Law And order

Yesterday a former assistant D.A. and judge here in Orange County ended himself as the FBI was headed for his doorstep. This has been raging through my brain all day and night. I’ve never been a big law and order guy, certainly not a big fan of the legal system. If you’ve ever been prepped by lawyers for a criminal proceeding you know that truth and right and wrong has nothing to do with the process.

That said, it’s one thing to accept that fact that you are a criminal and the majority of your personal associations are criminals, and you live your life as a criminal and to be a guy who has been on the other side, or even worse, pretended to be on the other side.

Being a criminal is complicated enough; I feel genuine sympathy and empathy for this guy. It’s an insidious process, for me personally it started with a disdain for authority at a young age that grew until one day I looked in the mirror and felt my heart break at the reality of who and what I’d become. What started as a rush and a thrill and a game to see just how much I could get away with slowly became who I am.

I recall clearly the cathartic moment when I realized I had to change, simply because the complexity of my lies had forced me to face the fact that even I didn’t know my truth any more. The arrest and death of some very close friends at this time certainly contributed to this catharsis.

I’ll never forget the feeling that night when the voice screamed in my head that something—everything in my life had to change. I was at a party to celebrate the good news that the pending charges were to be dropped due to a technicality, after a brutal year of lawyers and sketchy confederates, and loosely fabricated lies and sworn oaths of allegiance from people I’d not trust to walk a dog without fucking something up, we were all free. Free to continue on with our rapidly devolving lives. The true sensation that we’d dodged the proverbial bullet one more time. It was the best feeling imaginable. Not just relief, but the very sense I’d done it again, I’d beat the system one more time. No one was smarter than me, I was too slick to get caught. I was the man!

About an hour into the party one of my cohort’s lawyers walked in, uninvited and unwelcome and pissed on our little celebration. In his words, a new witness had come forward. He looked directly at me, and my friend Luis. I heard the words “damning evidence…” I felt sick, like I wanted to throw up sick. Suddenly all the bros who had sworn allegiance and loyalty started to move away from each other and into their own corners, back into cover their own ass mode.

It took another year and a lot of lawyer money, but I skated on that one. I believe my being a white guy, and gifted with a line of bullshit a mile long saved me, not the lawyers… but I know exactly how that poor guy yesterday felt. It’s a moment when the walls close in literally, it’s suffocating, it’s terrifying, it’s exposing. That door swings open and you and your life, your entire act is splayed open. Sadly, I guess it was more than he could face.

I find no humor or self-justification or rationalization of my own past in the fact this guy was a judge or a D.A. I cannot laugh at the hypocrisy, It just proves to me under the hood we are all just playing a role, and we are all just part of a large and insidious game. We see it all the time, from local politicians to those at the federal level. That holier than thou North Carolina lieutenant governor running for governor busted for his antics on a porn site. We’ve all got back pages. I’m no better or worse than anyone of these guys. Maybe the difference is I don’t pretend to be.

It’s going to resonate with me for a few days the thoughts that passed through my mind that night at the party in much the same way as the former judge, when the jig is up, and the FBI is at the door. When the time for whistling past the graveyard has passed and everything you fear is laid out before you.

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That’s all I have for this week. Here are some books for you to look at.

Stay safe, it’s getting weird out there.

Bill