East Wing, Part II

My grandfather was elected vice-president almost twenty years ago. Four years later, he returned for a second term. He wasn’t voted into office, despite what the results said. Voter fraud. That was the first of the crimes uncovered in the investigation.

The court case was laughable, just another series of the official procedure government is so smitten with. The sentence was obvious from the beginning. Life, because of a nasty little side project that left twelve US soldiers and most of a Middle Eastern village rotting in the sun. Also a bit of a snafu with the foster care system that ended up diverting child healthcare funds into my grandfather's bank account. Juries are predictably sympathetic to cases involving sick little kiddies.

My father got nailed for tax fraud. My mother’s network of internet scams was uncovered shortly afterward. Even my teenage cousin got into the spirit of things: he was caught trying to rob a convenience store with a sock over his head and a gun stolen off the mantle of an elderly neighbor.

I was a child of criminals, raised by criminals, destined to become a criminal myself. It was in my blood, in my DNA. The foster care system had ground to a splintering halt the year before, thanks to dear ol’ Grandad. So it was decided I would stay with my parents. So be it if I became a crook: I was in prison already. Preemptive incarceration.

Logic. Fucking twisted messed-up government logic.

I pace the floor of my cell, my room, my world because what else can I do? I'm convicted for the crime of birth. Of existing. Guilty as charged, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Look at this girl, sixteen years old. Watch her darting eyes, her shifty hands. Note the resemblance to her mother, her father, to the disgraced vice president of twenty years ago. Remember the dead troops? Remember the sick little children without medicine, without doctors, without hospitals or treatment or any health care at all because of what this girl's grandfather did? What a sick man, sick family, sick girl, ladies and gentlemen. Put them to justice. Make them pay.

And the gavel slams down.

Justice. Justice! There is no justice. There is only punishment. The criminals are kept off the streets so law-abiding citizens can sleep at night, honest people who obey the rules and keep their heads down and their ears closed because they're afraid of what they might hear. They file into the courtrooms and watch the sentences get doled out. They applaud. I know. I saw the tapes. The opposing lawyer convinced them all to slam a child in jail, and they applauded.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, who is guilty now?