Det. Sgt. Eldon Perry Jr.:
Look what descended from the sixth floor, Hey, Jimmy.
James Barcomb:
Jack. How are you holding up, son?
Bobby Keough:
I'm good, sir.
James Barcomb:
You should've seen this kid. He was outstanding. Ever thought about doing a tour with public affairs? We could use a good-looking son of a bitch like you.
Jack Van Meter:
He's a good young cop, Jimmy, and he's mine. Well, I tried.
James Barcomb:
The board voted- In policy, You're off the hook, kid.
Det. Sgt. Eldon Perry Jr.:
There you go.
Jack Van Meter:
Congratulations. Have a cigar.
James Barcomb:
The report will be ready in the morning. You guys can get back into the field. So, the vote... The vote was four to one.
Det. Sgt. Eldon Perry Jr.:
What? Who the fuck pissed backwards, Holland?
James Barcomb:
Affirmatron.
Det. Sgt. Eldon Perry Jr.:
I'd like to see his bald-headed black ass back in a radio car in South Central.
James Barcomb:
We don't need that shit.
Det. Sgt. Eldon Perry Jr.:
He actually said out of policy.
Jack Van Meter:
Holland began contacting outside agencies a month ago. He's doing civil service testing with the city of Cleveland. He's leaving to run their P.D. Didn't hear it from me.
James Barcomb:
Didn't hear it from you.
Det. Sgt. Eldon Perry Jr.:
Fuck Holland. Good riddance. We're gonna have to pin his stars on another brother or the community will go apeshit.
James Barcomb:
Jesus, Eldon, you sound just like your old man.
Jack Van Meter:
It's not such a bad thing, Everything I know-his old man. A toast to Bobby. Right between the eyes.
Bobby Keough:
Thank you, guys. I mean it. Thanks for giving me the chance to prove myself in SlS.
Jack Van Meter:
Eldon, Jimmy has something to tell you.
James Barcomb:
You made lieutenant. You're next on the transfer list.
Det. Sgt. Eldon Perry Jr.:
Fuck you, too, Jimmy.
James Barcomb:
No. We're not pulling your dick.
Det. Sgt. Eldon Perry Jr.:
It's about fucking Time!
Rusty Zimmerman:
[singing can be heard from Rusty's open window] Yeah, gitchi gitchi ya ya da da, gitchi gitchi ya ya here, mocha chocolata ya ya...
Walt Koontz:
[shouts out the window] Hey! Hei! Shut the fuckin' window or shut the fuck up!
Rusty Zimmerman:
[Really fast] You shut you'r fuckin' window!
Walt Koontz:
Fuckin' faggots!
Rusty Zimmerman:
The gay community thanks you for your support, fucker!
Walt Koontz:
Fuck you and the gay community!
Rusty Zimmerman:
Fuck you and your "Lets get married, have kids and beat up the fuckin' dog" community, Fucker!
Rusty Zimmerman:
[singing really loud out of the window] Go sister, go sister, go sister, hei sister go sister, go sister...
Walt Koontz:
Fuckin' demented fuckin' fruitcakes!
If we are looking for insurance against want and oppression, we will find it only in our neighbors' prosperity and goodwill and, beyond that, in the good health of our worldly places, our homelands. If we were sincerely looking for a place of safety, for real security and success, then we would begin to turn to our communities - and not the communities simply of our human neighbors but also of the water, earth, and air, the plants and animals, all the creatures with whom our local life is shared.
(pg. 59,
In a society in which nearly everybody is dominated by somebody else's mind or by a disembodied mind, it becomes increasingly difficult to learn the truth about the activities of governments and corporations, about the quality or value of products, or about the health of one's own place and economy.
In such a society, also, our private economies will depend less and less upon the private ownership of real, usable property, and more and more upon property that is institutional and abstract, beyond individual control, such as money, insurance policies, certificates of deposit, stocks, and shares. And as our private economies become more abstract, the mutual, free helps and pleasures of family and community life will be supplanted by a kind of displaced or placeless citizenship and by commerce with impersonal and self-interested suppliers...
Thus, although we are not slaves in name, and cannot be carried to market and sold as somebody else's legal chattels, we are free only within narrow limits. For all our talk about liberation and personal autonomy, there are few choices that we are free to make. What would be the point, for example, if a majority of our people decided to be self-employed?
The great enemy of freedom is the alignment of political power with wealth. This alignment destroys the commonwealth - that is, the natural wealth of localities and the local economies of household, neighborhood, and community - and so destroys democracy, of which the commonwealth is the foundation and practical means.
(pg. 57-58,
Fletcher:
Mrs. Cole, is this a copy of your driver's liscense? [shows paper]
Samantha:
That's right.
Fletcher:
It says here you are a blonde, are you? If you don't remember perhaps Mr. Faulk will.
Samantha:
Brunette.
Fletcher:
Maybe if we play the tape again, maybe it's on there...
Samantha:
I'm a brunette!
Fletcher:
Thank you. Now let's see... weight 105? Yeah, in your bra.
Dana:
Your honor, I object.
Fletcher:
You would!
Dana:
Bastard!
Fletcher:
Hag!
Judge Stevens:
QUIET! Overruled! Weight?
Samantha:
118. [Fletcher gives her a look]
Samantha:
Alright, fine, fine, I'm 127.
Fletcher:
Uh, huh, and it says here you were born in 1964, but that's not true either is it? Is it!
Samantha:
No.
Fletcher:
Please tell the court what's on your birth certificate under Date of Birth.
Dana:
Your honor, I object. What does this have to do with anything?
Judge Stevens:
Overruled. Mrs. Cole, answer the question.
Samantha:
1965.
Fletcher:
Now let get this straight. That means you lied about your age to make yourself older. But why would any woman want to DO THAT?
Samantha:
I changed it so I could get married.
Fletcher:
AND THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE! My client lied about her age! She was only 17 when she got married, which makes her a minor. And in the great state of California, no minor can enter into any legal contract without parental consent. [to Dana]
Fletcher:
Including...?
Dana:
[sighs] Prenuptual agreements.
Fletcher:
Prenuptual agreements! This contract is void! The fact that my client has been riden more than Seattle Slew is irrelevant. Standard Community Property applies and she is entitled to half of the marital assets, or $11.395 million. Jordan fades back, swoosh, and THAT'S THE GAME! Nothing further, your honor!
Detective Terrence Washington:
If it ain't L.A.'s deadliest white boy.
Tom Ludlow:
Aren't you on the wrong side of the yellow tape?
Detective Terrence Washington:
Congrats on four more notches for your gun belt. I'll be praying for the families of your victims.
Tom Ludlow:
They're called suspects. The victims are the fourteen-year-old schoolgirls the suspects kept in a cage and sold to chickenhawks to poke, prod, and put on the Internet. Suspects, Washington. Suspects.
Detective Terrence Washington:
As evil as those men were, they had a right to trial. There's gonna be some blowback from the Korean community on this one.
Tom Ludlow:
Now that you're all militant, why don't you just say it? You think I'm a racist.
Detective Terrence Washington:
You have another explanation?
Tom Ludlow:
No I don't. Because if I roll and determine the suspects are black, yellow or brown, I'll blow 'em out of their socks. But if they're white, I'll give 'em a ride home. You know why? 'Cause I'm a racist. Fuck you.
Detective Terrence Washington:
Man, I would give my right arm to have that shit on tape.
Tom Ludlow:
What happened to you, Terrence? We used to be brothers.
Their drift away from others produced a selfish privacy and they had lost the refuge and the consolation of a clan. Baptists, Presbyterians, tribe, army, family, some encircling outside thing was needed. Pride, she thought. Pride alone made them think that they needed only themselves, could shape life that way, like Adam and Eve, like gods from nowhere beholden to nothing except their own creations. She should have warned them, but her devotion cautioned against impertinence. As long as Sir was alive it was easy to veil the truth: that they were not a family-not even a like-minded group. They were orphans, each and all.
It is a way now, approximately, of being at home. The forum has become one of the most consistent places of her life, like a familiar cafe that exists someone outside geography and beyond time zones.
There are perhaps twenty regular posters on F:F:F:, and some muchlarger and uncounted number of lurkers. And right now there are three people in Chat. But there's no way of knowing exactly who until you are in there, and the chat room she finds not so comforting. It's strange even with friends, like sitting in a pitch-dark cellar conversing with people at a distance of about fifteen feet. the hectic speed, and the brevity of the lines in the thread, plus the feeling that everyone is talking at once, at counmter-purposes, deter her.
