A Question of Guilt and Innocence

In a backroom of the nightclub Limbo, separated by a green felt round card table two men, both shady lawyers gave each other the hairy eyeball. On the table top in a spread-out mass of paper documentation, rather sharp black and white eight by ten glossy photographs with lines and arrows on the front and a paragraph written on the back. In the sharp tailored black suit, straight black and white stripe tie, a Prussian blue stiff collared shirt, is The Devil’s advocate, Grigori Corson, esquire. Facing him down in a brown poorly fitted blown pinstripe, a round old man wearing coke bottle thick glass, a portly man, named Jude Kermartin. Watching them, through the open double doors are the regular denizens, those souls that came, went and stayed for their own amusement, penitence or most often, because they were lost.

“Come on Jude,” Grigori shouted. “Yeah, my boss’s man, The Lizard was trespassing but your boss cut off his legs and arms! You know he use to play the fiddle? Now he’s pushed around in a wheelchair by his bitch until his insurance gets him one of those electric types with a straw you put in your mouth and drive it with…You call that fair?”

“Well, HE calls it fair…” Jude stoically replied. “The fence to the garden is posted, and the chain link around the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, had a padlocked gate. Somebody broke that off…”

“He’s a lizard! Short tiny arms and no pockets to carry bolt cutters! Adam and Eve, did that!”

“They were nudist then…No pockets either…” Jude smirked.

“Then who broke the lock?” Grigori countered. “Maybe Adam picked up a rock? The Liard couldn’t.”

“I have forever to argue the point,” Jude shrugged.

“Then why are we here?” Grigori retorted. “I’m here seeking restitution for a crippled lizard.”

“He knew what he was doing and who he was messing with…”

“Okay, we’ll play it that way,” Grigori answered sharply. “Your boss has two tenants. One came from dirt and the other maybe his sister…”

“Hearsay. Eve isn’t his sister and you know it…”

“Well, some say she was taken from his side; others say his rib…Sounds like a familial relationship. Says here…” Grigori went on finding a particular document. “Says here they also left with their cat…”

“What cat? If Adam has a cat, we don’t know it.”

“Well what else don’t you know? Let’s get to the chase…Innuendo and rumor won’t cut it. The issue here is The Lizard and his case. We admit he jumped the fence and we claim moral imperative. Look, your boss, He acted in loco parentis to two human beings that didn’t know right from wrong…Children. So, he intentionally planted said tree in the garden, planned from the beginning and I have the zoning permit…”

“Your point?” Jude interrupted.

“Point being your client, He had every reason to believe these children would get into it…That’s the reason for the lock on the gate.”

“Loco parentis…He, is demonstrating responsibility…And your snake?”

“Snake ha, ha, ha. Jude we both know He is far from stupid and knew eventually this would happen. Now why even bother put it there?”

“His property. His prerogative…”

“Well, it’s Snake’s…” Grigori caught himself. “You bastard you got me thinking that now. My client took the moral prerogative. Adam, Eve and the potential cat…Ha, ha, ha…Have the right, irrespective to any tenant agreement to know exactly the business deal they were entering into. Your boss told them you eat of the fruit of the tree…You shall die. As far as that goes they’re off in the Nod district east of His Eden Estate, with a vegetable stand and a heard of goats. Dirty work but very much alive.”

“More than one way to die. It was a death of innocence. We admit their eyes were opened and if Snake left them alone their lives would be very much different. Your Snake took advantage of them.”

“Who’s taking advantage of who? That’s the point Jude. They have a right to know and plainly understand any agreements. He spoke to them using a form of sophistry…A play on words knowing it could be taken more than one way, and, knowing how they’d take it.”

“He said it plainly…Not our problem if Eve had a lapse in judgement…Or if Adam interpreted her statements in an imaginative manner,” Jude countered. “Sophistry cuts both ways.”

“So do flaming swords…”

“He has every right to protect is property from vandals…”

“And Snake should still be a lizard.”

Both stared at each other, waiting for the other to blink. Both knew the ultimate outcome, this like every case, would be put on the docket to be settled by judgement. Meanwhile outside of this small dark corner of Limbo the crowd on the ballroom floor began to dance.