TO-WIT: GETTING THE BIRD
He said it at the end of the movie. Mary Astor had already been hustled off to jail, and Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre had departed the scene with the police in hot pursuit. Now it was just him and Ward Bond. It’s heavy,” said Ward as he picked up the bundle. “What’s in it?”
“It’s the stuff of dreams,” said Bogie, and they walked off together off together. Roll credits.
Some people prefer Casablanca, but for me The Maltese Falcon is the quintessential Bogart film. No other movie of which I am aware so deftly cynicizes the pursuit of lordly dreams, no other movie so aptly exposes the goals of arrogant ambition for the lump of black coal they may so often be.
You of course know The Maltese Falcon, that wonderfully hard-boiled Dashiell Hammett detective story in which various characters chase a legendary, jewel-encrusted statue through a snarled web of murders and deceit, only to face a bitter and disappointing denouement. That’s the eternal price of hubris, of course, but of all the characters in the film, only Bogart knew it.
Mea culpa, mea culpa. Move over, Bogie, make room for one more cynic to drink from the cesspool of dreams. It don’t taste great, but at least the company’s good.
And what’s he raving about this time, you may well ask. Well, having detained you thus far, I guess I’m obliged to tell you. I too have a dream. Since law school, I have dreamed of a legal system that unfailingly delivers justice, fairness and equality. Even now, after twenty-five years toiling at the bar, I cling to that notion as fervently as ever. Yeah, well, what can I say? I believe in the Tooth Fairy too, despite having naught under my pillow to prove the point but hair wantonly discarded by an increasing number of dead follicles.
However, in defense of a client, I have recently been ensnared by the law, finding it to be less long of arm than of finger, and it is about that that I care to ramble.
A number of weeks ago, I was at home attending to my own business for a change when the phone rang. “I’ve got a problem,” said my client on the other end. “My ex-wife and a constable are here at my office and they’re taking my car.”
I immediately snapped into sharp, analytical focus. “Huh,” I said.
As it turned out, a constable and an ex-wife, neither ever a welcome visitor , had indeed turned up at my client’s office door with a locksmith and were indeed taking my client’s car without benefit of key or legal proceeding of any kind. No notice, no hearing, no authority, nada, nothing, gornischt.
In response to my suggestion that he call the police, he advised that they were already there in his parking lot, three of them, lights flashing, sirens wailing, and they were assisting the constable. I told him I’d be right down.
Bogart was the furthest thing from my mind as I made the short drive to his office. Clayton Moore maybe, or George Reeves, but certainly not Bogart.
When I got there, the constable explained that he was there to assist the ex-wife in getting my client’s car, and when I asked him if he was acting pursuant to any court order, decree, judgment or the like, he sneered.
“Judgment,” he said, “I don’t need no stinkin’ judgment.” That’s when I thought of Bogie.
The police officers were equally elucidating. They were there to assist the constable, they advised, and that’s all they knew. I explained that without benefit of some legal proceeding the police conduct was inappropriate. In retrospect, I think that perhaps things might have gone more smoothly if I had actually used the word “inappropriate,” but I didn’t. I think I used the word “stealing” instead.
“There’s no hearing, no ongoing civil process, no nothing,” I said. “How can you take this man’s car.”
“Because I said so,” the officer in charge responded.
“Your name wouldn’t be Kafka,” I said, feeling pretty secure with my audience.
I tried to move the policemen with reason. That failing, I tried to move them with logic. That failing, I got in my car and parked it directly blocking my client’s vehicle. That moved them to arrest me for disorderly conduct.
“The police and the constable had no business doing what they did,” the local magistrate said at my hearing a few weeks later, “and you clearly acted with legitimate purpose. I find you guilty as charged.”
This pleased no end the assistant District Attorney whose office was at the same time prosecuting the ex-wife for stealing the car. This also pleased the magistrate’s secretary, whose brother was the arresting officer against whom I had already filed suit on behalf of my client.
My appeal is pending, and I expect to be vindicated. If I were less stalwart, I might ask why a system I have served for so long wants to test my mettle by asking me to serve another thirty days. But to the contrary, I am more resolute than ever. As Bogey knew, the stuff of dreams is pricey, else it’s attainment be of little value. Yet of all the rotten gin joints in the whole wide world, I can’t help but wonder sometimes why this one had to turn up in mine. That however is a whole ‘nother story.
© 1996, S. Sponte, Esq.