The traffic court district attorney dismissed another offender from interview and looked out at all the guilty people filling the courtroom and sitting in the finest and most expensive oak seats that they'd probably ever use. He read from his docket and called the next name on the list: "Frog!? Walter Danby Frog!"
"I beg your pardon," a man with a ridiculous mustache and a cigar in his hand stood up, "that's Freuaxg!" He stepped toward the DA and halted before the podeum. "Fr-oh-jhuh, Walter Danby Freauxg. You've gotta get it in your throat. Freauxg."
"Mr. Freauxg?"
"Yeah, that's it. Maybe you will get it in the throat."
"I beg your pardon?" The DA gripped his neck, wide-eyed.
"What's that you've said?"
"I beg your pardon."
"Once more, please."
"I beg your pardon, are you, um... Walter Danby... Freauxg?"
"Yes, that's it. That's what you said! If not it was certainly something like that. Now what can I do for you? I received this letter from you in the mail," he held up a shredded envelope that had been taped back together, and turned it over in his hand. "It's all the mail I've gotten in some while and it says that I need to come here. I hope it's not bad news. I hate bad news and I love mail, if it were bad news it might entirely destroy the excitement I gained from receiving a letter in the mail... and it was an invitation, at that!"
The district attorney was taken aback by Mr. Frog's outburst. He realized that he hadn't gotten the file folder for the case, he didn't know why he'd called the man. "One second, please."
He turned and sifted through a stack of folders as a small man in a split-up-the-middle trench coat, with a top hat capping a bright red afro, walked past and noticed a thermos and a sandwich that were set behind the DA's podium. He sat on the floor and proceeded to have a little picnic. The DA turned back to Mr. Frog and held up a manila folder.
"Here it is. Now... wait a second." He looked hard at the file's subject tab, "you say your name is pronounced Freauxg? It's spelled F-R-O-G here."
"Yes, that's right."
"Well, how can it be pronounced Freauxg, if it's spelled Frog?"
"Well, it was a French Frog." Mr. Frog turned left and said to nobody in particular, "well, somebody had to say it, and it may as well have been me who did. It was my name, after all."
The district attorney looked to where Mr. Frog was speaking and noticed the top hatted man eating his lunch. "Hey, you, what are you doing there?!? That's my food!"
The top hatted fellow waved his hand and rubbed his tummy. Then he went back to the sandwich.
"Stop eating my food!" He grabbed the sandwich from the man in the top hat and squeezed his fist around it, covering his hand with mustard and the smell of roast beef. He threw the mass from his hand into the garbage and demanded of the little man: "Who are you?"
The man honked and whistled. The DA asked again who he was, he whistled and gestured. The DA asked once more and a man with a thick Italian accent approached.
"Hey, don't uh, question o' him. He say no speak."
"Who are you?" Asked the prosecutor.
"Me? I'm uh, who you talk uh, to."
"Well, tell me your name!"
"My name's uh, Rolando Spinacci!"
The DA scanned his docket "Your name's not here. You shouldn't be here."
"No, I'm uh, no on a list."
"Well then, what are you doing here."
Mr. Frog, who had been waiting patiently through this, grabbed the DA's lapel. "Hey, as interested as I am in his autobiography, " he pointed his thumb at Spinacci, "I came here to be courted and that's what you should be doing."
"What?" He untangled himself from Frog's grasp and said, while straightening his tie: "wait a moment, please; I have to deal with this gentleman."
Rolando Spinacci was infuriated by the DA's instigation. "Who's are you calling uh, gentlemen? We's uh, tough guys with lots o' the scurvy."
A man in a white suit entered the courtroom and approached the district attorney. "I hope I'm not late."
"Who are you?"
He pointed at Mr. Frog "I'm his attorney."
"Well, it seems you're right on-time. We haven't quite gotten to Mr. Frog yet."
"It's Freauxg!"
"Freauxg." He turned back to Rolando Spinacci and pointed at the man in the top-hat, "now, what about him?"
"What? He's uh, my partner."
"Yes, but who is he?"
"He's Irving When. You just say over and over in uh, your head, you need Irving When you need Irving When you need Irving When uh, you need Irving and you never forget. Eh?"
The DA scanned his docket for the new name, "Irving When... ah, yes. Here you are. Well, we've still got a ways to go before we get to your case but I'll tell you, Irving, eating my food is not a good way to keep from getting thrown in jail."
"He's uh, he like jail, " Irving smiled and nodded. "See. You make him give uh, you money. He'd hate that and uh, you get you uh, debt to society paid off in uh, forty-five or fifteen years."
"Fifty years?"
"No, that's uh, fifteen. See it goes and uh, I don't know why o' you don't know about it... you went uh, the school. It goes forty-five forty-six uh, forty-seven, forty-eight forty-nine uh, fifteen, sixteen, eighteen, uh, twin teens."
"I beg your pardon," Mr. Frog's lawyer butted in, "but My client was here first! We deserve to be heard first."
"Yes, you're absolutely right." The district attorney said. He turned back to Irving and Rolando, told them to find seats, and then returned his attention to Mr. Frog and his lawyer. "Alright... now where were we?"
Mr. Frog's lawyer pointed. "You were there and those other fellows were right there and we were standing here but then you asked those other fellows to leave."
"Yes," said Walter Danby Frog, "we're certainly not where we were a moment ago, considering that they've left... shall I call them back so we can really regain the drama of a moment ago?" He cupped his hands around his mouth about to call When and Spinacci.
"No!" The district attorney grabbed Frog's hands. Frog shook the DA's hands, the DA shook back and said: "Now, lets get on to the case."
Mr. Frog's attorney set his brief case down, sat on it, Mr. Frog sat on his lap and they gestured for the DA to join them.
"No, no, no, gentlemen!" The prosecutor stepped around and, with a helping hand, brought them back to their feet. "We must get on with your court case."
"Yes, the case," Frog spoke, "I wish to file a formal complaint about the handling of my case."
"But your case hasn't even been handled yet."
"I know but that's just the point. Here we are about to get into the whole handling of it and I am not prepared."
"Not prepared?"
"That's right! My right to a speedy trial has been pushed along so smoothly that I haven't had any time for it."
"Mr. Frog!" The prosecutor exclaimed in surprise.
"It's Freauxg... maybe you will get it in the throat."
"Yes. Mr. Freauxg - You can't file a complaint about a speedy trial. All trials are speedy for your convenience... not to inconvenience you. I suggest having your attorney speak to me for the remainder of this interview."
"All right, you said it, you want to talk to him, here he is."
"Now lets get talking about these trees," Mr. Frog's lawyer got a dreamy look in his eyes, "they grow up from a single seed, sometimes taking whole human lifetimes to grow a mere four hundred feet tall."
"Yes. That's right, but that hasn't anything to do with this."
"Are you sure?" He looked around at the oaken interior of the courtroom. "Everything here seems to be made from trees... they must have some significance or bearing herein."
"Your client was ticketed for speeding, riding on the outside of an automobile, not wearing his seat belt, failing to maintain control of his automobile, and trespassing."
"That right?" The lawyer turned to his client, "You didn't tell me you'd done all those things. That's five things that you did."
"It was actually six; I also flipped a bird at the cop who pulled me over."
"You flipped him off?"
"No, just a bird, it tripped over my windshield and flipped off, right into the cop's face."
"Now," The District attorney pointed to the file, "I'll drop the seat belt charge and the trespassing charge if you plead guilty to failure to maintain control and riding on the outside of your automobile."
"Guilty? You want me to plead guilty for leaning out my car window?"
"It says here that more than fifty percent of your body was outside the automobile." Irving When ran by, grabbed the stack of folders from behind the DA, and threw them into the waste bin, where the mashed sandwich lay.
"Well, " said Frog, "how else could you expect me to pick the oranges?"
"You might have pulled your car over."
"Yes, I might have but then I'd have been shot. There was a sign that said 'anyone who sets foot on this land will be shot', you didn't want me to be shot did you?"
"No, no! It seems that you should have simply left the oranges alone."
"Well, there was no sign about the oranges, just about setting foot on the property. I didn't know I was doing anything wrong." He looked down, dejected.
"Now, see here, Mr. Freauxg, while, I'll admit that it is unfair that you couldn't get any oranges-"
Mr. Frog produced three oranges from his pocket, "Oh, I got the oranges... Seventy-mile-an-hour harvest." He offered one to The DA.
"Thank you," he took the fruit and stared at it in his hand. "Now... you sped past an orange tree at seventy-miles-per-hour, leaned out your car's window giving total disregard to the road and ignoring your steering wheel, trespassed onto private land, and stole oranges."
"He also assaulted a police officer with a small fowl, " added his lawyer.
"Look, " said the district attorney, "I'll drop all charges if you'll just get out of here."
"Well, what a fine way to treat your meal ticket!" Mr. frog turned away in disgust. "I come here to be tried, courted and hanged, and what happens? They decide to throw out my case. What a state of affairs." He turned back, "the very idea that I could be bought off with the promise of personal freedom! This injustice will not stand in trial! I've got a lawyer!" He grabbed his lawyer, "this man will effortlessly and painstakingly make your life miserable until you throw him out, too!"
The DA tugged at his hair, "that's the end of it! Bailiff, " a court officer walked over, "throw this man out."
"You'll hear from me about this! There's not a man alive who can keep me from prison!" Mr. Frog pleaded and complained as he was dragged from the courtroom with his lawyer close behind him.
The DA turned to throw out the documentation and there was Irving When, where and how he shouldn't have been. He sat in front of the garbage can, flames licked up to the ceiling and a marshmallow on a stick roasted over the crackling court files. Rolando Spinacci stepped over, "Hey, ya got a stick?"
The DA only Stared at the blaze.
Spinacci smacked his shoulder and repeated, "a stick, a stick." He grabbed a pencil from the DA's podium, stabbed it through a marshmallow and proceeded to roast it. "That's a good," he said, "that's uh, good."
The DA tossed Frog's file atop the fire and slowly stepped back behind his podium.