Barrister Moreno, his powder blue leisure shirt open above his chest to expose a Mother Mary and the Christ Child pendent, smiled slightly and spread his hands to his guest, a twinkle in his hazel eyes. That man was as small, and was seated likewise in a mesh wire patio chair next to a tiny glass beer stand holding two cans of cold beer. This man was Banes, the Chronological Carpetbagger. Behind him stood his Latina masseuse, as well-curved in but barely confined by G-string lines, as she was unskilled in her present occupation.
“Banes,” said Barrister Moreno, “if you promise to use your recovered property to rejuvenate our race from the pit where it now wallows in disgrace, I may be equipped to aid you cause.”
He then sighed and shrugged, as if all were doomed, before a judge who held a grudge, and continued—by a wily side trail.
“I am there to help people. Without criminals, where would I be? It is my duty to effect some reprieve for the guilty. Yet, it is not unheard of for the client to threaten his lawyer. When that happens I advise, ‘Sir, I have a feeling your case is not going to go well. Might I suggest a visit to the commissary for a toothbrush. Your stay is beginning to look extensive.’
“Banes, we do what we can for the guilty. They are the produce of these lands across which we drift. As such it is incumbent upon us to alleviate their plight as much as we may, unless of course they try and drag us back down into the pot with the rest of the crabs. Then, we of a sudden, may discover a previously unrealized good will—a concord even—with our honorable counterpart, the prosecution, who in any case is laboring for pennies, and if God has smiled upon the undertaking, is a young lady, in need of some guidance!’
The slightly grinning man of late rakish charm, took a drag from the joint he had just rolled from a lined sheet of paper torn from a legal pad, “Sir, my Good Banes, as a Chronological Corrections Officer, which I know you to be, I would be remiss in failing to bring the Prophecy of Fallen Angels to your attention. Before I continue with my Post Judicial inquiry, I place before you a clue that might possibly find its way into your chronological carpetbag.”
…
Poolside Documentary Evidence
A single 8.5 by 11 inch sheet of white 20-bond paper in a letter fold.
New Jersey Police Crash Investigation
Case Number c060-2018-01729A
Page 2 of 3
145. Crash Description Narrative
Driver #1 Stated to The Effect: I am God and have to run white people off of the road. I am speaking through my prophet, whose name is Andre.
Driver #2 Stated to The Effect: I was traveling down the road when this guy rear ends me and I’m sent to the grass and into the rail.
Investigation At the Scene Revealed: Vehicle #2 was traveling southbound in the left lane on I-295 in the area of milepost 66.8, Lawrence Township, Mercer County. Driver #2 was struck from the rear end of the vehicle and was sent off the left hand side of the roadway towards the guardrail face.
Vehicle #1 loss directional control and overturned off the right side of the roadway into the guardrail. Vehicle #1 and #2 suffered disabling damage to their 12:00 and 6:00 ends. Vehicle #1 suffered additional damage to its roof. Driver #1 reported injuries to their side and a hand injury was observed on Driver #2. Both were transported to [?] by EMS for treatment and evaluation. Cranbury Towing removed both vehicles from the scene. It should be noted that driver #1 caused two more accident[s] prior to him overturning at milepost 66.8 on Interstate 295. As driver #1 mentioned, he was trying to “run all white people off the road because they were fallen angels.”
Page #1: box #120a: Exhibited Signs of Impairment Pending Toxicology Results
[At the bottom of Page 2 Andre Hunt is charged 8 times:
Reckless Driving, Unsafe Lane Change, Responsibility In Case of Accidents, Failure to Report Accident, Fictitious Plates, Fail[ure] to Poss[ess] Driv[e] Reg[istration], Fail[ure] to Poss[ess] Driv[ers] Ins[urance] Card
…
Addler Banes squinted, then smiled and asked, “I trust his Good Barrister got the Prophet off?”
Moreno grinned, then became serious, “He did, as an officer of the court, all in his power to protect the guilty. First, the establishment of the fact that a brain injury causing damage is no more the fault of the sufferer than a physical injury. Convicting Andre, who did pass his toxicology report with flying colors, would have been as much of a crime as convicting my dear old mother for a truck driver’s death because she was not strong enough to rip open the truck door and drag the victim to safety. Additionally, since Andre is an insane, 350 pound Negro, I don’t think we have to worry about any of the old white plaintiffs suing him for his EBT money.”
“Well done, Sir,” complimented Addler Banes with a far away look in his eyes.
This moved Moreno to ask, “Banes, Brother, I have been bestowed a certain device by my colleague, our ship mate lost at sea together in our un-jolly boat. I have been enjoined not to divulge or gift this device to anyone, especially not one of us. For the possession of more than one draws the ireful eye of Dark Captain Onyx. I’m afraid O’Connell was in dire straights and risked much to meet with us and disperse the goods. I currently fail to see how mine will be of any use. I must think, however, that whatever he placed into your hands must be of some help in the recovery of your carpetbag—and perhaps that Andre, whose sir name seemed aptly chosen for his calling, and currently seems to be residing in an institution of the sort none of us would care to occupy, might offer a clue to you, an officer of a Higher Court than those I serve.
The over-lush woman, the color of coco, massaged the thinly skinny Gaelic shoulders of late hunching brawn crumbling towards a fallen dawn…
“Yes,” drawled he, “I, who am cursed not to believe, but created as an Addler to suspect the indeed, do think that Andre was spoken through, that he was acted through, that he was in the full possession of a higher power. In other words, he acted heroically and now suffers tragedy. Unable to send any of the wicked fallen angels—amnesiacs or not—back to their betrayed Creator, Andre, no longer enjoying the honor of prophet, now resides in a place penitent, life but a groan. It is, or would be, if I yet possessed a means of chronological correction, my duty to convene a trial for Andre in the only just court, that of valor. Simply put, Andre failed in his righteous hunt, has utterly disappointed his Creator. If only I were to come into temporary keeping of any of a number of lyrical devices, a proper trial might be convened so that the savage whose only available tool was beyond his ken might be acquitted to Oblivion or restored to jabbering righteousness.”
“Banes, Banes,” grinned his host, glancing between the swaying plentitude above and behind him, assented, “and may God bless Andre.”
Banes, slow to catch on until Moreno winked thrice, looked up and around between the soft hands that massaged coconut oil into his shoulders. There, under her widening smile, between breasts stupendous, he spied a whistle suspended on a leather cord from that soft coco neck. The whistle was carved of dark mahogany, in the form of an African witch doctor, his grinning teeth filed to points, his eyes drawing Banes forever forward between the fleshy dunes that confined the miniature marvel’s grass hut…
“Banes, Banes?” he heard a distant call from a jolly boat departing this savage shore, that yet drew him back into hypnotic yore…
