Five Sentence Fiction #3. This week’s prompt is Vacation.
For over 20 years I spent one week a year with my mother in Florida, and every day I took a long delicious walk along the Atlantic Ocean. In the evenings she took me out for expensive dinners. Even so, every morning I’d awaken filled with a sick, sinking feeling inside, except on the day I was going back home. At my mother’s funeral I thought, I never have to come here again, and I haven’t.
Sometimes I miss the ocean.
For their Valentines Day program, This American Life on NPR broadcast a cluster of love stories in their usual format: people tell true life experiences, most with an odd angle or surprise ending. Some spoke of unrequited love, others about unusual breakups, and some even lived happily ever—after leaping over obstacles. One of the stories knocked me out, but not in the way you’d expect or want to be knocked out on Valentines Day. No, this story didn’t fill my heart with love unending, or give me hope and inspiration for the human race. It didn’t even make me cry. This story absolutely enraged me.
It was told by Justin, a high school senior who fell, hard, for a new girl in his school. She arrived mid-term and immediately caught all the boys’ attention with her mature (his word) good looks. She was in two of his classes, and when he worked up enough courage to talk to her and even flirt a little, she did not discourage him.
There was something about Naomi , however, that we in the audience knew, but the hapless Justin did not: she was an undercover narc. That’s right, those clever slimy creeps at the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) came up with a scheme whereby a bevy of young, recently graduated cops fan out to schools all over the country—that is, to those states in which marijuana is still illegal—posing as students. I’d even hazard a cynical guess that they purposely chose those states with the most draconian drug laws in which to lay their evil traps. This incident occurred in Florida, where marijuana is classified as a
U.S. states in green where non-medical marihuana has been decriminalized at the state level. Note that marijuana of any kind is still criminalized under U.S. federal law throughout the entire U.S. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Schedule I controlled substance, meaning it has high potential for abuse and “no currently accepted medical use,” according to state statute (Fl. § 893.03). Florida also criminalizes marijuana trafficking, and possession or sales of drug paraphernalia, with a range of penalties, going up to 30 years in prison. (Fl. Stat. Ann. § 893.13.)
This American Life regularly runs long stories, but this one seemed even longer than most. Maybe that’s because I knew what was coming and my heart began cracking long before Justin’s did. He courted her for months while she strung him along, keeping him in suspense about attending the prom with him. This kid was going to graduate in a few months. He planned to enlist in the U.S. Air Force. He had good grades. He had good friends. He did not regularly do drugs. Yes, he’d occasionally used pot; who by his age has not? In California he’d be toking a doobie after lunch on the lawn across from Berkeley High. Not in Florida: in Florida the kid watched his ass—that is, until a pretty girl with a heart made of razor blades sank her claws in him.
While he anxiously awaited her decision on the prom, she casually asked him if he had any weed. He did not, but if she wanted some, he said, he’d try to get it for her. So removed was this kid from drug culture that it took him a couple of weeks and a
whole lot of nerve to make a connection, and even more nerve to pass the stuff along to his beloved. When she handed him $25 he, like any teenage boy in love, refused to take it. He was showing off, giving her a present, trying to look like a big shot. Lest we forget, it was Naomi who’d put him in this position.
Ah, but in the state of Florida if you give someone less than 20 grams of marijuana without being paid, it’s only a first degree misdemeanor. For that the punishment is a puny year or less in jail—but selling the stuff can get you as many as 30. Naomi had to make Justin take payment. They went back and forth about it, she insisting, he refusing. Naomi, with more on the line than Justin, was the more persistent, and in exasperation he finally took the cash. Deed accomplished. Criminal apprehended. Another dealer off the street.
Justin got a three year sentence. No high school graduation. No Air Force: the US military excludes “felons.” And Justin’s reaction? With his life in ruins, his future shattered, his dreams all trashed, you’d think he’d be furious at the bitch. But is he? He is not. This poor creature is heartbroken, plain and simple. He responds as he might if she’d left him for another guy. That is the full extent of his emotions—at least as far as the program’s narrative takes us.
And Narc Naomi? No regrets, she says. Well bully for her. And bully for the U.S. of A. and their war on drugs.
Lady-justice-jury (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
From what I’ve been reading online, and hearing on National Public Radio from callers and talking heads of every political stripe, I’ve formed a few tentative conclusions as to why George Zimmerman was found innocent.
1. A jury of six, as opposed to twelve, vastly increases the chance of reaching a unanimous decision. (That’s just commons sense.) Why the jury was six I don’t know, but it seems that anything goes in the State of Florida.
2. A jury composed of one gender exclusively, whether male or female, should not in my opinion be permitted.
3. A jury composed of five people of one color or ethnicity and only one person of any other, should likewise be impermissible (IMO). In this case the jury was composed of five white women and one who, like GZ, “identifies as Hispanic,” according to cnsnews.com.
In many therapeutic workshops and political groups I’ve participated in over the years, any time the ethnic composition resembled this kind of near homogeneity, the facilitator openly acknowledged it before beginning the main focus of the group, and invited discussion. It was part of the process, thought necessary: when a group is nearly homogenous but for one or two lonely others, it’s a setting for conflict, whether hidden or overt. No, I’m not suggesting that trial juries begin deliberations with a therapy session—but come to think of it, why not? In my version of Utopia they would! In the world as it sadly exists, we could at least remedy the situation by, again, not allowing this kind of jury composition (IMO).
4. So far, the one jury member who has spoken was white. Among other things, she said:
George Zimmerman’s mother
“For whatever reason, Mr. Martin…decided to confront Mr. Zimmerman and threw the first punch.”
Just how does she know this? As far as I know, nobody alive other than GZ knows if that’s what happened. Maybe the defense put it forward as their narrative—but nobody knows if it’s true for sure, and
Trayvon Martin’s mother
we probably never will. George Zimmerman’s and Trayvon Martin’s mothers each identified the voice calling for help on the tape as belonging to her own son.
This juror, known as number B-37, said that when the women started deliberating, three of them wanted to acquit, two wanted to convict GZ of manslaughter, and one wanted murder in the second degree. After reviewing the law and the evidence, the person who initially wanted second-degree murder changed her vote to manslaughter. She said they reviewed the case “again and again,” and, “Some jurors wanted to find Zimmerman guilty of something, but there was just no place to go based on the law.”
What it comes down to (IMO) is that the system does not always work, and the reason it doesn’t is that human beings, as I’ve recently emphasized elsewhere, are innately flawed. If the prosectution puts on a better case than the defense, as appears to have happened here, the evidence or lack of same doesn’t even matter so much. Even something seemingly trivial like one attorney being more dynamic or better-looking, can easily sway a juror to believe him or her. On top of these inevitable human weaknesses, jurors are supposed to come in with the least possible amount of information on the case—so when it comes to a trial like this one, which has been written and sp0ken of everywhere during the past year, those who end up on the jury are not exactly brilliant, alert citizens who keep a sharp eye on what’s happening around the country and the world.
Dare I utter the word STUPID here and be branded a classist intellectual snob? Why the fuck not? I can prove my case with one small anecdote:
Juror B-37 was asked if she would feel comfortable having George Zimmerman as a volunteer watchman in her neighborhood. Why certainly, said she; after all, “George has learned his lesson.”
And oh yes—Georgie even got his gun back.
I rest my case.
(Updated October 24, 2008, at end of post.)
First time I heard about the Tampa Bay Devil Rays dropping the Devil from their name was last week, in the aftermath of the rumble with the Yankees down in Florida. Which just goes to show that what’s in a name isn’t always descriptive: a Devil by any other name can still raise hell a-plenty. You can see the whole skirmish here—it shows the fight while a talking head supplies the background of who did what to whom and when. In the wake of the battle, players from both teams got suspensions to be enforced at the start of the season. I’m wondering what an incident like this before the season even starts might mean for Joe Girardi’s management, not to mention Steinbrenner Junior’s custodianship of the Yanks. We’ll have to wait to find out–but meanwhile, 
the Rays’ name change should not go unnoticed.
My first thought was that some Christian fundamentalists had pressured the team to stop glorifying the forces of evil, but my research turned up nothing in this vein; however, the Church of Satan did weigh in.
Although the true reason behind the name change remains unclear, the head of the Church of Satan, Magnus Peter H. Gilmore, believes the team made the move to spite the church.”We were in the midst of negotiations for the souls of some of their players when the
organization low-balled us and we had no choice but to walk out.”
For a minute I thought I’d stumbled onto the website of The Onion, but in fact this was on a blog called The Serious Tip. I’m told it’s a joke, but it reads like the gospel (ahem) truth to me!
Tampa Bay claims they gave the Devil his due in the hopes of reinventing the team and climbing out of the cellar this season. Whatever their reason, Tampa Bay, or The Rays as they’re now called, have proven that changing a team’s name isn’t a major trauma with monumental logistical problems. As owner Stuart Sternberg put it, “We were tied to the past, and the past wasn’t necessarily something we wanted to be known for.”
That said, I am taking this golden opportunity to raise, yet again, one of my ongoing baseball issues: the powers that be in Major League Baseball should ask, or encourage, or even demand, that the Cleveland Indians trash their outdated, racist name, and their offensive logo along with it. I’m not saying they should call themselves Native Americans—just something, anything, that isn’t an insult to the indigenous people of this country. If the Devil can be ousted, then surely a symbol of ignorance and racism can be quietly retired.
October 24, 2008: Is it some kind of miracle? They drop Satan from their roster and suddenly Tampa Bay is the hottest property in Major League Baseball. As of this writing, they’re one-on-one with the Phillies in the World Series, and I must say I greatly enjoyed watching them kick Red Sox butt. After watching them play the Phillies, I’d say Tampa has a better than even chance of becoming World Champions. I’m rooting for them, even though they now constitute a serious future threat to my Yankees, unless this year is a one-shot fluke. Who can resist this story? Besides, I feel a bond with the Rays: this post brought more viewers to my site than any erotic story I’ve posted, and nearly as much as other sex-themed material. The number’s over 1400 and counting. To give you an idea of what that means, my post on the film Tropic Thunder drew 270 readers, average for a non-sexual topic; the one on the Masturbate-a-thon got 839 hits, about average for sex. People Google “Tampa Bay Devil Rays name change” and they end up here. I hope some of you guys stick around to read some of my other stuff. Meanwhile...Play Ball!
Dirty Laundry 