Shicksville Justice

It’s a working title.

I’ve got some of the story.

Including, for the first time in a long time, the ending! Yep, I know how each one of these bumbling idiots creates their own demise.

Ok, so it’s a dark comedy.

But it’s based in reality. And…you know….Writers Should Always Write What They Know.

Do you need some back story here? Are you lost yet?

Oh….ok. But, you’ll have to grab a cup of your favorite beverage and perhaps a bit of Old Toby, settle in, put your feet up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Picture It! Christmastime! New London, CT! 1996!

In the cold and the snow, a poor young mother is driving her crappy Ford Taurus home from Bradlees where she was able to eek out enough money from the meager Family Budget to buy each of her two daughters a porcelain doll for Christmas.

While traveling at a respectable rate of speed down Colman St., our young heroine is pulled over by NLPD for the egregious offense of an expired tag. 😦

Said young mother is just that…young. She’s poor. If she were rich (or simply just had ‘enough’ money) she would have re-registered the car on time but the price of car insurance has become prohibitive if one enjoys having a roof and food, that is. Why? Mostly because the price of living in a house that’s in bad need of upgrades in the City of New London, CT with no money in ones pockets can lead to strangers poking around your house, looking in your windows, and trying to assess how much they’re going to bid on it at auction.

Oh, yes, there’s soooooo much backstory there but we can’t get into it right now. Just accept that, living this way, has made young mother very prone to panic attacks, anxiety, and agoraphobia so bad she had to psych herself for days to make the less than 3 mile trip to Bradlees to get those porcelain dolls.

Young mother deals with the NLPD office (bit of a dick but what else is new?), takes the ticket, and drives home. She scrambles to get the car insured and registered before her appointed court date at great expense to her family and Christmas 1996. She accomplishes this task but the idea of going to Court is so terrifying to our young mother’s brain that she just can’t do it. Her brain is so warped by everything else that’s going on in her life she can hardly get out of bed most days.

She takes all the proof the Court is going to want to see anyway, put it in an envelope with an apologetic letter, and mails it off.

She never hears a word from them.

Several months later she gets a notice informing her that her Connecticut State Driver’s License has been suspended for Failure to Appear in Court.

This does young mother and her wrongly firing brain no good.

She throws it in the trash and promptly gets on with her life.

More backstory here but we’re going to skip it.

Picture it! Uncasville, CT! Spring! 2023!

(No, I’m not kidding about the date….we are indeed Twenty-Seven Years Later)

Young Mother is now Grandma. She works less than 5 miles away from her front door. Just over the Gold Star Memorial Bridge. She drives back and forth to work every day. She never gets into an accident. She never gets a speeding ticket.

Oh yeah…In All Those Years.

One day, a nice sunny day in May, a person’s “tire blows” on said Gold Star Memorial Bridge while Grandma is at work. Grandma’s daughter texts to inform of her said accident but in her aging brain Grandma thinks its the Other Bridge (there are two, one South Bound and one North Bound). She stays at work doing her thing when the news keeps coming to her. Daughter texts pictures of Big Fire and sends video footage of the blazing fuel truck. Finally, Grandma gets up from her desk and leaves work 1 hour earlier than normal.

Outside of being stuck on the George Washington Bridge for over 3 hours when she was 5 months pregnant, this is the largest traffic jam Grandma has ever seen. It never broke. Not once. It was bumper-to-bumper. No more than 5 miles an hour at any given point. Filled with assholes cutting in and out of the line. In short, it was the most panic inducing experience Grandma ever suffered through and, to tell you the utter truth and shame the devil here, if Grandma hadn’t had her vape with her…..Grandma would have lost her shit!

It takes Grandma 7.5 hours to get from Fort Griswold in Groton, CT to (roughly) St. Bernards High School in Uncasville–or is it Montville, whatever, who cares? Go ahead and use GoogleMaps for that one. I’ll wait.

It os there, near St. Bernards that Grandma got pulled over by a Montville Cop.

Just the traffic finally broke and she could stop wearing her shoulders for earrings she saw the flashing lights behind her.

Was she speeding?

Driving wrecklessly?

No.

Any guesses……anybody?

Who said it?

Yes. An expired tag.

Well, we don’t have tags anymore. The Cops have little Cylon Like devices that just scan your plate so they can….well let’s stop here and continue on with our little story, shall we?

Grandma is fucking beat. She is spent. She gives the cop no guff, which is very unusual for Grandma. She takes her ticket. Gets an Uber home. Where the irony is not lost on her. Yet, she’s already keenly aware that, because of where she was pulled over, she’s going to have to deal with Shicksville instead of the intelligent people in the Big City.

Total bummer.

She does as she did 27 years before and scrambled to get the car registered and insured although she’s already aware that she can’t be prosecuted with driving an unregistered uninsured vehicle because she didn’t own said vehicle. In fact, Grandma hasn’t owned a vehicle in…oh yeah look at that….27 years.

Grandma brings her paperwork to the Shicksville Court House. Now, in the Big City, where Grandma is from, this piddly little matter would be what is called a One And Done.

One trip to Court. Plead guilty. Pay the fine. Go home.

Not in Schicksville.

Nope.

The first thing Grandma noticed about the Shicksville Court House is how utterly bland and faceless it is. It’s awful. Very little signage. No direction at all.

The second thing Grandma noticed was how empty it is compared to the Big City. Those folks were milling about with no direction asking each other what they should do. Grandma didn’t hesitate to inform them because Grandma spent 8 years working in a law office and Grandma has danced with Connecticut Legal System more than once.

The first “prosecutor” didn’t seem to have a clue when Grandma tried….and I do mean she sincerely tried….to show him her paperwork. He didn’t care. He just cared about Twenty-Seven Years Ago. Gave Grandma no advice. No direction. No….nothing. Just Grandma another Court Date and told her to come back.

For what…Grandma didn’t know.

This did not make Grandma happy.

At all.

Grandma, very begrudgingly did as she was told and she went back at the appointed date only to be told she was not on the docket that day. The male prosecutor had given her the wrong date, thereby wasting her time, and dwindling patience.

Grandma went back a third time where she met a second prosecutor who for the upcoming story Shicksville Justice is known as Karen Dullard. If you’re a Harry Potter fan think….Ms. Umbridge. You know you hated her even before she opened her mouth The prosecutor was even dressed in pink and she….tittered.

State’s Attorney Karen Dullard was of no help whatsoever. She, too, didn’t want to look at Grandma’s paperwork showing newly paid taxes, insurance, emissions, and registration. She just wanted to know, and I quote; “What are WE going to do about getting YOUR license reinstated?”

Twenty-Seven years.

Ya know, Karen, you’d think if I wanted the damn thing I would have done it by now. Oh yes, BTWs, Karen, driving isn’t mandatory.

So Grandma said: “I don’t know, what are WE going to do about it?”

Instead of being intelligent, like they are in the Big City, and saying something reasonable like; You could plead guilty and pay the fine.

She said; “This is punishable by 90 days in jail or 90 days probation.”

At which point Grandma openly laughed because Grandma doesn’t have a criminal record so she knew that was BS right off the bat. Grandma because very very tempted when prosecutor Karen said “it could go to trial”. Because, by then Grandma was in the mood to was the precious time of 12 Connecticut Citizens on the pittance of a matter. Grandma is still in that mood.

Grandma said; “Well, I don’t know what to tell you. Have you found what I’m charged with yet?” There was some confusion over the correct charge. Was it Driving With A Suspended License or Driving Without A License. Over a decade prior Grandma had gone to the DMV on this matter where she was told….and I quote…..”could not be found in the system”. At that time, as far as DMV was concerned, Grandma didn’t event exist even though she showed them her State ID. Ah…..a story for another time. I’m full of them today.

Grandma had to finally straighten that out for the Court because that’s how inept they are in Shicksville and we’ll get to that.

Prosecutor Karen said; “I’m the prosecutor I shouldn’t be talking to you!”

Duh, Karen, that’s exactly why you’re supposed to be talking to me but…..oh well.

Again Grandma said: “I don’t know what to tell you.”

Prosecutor Karen said: “You can get a public defender!”

Grandma was already pissed and in the mood to play so she marched right down to the Public Defender’s Office which is more than just a bad joke and we’ll get too along with Public Defender Dorothy Dullard in a moment and signed up a State Paid Attorney over a charge of Driving Without a License.

Grandma went into the Court Room where she watched Judge Opy Howard do his thing. In said Court Room Grandma realized that this was taking so long because these people needed to justify their existence. You see, Shicksville is the Last Bastion of what passed for Civilization before you hit the Massachusetts State Line.

Grandma watched small case after small case go by. A few were interesting. They’ll make good fodder along with this experience but on the whole….eh…not much going on there.

Judge Howard was informed that Grandma had applied for a Public Defender. Judge Howard looked a little perplexed but he sent Grandma home and told her to come back.

In the meantime, Grandma dealt with the DMV. She paid $75.00 to get her “privilege to drive reinstated” (remember that word? Keep it in your head) She paid $60.00 to the Big City Court to have her 27 year-old case “reopened”. She went to the Big City Court where she showed the very nice and friendly State’s Attorney her paperwork that her “privilege to drive” had ben reinstated. The Big City State’s Attorney giggled at Grandma and promptly sent home. As she walked out of the Big City Court House wishing those in Shicksville had just ne iota of the intelligence shown in the Big City, Grandma laughed.

Grandma went back to Shicksville for a whopping 5th time!

Grandma met Public Defender Dorothy Dotage. Think Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz only not as bright. This is evidenced by the fact that Dorothy was utterly incapable of asking a pertinent question never mind an intelligent one. Grandma becomes immediately aware that Dorothy is nothing more than a Place Holder. An old fashioned Go Along to Get Along kind of a gal. Grandma has met a lot of these people over the course of her life and hardly ever hesitates to let them know they are useless. Putting up a real defense is probably one the last things Public Defender is actually capable of doing.

Grandma promptly gave Dorothy her DMV paperwork showing she had met the Shickville State’s Attorney’s condition that she be “reinstated”. She even pointed it out and made sure to tell Dorothy that had been Karen’s stipulation and, quite obviously, it’s been met. In the Big City that would have been the end of this pathetic little matter but in Shicksville….

Dorothy’s only question was: “What happened back in 1999? Why didn’t you go get your license back?”

Grandma is disheartened to say the least that this is her ‘defender’. Grandma, by now, is just having fun at the expense of the State of Connecticut. A institution that could have made a few hundred bucks off her buck now is paying the same for this time waster.

One thing about Grandma, win, lose, or draw, she will always tell you the truth. So Grandma said: “I didn’t care to. I had other things to do.”

Defender Dotage cried out (no better way to put it, sorry) like a little bitch: “You can’t do that! You can’t drive without a licsense!”

At which point it took every ounce of effort Grandma had not to laugh in her face and get Defender Dotage a dictionary. Grandma happens to be a writer so if anyone at any time shows a lack of command of the English language, it lets Grandma know how stupid you are. But, Grandma gathered her composure and did not inform Ms. Dotage that the words ‘can’ and ‘cannot’ refer to physicality. Whether or not someone is actually, physically able, to do something. Obviously, Dorothy, Grandma is quite capable of that so she CAN but she’s NOT SUPPOSED TO or you can say it is ILLEGAL.

Grandma skipped over Dorothy’s head. “I haven’t heard anything about the driving without a registration or insurance. Not that me you can prosecute me for it anyway.”

Again, (I swear I’m not making this) Dorothy CRIED: “You can’t do that! You can’t do that!”

Grandma really started having fun at this point, “It’s not my car,” Grandma informed Dorothy, “I’m not legally responsible for the upkeep including insurance and registration.”

Dorothy’s eyes grew even wider as her mouth dropped open as though she were catching flies.

Grandma continued, “No one’s asked me for the paperwork in the several trips I’ve made up here. None of them down there,” Grandma hitched her thumb toward the State’s Attorney’s Office, “even wanted to look at it no matter how many times I tried to give it to them so…..”

Grandma’s voice trailed so keep her from adding; “Do I really have to do you’re fucking job for you, bitch?”

“Well, I wanna look at it! Where is it!” Cried Dorothy.

So Grandma went out to the car, got the paperwork, and finally, after 5…cold them….1 2, 3, 4, 5….attempts….someone in Shicksville actually looked at it.

Dumbstruck by Grandma’s lack of stupidity and her forthrightness, Dorothy made copies. Dorothy wanted to know how long it was going to take Grandma to get license back. Grandma reminded Dorothy that driving was not mandatory and if she ever felt like doing that she would.

Again, Dorothy CRIED: “If you want to drive you have to have a license!”

“Yes, that’s right.” Said Grandma. Knowing Dorothy did not understand, Grandma left it at that.

“I don’t know how the judge will feel about this!” Stammered Dorothy.

To wit Grandma grinned and quietly whispered, “I don’t care.” Grandma whispered that because she was sick of waiting for Dorothy to do her damn properly by laying out ALL of Grandma’s options including Grandma’s right to plead guilty and pay the fucking fine.

As should have been the case 4 visits to Shicksville prior.

Dorothy and Karen decided they wanted to take away Grandma’s legal options.

The last time Grandma looked, when it comes to the American “Justice” System that is no-no.

Grandma went back into the Court Room of Judge Opy Howard and again watched small case after small go by with a few exception of Drunk and Disorderly but Already On Probation. Nothing happened to those people. One guy was interesting. He looked like Charlie Manson’s twin brother and was found incompetent to stand trial.

Yeah. Duh. On that one babe. There is nothing behind those eyes.

Finally Grandma go her turn. She walked straight up there with her shoulders back and her head high. grandma was quickly informed the only charge against her was….Driving Without a License. Seems, during their short heartfelt absence from one another, Dorothy got an education she might be able to use to actually use defend people with–should she ever choose to do that job she’s paid for by the State–the next time around. What can we say? Grandma does love it when she knows more than the…experts?

Anyway, Judge Opy Howard gave Grandma 30 days to get her license back.

For, oh, two weeks or so, Grandma played around with the idea of just never going back. BUT, in the end, she was just having too much fun not to see this through. Shaming the devil again, it’s annoying, it’s exasperating, but that’s the way Grandma likes it. She’s always considered herself to be akin to the Slave who ran next to the Chariot carrying the Roman Emperor through the streets of Rome while throngs of his citizens threw laurels at his feet, lauding him, praising him, lavishing their love upon him. Do you know what that Slaves job was? Whispering “you’re only mortal” in his ear over and over again to remind him he was definitely not too big for his britches. Any time Grandma gets to stick it to so-called “Authority” and be a royal pain their ass, Grandma is in her Happy Place.

Grandma went through the DMV hoops and made an appointment to get her….Learner’s Permit. She purposefully made the appointment so it was just days before her next Court Appearance.

Grandma did not download the Connecticut Driver’s Manual.

Grandma did not study in any manner whatsoever for this very important test. Which drove Grandma’s hubby a bit batty because he’s a bit hung up on this “authority” thing.

Grandma went to the DMV today and spent more time sitting around waiting for someone to give her a printed copy of her Learner’s Permit than she did taking the test….by far. Damn, nothing in that place has changed! For the technology, the appointment making, and the absolute lack of people in the place….they are still slower than molasses in January while complaining how “swamped” they are. Problem with that is, Grandma has seen more people in line at the deli at Stop & Shop than she did at DMV today. Once Upon a Time the place was really was swamped. Today it qualifies as a Ghost Town.

Grandma’s mug shot is better than Trumps’! No lie. If you could see it…you’d run screaming from the crazy bitch with the wild eyes that are clearly telling anyone who sees it to fuck of.

Grandma’s going back to Shicksville on September 1st….for a record SIXTH TIME… where she firmly intends to slide that Learner’s Permit between the butt cheeks of Karen, Dorothy, and poor slightly befuddled Opy like a CitiBank Visa Card.

After that…who knows? Maybe she’ll get a full license. Maybe she’ll turn it back into a State ID because, in the end, Grandma fucking HATES to drive and she ALWAYS has. She’s fallen head over heels in love with Uber. At the end of her next Court Appearance she sincerely hopes she will have tasted enough of the State’s time, money, and resource to justify the jobs of both Karen and Dorothy on what undoubtedly should have been a One and Done sweet little down and dirty money maker for the State of Connecticut.

Does anybody audit this place? If so, they might want to take a look at how much money the Shicksville Court House is bleeding the citizens out of.