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.“I think we’d better hit the road.” He pulled a twenty out of his pocket and tossed it on the table.“Will that cover it?” I asked.Philipe smiled.“It doesn’t matter.They won’t notice if it doesn’t.”We split up in the parking lot, agreeing to meet again the next morning at the municipal courthouse in Santa Ana.Philipe said he had a plan to throw a monkey wrench into the American legal system, and he wanted to start small, with a test, to see if it would work.Philipe was planning to get a ride home with Steve, but he turned back to me as he headed across the asphalt toward Steve’s Toyota.“Are you coming with us?” he asked.“Of course,” I said.Of course.I had killed a man this morning and then spent my afternoon casually hanging out with a group of people I didn’t know from Adam who called themselves terrorists, and I was already thinking of myself as one of them, was already taking part in their activities as if it were the most natural thing in the world.“Pick you up at seven-thirty, then,” Philipe said.“We’ll grab some breakfast first.”I nodded.“Okay.”I drove home.They were at my apartment at seven-fifteen the next morning.All of them.Waiting on my doorstep.I’d just finished taking my shower and was getting dressed, and I answered the door wearing only my jeans.I was glad to see them.I’d spent most of the night tossing and turning, trying to figure out why I wasn’t more suspicious or more curious or more… something, why I had just accepted the terrorists and fell into step with them; but when I saw them again, all that worrying and speculation seemed irrelevant.I was one of them.That was why I felt this way.I had never been part of anything before in my life, and it felt good to know that there were others just like me.I was absurdly glad to see them, and I grinned hugely, unable to help myself, as I invited them in.All eight men crowded into my mismatched living room.“Wow,” James said admiringly.“This place is great.”I looked around my apartment, seeing it through his eyes, and for the first time since I’d redecorated I thought that, yeah, it was pretty great.I finished dressing and combing my hair, and we went to McDonald’s and grabbed some Egg McMuffins for breakfast.We took three cars.I rode with James and Philipe in Philipe’s Dart.It was as though we’d known each other forever.I was not treated as an outsider or a newcomer, and I did not feel like an outsider or a newcomer.I’d been instantly assimilated into the group, and I was comfortable and at home with my newfound friends.No, not my friends.My brothers.Court did not begin until nine, but we arrived earlier, at eight-thirty, and Philipe withdrew a large canvas bag from the Dart’s trunk.We asked what it was, but he smiled and would say nothing, and we followed him into the building and up the stairs to a traffic courtroom, sitting down in the theater like section in the back that was reserved for defendants and members of the public.“What are we going to do?” James asked.“You’ll see,” Philipe told him.The court started to fill up with other traffic violators and their families.A clerk came out and read off a list of names.A bailiff entered the courtroom, and then the judge, introduced by the bailiff as the Honorable Judge Selway.The first case was called, and a policeman and a dreadlocked black man who identified himself as a taxi driver began discussing the circumstances of an illegal turn.There was a pause in the discussion.“Judge Selway is a putz!” Philipe yelled.The judge and the rest of the court staff scanned the seats.There was a crowd of people in the court, but they were all scattered, and in our section there were only us and a Hispanic couple.“Your daughter fucks cotto salamis!” Philipe yelled.He nudged me, grinned.“Go on,” he urged.“Say something.”“They’ll arrest us for contempt!” I whispered.“They don’t see us.They forget we’re here the second after they look at us.” He nudged me again.“Go on.Go ahead.”I took a deep breath.“Get a dick!” I called out.The judge pounded his gavel.“That’s enough!” he announced.He said something to the bailiff, who walked up to the railing in front of us.“Pussy!” Buster said loudly.“Cocksucking fuckwad!” Tommy called.The judge banged his gavel again.The bailiff looked at us, through us, past us.The Hispanic couple looked around as if searching for the source of this disturbance.“Your mother takes it up the ass!” I cried.I turned, grinned at Philipe.It felt good to shout like this.“Pussy!” Buster yelled again.“Eat shit!” I screamed.There was anger in my voice, as there was in the voices of the others.I hadn’t realized I was angry at anything, but I was, I discovered.I was very angry.I was exceedingly angry.I was angry at fate, angry at the world, angry at everything that had made me this way, and years of rage and frustration came out in my cries.“I pissed in your sister’s mouth and she begged for more!” I yelled.“You’re a fat-assed, pantywaisted, tater-twanging, wuss-boy!” James called.Philipe opened his canvas bag.Removed several cartons of eggs.I laughed, excited.“Do it quickly,” he said, passing the cartons down the row.We began throwing.An egg hit the bailiff’s hat, knocking it off.Another, immediately after, broke against his bald head.The judge ducked under a hail of eggs that splattered against his desk and the wall behind him.I let one fly, aiming for him, and hit him squarely in the chest, the yellow yolk brightly obvious against the black robes.Declaring a recess, the judge hurried out of the court into his chambers.We were out of eggs almost immediately, and Philipe grabbed his bag and stood.“Okay, guys.Let’s go.”“But we’re just getting started,” Steve complained.“We’re not invisible,” Philipe said.“We’re Ignored.If we stay here any longer, they’ll catch us.Let’s cut out now.” He walked out of the courtroom and the rest of us followed.“Pussy!” Buster yelled before leaving.I heard the bailiff yell something, and then the door closed behind us [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]