Cosmic Justice

My role has been minor in the quasi-legal organization known as the Cosmic Justice League (CJL). But I believe in its purpose fervently. It addresses crucial issues. Genteel minds back away. But society demands action. The CJL acts.

Founded by our beloved Aldolfo Nanosecond just after the turn of the millennium, its objectives carried out by independents such as myself, the CJL propagates justice in a country whose constitution gives only lip service to the word. When the people became sufficiently weary of a system that rewarded the criminal and punished the victim, the CJL was embraced. Herein is one example of the action of the League. Some say we are outside the law. But most people agree that the law no longer serves the people, and some alternative is necessary lest our whole nation degenerate into a criminocracy.

The three of us were in an old country cottage. It was hardly the place that would be suspected as a Court of Cosmic Law. Jorge was there with his probation officer, and I accompanied them. We were in what once must have been a living room. The probation officer was a slightly overweight, but otherwise attractive blonde woman in her late twenties or early thirties. We had tied her up in an old wooden chair with nylon rope. Jorge and I sat on the floor. Jorge began his presentation.

"I'd like to begin by apologizing for any unnecessary roughness that might have occurred to you in your transport," said Jorge to the woman. She looked at him coolly. "I hope your restraints aren't too uncomfortable, Ms. Long. The process is simple and quick, and I assure you it is not painful."

"But you sir, are hurting big time," said Ms. Long.

"Brave lady." Jorge was drunk, and was probably taking drugs too. I kept telling him he had to get off that stuff, that it was changing him into one of them, into one of the criminal element, but he either did not listen or else he had truly become an addict. He held a syringe. Ms. Long looked at the syringe, then at Jorge, and then at me.

"Don't worry," Jorge repeated. "There are no drugs here. See? There is nothing in the syringe ... " He paused for effect, and then said, " ... yet."

Jorge motioned to me. I walked over to him, took the syringe, and drew blood from a vein in his arm as he had instructed. His veins were easy to see. He was gaunt, almost emaciated, and he probably had high blood pressure from his drinking. His veins bulged and his eyes were round and his Adam's apple protruded as if he had goiter.

Ms. Long was sweating although it was cool in the cottage.

"Don't worry, Ms. Long," said Jorge. "I haven't had a cold in years. Or flu. Or anything." He forced a laugh, and then sniffled. Ms. Long did not react.

I finished drawing the blood, and then sat next to Ms. Long.

Jorge sucked blood from the needle wound in his arm. Then, licking his lips, he continued: "I don't have any diseases. Not that I know of. Oh, I might have one, but I haven't been tested for that."

"Such a test is irrelevant here anyway," I said.

"True," said Jorge. He sucked the wound again. "You never know. I guess we'll all know eventually, though, won't we, Ms. Long?" He laughed again but did not smile. It was the first time I ever saw a person laugh without smiling. Then he got up and stood in a corner between two broken windows.

Jorge's breath wafted across the room to where Ms. Long and I were sitting. It smelled of alcohol, rotten fruit, and bad cheese, the breath of a dead man walking. His eyes were affixed upon Ms. Long. She tried to stare back but could not. Jorge's eyes looked like the images of eyes in a bad photograph, as he made loud, sucking noises with his mouth, extracting blood from the tiny hole in his forearm. I could not tell whether or not Jorge was smiling as he sucked, because his arm was in the way. His eyes did not seem attached to the rest of his face. Thus we all sat, I next to the probation officer upon whom Cosmic Justice was about to be served, and Jorge alone in his psychological singularity. He brushed some hair from his forehead as he continued to suck, his eyes never blinking nor moving from Ms. Long. His breathing made faint whooshing and squeaking noises through his nostrils.

Finally, Jorge took his arm down. "I was true to my ex-wife," he said. "I don't sleep around. I never have been that type. Lately, no one would have me anyway, what with the booze and all." He laughed, again without smiling, and I felt something like tiny insects crawling around on the back of my neck. I put my hand behind my head to brush the bugs off, but there were none there. "But," said Jorge, "there are always innocent victims."

"Always innocent victims," I echoed.

"It's often true, don't you think, that completely innocent people get caught in the crossfire of the war between the good and the evil, the haves and the have-nots?"

"Your victims were innocent enough," said Ms. Long.

"My victims! My victims! Where are they? There are none! I didn't commit the crime! Criminals go free and get rich, while innocents go to jail and go bankrupt."

The smell of the alcohol and toxic metabolites became stronger as Jorge began shouting. I felt my lunch working its way upward out of my stomach. I looked at the floor and swallowed hard and started breathing only through my mouth.

"I was unjustly dealt with here. I shouldn't even be on probation. I didn't commit any crime except to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"That's what they all say," said Ms. Long.

"And some of them may actually be right," said I, clearing my throat, feeling my lunch returning to its proper place.

"My accuser should be in jail. But I was lucky. I got probation. Didn't even have to go to jail for the supposed crime itself. I decided to go for the reduced charge, rather than take the case to trial, and get all you so-called criminal justice types out of my life."

"He'd have been railroaded in a trial," I said. "It would have cost the county a lot of money, and you know how they hate defendants who make them spend money -- "

" -- Whatever," Jorge cut me off. "I got probation. But when they want you behind bars, they'll find a way to get you there. So they gave me a speeding ticket, in a car I wasn't even driving."

"Fascinating, how these things work," I said.

"And thus I came before you, Your Probationary Highness," said Jorge, bowing down and kissing the floor. "and you had me thrown into the pokey."

Jorge stood up again and began shaking visibly, pointing his finger at Ms. Long, and I thought, for a moment, that he would attack her before the Cosmic Justice process could be carried out.

"I was acquitted of the speeding. No, not acquitted; the case was tossed out of court. But I went to jail. That is the point here."

"But you were found innocent by due process," said Ms. Long.

"You and your theoretical crap," said Jorge. "What matters here is the reality. The real world."

"Ms. Long," I said, "you know what men do to each other in jails."

"It is part of the punishment," said Ms. Long.

"Punishment for being acquitted?" Jorge went after the woman and I had to restrain him. I wrestled him onto a green sofa with springs sticking out. Dust rose into the air and formed clouds and we all coughed.

"Chill out, man," I said. "Settle down and let Cosmic Justice be served, will you?" Then to Ms. Long, I said, "You are a monster. You don't know what you're saying. You are not a man and you have not been in jail with men. But you will have time to reflect on the flaws in your philosophical outlook. Plenty of time to sort things out."

Jorge coughed and then said, "Nothing can undo what was done to me in that jail."

"That is the legal process," said Ms. Long.

"Hah!" shouted Jorge. "I wish there was a video of it. Then we could show it to you. We would have to clamp your eyelids open to make you watch your legal process."

"You women," I said, "can say that men deserve this or that sort of thing, which you can easily enough imagine, and can say that it is part of our punishment. As if men in jail are demons, as if they have no feelings, as if they deserve anything they get. I suppose if the jailers were to throw a man into a pit full of copperheads, bound and gagged, you would say that was part of his punishment too."

"But do that to a woman and then listen to the public outcry," said Jorge.

Ms. Long was silent.

"Jorge," I said, "you're drunk. Let's get on with the process and let this lady go on her way before you pass out."

"What do you want? To rape me?" asked Ms. Long.

"Rape? You're too ugly," said Jorge.

Ms. Long began to get impatient. "Do whatever you're going to do, and then you'd better look for a good place to hide."

"Mmmm," said Jorge, calming himself further, "just a few minutes more of your little life. That's all we want from you." Then he said to me, "Cosmic Justice is to be relished, is it not, Francisco?"

"Of course," I said.

"The stars and galaxies, the moon and planets demand that we enjoy the execution of their will, do they not?"

"Certainly," I said.

"Revenge is demanded in this case, isn't it?"

"Positively."

Ms. Long declared, "You're both insane."

"You have lovely eyes," I told her. She cast her gaze at the floor.

"I never committed either of the crimes that brought this whole business on, you know," Jorge said.

Ms. Long did not reply.

"But now it's too late," said Jorge. "That little detail is irrelevant to you, and therefore, it is irrelevant to the Cosmos as well."

"You are now guilty of abduction," said Ms. Long.

"Perhaps," said Jorge. "That will be for the CJL to decide."

"Cosmic Justice League," I clarified for the benefit of Ms. Long.

"You two have lost it!" she shouted. "You are a couple of cuckoos. Let me go and I'll recommend that you both get off by reason of insanity."

"You want to bargain with us?" said Jorge. "Bargain with us? Ha ha ha ha. You criminal justice professionals are great bargainers. Here's the deal: We give you a needle prick and then we let you go. Isn't that easy? What a bargain! Aren't we pushovers? You can bargain with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus later."

Ms. Long took a quick breath and her eyes widened.

"The virus that is quite possibly in this blood," I said. "As a result, of course, of what happened to him in jail."

All the color drained from Ms. Long's face.

"Go ahead and hate me," said Jorge. "Your reason is about to be forced on you, as my reason to hate you was forced on me. Francisco! Let's do it, before the little buggers get cold and die!"

"You are responsible for this," I said to Ms. Long as I injected Jorge's blood into her arm. She looked at me, then at Jorge, then at the springs popping out of the sofa, then at the clouds of dust that still hung in the room, and then out the windows. Finally she closed her eyes.

"As I said, I am not promiscuous," said Jorge. "If I have the virus, I got it in that jailhouse."

"But perhaps he does not have it," I said. "In fact, one might say he probably does not."

"As goeth my life, thus goeth yours," said Jorge. "Probability has nothing to do with it. Either I am HIV positive, or I am not. But if I am ..."

Ms. Long began to cry. But Jorge's and my eyes remained as dry as the dusty sofa. One of the membership requirements of the CJL, perhaps the only really difficult initiation rite, is that we receive a series of injections that deaden our sensibilities enough so that pity does not interfere with our ability to impart justice as mandated by the wisdom of the quasars.

"Herewith," said Jorge, sucking once again on his arm, "the legal process grindeth out its course."

"You are both in huge trouble," said Ms. Long. "When I tell the police -- "

"Who will believe you if you tell them the truth?" asked Jorge.

"They'll believe me," said Ms. Long.

"Just as you believed me," said Jorge.

"We," I said, "are officers of the Cosmic Justice League, the power of the stars, greater than anything on the earth. Belief or disbelief is of no concern to us. Only absolute truth matters to us."

"Consider it an honor to have made love to a principal of the CJL," said Jorge.

"Made love!"

"Why, yes! How else could you get the virus from me? By sharing needles?" Jorge hooted.

"Gawd," said Ms. Long.

"Do you fully understand all this, little lady?" I asked.

"I will never understand the likes of you," said Ms. Long.

"Let her go," said Jorge.

"She'll have the sheriff here any minute," I said.

"We won't be here," said Jorge.

I recalled our escape plan, but it seemed less foolproof now than it originally had, now that our liberty actually depended on it. But we had promised to let Ms. Long go, and the CJL never breaks a promise.

I cut Ms. Long loose. She did not move while I freed her. Even after all the ropes were severed, she was slow to rise. As I cut the ropes, I felt her breath on my face, and there was a fragrance about her. In another place, in another time, we might have been lovers.

I took her hand but she pulled away. I led her to the door of the cottage.

She stood in the open doorway, sunlight shining from behind, making a spectrum of light in her hair. She looked at Jorge and then at me as if we were children who had starved to death in a desert famine.

"Goodbye, little woman," I said.

Ms. Long turned around, and then she was gone.

Jorge and I had a few moments before we would be compelled to run.

"Jorge, do you think this is right?" I asked.

"What else could we do?" he shrugged.

"You could have been tested, and sued the state if you turned out HIV positive."

"For what? Money to pay for my funeral?"

"I suppose this is fair," I said, "But I'm not sure fairness is always the same as being right. I have a feeling there is something to Cosmic truth that the CJL has not yet figured out."

"Give me the syringe," he said. I complied.

"Do you think the stars and galaxies and quasars are proud of us?" I asked.

Jorge played with the empty syringe. Then he shrugged, "Who gives a damn?"

Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000 by Francisco Carrera.