Unlucky for Some

It was mid-afternoon and the house was quiet when they came banging
on the door, like clamouring barbarians breeching the walls of a
peaceful garden. How strange to find, when the door opened, that the
invaders were but two in number and our trusted protectors.

They were quietly invited into the centre of our home where they
outlined their mission. Their orders were to arrest me for an unpaid
fine. My debt to the Crown amounted to the princely sum of thirteen
pounds. The fine had been levied, in my absence, some months before but
it had slipped my mind and, besides, it would have been too trivial a
matter to catch my attention, at the time.

We explained our circumstances, thinking that they would understand the
reason for our failure to comply with the law, and offered immediate
payment. The younger of the two began to look less keen on the
execution of his duty but the elder remained stony-faced. When my wife
became angry at this uniformed absurdity, he grabbed me by the wrists
and he and his partner bundled me out through the front door and into
their car.

I spent the night in the local jail and was transferred, early next
morning, to await the courts pleasure. When I got to the court building
they put me in a large, empty cell. There was a toilet pan in the
corner and a concrete slab to sit on. After a while, a jovial turnkey
opened the door. " Yer lookin' a bit lonely in there. Come on, I've got
some company for ye." I was led along the corridor to another cell. He
opened the door and pushed me in.

The 'company', promised by the concerned officer, was a huge man, naked
from the waist down. He ranted and raved threw himself at the walls
and, every once in a while, planted his shit-smeared arse on the pan in
the corner. I went to a neutral corner and stood with my back to the
wall. He didn't threaten me at all and, pretty soon, I was too lost in
my own thoughts to bother about him.

I heard the, now familiar, jangle and rattle of keys and the door
opened to reveal another couple of the law's stalwarts, one of them
female, and this time they had a food trolley in tow.

"Do you want a fried egg sandwich or a sausage sandwich?", she
asked.
I looked around the stinking cell, one side smeared with bold brown
strokes, and at the big lump of a man with ham-like hands clasped under
his chin.

"Are you daft?", I countered.

"Suit yourself.", she said, as if dismissing a fussy child. "We'll just
give it to him.", nodding in the direction of my, now silent,
companion.

Eventually, they arrived to escort me into the courtroom, sleeves
twisted tight to my wrists. My family was there, some very angry and
some in tears.

I was asked to explain why the fine, imposed almost a year before,
hadn't been paid. I told them that the child who had dodged school had
contracted leukaemia, suffered for ten months and died.

They took the money. We went home.