Alex's Stories
Too Anecdoted
by Alex Aitken

"Shit!" I said when I picked it up from my P.O. Box.

"Shit! I said again, two hours later as I sat in the makeshift rural courthouse that was rented each Friday morning from the Royal Canadian Legion in Peenawak.

My client was an Indian by the name of Billy Three Feathers. My opponent was a lady attorney out of the City of Winnipeg with a face that threatened to stop the town clock.

The judge was as poor an excuse for a man as I had seen since last Friday. He too was from the city.

The six rows of rickety wooden chairs in the Legion Hall that lay between the lawyers and the cracked entrance door were sparsely occupied by other accused waiting their turn, wives and relatives of victims, and a few of the town's pensioners - the good old boys - who came every week for their morning's entertainment. They sat in checked shirts and suspenders, sporting baseball caps that read Wheat Pool or Retired -no money or I drove the Coquihalla.

Billy Three Feathers was easily the best-looking man in the hall.

"Anecdoted" - I had double checked it - "pertaining to personal reflection, of or concerning private….."

"Number eleven, Three Feathers!" The little bald clerk of the court, who used to work for the C.P.R., piped the words in a cock-a-doodle-doo voice that had earned him his nickname, "Henny" Johnston. He glowered at old Bill Giles in the pensioners' seats challenging him to have a proper respect for the proceedings. The octogenarian banged his walking stick on the bare floor - "Three months to retirement Henny," he cackled and the others joined in. Henny pursed his lips and looked pleadingly towards the judge who ignored him.

I blinked and got up to approach the counsel table. "I appear for Mr. Three Feathers, Your Honour." I motioned to my client.

The big Indian stood up. His eyes had a tired, vacant look as they panned around the room; from me to the little clerk, the judge and the pensioners' gallery, then back to me. Billy Three Feathers looked older than his thirty-two years. He had the no-necked, big shouldered appearance of his nation -Dakota Sioux - and the kind of flat wide face and big nose that might have been handsome in an earlier time, before the Europeans came. The dull black hair fell unevenly to his shoulders and he constantly flicked up his head to clear it from his eyes with a kind of bold arrogance.

I could do two things at once and usually did. Still pondering on my rejected story, I launched into the ritualistic monologue.

"Your Honour, this matter was remanded from two weeks ago to allow Mr. Three Feathers to obtain legal counsel and consider his plea. Your Honour, we are prepared to enter a plea at this time."

The lady Crown Attorney rose. "Your Honour, this is my understanding also. Your Honour, the Crown is ready to proceed." She got to her feet, spoke the words and sat down all in one fluid motion without lifting her eyes from the file on her desk.

"Mr Johnston will read the charges," the judge continued tonelessly. Now the morning process was under way.

The pensioners relaxed back in their chairs with a bit of throat clearing and sniffing and pressing the odd pinch of tobacco into a cheek.

"Anecdote…narrative of a detached incident." I was trying to figure out what was wrong with detached incidents. " …unpublished details of history…" That was true - unpublished was bloody true OK - for sure.

"…that you did, at approximately 10.30 p.m. on the 10^th. Day of September at or near the town of Peenawak, unlawfully consume alcohol, to wit two bottles of beer…" Henny screeched on with his weekly performance ever hoping to impress the pensioners.

Three Feathers stood there, impassive, now and then flicking up his hair.

"…contrary to the Liquor Control Act of…."

Old Bill tapped his stick on the floor. "Hey, Alex, is your man guilty eh? What will you get for this one eh? Two hundred bucks eh?"

The pensioners smacked their lips. The judge raised his head as if he might speak, then looked back at the papers on his table.

My man pleaded guilty.

"Carry on Miss Tope," the judge nodded to the lady attorney.

Helen Tope was no beauty, inside or out. She didn't enjoy life nor any of its pleasures. All she enjoyed was screwing people. I knew it. Everyone in the court knew it; even Billy Three Feathers - especially Billy Three Feathers. The last time he had been caught drinking beer in a truck he had been fined the maximum, and then he went to jail for thirty days for non-payment of the fine. The last time had been the fourth time. This was the fifth time.

Helen Tope put on her little working sneer as she began to recount the tale of how Billy came to be "in this court-room today."

"Too anecdoted my arse! What did they know about life, about men's lives….what the hell did they know?"

Miss Tope relished each unlawful detail of the accused's clandestine guzzling of two beers while he sat on the hood of a truck parked behind a grain elevator, shooting the shit as Indians do.

"….and his attitude when cautioned by the police officer, Your Honour," she looked up at the judge, pausing for full effect, "was….argumentative."

She spat out the word as if it had a bad taste. She looked at Three Feathers and then at me and the sneer returned.

Three Feathers flicked the hair back from his eyes. He knew what came next. The lady attorney would now recount all the previous offences and look for the maximum sentence - more if she could get it. The good old boys in the stalls were breathless with anticipation.

I thought about the time Uncle Jack got up after a lunch of drinks at the British Legion and sang "Hearts in Exile" in a bass voice that sounded like the Volga.

Judge Albright really was a useless judge. His appointment to the bench had been a political thank you for a substantial donation to the party from an even more substantial legacy from his bachelor great uncle. Albright's donation shot him from incompetent associate to ineffectual justice in a few short weeks.

A skimpy reddish beard tried unsuccessfully to span his big florid face. It was the face of a lightweight with darting little eyes that constantly dodged contact. Albright spent his time trying to avoid decisions in a decision-ridden occupation, and he managed surprisingly well. This was one of his easy days.

Three Feathers was an Indian and everyone knew what Indians were. They were guilty. Everyone knew that.

Miss Tope came to the end of her plea for inclemency and Albright smiled benignly at her. A period of incarceration was demanded by the lady - a substantial period of incarceration in view of the accused's record - six months at least.

"What did they know, these publishers?"

"Mr. Aitken…Mr. Aitken!" Albright was addressing me, going through the motions. He banged his gavel on the bench and old Bill banged his stick on the floor.

"Yer man's goin' to jail, Alex - straight to jail without passin' go, and you git the two hundred bucks." Bill cackled to his supporters who joined in. "Straight to jail….two hundred bucks…"

Billy Three Feathers just plain didn't care. The whole process had nothing to do with him. His apparent lack of interest in the proceedings was not an act. Billy had never felt that anything mattered in the white man's world. He existed there, but it wasn't a life. It was a drab succession of days, without purpose or direction, with only a few beers now and then to uplift the soul. One day he would get up and go. Get up and walk away from this. Go somewhere…he didn't know where but not here…. somewhere…

I stood up. I had resolved to try once more to explain the crazy inequalities of an ill-conceived law as it applied to men like Billy Three Feathers. I looked from the heartless Miss Tope to the witless Albright and I knew it was hopeless.

I could feel the anger rising in me.

"Your Honour, the law in this province prohibits the consumption of alcohol in any public place or any vehicle. In fact, it can only be consumed in a person's home or in a bar or lounge. Beer purchased from a vendor for off-sales use can only be lawfully consumed at home. My client, Mr. Three Feathers, lives on an Indian reservation - a reservation that, as you know, Your Honour, and as my learned friend Miss Tope knows, is dry. Possession of intoxicants on that reservation is an offence.

"What that means, Your Honour, is that Mr. Three Feathers, while he can go to a vendor and buy a case of beer like the next man - like yourself perhaps, Your Honour, has a problem immediately thereafter. He can't drink it for he has no place to drink it within the law. And if he does proceed to open the case and take a beer behind the elevator, harming nobody, annoying nobody, my learned friend will demand that he go to jail for six months. Your Honour, I think the injustice of this is so apparent that I need say no more, and I trust to your sense of fairness Your Honour and leave the disposal of the matter in your capable hands."

I sat down. I knew it was a waste of time, that Albright had no sense of fairness - in fact no sense at all - and that his hands were not capable. I glanced behind me and wished that Old Bill had been the judge. Bill sensed the thought and made a brief thumbs-up sign accompanied by a very kind smile. In the silence that followed, the judge ruffled his papers, staring now and then at Three Feathers.

The hardest bit of the whole trek was the first steps, the decision to start walking. That was what Uncle Jack had said. Once he had summoned up the courage to get up and start walking, to get up and go, to leave the rows of shacks and dying men, it got easier. That was because he was going home. That's what Uncle Jack had said.

Judge Albright sentenced Billy Three Feathers to six months in jail, mumbling something about horrendous record and teaching him a lesson. The best looking man in the room was led away by a square cut little sheriff officer with a moustache.

Two weeks later, when I had just got back to work on a re-write of Uncle Jack's trek and the first steps of it, I heard that Billy Three Feathers had escaped from custody while out with a working party and had just walked off into the Brandon hills. He hadn't been seen since.

I thought briefly about my former client and felt a sudden sadness that came from somewhere just beyond my understanding.