Humor/Satire / Time for Recess

Jeremy checked the caller ID on his ringing cell phone and then hit the green button. “Hello, Amy?”

“Yeah.”  She laughed out loud.  ”You won’t believe what happened.”

“Yeah, how was traffic court?”

“I got off.”

“How?”

Amy laughed again.  ”Everybody got off.”

“What are you talking about?  What happened?”

*

Dozens of guilty people sat in the finest and most expensive oak seats they’d probably ever use, waiting to plead their cases against traffic violations.   The district attorney dismissed another victim of circumstance from interview and called the next name on his docket: “Frog? Walter Danby Frog!”

“I beg your pardon.” A man with a black mustache, and a cigar in his hand stood up. “That’s Freuaxg!”  He stepped up to the DA’s podium. “It’s: Fruh-oh-juh, Walter Danby Freauxg.”  He jiggled his Adam’s apple.  ”You’ve gotta get it in your throat. Freauxg.”  He tugged at the lapel of the two-sizes-too-big suit he wore.

“Mr. Freauxg?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Maybe you will get it in the throat.”

Wide-eyed, the DA raised his hands to guard his neck.  “I beg your pardon?”

Frog raised a hand to his ear.  “What’s that you’ve said?”

The DA lowered his hands.  ”I beg your pardon.”

“Once more, please.”

“I beg your pardon, are you, um…” The district attorney looked at his docket. “Are you Walter Danby… Freauxg?”

“Yes, that’s it.”  Frog snapped his fingers. “That’s what you said! If not it was certainly something like that.”

He leaned his right elbow on the podium and dug into his inside jacket pocket.  ”Now what can I do for you? I received this letter from you in the mail.” He pulled out a shredded envelope that had been taped back together, and turned it over in his hand. “It’s all the mail I’ve gotten in some while and it says that I need to come here.”  He straightened up, slapped it down in front of the DA, and crossed his arms. “I hope it’s not bad news. I hate bad news and I love mail, if it were bad news it might entirely destroy the excitement I gained from receiving a letter in the mail… and it was an invitation, at that!”

The district attorney took a step back. “One second, please.  I haven’t gotten your case file, yet.”  He turned and sifted through a stack of folders.  ”I do have to know what you’re here for.”

A small man in a trench coat with the tail split straight to the shoulders, and a top hat that capped his bright red afro walked by.  He noticed a thermos and a sandwich set behind the DA’s podium. He sat on the floor and unwrapped the baggie from roast beef on rye.

The DA turned back to Mr. Frog and held up a manila folder.  “Here it is.  We get so many people who contest, I don’t get time to review every case, beforehand.” He smirked and opened the folder.  ”Now… wait a second.”  He looked hard at the file’s subject tab.  ”You say your name is pronounced Freauxg?”

“That’s right.”  He looked up at the ceiling.

The DA pointed at the subject tab.  ”It’s spelled F-R-O-G here.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Well, how can it be pronounced Freauxg, if it’s spelled Frog?”

“Well, it was a French Frog.” Mr. Frog turned left and said to nobody in particular: “Well, somebody had to say it, and it may as well have been me who did. It is my name, after all.”

The district attorney looked to where Mr. Frog was speaking and noticed the top hatted man on the floor, eating his lunch. “Hey, you, what are you doing there? That’s my food!”

The top hatted fellow waved his hand and rubbed his tummy. Then he went back to the sandwich.

“Stop eating my food!” He grabbed the sandwich and squeezed his fist around it, covering his hand with mustard and roast beef juice. He threw the mass from his hand into a wastepaper basket on the other side of his podium, and then pointed a finger, and demanded of the little man: “Who are you?”

The man honked and whistled.

“Don’t play games with me.  Who are you?”

The man whistled and gestured.

“Look you!  You had better come clean—”

A man in a brown wool suit jacket stepped up behind the man on the floor.  “Hey, don’t uh, question him.” He said with a strong Italian accent.  ”He say, ‘no speak’.”

“Who are you?” Asked the prosecutor.

“Me? I’m uh, who you’re talk to.”

“Well, tell me your name!”

“My name’s Rolando Spinacci!”

The DA scanned his docket. “Your name’s not here. You shouldn’t be here.”

“No, I’m no on a list.  I’m not like these uh, criminal types.”  He waved a hand around the courtroom.  ”I haven’t been caught.”

“Well then, what are you doing here?”

Mr. Frog, who had been waiting patiently through this, grabbed the DA’s lapel. “Hey, as interested as I am in his autobiography…” He pointed his thumb at Spinacci. “I came here to be courted and that’s what you should be doing.”

“What?” He untangled himself from Frog’s grasp and said, while straightening his tie: “Wait a moment, please; I have to deal with this gentleman.”

“Who’s are you calling uh, gentlemen?” Rolando Spinacci grabbed the DA’s lapel, and pointed at himself and the man on the floor. “We’s uh, tough guys with lots o’ the scurvy.”

A man in a white suit, carrying a briefcase entered the courtroom and approached the district attorney. “I hope I’m not late.”

“Who are you?”

He pointed at Frog.  ”I’m his attorney.”

“Well, it seems you’re right on-time. We haven’t quite gotten to Mr. Frog yet.”

“It’s Freauxg!”  Frog bellowed.

“Freauxg,” the DA mumbled, and turned back to Rolando Spinacci.  Hed pointed at the man in the top-hat. “Now, what about him?”

“What? He’s uh, my partner.”

“All right, but who is he?”

“He’s Irving When. You just say over and over in your uh, head: you need Irving When you need Irving When you need Irving When you need Irving and you uh, never forget. Eh?”

The DA scanned his docket for the new name.  ”When, Irving… ah, yes. Here you are.”  He looked down at the man sitting on the floor.  ”Well, we’ve still got a ways to go before we get to your case but I’ll tell you…” He helped him to his feet.  ”Irving, eating my food is not a good way to keep from getting thrown in jail.”

Spinacci pointed at When.  “He’s uh, he like jail.”

Irving smiled and nodded.

“See. You make him give you soldi, er, money. He’d hate that and uh, you get you uh, debt to society paid off in uh, forty-five or fifteen years.”

“Fifty years?”

“No, that’s uh, fifteen. See it goes… and uh, I don’t know why you don’t know about it… you went o’ the school.”  He put his right index finger on the other hand’s pinkie and counted up his fingers. “It goes forty-five forty-six forty-seven, forty-eight forty-nine fifteen, sixteen, eighteen, uh, twin teens.”

“I beg your pardon,” Mr. Frog’s lawyer butted in. “My client was here first! We deserve to be heard first.”

“Yes, you’re absolutely right.” The district attorney said. He told Irving and Rolando to find seats, and then returned his attention to Mr. Frog and his lawyer. “Alright… now, where were we?”

Mr. Frog’s lawyer pointed at the DA. “You were there.”  He pointed to the floor next to the DA.  ”Those other fellows were right there.”  He pointed to himself and Mr. Frog. “And we were standing here… but then you asked those other fellows to leave.”

“Yes,” said Walter Danby Frog, “We’re certainly not where we were a moment ago, considering that they’ve left.”  He snapped his fingers.   “I’ll call them back so we can really regain that drama!” He cupped his hands around his mouth.

“No!” The district attorney grabbed Frog’s hands. Frog shook the DA’s hands.  The DA shook back and said: “Now, lets get on to the case.”

Frog’s lawyer set his brief case down and sat on it, Mr. Frog sat on his lap and the two gestured for the DA to join them.

“No, no, no, gentlemen!” The prosecutor stepped around and, with a helping hand, brought them back to their feet. “We must get on with your court case.”

“Yes, the case!” Frog said. “I wish to file a formal complaint about the handling of my case.”

“But your case hasn’t even been handled yet.”

“I know, but that’s just the point. Here we are about to get into the whole handling of it and I am not prepared.”

“Not prepared?”

“That’s right!”  He crossed his arms.  ”My right to a speedy trial has been pushed along so smoothly that I haven’t had any time for it.”

“Mr. Frog!” The prosecutor exclaimed in surprise.

“It’s Freauxg….”

“Freauxg, Freauxg, Freauxg!  You can’t file a complaint about a speedy trial. All trials are speedy for your convenience… not to inconvenience you.”  He pointed at the man in the white suit.  ”I suggest having your attorney speak to me for the remainder of this interview.”

“All right, you said it, you want to talk to him, here he is.”  He grabbed his attorney by the shoulders and pulled the man in front of him.

“Now lets get talking about these trees.” Mr. Frog’s lawyer got a dreamy look in his eyes.  ”They grow up from a single seed, sometimes taking whole human lifetimes to grow a mere four hundred feet tall.”

“Yes. That’s right, but that hasn’t anything to do with this.”

“Are you sure?” He looked around at the oaken interior of the courtroom. “Everything here seems to be made from trees… they must have some significance or bearing herein.”

“Your client was ticketed for speeding, riding on the outside of an automobile, not wearing his seatbelt, and failing to maintain control of his automobile; and trespassing, to boot.”

“That right?” The lawyer turned to his client, “You didn’t tell me you’d done all those things. That’s five things that you did.”

“I told you, I didn’t have time… and it was actually six things I did: I also flipped a bird at the cop who pulled me over.”

“You flipped him off?”

“No, just a bird, it tripped over my windshield and flipped off, right into the cop’s face.”

“Now…” The District attorney pointed to the file. “I’ll drop the seatbelt charge and the speeding charge if you plead guilty to failure to maintaining control and riding on the outside of your automobile.”

“Guilty?”  Frog held up his open palms. “You expect me to plead guilty for leaning out my car window?”

“It says here that more than fifty percent of your body was outside the automobile.”

Irving When sneaked behind the DA, grabbed the stack of folders there, and threw them into the waste bin with the mashed sandwich.

“Well,” said Frog, “How else could you expect me to pick the oranges?”

“You might have pulled your car over.”

“Yes, I might have but then I’d have been shot. There was a sign that said ‘Anyone who sets foot on this land will be shot’, you didn’t want me to be shot, did you?”

“No, no! It seems that you should have simply left the oranges alone.”

“Well, there was no sign about the oranges, just about setting foot on the property. I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong.” He looked down, dejected, and ground his toe into the floor.

“Now, see here, Mr. Freauxg, while, I’ll admit that it is unfair that you couldn’t get any oranges-”

Frog looked up with a smile and produced three oranges from his pants pocket. “Oh, I got the oranges… Seventy-mile-an-hour harvest.” He offered one to The DA.

“This isn’t good,” Frog’s lawyer said. “That’s now seven things you’ve admitted to.”

Smiling, Frog jiggled the orange in his hand.  The DA took it.

“Thank you.” He stared at the fruit in his hand. “Now, you sped past an orange tree… —”

“I knew there were trees involved!”

“What?”  The DA stared at the lawyer facing him.  ”Trees?  Yes, the tress.  Your client drove past an orange tree at seventy-miles-per-hour leaned out his car’s window giving total disregard to the road and ignoring his steering wheel, trespassed onto private land, and stole oranges.”

“He also assaulted a police officer with a small fowl.”

“I say I’m innocent.” Frog smiled.

“Look,” said the districty attorney, “I’ll drop all charges if you’ll just get out of here.”

“Well, what a fine way to treat your meal ticket!” Mr. frog turned away in disgust. “I come here to be tried, courted, and hanged, and what happens? They decide to throw out my case. What a state of affairs.” He turned back to face the DA. “The very idea that I could be bought off with the promise of personal freedom! This injustice will not stand in trial! I’ve got a lawyer!” He grabbed his lawyer.  ”This man will effortlessly and painstakingly make your life miserable until you throw him out, too!”

The DA tugged at his hair. “That’s the end of it! Bailiff!”

A court officer walked over.  ”Yes?”

“Throw this man out.”

“You’ll hear from me about this! There’s not a man alive who can keep Walter Danby Frog from prison!” He pleaded and complained as he was dragged from the courtroom with his lawyer close behind him.

The DA turned to throw out Frog’s documentation and there sat Irving When, where and how he shouldn’t have been. He sat in front of the garbage can from which flames licked up to the ceiling, and held a stick with a marshmallow on the end roasting over the crackling court files.

Rolando Spinacci stepped up to the DA. “Hey, ya got a stick?”

The DA only stared at the blaze.

Spinacci smacked his shoulder and repeated: “A stick, a stick.” He grabbed a pencil from the DA’s podium, stabbed it through a marshmallow and proceeded to roast it. “That’s uh, good,” he said. “That’s a good.”

The district attorney tossed Frog’s file atop the fire and walked across the courtroom to the judge’s bench.

“Your honor.”

The judge raised a finger.  ”One moment.”

“Your honor!”

The judge turned away from a man in a plaid sports coat to face the DA.  ”What?”

The district attorney pointed to his flaming podium.  ”I think it’s time for a recess.”

The End

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