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Show Zl dn't appreciate his favoritism. I was told to stand alone out in the middle of the r fadng him, and I noticed the fat young cop to one side of the desk, both as ous as if I'd killed somebody. My father sat off to one side, and then in the ef's office Buck stopped talking and in the silence I felt myself the center of adult !. When the charge was read I thought of how unsupported it was, and then J.P. looked up. He, the cop, my father-all eyes bore heavily upon me. 'Do you plead guilty or not guilty?" a the stunning silence I couldn't think, and something I was trying to struggle inst answered for me: "Guilty, I guess." 'What? Louder, boy!" 'Guilty." "All right, I sentence you to a fine of ten dollars or ten days in jail at hard labor." After a while he looked back up at me, sort of surprised. "That's all, boy." But I was the one surprised, I was dazed with it. He had said those words as easily asking for a glass of water, and how was that possible? It obviously wasn't. No e could rock the world with such ease, with such calm matter-of-fact indifference, id in a daze I turned aside, my head lowered in shame. Now I felt as if /, stupidly, indly, had walked into the side of an express train. And when I saw his face, I lew that rather than pay ten dollars my father would let me go to jail. Bruised and imb, I followed him toward the Chief's office. Buck was swaggering out to take my place looking about as worried as if Darrow sre defending him and, when we passed, he grinned through bruised lips and inked at me. Then I realized that jail was more than jail, hard labor more than trd labor; they were an identity with Buck and those like him. Holding the phone, the Chief swiveled around to indicate that we should wait, len swiveled back facing the window, talking low. My father took a chair and in le court I heard Buck say "Not guilty!" with a stupid cocky ring to his voice. I loked back in and he was standing alone where I had, firmly on spread legs, hands ti his hips, grinning impudently at the J.P. The J.P. leaned his cheek on one hand nd had a slightly more pleasant expression on his face. "Now, Buck. It says here you had whiskey on your breath." "Sure, I'd had a few." "And you were fighting?" "Can't say I wasn't, 'specially since George there saw me." George was the butcher-deputy. "Well then, Buck, how is it you figure you're not guilty?" "Well, Judge, you know a little whiskey smell on a man's breath don't make him Irunk. An' if havin' a couple and then gettin' slugged makes you drunk and dis-irderly, why, Judge, you'd be up to your ears in work. You'd be workin' Sundays ust to put us all away." The J.P. smiled and turned sideways a little to cross his legs. "How many drinks lid you have? Before the fight." My Father's Money 219 |