mockery to Lady Liberty and disgrace to our profession!" Judge-David grunted with displeasure but made no move to prohibit the disruption. The defense turned to address the room, now restless, regarding the scene warily.
"Gentlemen and gentlemen of the court, what has transpired here today under the guise of justice, has been the unlawful prosecution of one of our citizens. Everyone, from the meanest murderer to the stainless Samaritan, deserves representation against the juggernaut that is our criminal justice system. Now, will I stand here today and deny that the defendant, David, is indeed a scumbag? That I will not." Modest chuckles clucked from the audience, "David has undeniably comported himself contrary to the character he's attempted to cultivate. He is indisputably susceptible to those seven seductive sins. He has lied, cheated, and stolen. Overslept, run away, and shirked. Yes, without doubt, David has fallen short of the standards he himself set."
Pausing, Defense Attorney-David turned and looked back at David, who's eyes were downcast, "Yet, despite the many mistakes made by our defendant, he remains where he began, somewhere between innocence and guilt. Deserving of both reproach and praise, admonition and encouragement. If we are incarcerated on Shame Island (from which there is no return) for our natural flaws, our innocent mistakes, our inexperienced negligences, than by implication we decree our inability to improve, to make amends for our misconduct. I ask you, Davids, is that who we want to be? Are we the type to give up hope, to dwell in a house of memories and tend a garden of regrets? To recede from the world, unwilling to contribute, too afraid to atone?" The crowd shook their heads and the jury threw their pens to the floor.
"Your honor, gentlemen and gentlemen of the court, I recommend redemption and release; release upon the condition that the defendant dig deep into his resolve, discover within himself the determination to develop into our worthy representative. A man we can all be proud of, who acts in accordance with his character, not with his whim."
With this, crowd intently silent, the Defense Attorney-Davd swiveled as if on wheels to face David. "David, do you understand what has transpired during today's proceedings?"
David raised his eyes slowly. Iterations of his own face peered curiously in on him, crowding his vision. Everyone in the room was breathing in unison and the sound was deafening; the ragged breath of the anxious amplified one-hundred fold. The sound skittered around the sweltering room, and David perspired as hot breath crept over his skin, agitating the little hairs that sprung from it.
He looked into his faces,"No," he admitted, "I am definitively unsure of what's transpired during today's proceedings. But what it feels like, is that I've been given a second chance."
Noise shattered the room's humidity and the crowd leapt to their feet. The gentlemen and gentlemen of the jury turned to each other for high fives and Defense Attorney-David held an erect thumbs-up to complete the ensemble offered by his proud grin. Hands gripped David, hoisting him high above the crowd, carrying him from the courtroom. There was chanting, but it quickly became indistinct as David was lifted from his reverie and placed into precisely the position upon the plush couch that he'd occupied since leaving the kitchen.
"..and that concludes another hour of Three-Sixty," said Anderson, signing off. Trembling, David tore at the tear trickling by his right nostril. He changed the channel. Flipping from CNN to Animal Planet, and in so doing, draping his family room in a mossy green. "Baby steps," he said aloud. "Baby steps."
