The honorable money mongrel presiding

Two days ago I went to downtown Brooklyn to defend a ticket I got for riding my bike on the subway platform.

I awoke Molly at 7:30 am and she told me she'd dreamed that our apartment was filled with cockroaches and our fly-annhialating cat was carefully and daintily prancing around them, so as not to kill them. Mexico then jumped on Molly's bed. I had dreamed that I was in Britney Spears' bedroom, which was carpeted and decorated with cheap Sears furniture.

We got dressed up, walked to the deli and got coffees and corn bread cookies, then walked to the bus stop, where we waited in a small patch of sunlight, courtesy of a sole gap between two buildings, illuminating the sidewalk.

We got on the bus and bounced ourselves toward downtown. Molly, Alex and I were sitting on three connecting seats, facing the side of the bus. A man who was sitting directly behind Molly, in a seat facing her, got up and stood in front of me. I noticed that he kept quickly shifting his eyes to look at Molly and then he paused, bent down a little closer to her and said, "You would look better without those glasses." (Molly has wonderful, plastic black framed glasses.) Molly snidely replied, "I wouldn't be able to see without my glasses."

Beat.

Man bends back over, trying to catch Molly's eyes with his, but doesn't and then results to snapping his fingers right in front of her face. Molly looks at him. He says "I hope you weren't offended by that." Molly: "Oh no. But I really don't think you should snap in people's faces to get their attention."

Man didn't say another word, but stood in front of me, baggy crotch at eye-level, for twenty more minutes, all while pseudo-slyly glancing at Molly.

We got to the courthouse and were all told that to empty our pockets and set our bags on the table, a request which immediately grips me with the same anxiety I get everytime my bags go through the secuirity machine at the airport, and I think please god, let there be no traces of drugs from months ago in the bottom of my purse/coat pocket. It takes each of us about three minutes to empty the contents of our coat pockets, mine full of change, probably around three dollars worth. I go through the metal detector and the lady with the badge that says MTA on it asks why I am here. I tell her it's for a hearing and "I want to defend it because I didn't do..." She puts a hand up to hush me and says, "Middle window", pointing ahead, past rows of plastic chairs, to a plexi-glass window, with a line of five people behind it.

Alex and Molly beep when they go through the detector, Molly must spread her arms and legs. Alex didn't have to.

After I fill out some paperwork, I join Molly and Alex and wait. We watch the judges come out and call the defendants back. An older man with white hair who is wearing red suspenders comes out. I really hope that he would be my judge. He wasn't. I got a woman in a lavender, micro-fiber, breezy blouse with brown hair that was curled out, but in a feathered way, not a bobbed way.

We went back to a small room. There was a tape recorder. She sat behind a desk and I sat in another plastic chair, facing her. I naturally sat straight up, instead of my trademark slouch, as I was being put under scrutiny. The room reminded me of my high school probation officer's office in Iowa and the time I was handed an empty cup and told to go pee in it. I went into the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror and whispered, Karen, you can't do this. You are stoned right now. I went back into the p.o.'s room, my mother was also in there, with a still empty cup and told him that I had a bladder infection and couldn't pee. Then I got in the elevator with my mother to leave and when the doors closed she turned to me and said, "Karen, I'm not stupid."

But now, I was older and wiser and not stoned. The women pushed record with a sense of urgency and made me raise my hand. "Do you swear to tell the whole truth?" "I do." She asked me to tell her what happened on the evening of February 8th, 2008. Before I answered my mind wandered back in time to what I was feeling that night. Who I was thinking about, what my overall mood was during that time and I felt depressed for a moment, but I shook those thoughts away and I told her the whole story, *see post below*, but lied a little, saying I wasn't actually pedaling, but my feet were touching the ground, and I using them to sort of "paddle" myself down the platform. She seemed very sympathetic towards me and was nodding understandably in a motherly way. I wanted to hug her. She then said she had no further questions, turned the tape recorder off and told me to wait outside.

I was so smiley when I rejoined Alex and Molly in the waiting room. Twenty minutes later the woman behind the plexi-glass called my name again and I went up there.
"You are still required to pay in full, a fine of $100 to the transit authority of New York."

My heart dropped.

I hated that she had said 'transit authority of New York', why couldn't she have just said MTA?

But, it didn't get me down. No sir. The three of us went to the rustic WaMu bank on Fulton, that is beautifully architectured with amazing chandeliers and marble cylinders and such, then to JoJo's for a late breakfast.

Never again will you see me riding a bike on the subway, but I just may hock a huge luge when no one is looking, just for good measure.