Chapter Nine

The prosecutor wound down like some superbly coiffed mechanoid in need of a mainspring crank.  With a last, tired flash of his smile, with a last rhetorical flourish, with a last witty turn of a word, he turned with assured solemnity and regained his seat.  Upon that noble furniture, he prepared his face to radiate contempt that the defense attorney should make any effort to argue in defense of such an utter depravity as his client.  The judge, for his part, was growing tired of the theater of the thing and starting to wonder about his dinner.  He turned to the defense attorney and bade him commence his opening arguments.

By a quaint turn of tradition, legally, opening arguments cannot be anything like arguments.  In the opening arguments, attorneys merely state for the court the issue at hand and their opinion of it.  They are not allowed to let any facts squeak into this phase of the trial but must stick to generalities and emotional appeals.  Appealing to the baser natures of juries works as well.

Our industrialist turned to his attorney, his overly stuffy clothing, donned to mimic the serious tableau of the court in supplication to its hoary traditions, his clothing hissed and grated about him in a most stuffy way.  Never would the industrialist have got himself up in such a dowdy getup but his attorney had demanded it, fairly begging him to consider the defense attorney's career and his win/loss record, if nothing else, and his kids that needed those new things kids need to feel a part of their peer groups, those things they simply must have, the lack of which would be evidence of hate on the part of the parents, and, indeed, would cause the kids to no longer love their parents for the lack thereof, familial fealty be damned.

While he pondered these things, and watched his friend his defender arise and enter the lists of law to do battle without facts, to convince without evidence, to sway with the merest vapor of logic, he began, once again, to despair.  His defender, his palladin of law, had informed him that the law remained rather pliable on the subject of monopolies in that no real measuring stick had been created to determine a monopoly when it was or wasn't one, but the fact of the monopoly, once established, changed the law with respects to his actions such that, once declared a monopoly, he could be tried publicly and metaphorically pilloried, attached to stocks or whatever, and subjected to the greatest public humiliation possible, a very true threat to such a one who had never sought the public eye.  He could also lose a very large amount of money.

His palladin, having attained the center of the battle arena, having attained the right gravitas in his visage, that of concerned caring about a misfire of justice that he would soon correct by simply explaining to the jury and the public that this was nothing more than a simple misunderstanding, that his client could not be at all evil, look at him, and all this was conveyed without saying a single word, such was the skill of the defensive art.

The defensive master turned and greeted in turn each of the parties to this injustice, pausing to smile conspiratorially to the court reporter, then addressed the jury.  So gushed his eloquence on the subject, already started in his visage, of the misunderstanding that soon would be set straight, so beatifically did he paint his picture of the industrialist, no mere defendant, but a man of towering stature allowing himself to be tried merely to set the record straight, so carefully did he avoid facts in his explanation that no objection was sustained, although he did humor the prosecutor every time one was raised, indeed, so beautiful was his rhetoric, that many in the jury made up there minds then and there to vote for innocence, although fickle are the jurists of the modern era, so such a resolution was not expected to last.

Having in broad strokes painted his tapestry of innocence, a tapestry that he used to cloak the industrialist, that he rode close to the error of making it necessary for such a tapestry to hide the man.  Carefully and eloquently did he artfully avoid this error, indeed, weaving into the tapestry that covered the industrialist that such a tapestry could never hide the majesty of the man, could never even come close to obscuring his noble character, so carefully did he weave his tapestry that the irony of the thing was not perceived by anyone except the industrialist himself, who considered that if a thing should have to be said forcefully and eloquently, then it was likely false, which added to his funk as he began to worry that he was a little, small-minded man of no consequence.

Having worked many a defense, our defender had anticipated this, and the training stood the industrialist in good stead.  None of his funk leaked into his countenance.  His visage told a short, serious story of understanding of the gravity of the thing, with no smile to intimate any facileness in his demeanor that would suggest this trial was anything other than the utmost in seriousness, the utmost in importance, truly an event for the annals of history.  Not having the ability of his defender, the story spread on his face was simple, straightforward and obvious.  The subtlety of expression was not his to effect.

Our industrialist largely ignored his palladin, having heard the points of the opening arguments repeated in private by the attorney who would defend him vigorously on these prima facie baseless charges, and having heard the assertion of the baselessness of the charges so often he had lost the meaning of the words, to the point that they failed to reassure but rather reinforced his malaise at each repeating, even now, when snippets snuck through his fog of funk and struck his brain with barely noticeable blows the cumulative effect of which was to make him even more morose inside such that maintaining the story spread across his face became more of a chore.

It was thus with great relief that he heard his own attorney winding down this most assuredly important part of the first scene of the trial, something his attorney referred to as setting the tone for his argumentation.  He began to pay attention again and thus was able to react with appropriate grim seriousness when his attorney turned the attention on him and, pointing at him, said something to the effect that he, that man, was innocent of nothing more than trying to improve the lot of mankind by making joyous things, who derived joy in the happiness of others, and whose employees provided great amounts of taxes, and, should the state consider removing some of his money, they should also consider the loss and grief such an act would cause those persons who, through no fault of their own, had their fortunes wrapped up in this man, who had never failed to bear up under the load of so many who depended on him.

This last caused such a pang of worry to pass through the industrialist that his story on his face changed, with the haggardness of bearing up under so much responsibility showing in a way that the defense attorney could not have coached, but which played with such pathos that many in the jury were nearly led to tears, while those who hated our industrialist were led to apoplexy about his play-acting concern in order to avoid righteous judgement for his evilness.  Already the press, that great leviathon spreading itself all over the sensibilities of the country, had started to harrumph and harangue, to rant and rave, to issue considered opinions on the performance before them, to relate how it imported, and intimating how great it was for the rest of us to have all this explained by experts of towering knowledge on the subject.

Thus ended the first scene of the thing, with a bang of the gavel by a tired, bored judge, with a quiet exit of the jury, with a wan smile shared by the defender and his client, with a snide sneer shared by the party of the prosecution as they whispered amongst themselves that the thing had gone better than they expected.  For, unsurprisingly, everyone was pleased with their performance so far.

Chapter Eight

The fourth estate arrived.  The court room, in its majestic gloom, would have been pleasingly empty were it not for their arrival.  In the ancient times, when man was more given to directly oppressing his fellow man for personal gain, there had been three other estates.  Over time, the oppressed gradually threw off the first three estates such that none were plenary present in this court room, and, for a time, the fourth estate had aided this action.  Now, the fourth estate styled itself the savior of man it had once been while it attained a concentrated evil never attained by the first three as it had gained all the weight of boot on the neck the other three had attained yet managed to maintain the facade of the helper it once attained.

While the fourth estate filed in, with their studied visage of learnedness, with their effortless concentration on the facts pertinent to the case, with their knowledgeable essays to effect the wishes of their real clients, the fifth estate chittered from their basements and bedrooms and college dorms, adding little but noise.  No, the fifth estate was not going to save the world from the fourth estate.

There are no saviors.  There are those who struggle against power, often attaining power themselves.  While it is said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, it is said facilely with little understanding, and primarily by those who have not attained power and thus believe themselves incorrupt.  The seed of their corruption is in them; it merely has to be watered by the mist of success, tempered in the aggrandizement of their egos and finally made strong in the prideful ascension to actual power, to precipitate their subsequent fall from grace at the hands of some other young and hungry incorruptible.

There is happiness.  There is satisfaction.  There is contentment.  These are the things people seek.  Gaining these things for the populace is a difficult and tiresome effort and thankless.  Thus do those seeking power seldom make an effort to this end, as happy, content and satisfied people generally do not flock to the polls to reward the seekers of power and it is an aphorism that disaster sells.

So those who would achieve power are driven to produce disasters.  The disasters do not have to be rooted in fact; they merely must play on the fears of the populace.  One such disaster is the arrival through the efforts of a businessman of a monopoly, however achieved, which means that the businessman is in the position to oppress the populace, who certainly could not buy someone else's thing and thus must pay extra for the businessman's thing regardless of whether it is worth it or not.

Thus begun the argument in the court.  The judge listened with appropriate gravitas; the jury listened with simulated understanding, the fourth estate wrote down something else that sounded better, and all thought it was going very well.  The defense with our man the industrialist sat with stoicism wrought of the imposition of the ridiculous case of the prosecutor upon their souls.

The tableau set, as with Jesus and his disciples, except that the Judas was known, yet which party was the Judas depended largely on the observer.  For some, the Judas stood on the floor of the court, his gildedness gleaming like his smile, oratorically expounding to the jury the nature of the crimes to be decided this day, alternating between conspiratoriality and commiseration with those wronged by the grand scale of the dastardly deeds accomplished by the defendant, that man there, in the natty suit, his top hat set on his desk, as he obviously strove to show his superiority, to flaunt his riches and to demonstrate his inability to connect with the common man.

To others, the Judas did, indeed, sit in the defendant's chair as asserted the prosecutor.  There he sat with his smug clothing, his smug smile and his smug lawyer, paid for out of a fortune acquired on the backs of the suffering masses.  Truly, did he oppress the masses, did he not?  To be someone with such wealth must mean he took more than deserved, and were not the masses deserving?  Should not the things he made be given freely, or at a more modest price?  Such that all the masses could be party to the great happiness he had created, as was their right, surely?  Did not the prosecutor stand as Hercules defending the common man against such as he?

Maybe the Judas sat on the bench or in the jury pews, the last vestiges of the second and third estates, the bench holding the lord of justice and the jury pews the free middle class who would stand in brave judgement of our man the industrialist, and would not be swayed by the prosecutorial eloquence, would not be drawn in by a pretty turn of phrase, but would severely and earnestly consider only the facts on the case, as they had been led to understand them.

The prosecutor was, come to think of it, the last vestige of the first estate.  The prosecutor stood in priestly robes, white suit, gilt cane, gleaming smile, and cared not of substance so long as form was followed.  The prosecutor would win, it was assured, as righteousness was on his side, as he proceeded to inform the jury, and he would demonstrate such by dint of superior argument.  He would demonstrate more subtly his contact with common man, that he would happily fight for the rights so trampled by the defendant, he who would sell a thing for more money simply because it was better.  The prosecutor would bring the defendant down as a lion drags down its prey, then give the bloody meat and remnants to hoi polloi as a reverse sacrifice in expiation for the sins of the prosecutor and in hopes that the populace would see such a sacrifice and provide the prosecutor with an improved career track.

So much, then, was at stake.  The judge would one day gain the right to write a book and sell it and maybe become a minor celebrity and retire to Maui.  The prosecutor would gain the notoriety he needed to further his career.  The jury would be free of any obligations to further judge their peers for a whole year.  Only the defendant had anything to lose; above the defendant's head swung the pendulum of Damocles, to torture a metaphor into giving up the sense of the tableau, a pendulum that swung perilously close to the throat of the defendant as the prosecutor gleamed and gilded his way through his opening arguments, artistically painting his picture in the dramatic way that the jury came to expect, the theatre of the thing attaining the level commiserate with the great stakes of the play of justice so set in this tableau.

Chapter Seven

He stood in his post at the courtroom, his features arranged in a grim visage, as of war, or, rather, as of a statue created by an overachiever of an artist depicting the sort of grim solemness great people arrange their faces in when they are relaying the story of their heroism long after the shattering fear of the event has ceased to wibble their knees. That is how he stood, because he faced no enemy, no great fearsome task that must be done for the good of all mankind, no, he faced merely a courtroom. He arranged his features thus to augment the gravity of the place, much as a priest becomes beatific when looking on high from the pulpit, or a harlot becomes slatternly when predating on a mark. Such an arrangement also led to far fewer altercations with the sort of scum normally found in this sort of environment.

The criminals, yes, they came. The judge sternly dealt with them, as was his professional duty, even though, in happier places, their frequent meetings would indicate an increase in friendship, so often did the criminals achieve the status of repeat offender. The judge often felt sorry for the criminal, having some story or other about a life of hardship, a life led slowly by steps in dispair to crime by parts until finally a crime came to the attention of the constabulary, and thus to the attention of the judge.

We aren't talking about the judge. He assumed an air of great suffering most of the time, as he need not assume more authority than he had in his splendid robes and thick hardwood between him and any assault. No, in the court, the threat of violence that underpins orderly society exists in the body of the bailiff. Nice work, if you can get it, with a crowd of people guaranteed to be bereft of weapons, those who posed any real danger already handcuffed, and only the need to stand with a grim visage, the grimmest, the more to cower those who came here into following the dictates of the court.

For the most part, the criminals did. So did those supplicants at the court's mercy, seeking redress for some grievance or other, often petty to any outsider, but dearly important to some litigator. No, it was the dross that seems to accompany great need, either the need for freedom, thus the need to avoid incarceration, or the need for expiation of some wrong, great or petty. These of the dross are termed, loosely, lawyers, that necessary breed of malcontents and miscreants happy to argue any side, any time, so long as it advanced their career or paid them sufficient money.

It has been argued that the rich get off because they can afford better lawyers, although some of the best lawyers can be found tirelessly defending the refuse of society, people for whom mercy should not be reserved, guilty as the day is long, but defended by principled, competent men because these principled, competent men know that it might be the case that they are innocent, and, besides, the prosecutor is malevolent and must be kept on a chain in order to reduce the damage he can do to unsuspecting innocents.

So, each misstep must be contested, each liberty must be challenged, each advantage pressed, every dirty trick tried, until the prosecutor has satisfied the jury that there is no doubt he has his villain, or the risk exists that an innocent man may be punished. That innocent man could be you or me, but for the efforts of the public defender.

No, our man the bailiff seldom had ill words for the public defenders, harried and overworked, who struggled to prise the boot of the oppressor off of the neck of the common man; our man the bailiff reserved his dread judgement for the class of lawyers who prey on misery, by siphoning off settlements for the bereaved. Such payments seldom made anyone happy, and the prolonged court cases caused the wounds to fester and refuse to heal. Each side trotted out emotional works of art, broken down people, victims of whatever the case was, whether in the affirmative or the negative, and, often as not, magnanimously handed them a tissue during their greatest duress, adjuring them to take their time and continue when they can, because so great is the matter of the death of Fifi the poodle that this thing must be resolved in the favor of the client.

There sat the jury, a group of amateurs, the greatest safeguard of liberty, allowed to be swayed by the majesty of the defense, to be awed by the ferocity of the prosecution, or simply provided with an emotional roller-coaster by both sides. The jury, of course, know not that this is a serial, that in every court in this land, the same exact show is repeated, that lawyers learn this stuff in school and take it to their practices where they rehearse with their witnesses such that the quality of the opera is not tarnished in any way, because a jury not entertained is a jury that will not vote for you.

If you really wish to know the way of the court, ask our man the bailiff. Ask him of the starched but slightly rumpled suits, the glad hands of people clearly devoid of souls, the constant rolodex of pain and suffering, both real and imagined, that enters the court, in which the truth cannot be determined with any degree of reliability, and in which the only recourse for victory is to get a better lawyer than the other guy.

Our man the bailiff had often pondered these facts, casting about for a better way. He knew he was limited in capacity, or he would be a judge or a lawyer, but he also knew they could not see the great evil this system wrought, nor the time ultimately wasted because every citizen is provided his day in court, often whether he wants it or not. The theater, or game, or both, proceeds, often turning as much on a point of technicality as a point of truth. Each side moves their piece, here knight to queen's three, there rook to king's four, trying to gain an advantage of any sort, yet it is not the clinical cerebral moves that win the day with the jury, so while playing that game, refereed by the judge, the lawyers must provide great emotion to the jury, painting their evidence with grand strokes, in grand colors, as if every piece were as great as time itself, and showing their client in the best of light, such that it is now well known that nobody commits any crime whatsoever, ever.

Of course, the other lawyer then hauls out the tar and the horsefeather brush and tries to convince everyone that his opponent's client is merely the devil incarnate, of the lowest form of groveling criminal ever seen, and this is just a divorce hearing. In the end, were the efforts equal, the colors balance, perhaps providing a proper picture of a human, with all the evil in his life free for all to see, but, also, in the end, he is the more damaged for it, because a court allows the public airing of all manner of grievances, as they pertain to the character of one of the parties.

It is this threat that often keeps people out of court, rather like the threat of being thrown to the lions reduced the ranks of early Christians. To be subjected to the rapaciousness of two teams of bloodhounds, presided over by a chessmaster, and then judged by those of your peers who could not shrug off jury duty is a frightening proposition. Oddly enough, given that your own lawyer is mostly interested in winning, often only getting paid if he wins, he may try to drive you to do things damaging to the one and only life you are granted here on this planet, and, if you hope for life in the hereafter, consider carefully that Jesus himself counsels that you avoid court altogether, rather coming to an agreement quickly, that your good name and Jesus' be not besmirched. See? Jesus is so afraid of court that he'd rather his followers not go to it, because he has to follow wherever they go.

Chapter Six

There in the fourth estate were men of noble aspiration. To make ones name was to take a pelt, the skin of a person who had otherwise gained notoriety. It was the dream of every cub reporter to bring down a famous man or woman, to lay low a great person, in the name of reporting the truth. For some reason, this dragging of character through mud is noble in the ethos of the news man.

Fortunately for our man the industrialist, the news man had long ago quit all efforts to discover his skeletons, though they presumed those skeletons were merely well hidden, believing that no man, no matter how noble, how principled, how brilliant, could achieve that greatness without having broken a few necks. Satisfied that the whitewash went at least several layers deep, they had cast about for others to pursue, settling on our man the prosecutor.

No man of mere whitewash he, having the finest gilt on his cane, the whitest clothing, so white it shone in the sun like the very angels, proving his purity. Ah, but such purity rarely is more than clothes deep, and, knowing this, some cub reporters set about exploring him as those embarking on a treasure hunt with a whole island to explore.

Stripping off gilt is easy, but doing so without damaging the underlying material is difficult. While the fourth estate cares little about the members of the other estates, they do care about libel, so tread lightly while searching, and only carefully do they lay their snares. Often, the searching takes the form of a profile report, something to provide the readers with background into the greatness of the subject, such as our whiteness, the prosecutor.

Of course, the profiles were numerous on the industrialist, many of them truly wondering, expressing delight, genuine and sweet, that such a man exists that these sweeps for information did fail. Few profiles existed for the prosecutor, those that existed having been bought and paid for and thus devoid of content of interest, being appropriately worded nothingnesses of marketing. Although it seemed to the public the men were of similar caliber, given that the effectiveness of a proper paid writer is great, as great as the effectiveness of the professional journalist in genuine thrall, so that the casual reader cannot tell the difference.

Remember that many of those in wealth and power, many who hated the industrialist, were willing to do anything to see his fall. Many more were there who saw the rise of the great prosecutor as just the thing, as he would be a mouthpiece for change, to save the world, or at least, save their individual fortunes. It is essential to the upkeep of the modern democracy that men of such fine hair, such a great turn of smile, given to gilt worn as if real solid gold, given to a majesty of delivery, of carriage, such men that cause other men to be in their thrall because they are just so gosh-darn cool, it is essential to the upkeep of a democracy that these men be allowed to lead so as to detract from the necessary policies to aid the bankers in keeping their fortunes. The loss of even one banker's fortune is a miserable thing, given that they are unsuitable to any other work, or, indeed to playing any game with their own money. So do they stack the deck to protect themselves, finding in the vessels such as our prosecutor willing allies in the climb to power and the exploitation of the masses.

So we watch the newsmen in their customary garb of worn clothing to show their seriousness in their poverty, supping the traditional sup of spirits on the rock, and discussing these things, for it is the worldly-wise sageness that is the hallmark of the newsman, that he knoweth all and deigneth to tell us some. They sat and discussed, wondering the angles, searching the relationships, always returning to that canard dearest to the heart of any investigator, to wit: 'Cui bono?'

Chapter Five

And, lo, the winds did blow, but not greatly, enough to increase the greenness of a select few of the minions aboard. It blew not enough to dent the enjoyment of the crew, who now found it possible to resume the deck, as the tossing of the boat was more than adequate to ensure that the lawyers, secretaries, assistants, and clerks, would stay below, dedicatedly applying themselves to their jobs to distract their baser selves from the discomfort caused by the rocking of the boat.

Down in the hold, where the cargo of this schooner was carried, otherwise known as the main salon, the cargo of this schooner was cloistered combing carefully copious quantities of papers, the cargo, of course, being the lawyers, their secretaries, assistants and clerks. The papers included every scrap of knowledge available to such a team as they, which was considerable. One thing to say in the defense of the government clerk is that, in the interest or preserving his job, he collects such a mountain of information that mere mortals lack the ability to sort through it or arrange it in any meaningful way. However, when the trawl is hauled by the man or woman with infinite job security to match his infinite patience, whose pay comes not from the value he generates, but rather from the benefit he provides to his political masters, which pay being shouldered by witless and often careless taxpayers, indeed, which pay produces an army of like-minded men and women, to whom the task of sorting all this information is nearly a pleasure, providing a sense of accomplishment, of a job well done, of doing something meaningful as they help to corral yet another oppressor of the little man, when the trawl is hauled by such a small army, even such as was possessed by our man the prosecutor, such a trawl will find any offense no matter how little, and, far more importantly, will find a pattern of offenses.

In our lives, all of us have often acted selfishly or obdurately, behaved in a manner not befitting a giant of industry. Most of us never become giants of industry, so most of us can continue to gain pleasure in our petty lives, sarcastically stating things that would end the career of the average politician, and doing so with the pleasant impunity of those that simply do not matter. However, should we present ourselves for high political position, or try to attain great success in business, or, even, win the lottery, all this information instantly becomes public, because it makes the rest of us able to sleep, knowing that, while others may have achieved success, they are just as venal and petty as the rest of us. A true pure character, rational and forceful in his application of ethics, presents a conundrum that leads many to dislike such on the grounds that he must be phony.

In the salon, they squinted. Hours of scrutiny in the dim mood lighting common to overly dark wooded rooms such as this salon had donated to everyone a pain of prodigal proportions in their heads, as if their spirit was trying to escape their skulls. Long had they subjugated themselves to this sort of necessity, however, and, lubricated with small amounts of alcohol and large amounts of caffeine, they pressed on, reading press release after press release, hundreds of police reports on people who might be our industrialist, but turned out to be not. Nor were there any scandalous pieces in the cheap rags. Even the Enquirer enquired not about our man the industrialist.

Some papers there were that discussed his odd lifestyle, but leavened were they with begrudging admiration for his singular pursuit of his own way, for had not Frank Sinatra himself, the chairman of the board, sang with fierce pride of having done it his way? In the end, it is that the countrymen appreciate the man who blazes his own trail, and the sympathy developed for such a person, oft dubbed maverick, often covers a myriad of sin, such that the man may survive the intended assassination.

Papers there were that discussed his business practices, often pointing out that some of his transactions put paid to organizations that had lasted for a hundred years, but ended always that he had seen to it that every one of their employees received aid and compensation such that they endured no hardship.

Papers littered the floor describing how he had achieved the ouster of this or that of his rivals' production, leading to reduced income on their part, but, inevitably did he hire more, often hiring from his very competitors. Also, in no case could it be demonstrated that the sudden disappearance of goods from his rivals from retail centers was a result of anything but the simple preference of consumers for the things he made, aided by the larger margins his things fetched, thus demonstrating his things so superior that people would happily pay a double premium to gain them.

Nay, there was nothing so far in all the papers that would provide any sort of public outrage at the very name of our industrialist. Never for him the peccadilloes of the upper class, so did he adore his wife. Never for him the wild children so often the bane of the successful, since the man who is forceful and takes risks but gets them right often begets the child that is forceful and takes risks but gets them wrong. Often, though, the public can be gulled into believing it is bad parenting or unhappy childhood that leads to such misbehaving, that it is a cry for help from a poor, beleaguered child who just wants to be truly loved. No, our industrialist's daughter was of singular character, studious and astute, whose behavior at school, at home, and amongst her peers was nothing short of saintly.

His things were in an immaculate state of repair. Never had he any pattern of neglect leading to death or dismemberment, never had he had a person in his employ who, once injured, suffered even so much as hardship for the rest of his life. Never had any of his business, once having made an error leading to damage, failed to make it right, well above the requirement of law or public opinion. Such was his dedication to humanity that he himself would investigate any allegation of impropriety, and the only common screeds against him said that he was too ready to agree that his companies had caused damage, such that often he was hounded by gold-diggers and layabouts that would see him pay them for mere allegations, but such were often met with offers of employment, in some cases accepting and going on to become productive members of society. The rest were either relentlessly exposed or paid, as our industrialist felt that it was necessary that the public felt he was fair.

After these classes of disaster, few possibilities remained. The public fails to get particularly excited about traffic tickets, not that there were any, and is not interested in anything of that sort. It is barely interested in tax evasion, as evading taxes is kind of a fond dream of most of the public anyway.

No, after the first fourteen hours or so of work, as the small army was beginning to straggle off to bed (being noted by our prosecutor as to which were weakest and thus working long past the point of effectiveness) it became more and more apparent that the only avenue of destruction that would effect ruin against our industrialist was the one already embarked on, that of proving him a ruinous monopolist. The prosecutor noted that there still remained his lap dog and several of the more ambitious clerks with him, although they seemed to largely be useless at this late an hour, and he retired, signalling that they, too, may retire.

Chapter Four

So the great prosecutor left for vacation. Such a dedicated man was he, such a defender of the little people, so dedicated to fraternité was he, that he took with him several hundred pounds of records, case law and aides, consisting of secretaries, legal researchers and junior lawyers. He brought these, so the public was told, because they needed a break and he was joyous to give them that break. While the press conference was underway explaining his magnanimitude, stevedores loaded up the schooner in preparation for their holiday at sea. Despite that one or two of his aides were fairly green at the prospect, they all put their best face on about the spectacular opportunity afforded them and how it solidified the prosecutor's bona fides as a man who helped the little guy. A master of whitewash was our man the prosecutor.

The schooner set sail later that day, bearing the gleaming smiles of the supposed revelers, much as it carried the brass in its brightwork, or, more precisely, like it carried the paint that covered up some of the age-damaged wood. Should I say that the rot under the smiles was the same as that of the rot under the paint? Nay, these aides were good folk. Much like the soldier in an unpopular foreign war, they had chosen to acquire their food in this way, many of them not really knowing what it meant. Lost wives, lost families, lost opportunities and angry relatives they all had as a result of the dedication of their boss, and this presented yet another opportunity for them to abandon all hope of any personal development in the pursuit of their master's relentless ambition.

Oh, sure, they knew their master would provide for them well enough, so long as they kept producing, but they also knew they were about as well thought of by their master as the brass work on the ship; it served a purpose, but was completely replaceable once tarnished, broken or simply less pretty than a new piece.

Had not this very thing come to pass not a hundred days previously? The man with the paunch belly had built the perfect case against a mob boss, lovingly laying down each detail, laboriously constructing each stroke of evidence, endlessly researching precedent and carefully stoking public opinion, until such a day as it was felt that a trial might succeed. When the day came to announce the attorney who would stand up and take credit for all the work, had it not been another attorney with good hair, another rising star attaching himself to our man the prosecutor, who had stood up and told all and sundry the nature of the crime, strode purposefully into court and carried the day with the power of the oratory constructed for him? So furious was the owner of the paunch belly that he quit, accepted a small bribe to not relay his story to the newspapers and began teaching history at a high school. But, our story is not about him.

See, he doesn't have good enough hair to take on the evils of this world, the titans of industry cynically amassing fortunes on the backs of the downtrodden, pushing the capitalist manifesto on people and demanding they pay, by constructing things the people want and artfully marketing those things. A man sees a car advertisement on television and thinks to himself that he wants that car. He doesn't need it; he has a perfectly usable piece of junk not six or seven years old, decaying of rust, or, more precisely, possessing of a rust patch or two, with the flaky radio, and besides, it gets worse mileage. So thinking, off he goes and buys the new car, trading in his serviceable old clunker in the process. When it is determined he cannot pay for the car, he gets blamed for making a bad decision, but wants to blame the television for luring him into the decision that caused him both ruin and embarrassment, for, see, he now has neither his old car nor his new one.

But, a man with good hair, now, that's a man that can help. That's a man that can comment on the situation and say something must be done. He can then get into his flashy car and drive off, content that some silliness will ensue when the proper committees have met. Somehow, the man who traded his car must get a car, because without a car, he cannot work, work to pay for his house, work to pay for his clothes, work to pay for his things, and work to pay for his food, and will become another burden of the state. So, the last-chance loan is born. The man can now buy another car on credit, this one cheaper and more suited to his stature, as determined by a government test, this one with a loan that is harder to default on, with terms set by an administrator who has nothing but good intentions where he is concerned. It is also a loan that is a millstone because he cannot sell the car at all, being rather upside-down on it due to the favorable terms enforced by the administrator, but it doesn't matter because he now has a car befitting his stature. But, this is not his story, either.

One of the aides on the schooner did have such a loan on such a car. Several others had such a loan on their house, forever concerned about losing it and all the equity they had amassed simply by failing to pay a loan. The shackles we must draw in our mind around the hands of these poor, working people are nonetheless effective for being metaphorical. Here on the schooner sit they, for one reason or another, he of the fine hair with naked ambition, they of the mortgage with fear of loss, those of the family with concern for their offsprings' wellbeing, them that are married somewhat happy of the respite from the complaining about them never being home and them what used to be married struggling with the myriad economic woes the state of not being married anymore inevitably carries.

They were not focused. I guess that is the main point here. There sat junior fine-hair, like a lap dog, nearly panting his approval at every word uttered by his master, but remaining just as clueless as the most wind-brained Cocker Spaniel as to the meanings of the words being uttered. Oh, sure, provide him with a script and coach him on the talking points, and he was a spectacular success, but it was often rumored he had a string hanging out his back, and if you pulled it, he would emit phrases not entirely inappropriate to the question being asked.

The rest of the motley crew of the great schooner, that is, the crew of lawyers, gaggle of attorneys, not the real crew, who kept to themselves as much as possible, keenly aware of their need to eat but also distasteful of the proximity to such a magnum of Moriarties. They kept to the area of the ship without the Egyptian linen and gold-plated bath fixtures, where simple pleasures could be engaged in, and copulate they did. Arguably, they produced more than did the attorneys, as at least five new souls were added to push back against the drudgery of life during this trip. But, this story is not about them.

It is about the attorneys, dammit, and it is difficult to stay on topic because they are so dull. Each and every one is decked out in Neiman Marcus or some such, chosen for them by the sales lady who assured them it was just the right combination of conservative and bold, leading to them being essentially interchangeable. It was a sort of camouflage, these threads of theirs, as nobody stood out, so nobody could get picked on.

And they draped themselves around the room, as if hangers for their expensive clothes, a sort of collection of moving mannequins, as they talked about the upcoming case, pretending to bend their massive collective brains to the task of felling a man. A brainstorming session they called it, but, seized with the decorum of years of brown nosing and general political correctness, their session rose little above a brain squall. And, this would not have been the squall possessing of the fine, gentle, warm rain so common and beloved in the Pacific Isles, but the wind blown useless squall that throws mud in your eye common to desert dwellers, for, indeed, it was a hot wind escaping the average lawyer blunderbuss, a wind that generated little but wilting, that parched those it contacted, rendering them helplessly grasping for some streak of joy, some rose in the desert, maybe a glass of water.

They, the budding lawyers, were immune. When one's soul has been roughly used long enough, it ceases to need much in the way of sustenance, that sustenance being the whimsy to gaze upon a flower, or, worse, to ruminate that one has never seen a poem as lovely as a tree. Perhaps there is a whimsy in the ordered braying of the American Pinstriped Brown Nosed Lawyer, but if there is, I certainly have not found it.

And so they worked late into the night, and, for no apparent reason, began again early the next day, congratulating themselves on their continued dedication.

Chapter Three

And the man of government, all stolid in physique and staid in garb, strode purposefully toward his meeting with the president of his party, mindful of the benefit to his career such striding could create. So purposefully strode he, so powerfully did he enunciate the words of his prepared speech, such was the glint in his eye and the set of his jaw and the cut of his suit that everyone said he would go far. Maybe even the next president. Certainly better than the current guy, who appeared mousy in comparison, tho he stood astride the world on election day, to be denied nothing. Such is the office of the president that no man, however grand, once entering it, can remain grand. The office is of such a great magnitude that the grandest man appears puny by comparison, but that only happens after they gain the office, so the public remains convinced that, somehow, this guy will be different, maybe because his hair is shinier or his smile brighter or he lacks that dyspeptic grin every time someone mentions the scandalous news of the day.

Or maybe it is because 'no comment' is not yet in his vocabulary, this man of the rising star. He may comment on nearly anything, being a mere prosecutor, so long as the comments are grand and the way of saying them are grand, and, most importantly, the comments themselves convey no meaning whatsoever. Any politician will be the master of this essential skill, for if it is possible to discern meaning in anything a politician says to the public, it is possible for some of the public to misconstrue that meaning as taking a position against that portion of the public, something a politician will most strenuously deny having done, whether or not he did it, for a politician, at heart, is a loving man who wishes all men to love him as he loves himself and therefore cannot abide the idea that some may think he carries not their best interest at heart.

Some will say, nay, there be honest politicians, and I say, behold, they are ignored or dead; there is not middle ground. Thus is the strength of the machine, with its great gaping maw at the trough, fed by the blood of the country, its young men off to war, its young maidens off to cry, its middle-aged enslaved by debt, a slavery held dear by accountants, bankers and such, those that pay the government worker enough to engage in the pursuit of happiness supposedly granted to everyone.

Pursuit of happiness happens with a light conscience. With a heavy conscience, it is the fleeing from guilt. The two things often seem similar, what with the singleminded obsession with the end goal, but fleeing from guilt is often rather more lubricated by alcohol than pursuing happiness, which is often lubricated with friendship and the construction of great things.

But enough of this philosophy; what about the practicality? Does not governance demand the finest, the brightest, the most elocutive of the lot? Our government man, our prosecutor, is certainly that. Highest honors in his class, he hung out with the best of the best, enshrouded with ivy and declared fit to rule the world. He began his work lowly enough, doing pro bono work in inner cities, for that would certainly brand him an idealist, a mantle that would allow him to hide all manner of ambition. He also did time as a public defender, seeking to protect the innocent from being wrongfully punished. His ideals flipped when he became a prosecutor, as they must, and he cynically campaigned against his own previous opponent on the grounds that he had been able to continuously beat his opponent in court, meaning that his opponent had let hundreds of guilty go free through incompetence.

Any decent man can see through such a silly contrived attack, but, of course, the political machine and the public bought it, because he had such good hair and when you talked to him, you could tell he was smart. Besides, his party had fallen on hard times, and a rising star such as this was just the ticket, so his party sent the cleaners around to help with the skeletons in his closet and sent the bankers around to help with everything else.

Thus did our man make his name. However, his political adviser had advised him that, in order to run for a senate seat, absolutely essential to make governor or president, he needed a high profile case, needed to show someone who was essentially good to be a mealy, maggot-ridden bastard. Just such a man was found in our friend, the industrialist. Our industrialist had literally never hurt anyone if it was at all possible to avoid. He was the kind of man who stepped over fleas when he could see them. Yet, as is so often the case, it is never the truth but the perception that causes harm, and our man the industrialist had become very successful.

Not only did he present a plum target, but our man the industrialist had never spent any money or time trying to influence politics, so had no friends in the game, so to speak. He did, however, have an awful lot of enemies, many of whom wished he would be broken and stripped of his companies so they could make money for a change. These enemies began to bend ears around the nation, plying their targets with various libations, gifts and services first so as to make the ears far easier to bend. Since, apparently, the quantity of swag is the primary method of making up one's mind when high enough in governance, many of those already tenured in government began casting about for a templar to take on this man of pure snow white morals.

All it really took, they knew, was a good turn of phrase and really good hair, and they found such in the prosecutor. Oh, they made the right faces and took their time selecting their templar, but it was evident in everyone's mind that he was the man; nobody else had that good of hair, nor the twinkling blue eyes, nor the broad, trust me smile. This man was clean, they were sure, a man whose record of challenging the fringes of our society and thus keeping us safe was unsullied, a man who clearly cared, given how much pro bono work he'd done, a man whose salary had never once been raised at his request so as to not burden the people.

He, the pauper publican to take on the mighty titan of industry, in a classic David and Goliath moment, to protect yet again the public from the predations of the capitalist, to save them from the inevitable high prices brought on by the monopolies our titan bestrode, and to liberate for once and for all the workers from their tyranny of being locked into working for our titan, as all other competitors were laid to waste.

And so, in the massively oak lined study of the suitably austere president of the party, our man accepted his new charge and swore an oath that he would not rest until the titan was laid low, preferably in pictures with some sort of prostitute, or sheep, or goat. He swore that no matter how heinous the accusation, he would support it, no matter how libelous the outrage, he would mutter it, and that, in the face of the certain truth, he would lie like a politician. Thus he swore and thus he would do.