Lest Ye Be Judged
A woman shudders awake. Though it is too dark to see her husband, she knows he is sitting up by the sound of his breath, which gathers and releases from above. His weight has condensed to the bed’s vertical center and, as a result, her body dips into the mattress. She doesn’t move, waiting for him to speak or for her vision to cut shapes into the dark, neither of which happens for what seems an extraordinary span of time.
“Edith,” her husband finally says, in such a vague monotone that the darkness somehow deepens. “Listen carefully. We’re not alone.”
She is not a timid woman, is, in fact, internationally distinguished for her lack of timidity. And yet, as open-mouthed breaths parch her throat, she does not feel this moment is unexpected—so long a reign of succulent upper-handedness was bound to run dry.
“I have to go,” her husband says. “This other thing will not hurt you, just so long as I’m gone.” His words are spaced enough that she has the opportunity to protest, to at least encourage further details. But she has always, against popular assumption, been a listener, an introvert who is filled with the stuttered explanations of others and processes them into coherent truth. “Know one thing, Edith,” he says. “There is no other way.”
Her body caves into the mattress. Her husband’s side of the bed is now empty, and his weight no longer counterbalances hers. Rather than feel for him, she pulls the goose-down comforter tighter to her throat, reminding herself who she is: a highly admired woman, a well-known television personality who has built a reputation on supreme moral judgment, who has placed herself in the enviable position of unyielding victory.
This night is not a victory. A stain forms, and it bleeds forward through time, a blot of defeat that is felt and seen, even in the dark.
*
“And when you have this dream do you wake up frightened? With a jolt? In a cold sweat? Shivering?”
“I keep the house warm. I wake up the same way I went to sleep: cognitively alert, level-headed. These things are in my control. It is only his absence, his departure, that I find myself, each time, unable to stop.”
“You say unable, and yet, from what you’ve told me, this dream-you does not make any effort to prevent him from leaving. Is it perhaps more accurate that you are unwilling?”
“He was always an earnest and reasonable man. If he tells me there is no other way, then I have no reason to disbelieve him. If, as you seem to be suggesting, there was a potential course of action that he felt I’d be unable to accept, then maybe you’re right. Maybe there is some sacrifice I’d have been unwilling to make.”
“Are we still talking about the dream, Edith?”
“Yes, we are.”
“Then let’s talk about real life for a moment. You say only his decision to leave is beyond your control. Surely there are other things?”
“Control was something I was raised to value, and the struggle for it served me well. I was the only woman in my class at law school. Eventually, as I made the ranks and gained attention, the attention ascended me above my colleagues.”
“So you feel at a distance from people. Did you feel at a distance from your husband?”
“The great fear is that someone will know you so well they lose any illusion of optimism, because they understand where you will succeed them and where you will not. A penned animal is happiest when it doesn’t know the parameters of its cage.”
“And your husband saw the parameters of life with you? Where do you think those parameters are? What are the limits of Edith Shapiro?”
“The better question might be, are there limits?”
“And are there?”
“It would be news to me.”
*
A day of taping for Ye Be Judged consists of seven to ten small claims cases filmed during the span of a typical business day. Judge Edie begins in makeup, and before she enters the courtroom/studio, her theme music plays. Stringed instruments provide the background for a rapid fire series of percussive notes. When tested, at the show’s onset, the audience consensus comprised two distinct interpretations. The first: the tune promised to deliver a stern package of legal justice within which lay a liquefied center of compassion. The second: as the tempo quickens, a ticking clock comes to mind, counting down to a make-or-break moment for all of humanity.
Enter Edie: a dignified woman who gracelessly embodies strict adherence to a system of values from a time when ethics was synonymous with common sense.
The first case begins. The plaintiff is suing his cousin for four thousand dollars loaned to invest in a shrimp farming business off the eastern coast of Mexico. The defendant promised to pay off the loan within a year. Two years later, the plaintiff hasn’t seen a dime. “I tried contacting him on numerous occasions,” the plaintiff explains. “But every time I call, Aunt Clara tells me he’s in the bathroom.”
“Your honor,” pipes up the defendant. “I have written proof that I have been suffering from something like extended dysentery these past eight months.”
The bailiff, a stoic black man, just hulking enough to intimidate and just complacent enough not to tread on Edie’s venerability, retrieves the signed note and brings it to the judge.
“What is this?” Edie asks. “This is from your mother? Is your mother a doctor, sir?” She says ‘sir’ as if in its place should be an expletive. “No, your mother is your mother. My guess is she’s been mothering you too long.” Against the defendant’s mild and sporadic protestations, Edie tells him he is not a man, for a man is only as good as his word. His eyes widen with horrified acceptance as Edie casts judgment for the plaintiff.
In the post case interview, the plaintiff says he hopes this will be the wakeup call his cousin so desperately needs. The defendant maintains that justice has not been served, and then excuses himself, saying the stress of the occasion is going to wreak havoc on his bowels.
Between cases, the makeup lady attends to Edie as she sips a fruit smoothie from a thin straw and her assistant rubs her shoulders. She is treated like a boxer, fatigue eased, strength kept limber.
In another case, a college junior sues her father for the title to her car. Though the car is in her father’s name, it was given to her as a present. To prove this, she presents the court with photographic evidence of the exchange. The bailiff retrieves the pictures and brings them to Edie. The girl is standing in front of the car, which is ribboned and bowed. She holds up the keys with one hand and caresses the car with the other. Her father stands next to her, smiling, hands at his sides, pleased and ignored.
Edie asks to hear from the defendant, who tells her that his daughter, a former honor roll student, took the car to college, where her grades dropped and her priorities changed. “She started hanging out with the partying crowd and all they would do is party,” he says. “They were drinking underage, and if that was going on, I didn’t want my daughter to have access to no car.”
“Bad decisions breed bad decisions,” says Edie, looking at the plaintiff. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
The plaintiff says, “That ain’t how it went down.” Edie corrects both her grammar and her dishonesty.
“You, little girl, might be very beautiful on the outside, but inside you’re an idiot. Shape up,” Edie says, then dismisses the case.
In the post case interview the defendant says he hopes his little girl will one day return to him. The plaintiff accuses her father of being an Indian giver.
The day’s final case concerns a former couple. The plaintiff is suing his ex for rent that she refused to pay during the six months she continued to live with him after they split up.
Edie is incredulous. “She lived with you for six months after the two of you broke up?”
“Yes, your honor,” replies the plaintiff, a diminutive man both in size and voice, who constantly glances at the defendant, a tall and beefy woman, as though she may, at any moment, spring an attack. “I asked her to leave, but she wouldn’t go.”
Edie too looks at the defendant, who uses her forearm to wipe away some fluid dripping from her nose. “You took this man hostage,” Edie says, surprisingly calm.
The defendant tells Edie that she did no such thing, that her ex could have called the police if that was the case, but he didn’t. “He wanted me there, he just couldn’t say it, so I think what’s the point in paying rent if he getting what he want anyway.”
Edie lets her finish, and when she does, says, “What you are is a bully. And there’s nothing I hate more than bullies. Tomorrow,” she says, gavel in hand, “straighten yourself out. Today, judgment for the plaintiff.”
In the post case interview, the plaintiff says he is grateful for Edie, who is willing to stand up for the little man. The defendant, too upset to be interviewed, storms out of the studio, leaving the door barely on its hinges.
Edie prepares to leave. The bailiff orders the audience to rise. They applaud. Before she disappears backstage Edie lifts her hand in salute, gavel still gripped in her palm.
*
“And it’s gone this way for fifteen years. I’m hard on them because they need it. We live in a world where people refuse to be honest with themselves, so when I sound tough and unfeeling and cruel, it’s not coming from me. It comes from their own history of dishonesty reflected proportionally back on them in the form of cold truth.”
“I’m hearing that you are a proponent of self-reflection. Can we also say that you are afraid of change?”
“The producers have asked for change. They think a new format would better serve our audience. Initially I agreed to do this show to disperse good sense on a fantastically grand scale. If the producers have found a more effective way to do that, I’m willing to go along, despite my reservations. However, I suspect you mean change in a more personal way. I suspect you mean that my unwillingness to change is the reason my husband left.”
“A reasonable assumption? Is it possible that since things have gone so consistently well, you resist change because it would require a new level of introspection that will expose you to frightening self-discoveries?”
“I find myself harder on the young than the old. The young are still making necessary discoveries. At a certain age you realize there’s so much left to discover, you no longer have time for it all. That’s what makes the elderly so quiet and meek, not that they are reflecting on their large and sumptuous pasts, but that they are looking to the paltry future and are at a loss.”
“Do you strike yourself, Edith, as at a loss?”
“No. But that doesn’t make me immune. When I was a child, my grandfather had a stroke that left him incapable of caring for himself, so he was placed in a nursing home. The first time I visited him, with my mother, I saw that he was no longer a person, was only some vague, gray skinned, unreceptive being. When we left, my mother advised me to let this be a reminder that life is short. Live for today, she said, because we never know what tomorrow promises. I amended the advice in my head. Live for today, because we know exactly what tomorrow promises.”
“What do you think your husband thought tomorrow would promise?”
“In my dream he felt there was something extra in our life that was pressuring him out of the arrangement.”
“Is it possible that this dream we have talked so much about is an attempt of your subconscious to explain what you, unable to fully investigate in reality, have yet to explain?”
“Yes.”
“And is it also possible that this third party that pushed your husband out is a so-far-unnamable thing that exists within you? That understanding this thing will help you understand why your husband left, where you have succeeded in life, and, perhaps, where you have failed?”
“Yes and no.”
“Elaborate?”
“Yes, that’s all possible. But failure is not a word I would use to describe myself.”
*
The meeting takes place after the day of shooting. Edie sits at the large conference table, sipping green tea.
In front of her sit two of the producers. Brad is bald and shiny and seems always to be on the brink of sweat. Nancy is heavily made up to cover her freckles, which she feels make her appear younger than she really is. At the window overlooking the lot stands Reginald Cooper, “Coop” to his friends, the show’s bailiff, who after eight years was given executive producer status to oversee advertising research.
“Here’s what we really want you to understand,” says Brad. “This isn’t a failure. To tell you the truth, failure and Judge Edie have never been used in the same sentence.” He pauses, letting this voluminous truth spread in the air. “And that’s the whole reason we’re suggesting this change. We have an opportunity to evolve, not just the show, but the viewer.”
Nancy clears her throat. “You see, we’re at a turning point in the culture,” she says. “And if we’re going to exist past that turning point, we’re going to need to anticipate the change before it fully happens. Previously, by which I mean up to this point, people tune in to watch you affirm their long held ethical beliefs. From the moment the case is introduced they know who is right and who is wrong. And they look forward to watching you really give it to the erring party. But things are changing.”
From the window Coop says, “Tolerance is the mantra of the younger generation. Tolerance and acceptance.” He does not turn from the window as he speaks, arms clasped behind his back.
“That’s right,” says Brad, pointing at the window. “This is about the expectations of a new generation. They no longer want good and evil, right and wrong, to be easily identifiable. They want to be challenged. And it’s our duty to challenge them.”
His last sentence is a purposeful recall of Edie’s own words. She has always told them it is their duty to hold accountable people looking to worm their way out of responsibility, to stretch their narrow confines of understanding and illustrate the gentle coloring of a complex world.
“Yes,” says Nancy. “Exactly. We have the opportunity to really speak to people on an intellectual and emotional level. To do that, we’ll provide you with more complicated, sophisticated cases. All we ask is that you find those hidden nuances, dig deeper than the audience expects you to dig. Take them by surprise, and if we’re successful they won’t just be laughing, they’ll be weeping.”
“Weeping,” Edie repeats to the two smiling faces before her. “Tell me, does this change have anything to do with the Kleenex people?”
Brad and Nancy turn to each other, smiles snubbed out. And since it seems they will not respond, Coop does. “We’re not going to lie to you, Edie. Never have and never will,” he says, still facing the window. “This has little to do with the Kleenex people.”
*
“Was I too cold? Was I closed off? Did I lord my success over him? Was I too careerist? Too distant? Too hardened? Had I lacked femininity? Had I suffocated his masculinity? Did we disagree about the future? Did we disagree about the past? Was I unfaithful? Was he? Did we fall out of love? Did we come to hate the sight of each other? Was he gay? Am I gay? A bad lover? A bad wife? These are all questions I’m sure you’re asking yourself.”
“Are they questions you ask yourself?”
“Sure. And yet, none of the answers are satisfactory. There is only one moment I can point to as seedling to his now obvious discontent. We had a rule not to watch the show at home. A keep-work-at-work arrangement. However, one day, when I came home early from a meeting, I went to the backdoor and passed the kitchen window that looks onto the living room. He was there, in front of our big screen TV, watching reruns of the show.”
“And what did you see on his face?”
“Nothing. I couldn’t see his face. I could only see my own, looming so large in front of him that he seemed diminutive by comparison. I had never looked so abundant. And he had never looked so small. I’ve been thinking about that day. It, at the very least, provides one hypothesis for his departure.”
“And that hypothesis is?”
“That he had never looked so small.”
*
They decided, in keeping with the ideological transition, to tape only one case for the day. The audience, always required to dress a step above casual, is now dressed a step beyond that, in bowties and pleated skirts, suspenders and collared vests. Edie walks into the courtroom/studio sensing change, as well as a daunting weight she hasn’t felt since she taped her first show or, the year before that first show, when she walked down the aisle to wed her husband.
The plaintiff enters. A physically fragile woman. A pair of round wire-framed spectacles concentrate the features of her narrow, mousy, literate face. Her blonde hair is cut short, shaved around the sides to accentuate the bob sitting atop her skull like a too-small hat. She is a graduate of a prestigious writing school, a modestly accomplished poet who is suing the defendant for a heinous act of artistic dishonesty.
The defendant is a tall, thin black man. The bulge of his throat geometrically emphasizes his weak posture, back hunched, legs astride ahead of his torso. He is a veteran of the army with a PhD in psychology. A film of coarse gray hair covers the top of his head. He is here to defend himself against the plaintiff’s slanderous remarks.
Edie begins. “You, Elizabeth Tate, are suing the defendant, Arthur Wallace, for plagiarism. Is that correct?”
“Yes, your honor,” says the plaintiff. “Might I also add that this plagiarism has awarded Mr. Wallace a certain amount of literary merit that I feel is rightfully my due.”
“Okay,” says Edie, calming herself. “The two of you were roommates at the time this alleged plagiarism took place. Is that right? Will you, Ms. Tate, please explain how you came to be roommates and what kind of a living situation it was?”
The plaintiff tells the courtroom/studio that after she graduated, she moved in with the defendant, who had placed an ad in the paper for a considerate, organized, and emotionally conscientious roommate. They hit it off immediately, finding that they both shared an appreciation of Modernist poetry and civil disobedience. They conversed at length about the current state of affairs, particularly the lack of popular attention and respect bestowed the contemporary intellectual. It was an almost ideal living situation.
“Why almost?” asks Edie, trying to find that little nook of undiscovered truth from which her career has blossomed. She has become less a judge of guilt and more a detective of the self or, more accurately, other peoples’ selves. Her viewers, like herself, see the people on her show as living in an ongoing state of blindness, from which she abruptly pulls them. The viewers tune in because they feel akin to Edie, sharing in the hopeless irony of these people’s lives. But the viewer fails to acknowledge their own irony, the fact that Edie, separated by the seemingly impenetrable glass of the television, is aware of the viewer as well. It is her job to know what they want, and to know it before they do. The irony-clad culture has provided her a wealth of material. Her show will continue to run just as long as we still have the blind leading the blind, just so long as they still need their shepherd to show them the way.
“Almost,” the plaintiff says, “because he used to leave his underwear hanging in the shower.”
Edie nods. “So nothing egregious,” she says, before asking to hear about the poem in question.
The poem was written a few months into the plaintiff’s living arrangement with the defendant. It was born of her experiences as a woman living in a patriarchal society. It was written one rainy night, while the defendant was out with a friend. When the defendant returned, the plaintiff, valuing his opinion, showed it to him, and quietly and graciously accepted his praise and criticism. “The response,” she adds, “was almost entirely positive.”
“So he liked the poem,” Edie says to herself. She is ponderous, looking down at her notes, then casting a sideway glance at the bailiff, Coop, who seems very close to dozing off. “Someone here is a liar!” Edie snaps suddenly, and both the plaintiff and defendant look confused, rather than intimidated. Coop’s eyes, however, are now wide and alert. “The question is,” Edie continues, “who is not being completely honest here.” She turns to the defendant and asks why he stole the poem.
“The poem is about the saddest experience of my life,” the defendant says. “To say that I stole the poem is to say that I stole my suffering. But my suffering is mine, it’s me, can’t be given or taken away.” He agrees with the plaintiff’s story for the most part. He returned home that night and read her poem. He gave her notes. He told her he was inspired. It was this inspiration that led him to transcribe his own tale of oppression, of which he knows a lot. That night, the words poured out of him, a lubricated birth of thought and feeling flowing drunkenly from his whiskey-glazed heart.
“You were drunk!” Edie exclaims, louder than she meant.
The defendant admits he was drunk and that he could never have written so unabashedly from the depths of his soul had he not been under the influence of some anti-inhibitant.
Edie nods contemplatively. She gives the audience a quick glance, something she has trained herself never to do, determining early on that to acknowledge others undermined her status as a total, insular authority. It suggested that the queen, sitting on her throne, is willing to make considerations beyond her own private sense of right and wrong, that there is a whole world out there, a lesser world, that also has a say.
The plaintiff and defendant are both looking at her through quietly discerning and receptive eyes, waiting for her to go on, to elicit the truth they are both so determined is on their side, buried beneath their coolly significant and historically underappreciated exteriors. Edie asks if they have copies of their respective poems. They eagerly affirm that they do. “Okay, let’s hear them,” she says, taking a deep breath. “Miss Tate, let’s start with you.”
*
“Here’s why this case is so important,” Brad says in the pre-case meeting. “We have two underprivileged minorities. And these two people in particular have transcended cultural stereotypes. They represent progress. And in this case, their progresses are butting heads. At the top of a bottlenecked opening, there’s only room for one of them. So what they’re doing here is squirming and winding up their necks to squeeze their well-educated heads out from society’s restrictive enclosure.”
Edie looks down at her steaming mug of tea. The conference table is large and empty, and her tiny mug on its mahogany surface reminds her of a desolate island. Watching the whitish film gather at the surface of her tea, Edie suddenly wishes to immerse herself in that single mug; something with a bottom, something unlike the entirety of a person’s being, which she sees as vaster than the ocean.
And yet, on television, they watch her not because she is a fully fleshed human being, but because she is a strict and limited one. Limited, not in the sense that she only knows so much, but in the sense that she is only willing to see things one way, the right way. For all her viewers know, watching her at her bench, she does not even have legs, nor the genitalia between them. They come for her words, her final word, this authority figure who doesn’t dare show herself away from her throne, who, without scepter and stage, may be nothing but an aging woman who counts the successes accumulating behind her.
“So there’s a lot at stake,” Nancy says. “We’ve got a lot of truly heartbreaking emotional baggage to work with. Your goal is to not only get that emotional stuff on the table, but to make your decision in lieu of it.”
The ocean, Edie once read, is so vast that much of it is still unexplored by humans.
“Edie? How does that sound?”
So vast, there is hardly time to know it all.
*
“I’ve never tried to find him.”
“So why are you here? If not to talk about reconciliation, then to, perhaps, figure out, in keeping with your professional life, where guilt should be placed?”
“The world swarms with victims of injustice. At certain points in my life I too have been a victim. And yet, what always allowed me to push forward was the idea that I could understand those injustices. I knew why I was being treated the way I was, so I could move forward, having better understood the world and my place in it. With this, I can only assume, based on a never ending list of possible reasons, why he left. Without knowing what he saw in me that caused him to leave, the lesson is beyond my grasp. And what’s the point of suffering if not to learn a lesson?”
“Is it possible that the point of suffering is to learn only one true and universal lesson? That in suffering you are bound to all of human existence? That we all suffer and are therefore one and the same?”
“That doesn’t mesh with the experience. Suffering separates us. My suffering will always be more important and profound than the suffering of another. Suffering is to suffer, which is to feel that you are completely alone in the world, among people who will never understand you.”
“And yet your job is to see past the suffering of others and to adhere only to strict principles of legality.”
“…”
“Edith…?”
“Are you saying that by disregarding the emotional suffering of others, I’ve become heartless?”
“I’m saying, is it possible that since you’ve trained yourself to see the world as just or unjust, you’ve been conditioned to see your actions as just or unjust? That you no longer see the heartbreaking emotional pain that underscores our every move? That you have somehow neglected to account for and take into consideration your husband’s emotional core, this man you described as earnest and reasonable, who was also very likely quite loving and tender?”
“…”
“Is it possible, Edith?”
“Anything’s possible.”
*
Drowning
By Elizabeth Tate
The current laps your back and sucks
Your body, muck-like, into water
You can feel, not touch.
The world is liquid at your feet,
No steps to take; only descent
Into society’s cesspool
Into which you have been born
At a disadvantage as natural
As the tides, the ocean,
Another second class citizen
In a world where land is outnumbered,
Yet rules supreme.
For all Edie knows, it is a horrible poem. But she is touched by this mousy girl’s way of reading it, with such grave importance, her voice dropping an octave, her back straightened, everything in her disposition crying out that she desires nothing more than to be taken seriously and to provide some crumb of nourishment to a world ravenous for compassion.
Edie asks the plaintiff if this is the poem as it was written on the day in question. The plaintiff replies that it is, but concedes that it has undergone some very light line editing. The defendant speaks up then, claiming that some of the edits are in keeping with his notes. Edie turns her attention to the defendant and asks that he read his poem, thereby submitting it as evidence.
War in the Trenches
By Arthur Wallace
The world splits at its center,
A divide, into which those guilty
Are discarded. Here in the sea of white,
The darkness cannot hide the dark hide,
With which we are born.
Given the same time,
Kept on shined up watches,
Gold plated, diamond crusted,
And yet, no tick nor tock,
No chute in our pack, no life
In our vest, only mess in our hall.
Battles take place every moment,
Whether the land ravaged field,
The deep dug trench,
Or here among the lighted porches.
His poem also touches her. She feels a kinship to both the plaintiff and the defendant that comes from a place inside she has not consulted in many years. It is as if we are built in layers, the outer ones fortified for the protection of the inner ones, which contain a whole untilled terrain of emotional turmoil, safely out of reach.
She knows she must decide, the plaintiff or defendant. This is the nature not only of the show, but of the world, which is at once large enough to house every single creature we designate as an individual, and so small that there must undoubtedly be winners and losers. She feels that whichever way she decides will leave one of these two with yet another crippling defeat.
So in an effort to buy time, and in an effort to let these two people bare their souls, she asks them to describe for her exactly where their poems have come from. “Once again, Miss Tate,” she says, “let’s start with you.”
*
“Let’s try this, Edith. I want you to pretend that I’m your husband. Pretend that he’s right here with you. What would you like to say to me?”
“I would only have questions, which sort of breaks the illusion, since you will not be able to give me the answers I’m looking for.”
“And is there nothing you would tell him? Nothing that you know, on some deep level, about your relationship that you feel capable of addressing? How about we take the illusion one step further. Pretend I’m your husband, and that in the time since I’ve been gone I’ve lost the ability to speak. For the immediate time being, we have no paper and pencil, nor do we have time to establish a system of communication using blinks, nods, and hand gestures. What would you say to me then?”
“…”
“Edith?”
“I would say that I know you want me to apologize. I would say that it’s extremely difficult for a person to spread themselves evenly enough to be potent in every facet of life. I would say that I’m sure you think I’m some sort of automaton, which suggests that what I do comes easily, pre-programmed. But that’s not the case. I had to become this person in order to achieve all that I have. So in the end, you may have left because you thought me the two-dimensional dispenser of harsh justice that you saw projected on the television screen, that larger than life figure whose shadow eclipsed your own. But I would have you know that I am human, that I am tragic, that I am flawed, that I am, against all evidence, nothing special.”
“Is that it, Edith?”
“No. I would also say that I’m sorry.”
*
The plaintiff tells the courtroom/studio that the double standard for woman is so engrained in our culture it ceases to be a double standard. It is a biological unfairness as old as the beginning of time, stemming from the fact that women must perform one very essential and unique function for the benefit of humanity. She came from a family where this specific function was a point of pride, so it was colossally difficult to finally come out to her parents. She thought they would be enraged, would threaten to disown her. But in truth, they took the news the same way she imagined they would had she told them she had cancer. She, for simply being who she is, is now nothing to her parents but a harbinger of continued disappointment and sorrow. Any success she achieves in life will forever be tarnished by her failure as a woman. That is where her poem came from. It is where all of her work comes from, that place that keeps her up at night, imagining a world where women can be prized for all the things men are prized.
The courtroom/studio is very quiet. Edie feels herself being pulled closer to this girl, this outpouring of grief. So young, and yet she knows things Edie knows too.
Rather than allow herself to indulge any further in the winding gears of emotional activity that have been sparked within her, Edie turns her attention to the defendant, asking him to give his own account of his poem’s origin.
He says that being black is an un-disguisable announcement that you are a second-class citizen. To be black is to walk into a room knowing you will be assigned a long series of near-sacred stereotypes and assumptions about your race and people. So when he joined the Army, he was surprised to find there were whites who treated him as an equal, not a danger, nor a novelty. It was the first time he ever felt he belonged. After being discharged, he looked up some of his white friends, and when he found them, one by one, they disregarded him. If they acknowledged that they knew him, they did not acknowledge they had once cared for him, as he had cared for them. So he carries with him love for all these people who, because of his race, will never admit his existence. And his poem came from this realization.
For the first time in her television career, Edie feels helpless. She can resolve, to some degree, the legal issue in dispute. But she can do nothing to help ease the hurt spilling like blood over the faces of these two damaged individuals. Their stories come to her from separate mouths, separate creatures that somehow penetrate her flesh and alight on the same area of emotional recognition. It is very much like being asked to judge yourself.
She begins by thanking both the plaintiff and the defendant for sharing their touching and eye opening stories. She says it must take a lot of courage to expose yourself that way. She tells them she must make a decision and that she hopes it will not sully the good work they have both done to achieve what they have. The poems, though thematically similar, are not similar enough to constitute an obvious act of plagiarism. Though we all feel some singular claim to injustice and oppression, it is, in fact, one thing that absolutely binds us. We are all together on this planet, each overcoming our own separate obstacles. “Tomorrow, I wish you the best of luck,” she says, gripping her gavel. “Today, however, case dismissed.”
*
“Let’s not think of this as a failure,” Brad says at the following day’s meeting. “Certainly this is not a failure on your part. We presented you with a new challenge and you handled it beautifully. What this is is a miscalculation. We misunderstood the audience.”
Edie sips her tea and feels its warmth fill her body. Brad and Nancy sit in front of her. Coop stands at the window, though as evening comes on, there can’t be much to see.
“We thought they wanted sustained emotional drama,” says Nancy. “What we didn’t take into account is that they also want instant payoffs, as many as possible, which can best be achieved by reverting back to our old format.”
“The internet has eroded attention spans,” Coop says from the window. “The equation for success involves fitting as many punch lines as possible into any given length of time. Contemporary music is scientifically proven to have more beats per second.”
“Yes,” says Brad. “They watch because of you. They know you. They trust you. And when we screened the dailies, they didn’t know what to trust anymore.”
“Prozac prescriptions are through the roof,” Coop says. “They are considering a chewable tablet for toddlers. The psychoanalytic tradition is one of the past. Self-medication alleviates the pressure of arduous self-discovery.”
“Precisely,” says Nancy. “In short: people want something they can easily swallow. They want something they can believe in. And after fifteen years, they still believe in you.”
Edie sips her tea constantly, so that it is nearly down to its dregs. She is ravenous. The previous day of shooting has taken much out of her. “And the Kleenex people?” she asks, between sips.
“The Kleenex people,” Coop repeats from his place at the window, “are satisfied with laughs.”
*
“We tested that particular show, and it failed. It’ll never air.”
“And does that make you feel your effort has come to nothing?”
“I was presented with an obstacle and, once again, overcame it. I see it as a victory.”
“And what about the losses?”
“You mean my husband, the loss for which I have no explanation. You think there is some unexplored terrain sprawling within me that houses the secret to why he left. The problem is that this terrain, more specifically my ignorance of this terrain, is what has allowed me to keep moving forward, to achieve the unachievable.”
“And is it possible to go on, having never fully explored this one looming pitfall of your mature life? Is it possible to take what you have learned and bury it in the past, rather than cultivate some greater, albeit difficult, understanding of yourself?”
“Yes, it is.”
“And is it possible to live with this nearly touchable thing so close and yet beyond your grasp? Can you move forward knowing that in the field of self-discovery you will always have unfinished business? Is it possible to go on never truly understanding what it is you have just experienced? To have this spot of fuzziness in the otherwise clear narrative arc of your life? To go on as that rare figure both held apart from and tragically linked to all of humanity, from those perceived as great to those barely able to keep their teeth in their mouth?
“…”
“Is it?”
“…”
“Edith?”
Bio: Afsheen Farhadi’s fiction has appeared in Witness and Sou’wester. A graduate of Oregon State University’s MFA program, he currently lives in Brooklyn, NY and has recently completed a novel.