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environment and his
personal circumstances as well. She wondered how much he really
knew about courts.
    He’d obviously been expecting a real
trial, a knock-‘em-down and drag-‘em-out fight where he planned to
give as good as he got. He was prepared to fight them on their own
ground!
    As seen on TV.
    Nice.
    That was sort of impressive. It also
implied that he’d been around a bit, or did it? There were too many
cop-and-courtroom dramas nowadays.
    She liked to see a customer with some
self-respect. It made their chances so much better for reform and
rehabilitation. It sounded like bullshit as soon as she had the
thought. There wasn’t much wrong with the man for the system to
fix. That was just bigger bullshit.
    However, it very much did please the
court, as time was a-wasting and they were burning daylight, as her
dear old daddy used to say.
    “ Guilty as charged. You
are sentenced to time served—” The man had waited a week in jail
before making bail and his original arraignment. “And, let’s see
here. Two hundred hours of community service.”
    The man had this look on his
face.
    “ Sir? You have a problem
with that?”
    Face darkening, the gentleman stared
at her and then shook his head in a kind of disgust, but the fact
was, by one point of view, she was doing the best she could for
him. Unfortunately, the law was the law and terms of bail and
things like that were to be respected.
    Most of them thought she was a cold,
hard bitch anyways—she had always known that, right from the start.
It was something one had to accept. There would always be that flag
up on the wall behind her. She had taken an oath, and one she could
not lightly break. Still, there were ways, and she had some leeway
in spite of mandatory sentencing requirements.
    “ Okay, sir. The clerk will
have some papers for you to sign and you will be contacted with
regards to your place and nature of employment for the duration of
the two hundred hours. Is there anything you don’t
understand?”
    The man just glowered at her and then
finally, eyes dropping, he shook his head and looked over at
Richard, who waved him over to his little desk by the side of her
rostrum.
    All the man had to do was to sign it
and then he could go quietly.
     
    ***
     
    It was Saturday morning and Marion was
still in her housecoat. She stepped to the front door to check if
the paper had been delivered yet. Although it was just after eight,
the boy was sometimes late. Sometimes the little twerp bounced it
off her bedroom window at six-thirty a.m., and surely this was much
better.
    Opening the door, she put a foot on
the porch and leaned out, turning as the mailbox was to her right.
Something was not right.
    “ Oh!” She squawked and her
hand flew up to her bosom. “Oh, dear.”
    “ Ah. Sorry Ma’am.” A tall,
calm-looking gentleman loomed above her, wringing his baseball hat
and looking discomfited. “Ah, I’m here about the work
program.”
    “ What?”
    “ The work program.” In the
ensuing five days the judge had completely forgotten Mister Wilson,
but Albert recognized her immediately. “You’re my assignment for
Saturdays.”
    Albert recognized her instantly. His
heart sank. His back was a little stiff and sore this morning and
he hadn’t eaten much lately. Not in the last couple of days,
anyway.
    “ Ah.” She shrunk back a
little in the doorway. “Oh. That’s right.”
    She had, like a good little citizen,
and a shining example to her community, signed up for something of
the sort. A local NGO, a charitable organization that operated food
banks, soup kitchens and rehabilitation programs of one ilk or
another, had contacted her.
    And of course the bloody fellow had to
show up at the crack of dawn. Marion had sort of thought it wasn’t
going to happen because it had been so long since she’d signed up.
She’d completely forgotten about it. All the applicants were
properly screened of course, or so she had been assured. There was
some shortage of