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Playing Their Game

I’m gonna tell you something I finally figured out. Now, God knows it’s taken me quite a large chunk of my life to get this down, but I think I kind of got it right now.

So I’ll get a nice haircut and put on the finest suit I own. I’ll walk into that courtroom look-in like the most clean cut, square guy the judge has ever seen. And I’ll say, yes sir, and no sir, and play their system. My lawyer, Jack Gordon, tells me if  I can slip him some more green, I got a pretty goodchance of beating this rap.

Now I wouldn’t have even considered laying low like this even a year ago. I had my own code, and God knows nothing was gonna make be break it. You live like a man, keep you’re word, and you don’t put on no act for no one. But that was then, and this is now. What’s changed, you ask?

I’ve never been a religious man, in the usual sense of the word. But I did havea strong  faith and belief in the Lord above. Considered Him just and good, Do Unto Others and all that stuff. But I’ve learned the hard way that He’s got His own way of doing things down here, and there’s no way I can read Him. A man has got to look after himself in this world, leave the judging part till another time and place. I’d consider it out and out blasphemy. But I’m much wiser now, I’m older than that now.

He hides. Damn, how He hides. I know He’s testing me, but hey, I ain’t doing nothing wrong in my heart. I just figure He plays His game, and I gotta play mine.

Anyway, that’s the frame of mind I was in when I walked into the courtroom that day. But things didn’t turn out exactly the way I had planned.I think I best give you the story of why I found myself before the law this very said day.

I’m sitting at a stool at Jimmy’s, the neighborhood bar. Just nursing my Bud,watching Monday Night Football. I kind of keep to myself there, don’t like to be bothered. Everyone is cool with this, they all respect my wishes.There’s this sad looking gal, I would say in her early thirties, sitting by her lonesome at the opposite end of the bar. I usually wouldn’t have even noticed her, but she was a real looker. Anyway, this guy walks into the bar and sits himself right next to her. They start carrying on, really getting into it, and she throws her drink at him. 

Now, no matter what, you just don’t do what this guy did. He punches her,full force, holding nothing back, square in the face. I couldn’t believe my eyes. To make a long story short, let’s just say that there was no way in hell that I could be witness to something like that without getting myself involved.

So now, looking all dapper and clean cut, I’m sworn in and take the stand. I’m prepared, Jack had told me exactly what to expect. I’m telling myself just play it cool, I’m gonna play the game right this time. And whaddya know,the first words out of the prosecutors mouth were  ”did you or did you not physically attack the defendant on the fifteenth of January at Jimmy’s’ Bar and Grill?” He points to the guy while he’s asking me this, and the guy’s all bandaged up and what not. I mean I gave him a pretty good beating, but by now there’s no way he should be looking in that kind of shape. 

Now I know I should have just said yes and move on. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t have people thinking what they would have if I just answered “yes”. So I start telling the whole story from the beginning, the prosecutor interrupts and says all he wants is a yes or no answer, I keep on telling the story, the Judge says “just answer yes or no”, I keep on telling the story. The Judge is get-tin all pissed off now.  Jack, my attorney, throws his arms up in the air, shakes his head from side to side. 

Well, this time, this time on the appeal, I’m gonna get it right. I think I’ve finally learned how to play their  game.

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