Epilogue to the Swine

Here's a doll, Janie. Can you show us where the bad man touched you?
He touched me in my Danger Zone!

Caterpiller to butterfly
The contents of a homeless person's styrofoam cup
An alteration of leopard's spots

Change.
Possible?

The Comrade: What you want, darling?
Kissy: I want the money that I would have made had I not had to leave prematurely. I want him to admit what he did. I want him to think about it and maybe he'll think twice before doing it again. I don't want to go to court, but I will if I must.

I received a phone call yesterday morning from the lovely Kissy, my old work comrade who several months ago had given notice at my old place of employ. She found herself unable and unwilling to finish her 2 weeks notice having had her Danger Zone grabbed by a Disgusting Pig of a Man. For the gory reenactment please click ici.

Last we heard Kissy solo-strolled to Police Precinct 55 Division to perform video testimony with no enhanced CGI, no Hans Zimmer score, nor emotion-infused Spielberg-esque editing. She had one rehearsal before a live uniformed audience. The tape, which included testimony guaranteeing not only a witness, but another victim, was then sent to the defendant's attorney where both went over the statement with a lice comb, more than likely followed by a dozen rounds of Molson Brewery's most esteemed export after the show.

"What do you mean this is costing me $300? I took you out for coffee... and paid for it. It was a 15 minute conversation."
~Paraphrased excerpt from American Psycho, by Brett Easton Ellis

$300 coffee breaks can easily amount to $50,000 legal bills by first quarter's end.

Time
Money
Freedom

Those are the Big Three.

Giuseppe, the ex-boss whom I adored, once said, wrote and I stuck on the cappuccino maker:
No Freedom Left

I suppose the idea of freedom is up to the individual. I have the choice to drink distilled water, even though my tap water is clean, if not riddled with fluoride (that secret ingredient that doesn't necessarily prevent tooth decay, but is really a device for promoting docility and mass numbness, curbing any political upheavals which should have arisen right after the discovery that the US President Simian stole the first election. Fluoride and its Prozacian companions are the one plausible explanation for his second term). I like that I can walk outside of my house with only a pack a smokes, a lighter, my wallet and my sunglasses. I don't have to ask Fatty, "Have you seen my gun? Shit. Okay... retracing my steps... The last time I saw it, it was in the bathroom." I don't live like this, but there are many in the world who do. Sure I get ticked off because my image is, through surveillance or satellite systems, photographed daily and stored in massive databanks. Apparently the average Briton gets his image taken God, his image... taken 300 times during the course of a day. Not having to present a passport, hell, not being mandated to carry a passport around with me wherever I go, not having to carry weaponry in order to defend myself if my car breaks down in the middle of the night, not fearing talking on the phone (just in case), not having to live in subhuman conditions:

This is freedom to me.
I fully realise how Canada is the best place in the whole world to live.

I'd kiss the ground right now, had I not walked all over the mainspace with my damned planter's wart.

So, no freedom left? I say we're lucky we have more than a modicum.

But sometimes people do stupid things that promote a reversal of freedom. Even though a person had spent his entire career grabbing Danger Zones on women in his employ, something he thought was his right I suppose, some of which he received crude asphalt etchings applied by special law enforcers whose only badges were invisible, stamped with the single word "Dad" on it, sometimes they don't learn. The Universe wears a cheeky grin each time it presents the same equation over and over until we get it right.
For months he said:
She's lying.
I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it.

But the albatross was done up like a Windsor knot.

What will happen to me?
Do I try to clear my name?
Do I admit what I've done?
What's the worst they can do?
They say the truth shall set you free.

He finally plead guilty.


Beyond his admission to guilt, he is required to write a statement of apology to Kissy.
Beyond the statement, he is going to receive a permanent stain on his personal record.
Beyond the stain, he is required to pay the sum she would have made in tips had she finished her tenure as planned.
His sentence is yet to be determined. It could be time served, but that's not very likely. More than likely is community service work. Sensitivity training.
And it doesn't have to go to trial.

Miss Kiss got everything she wished for.

The Guilty Party had dinner with a male companion at a neighbouring restaurant the other night. His companion was overheard by a server to have made inappropriate, lascivious statements at another lovely buxom server.

The Guilty Party: [through gritted teeth] You can't do that!
The Guilty Party's Associate: You're only saying that because you're fucked.

Ah, the removal of freedom as catalyst and incentive enough for change and reformation.