Free 2 Grand Delusion by Matt Witten Page B

please . . . next time commit a more interesting crime."
    The audience tittered louder. "Yes, Your Honor," Bell said, then gave a couple of other teenage boys sitting by the aisle a high five as he highstepped out of the courtroom.
    Hey, I thought, this wasn't so bad. I could handle it. Even if they set my bail higher than a buck, it was no sweat, that's what being rich was for. I'd be smelling those trees in no time.
    "The People versus Mr. Burns," the judge then announced.
    I stood up.
    Instantly the courtroom went silent. No more tittering, no more knuckle-cracking. Even the babies stopped crying.
    I can handle it.
    I stepped up to the judge, trying so hard to feel confident that I forgot to put my head down and act meek. Instead I gave the judge a friendly smile. He frowned at me. "Do you have a lawyer?" he asked.
    "I'm not really sure, Your Honor," I replied, smiling even wider, as if it was the funniest thing in the world.
    From the pews, Andrea called out, "Your Honor—"
    "Silence, please!" the judge's voice boomed angrily.
    "But, Your Honor—"
    "Silence! Or I'll have you thrown out!"
    My wife sat back down in her seat, stunned. Hey, whatever had happened to the wry funny judge who'd kidded the teenage rollerblader? Without even meaning to, my hands went meekly behind my back and my head went down.
    As it went down, I saw those ridiculous slippers. I put one foot on top of the other, trying to hide the bright orange "World's Greatest Lover."
    But then my penis came flopping out of my pajamas.
    Oh, Lord. I quickly hitched up my pajamas to get myself back in there. Had the judge seen it? The last thing I needed was for my shlong to be held in contempt of court.
    Fortunately, though, the judge's attention was elsewhere. "Mr. Frick?" he said, and the public defender stepped up. Frick . The name fit him like a glove. He gave me a shrug. He was good at that.
    The judge turned back to me. His face had gone sour, and he looked like a guy with a killer toothache. "Mr. Burns, you are charged with homicide in the first degree. How do you plead?"
    "Not guilty," I said, trying to make my voice ring strong, but all that came out was a sickly little squeak. From the corner of my eye, I saw seven smug smiles.
    "Mr. Hawthorne?" the judge said, and another man came up and stood next to Frick. He was wearing a blue suit, nothing fancy, but compared to Frick he looked like an Armani model.
    "Mr. Hawthorne, does the D.A.'s office have a recommendation in this case?"
    "Yes, we do, Your Honor," Hawthorne declared. "Given the severity of the crime, the overwhelming evidence against the defendant, and the fact that he recently received one million dollars for a single screenplay and thus has sufficient wherewithal to begin a new life elsewhere, the People believe the defendant poses a significant flight risk. We therefore request that bail be set at ten million dollars."
    "But—" I said.
    The judge put out his hand to shut me up, then turned to my intrepid lawyer. "Mr. Frick?"
    And darned if Frick didn't just stand there and shrug. I stared at him, openmouthed. A little first-degree homicide sounded like an excellent idea to me right then. How could I possibly raise ten million bucks?!
    If I understood how bail worked, I'd only need to give the bail bondsman a tenth of that sum. But even so, three hundred K was my absolute upper limit. Three twenty tops, if we took out a second mortgage on the house. This was unbelievable. Was I doomed to spend the next year of my life awaiting trial in some urine-soaked jailhouse basement, sharpening my choral skills with a bunch of hopeless men wearing droopy pants and dabbling in Eastern religions?
    "Your Honor!" someone called out, and I spun around.
    It was my lawyer at last!
    Malcolm Dove came racing up the aisle toward us, all three hundred pounds of him, the floor shaking beneath his weight. The judge raised his thick black eyebrows in annoyance, but before he could speak, Malcolm barreled on. "Your