Punishment by Linden MacIntyre Page B

morose, I used to tease. You call Chopin jolly?
Slavs invented dour.”
Maybe Brandenburg, merciful timeless music blocking out the moment and the storm the way the beer blocks hunger.
    Strickland had caught everybody in the courtroom by surprise and I couldn’t suppress the flicker of respect. Caddy wasn’t even breathing when he spoke. I’m sure I felt her shudder when they marched him out. We expect people like Strickland to be stupid because so much of what they do, in retrospect, seems pointless. But think it through: You only know what they get caught for. You only know their failures. This is what you learn: their world is upside down. Out here, success is noted publicly and celebrated. But only they know the scores they got away with, the little victories that justify the next big risk. We think the system always wins. Of course, we must believe that. We must believe that everybody on the inside lost. But their successes must have brought enough rewards and satisfaction to motivate the failures that we punish.
    In the courtroom I’d watched the faces of the law-abiding citizens as they watched Strickland, earnest, honest faces imputing categories of deviance and crime to him and people like him, reinforcing their own morally secure positions in society. Lawyers’ faces calculating where this was going, planning how to get there first, to intercept and thwart. Strickland held everyone’s attention because his gesture had inherent eloquence. He had a point to make: I’m not going to play the convenience game; I’m not going to make it easy for the system; I don’t owe the system anything.
    ——
    Next morning in the store, five familiar faces leaned over the daily paper, crowded close. “There he is,” said one of them, smiling as I walked in. “The man a’ the hour.”
    They were studying a photograph—me trapped outside Caddy’s car, smiling. Or was that the look of fear?
    “What did you think?” John Robert asked. “Did you have any clue that he was gonna pull a stunt like that?”
    “No,” I said. “It looked like a last-minute thing on his part.”
    “So what does it mean?”
    “It means that he wants the judge to hear the Crown’s case against him. Let a judge decide if the evidence is worth a trial.”
    “Going for the publicity,” said John Robert. “Gonna get his fifteen minutes of fame no matter who it hurts.”
    I made a face, walked to the newspaper rack.
    “You were probably gone when he was growing up.” This was from someone else I remembered from long ago. A MacKinnon. Paul.
    “Yes, Paul,” I said. “Long gone.”
    “You missed all the excitement. The time he broke in here. And then the accident. Killed the Graham boys. But I suppose the poor fella never had a chance, all things considered.”
    Silence fell. I wanted to ask: “What things considered?” But I knew the silence was the sound of civility, the consciousness of the unspoken gaffe—
Well, he wasn’t really from here, was he?
    I had another vague memory of one of the others, a quiet boy in school, still quiet. “How is your mother, Jake?”
    “Good, Tony. Still in her own place. Still driving.”
    “She’d be what?”
    “Ninety-two.”
    “And still driving?”
    “Got her licence renewed for five more years.”
    “Sharp as a tack, Christy is,” said John Robert. I considered the coffee urn. Then the door opened and Neil walked in. The door closed loudly. I imagined a drum roll.
    “What’s new in the world, Neil?” Collie asked from behind the counter.
    “Don’t get me going about the fuckin world. You heard what happened in that courtroom yesterday.”
    An uncomfortable murmur in reply.
    Collie picked up the newspaper: “Hey, I see where Saddam is accepting the terms of that resolution they passed at the UN.”
    “Fuckin UN.”
    “It says right here … Saddam says they can inspect all they want. Won’t find a thing.”
    “You believe that? You believe Saddam? I wouldn’t trust that