The Stingray Shuffle полностью

The judge took off his glasses again. “Mr. Storms, I’m going to give you yet another chance. Probation and community service. But I never want to see you in my courtroom again.”

Courtroom 3C, Palm Beach County Judicial Circuit.

“Bailiff, call the next case.”

“Number nine-three-five-one-two, People versus Serge A. Storms.”

Serge smiled and waved at the judge.

“You were just here yesterday!”

“There’s a very simple explanation. Then we can all laugh about it and go home—”

The judge stopped Serge and turned to the prosecutor. “What’s the charge?”

The prosecutor glanced at his docket. “There are any number of possibilities, but we’ve decided to file under disturbing the peace.”

“What exactly did he do?” asked the judge.

“I think you need to see the video. Words cannot do justice.”

A bailiff wheeled a twenty-seven-inch Magnavox and VCR to the front of the courtroom.

“This was shot at a local funeral. It was taken by one of the mourners, the deceased’s only brother, who was later x-rayed for chest pains.”

The bailiff inserted a tape and handed the remote to the prosecutor. The courtroom saw a tent in the middle of a sunny lawn full of tombstones. Folding chairs, people in black, a preacher.

The prosecutor hit pause and pointed to the right side of the screen. “This is where Mr. Storms enters the picture and takes a seat in the back row of chairs.” He hit play; on the screen, a wiry man in swim trunks and tropical shirt joins the mourners.

“Hit pause again,” said the judge. He folded his hands and looked toward the defense table. “I know I’m going to regret asking this, but did you even know these people, Mr. Storms?”

“Never met them in my life.”

“What were you doing in the cemetery?”

“Taking rubbings of a historic headstone, a famous train engineer. Suddenly, a funeral breaks out.”

“And you just walked over and helped yourself to a seat?”

“I like people.”

The judge nodded at the prosecutor, who restarted the tape. “Okay, now here’s the point when Mr. Storms approaches the podium and tells the preacher he’d like to say a few words.”

“Hit pause again,” said the judge, turning. “You never even met these people before! What on earth could you have to say at a time like this?”

“Anything,” said Serge. “The preacher was bombing. You should have seen the long faces, people crying…”

“It was a funeral!”

“That’s the whole problem,” said Serge. “Everyone takes that view. I don’t buy it.”

The prosecutor started the tape again. “Mr. Storms opens with a few jokes, talks about the deceased in generic terms, praises the Greatest Generation, blah, blah, blah, a few more jokes…”

The judge pointed at the TV. “It doesn’t look like the audience is too distressed. A few are even beginning to smile. What he did may have been highly inappropriate, but I don’t see any criminal disturbance of the peace here…. See? He’s even starting to get some laughs.”

“Hold on. The good part’s coming up,” said the prosecutor. “Mr. Storms wraps up his little talk and steps away from the podium. That’s the urn that he’s picking up now, and he starts walking away. The audience is confused. They begin to realize they better do something. They go after him. Mr. Storms begins running. The funeral party starts running — that’s all the bouncing and jiggling you’re seeing from the camera now. This is the ditch at the edge of the cemetery. Mr. Storms takes the lid off the urn. An uncle grabs him by the arm, and now the full-scale free-for-all gets under way. That’s some off-camera screaming you’re hearing, and this is where the ninety-year-old mother accidentally gets punched in the eye by the uncle, and Mr. Storms breaks free and runs to the edge of the ditch and yells — we’ve had an audio technician verify this — ‘It’s for your own good. You need closure.’ And, as you can see…he dumps the ashes in an open sewer.”

“How was I supposed to know it was a sewer? I thought it was a little river,” said Serge. “It was supposed to be very symbolic. Obviously it didn’t work out that way, but at least I tried. These are the kind of people who cling. It’s not healthy.”

The judge’s face was in his hands.

He finally looked up. “Mr. Storms, this doesn’t give me any pleasure, but you leave me no choice but to commit you to the state hospital at Chattahoochee for a period of observation not less than three months.”

They dragged Serge from the courtroom, kicking and yelling.

The judge banged his gavel. “You’re out of order, Mr. Storms!”

“I’m out of order? You’re out of order! And he’s out of order! They’re out of order! This trial’s out of order! The whole courtroom’s out of order!…”

The bailiffs pulled Serge into the hall, and the double doors swung closed.

11

In the fall of 1960, five very special little girls entered the fourth grade in five different schools across Florida.

A nine-year-old girl in Fort Lauderdale named Samantha told her father she wanted a baseball glove.

“You mean a softball glove.”

“What’s that?”