TO-WIT: NOON OF THE LIVING DEAD
As a lawyer with more than twenty years of experience, I have disciplined myself to notice everything that happens around me. One cannot be too careful when trying to spot an accident or avoid miffed clients. Yet, in the tale I am about to tell, my mind was elsewhere as I walked along the street in this sleepy western Pennsylvania town. I should have remembered that, for a small-town lawyer, a walk along the street is not at all like trying a case in a courtroom. On the street, you have to pay attention all the time.
The miserable, wretched and horrible day I am bout to describe started out just like any average day in the life of any average lawyer – miserable, wretched and horrible. At exactly five minutes before the noon hour, just like always, I got up from my desk, donned my suit coat (no pun intended), and joyfully left my office, bound on foot for lunch.
It wasn’t until I hit Main Street that I realized something was amiss. There, on the corner, perched atop a mailbox, I spied a colleague. Like something out of Thurber, he had hunkered down low on the arch and, with his left hand shading his eyes from the glare of the noonday sun, he was staring intently, first up the street, then down it. His right arm was rigidly proffered out to shake hands with anyone who happened by and between his lips he was holding both pen and paper from which an amazing quantity of drool hung down low, glinting in the sunlight. Campaign buttons wee pinned to every inch of his clothing and bumper stickers were stuck to every cheek and jowl.
It was all this profound festoonery that immediately alerted me to the danger I was in. You see, I had completely forgotten that this particular day was the opening day of judicial candidate season and I had accidentally stumbled upon a specimen in full heat.
I immediately sought cover behind the traffic light standard on the corner, but he spotted me anyway. Damn those love handles. Unperching himself, he began walking in my direction with a bizarre, stiff-limbed gait, both arms extended straight out in front of him, one hand now holding both pen and paper, the other hand twitching and flexing in a grotesque and lunging handshake. As he approached he muttered something in candidate-speak, a garbled kind of grunt that, coupled with his actions, I took to be a request to sign his nominating petition. to that end, he thrust forward several drool-laden devices.
Things looked exceedingly bleak, but in the next instant, he bumped into a fire hydrant with his right leg and, pivoting on the axis of his left leg, he involuntarily changed direction and marched blindly and stiff-legged out into the street where he was almost immediately run down by a hard-charging Subaru. Ink and drool spattered everywhere. Funny though, there was no blood. The driver had had plenty of time to stop and probably would have too, were she not a competing candidate.
In the next instant, even before I could catch my breath, I found myself surrounded on the corner by an entire coven of judicial candidates. Similarly stiff-limbed and festooned, they had closed in on me so quickly, so silently, I never had a chance. they must have been lurking out of sight in doorways, hiding under parked cars, who knows. all I know is that I was begirted and bludgeoned to my knees by the unrelenting slaps of a dozen nominating petitions. I knew I could stall for time by signing two of them, any two, I didn’t care, but I knew the others would finish me off. How unjust, to be pre-judged so harshly.
But then, in a sudden rush of rage-induced adrenalin, I leapt to my feet. In the momentary start thus created, I swept away a path with my arms and fled for the nearby courthouse. (It has always been astonishing to me how much adrenalin I can pump out when enraged at injustice, but it usually only happens when I get back an opinion from the Superior Court.)
It is now early evening. I have been in hiding in the courthouse since noon. I know they followed me here, I caught a glimpse of them over my shoulder as the guard admitted them single-file through security. I guess metal detectors can’t recognize campaign buttons for the dangerous weapons they really are.
I have taken refuge in the law library. It has been closed for hours and I am sitting here alone, typing away on the librarian’s word processor in total darkness. I will not turn on the light for I do not wish to be discovered.
I have given the matter much thought. As long as just anyone can run for judicial office, our streets will never be safe. It is up to us as a profession to control this wanton proliferation of judicial candidates. I propose that every potential judicial candidate undergo an initial screening process as a prerequisite to announcing a candidacy. Nothing fancy, mind you. Why, a simple spelling test would eliminate most of them.
For the time being, I intend to remain right here. I know they’re still out there looking for me, but I think I’m safe. That is, after all, a law library, the last place any judicial candidate would ever go. Besides, I figure that if any of them actually knows where this place is and finds me here, well, then, that’s the petition I’ll sign.
© 1991, S. Sponte, Esq.