The Crime Hump Chronicles: Going Down On Me

I’m walking down this busy street in the city. Almost everyone here is dressed professionally. The ones that aren’t ask if I have an extra cigarette. All of them. I always do. I stop at this coffee shop I always stop at. I have a voicemail. It’s the public editor from the Toronto Star. They’re threatening me with legal action too.

I get to his building. He’s on the top floor. I go in for our meeting. He gives me homework. A lot of homework, but I can handle it. I know what to do. This is my story after all.

Day 1: Prepare mentally for the next few days, plan attack.

Day 2: Such a blur there is no entry for day two. Just paper, so much paper.

Day 3: Slightly more organized piles of paper, getting there, starting to type it out and have settled differences with printer. It’s starting to come together.

Day 4: Done. Hundreds and hundreds of pages reduced to two small, simple, concise and easy to follow binders, all labelled and tabbed appropriately, in duplicate of course. Next step is proof read, proof read, proof read. Luckily, I had Professor Red Pen in college that ensured I acquired this important skill.

My close friends know I’m up to something when I don’t answer their messages. They know I’m most likely waist deep in my work and incoherent to anything else. One comes to visit and says I need a break. We small talk a bit, as coherently as I can, but she knows I’m eager to get back at it. She doesn’t stay long and tells me to text her next Tuesday. I have some pretty great friends.  

I go back to see my lawyer on Tuesday, with all my homework complete. We go through it all. He has a meeting later that day. He says I might scare them if he brings me so he says to just be available by phone at a certain time. He calls later and what he says, well, I can’t write about for now. My trial is in less than two weeks and all I can say is that things are getting interesting.

It’s the next day. I’m at the centre I volunteer at. My lawyer calls me. I go to the back but everyone hears me anyways. He tells me some more info I can’t write about yet, but the conclusion is that my trial will be adjourned for a few months.   

Judicial processes, the foreplay of justice. I shouldn’t be so surprised, but I’ve had more than my fill of justice going down on me. I’m ready for the real thing and I am ready now. 

Kelley Denham