“Respond to the question,” the judge will insist.
You won’t know what to do.
You’ll be out of options, really.
Staring forward, blankly, silently praying for something, anything to
interrupt this torture, to give you some sort of “out” you can use. On a whim you’ll just start blinking. And blinking.
And blinking.
The court will grow uncomfortably silent as you continue to
blink, now rapidly, like a hummingbird’s wings.
As your eyelashes flutter tears will well in your eyes and you’ll awkwardly
smile, or rather try to smile, at the courtroom.
“I don’t know,” you’ll moan at them.
The judge will groan and roll her eyes, but your lawyer will
make a “cha-ching” gesture and wave at you.
You’ll give him a quick wink, which in this case will just be a quick
partial blink, and then start rocking back and forth gently.
“I don’t know,” you’ll whisper into the microphone.
It’ll be a charade the courtroom has seen before, the old
Asberger’s Syndrome play. But you’ll
commit to your performance so thoroughly, take on such a fearsomely dumb
aspect, that the jury will immediately be convinced that you’re full on
retarded.
The judge will know the game all too well, but when she
bangs her gavel and shouts “STOP PRETENDING TO HAVE ASBERGER’S!” you’ll just
double down, hiding your face behind your hands and making an ear splitting
keening noise while you rock back and forth with increased severity. The jury, and the assembled public in the
courtroom, will collectively boo her.
Your smile will crack just barely, but with your head in your hands no
one will see. And even if they did, what
would they do about it? People with
Asberger’s can’t control their facial expressions!
Twenty minutes later closing arguments will be closed and,
following a three minute deliberation on the part of the jury, you’ll have been
deemed “too retarded” to have committed any crimes of any sort. You’ll leave the courthouse twirling your
cane and whistling to yourself on your way back to your giant mansion, where
the dogs that you fed all those Peace Corps volunteers wait for you. Watch your back, though. That judge is a vigilante-loose-cannon, and
if you don’t take some precautions she’ll almost definitely murder you when she
comes to your apartment with a sawed off shotgun in a week and a half.
Congratulations on Blinking Your Way Out of Another Jam!
