The Honorable Moses Olpian cleaned his glasses as he addressed the prosecuting attorney. “Your next witness?”
The Assistant District Attorney, a tall wispy man, stood with pedagogical poise and said, “No more witnesses at this time, Your Honor. Prosecution reserves the right to call rebuttal witnesses should the need arise.”
“Thank you, Mr. Waterston.” Judge Olpian turned to the opposite side of the bench. “Call your first witness, Mr. Lawyer.”
Behind the defense table sat Jeffrey Three-Kinds-of-Cheese Dibble. The pepper-nosed toe-headed young man sat hunched over the table, wringing his hands under his ashen face. On trial for First-Degree Murder, he watched with glassy heavy-lidded eyes as his attorney, a simple country lawyer, rose calmly from his chair. Ensconced in a sharp bone-white Tom Wolfe, the six-foot tall planarian addressed the court. “Y’Honor, the Defense calls the Contrarian to the stand.”
The doors to the courtroom swung inward with a flourish of cinematic contrivance. The Contrarian made his way down the aisle, his two jaws pugnaciously thrust forward. One jaw belonged to the head of Aziz al-Ibrahin, the other to the head of Shecky Rapaport.
Waterston leapt out of his chair, nearly knocking it to the ground. “Objection!”
“Now let me guess here, Y’Honor,” Simple Country Lawyer interjected. Stepping forward (or whatever worm-like single-celled organisms did when they ambulated) he said, “Mr. Waterston here intends to cite Branscum vs. Kundulini and argue against multiple sentiences taking the stand simultaneous-like. Am I right, Mr. Waterston? Is that the nub?”
“Actually I was going to cite Paskind vs. Opperman, Your Honor, but Branscum works too.”
“Well then, Y’Honor, I’d like to gently remind Mr. Waterston that in Weintraub vs. Florida the Appellate Court rules multiple sentiences admissible when sharing a corporeal form.”
Waterston turned to Olpian. “Your Honor, Weintraub specifically applies to cases of shared possession of a single body. The Contrarian is two individual heads surgically grafted onto one body.”
“Mr. Waterston’s acumen of precedent is more impressive than a catfish with a football; certainly, Y’Honor. But I seem to recall a certain case addressing just this type of razzmatazz. Monahan vs. Snacks I believe it was.”
“Your Honor, Monahan was a civil suit. This is a criminal trial. It has no bearing on this case.”
No one in the courtroom noticed Simple Country Lawyer’s eyes victoriously narrow. “Well I may just have to reconsider the praise I’ve heaped here upon the Assistant District Attorney. Surely you remember, Mr. Waterston, Monahan vs. Snack’s journey to the highest court in the land? Why, it was Rancid Bevallaqua himself who authored the opinion. Therein the Chief Justice established that no witness could be prohibited from testifying based on a pre-existing medical condition for which the witness in question is not responsible. The Contrarian’s current bi-cephalic state constitutes a pre-existing medical condition; I believe you will agree. And even a concussed simpleton knows it was the nefarious Doctor Ratline who amalgamated Messers Rapaport and al-Ibrahin into one The Contrarian. Y’Honor, if this here poor dual-headed abomination doesn’t fall under the precedent of Monahan, then I’ll be a chickenhawk with a empty backfield.”
“Your Honor, this is a mockery of judicial protocol.”
Judge Olpian nodded. “I agree,” he said. “But it carries weight in the eyes of the law. Objection overruled. You may take the stand, Mr. Contrarian.”
Waterston clenched his teeth and returned to his seat as the Contrarian crossed the well and stepped into the witness box. A court officer stood before him and presented the Bible. “Place your left hand on the Bible please,” instructed the officer.
Everyone in the courtroom leaned toward the stand, straining to hear the muted exchange between the Contrarian’s two heads. “Just do it already.”
“It’s not the Quran.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does!”
“Jesus! Stop being so hidebound.”
“I am not swearing on that book.”
“I’ll swear. You just have to touch it.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Judge Olpian brought down his gavel with a reverberant bang. “Mr. Contrarian!”
The Jewish head turned to the judge. “Sorry, Your Honor.” It turned to its Muslim counterpart and whispered harshly, “Do it!” The Muslim head sighed and looked away with a twisted mask of revulsion. The Contrarian, his left hand on the Bible, took the oath.
Simple Country Lawyer took to his feet. “Mr. Contrarian, what is your full name?”
“Isaac She – ”
“He was talking to me.”
“No he wasn’t. And we agreed I would do the talking.”
“Yes he was and we never agreed to such a thing.”
“Fine. We’ll take turns.”
“Fine. Go.”
“Isaac.”
“Aziz.”
“Shepshul.”
“Al.”
“Shecky.”
“Ibrahin.”
“Rapaport.”
Simple Country Lawyer smiled. “Very good.” Now, speaking to the Mooslim head of y’all, where were you at sundown on the twenty-second of March?”
“I was in my apartment.”
“And what were you engaged in at that point?” Simple Country Lawyer continued.
“Well half of me was dutifully praying to Mecca, while the other half of me was masturbating to Roadhouse.”
Simple Country Lawyer continued, “When you pray to Mecca from inside your apartment, where exactly do you pray?”
“Whenever possible I pray eastward from the center of my living room.”
The defense planarian asked, “And is that the spot from which you prayed at sundown on the twenty-second of March?”
“Yes. We have a sixty-three inch LCD screen in there, so everybody was happy.”
Shecky's head cut in, “Okay. You don’t have to keep harping on it.”
“The Jew eats pork!”
“I’m Reform! We don’t care about that!”
Simple Country Lawyer plunged ahead. “Leaving aside the more erotic endowments of the Kelly Lynch oeuvre,” he said, “is there a window in that there room standing between you and Mecca?”
“Yes.”
“And when you look out the window,” Lawyer continued, “what do you see?”
“The office building for Activists & Jugglers Notary.”
Simple Country Lawyer turned to address the jury. “The same building where the murder was committed.” Turning back to the witness, he said, “Now… what floor of the Notary does that window parallel?”
Rapaport’s head lulled with disinterest to the side while al-Ibrahin’s head said, “It’s actually just between the sixth and seventh floors.”
Turning once again to the jury the defense attorney repeated, “Between the sixth and seventh floors,” laying it on thick as biscuits and gravy. “Now, Mr. Contrarian, could you please tell the court what you witnessed at sundown on the twenty-second of March?”
“I was praying with my eyes closed, reciting the Maghrib. As soon as I finished, I opened my eyes and saw a golf club slash the air in the office across the street from my apartment. I got up, ignoring his pleas to let him finish, went to my window, looked down into the office, and saw the defendant standing over a broken putter covered in blood and the body of the murder victim.”
The jury and those in the gallery gasped audibly. “I sure do love when they do that,” Simple Country Lawyer said to no one in particular. He then addressed the Contrarian’s Jewish head and asked, “Do you agree with that testimony, Mr. Contrarian?”
“No I emphatically do not!”
The courtroom gasped again and Simple Country Lawyer shuddered with a delighted squeal. “With what in particular do you disagree?”
“First of all, I was watching Warm Summer Rain. Kelly Lynch only gets naked once in Roadhouse. Second, it was just a flash of light we saw.”
Al-Ibrahim's head contradicted, “You were pre-occupied. How do you know?”
“It’s called peripheral vision. And I was finished by that point – I just needed to clean up. And when we got to the window, it wasn’t the defendant we saw. It was some guy who looked like Shia LaBouef.”
"He did not."
"He did not."
“He does look like Shia LaBouef!”
“No he doesn’t. He looks like Dave Eggers.”
“Are you blind?”
The two heads were now turned to directly face one another. “And it wasn’t a golf club. It was one of those metal braces you screw into your wall when you’re putting up cheap shelves.”
“Those metal braces don’t have putter heads on them.”
“It wasn’t a putter!”
“Yes it was!”
The Contrarian’s hands tried to grab each other while his two heads lunged at one another, each trying to sink their teeth into the other’s face. Waterston jumped up. “Your Honor, the witness has just contradicted himself. He should be excused and his testimony stricken.”
Simple Country Lawyer stepped forward proudly, grinning from would-be ear to would-be ear. “Y’Honor, I’ll be hogtied to Barry Sanders if McKay vs. Sturgeon doesn’t explicitly state when a witness allowed under Monahan vs. Snacks contradicts himself on the stand and the discrepancy in his testimony is caused directly by said witness’s multiple sentiences, a mistrial must be declared.”
The courtroom was nonplussed by the sudden spring of the trap. Waterston’s eyes widened in furious anxiety. “Your Honor, you can’t allow this!”
Judge Olpian inhaled through his nose past his face as it calcified with anger. “I’ll render my ruling on this after I’ve studied the cases for myself. Mr. Lawyer, you can’t begin to comprehend how much Contempt of Court I’m going to hold you in if your reading of precedent has even the smallest loophole. We’ll reconvene tomorrow morning at ten o’ clock.”
The judge banged his gavel. Everyone stood until Olpian was out of the courtroom. Simple Country Lawyer turned to Waterston and said, “Being a lawyer’s not as easy as playing one on the TV, is it?”
Waterston opened his mouth to respond, but stopped as he heard a loud sudden sound.
Simple Country Lawyer peered down at his belt buckle. The steel pig blinked yellow and emitted an obnoxious snort of warning. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said gentlemanly. “Looks like I’m needed.”
