CS: Other People's Garbage

8:00 am, another warm winter morning out in East New York. The crewmate with the gold caps, said "Hey Mon" and gave Karl the homie hand shake and a back slap. Then he said something that sounded like "babaza babaza ba?" Karl thought it might be creole, so he replied "Oui, ce va bon, messieur." 'Goldie' seemed happy with that and shuffled off with his precious metal grin. Karl has made his first 'prison buddy'.

The blue van pulled up at around 8:30 am. Mr. B----- waved, I waved back and got the others. There were now a total of 16 of us waiting at Broadway Junction station: 14 men and 2 women. Ten of us fit into the van, the rest signed off and went home. We cut through heavy traffic with a few whoooop-whoops of a police siren. Why do city folks need SUVs?

Weaving our way through deep East New York, we passed more burned out buildings, fried chicken joints and auto repair shops. The worse parts of the neighborhood have loftier street names, like Sheffield, Milford and Wyona. At one time this neighborhood was probably beautiful. You could see large stumps where trees once lined the streets. Some of the older houses have handsome stone facades and gabled windows, but they sit between empty lots and condemned buildings. We stopped at a small park by an old church cemetery near the New Lots stop (3 and 4 trains). You could see this was possibly a town square surround by homes. A dog that was chained to a hurricane fence barked at us.

Mr. B------ collected court papers from everyone, except for a few of us. "Today were gonna clean up this park, its not a big deal, I'm NOT gonna make ya pick up dog-doodie. Just get the big stuff then we can all go home. But if you get busted under my watch, you go to jail, got that?" We were handed black garbage bags. "I'm a father with two kids and I don't need trouble. Plus, I'm married to a black woman! You know what that means." he added.

The park actually wasn't so dirty, I guess it doesn't get much use in winter. I was hoping to find bullet shells. I picked up a lot of branches around the trees, as a good Druid should. Among the park trash were two press-on nails, Chinese candy wrappers, chicken bones, beads, a chop stick, hair extensions, a cuttlefish bone (I think) and plastic straws, lots and lots of plastic straws.

We finished up in about 15 minutes. I got Mr. B-----'s attention "My name is Karl, we talked on Teusday, I need to get some papers straightened out with you." He asked me who my PO was. He said my PO has to to get his supervisor to send him two forms: a Letter of Introduction and a Monthly Status Report. Until then there wasn't much he could tell me, I asked if any of my hours count towards my 70 hours. He shrugged and said "We'll have to settle this when I get your paper work. There's nothing I can tell you until then, but sign out and write down your phone number."

He's right, he has many misdemeanor cases to manage. I'm just a face with out a case number. I meet with my PO, Mr. L--- on Tuesday, he just got back from three weeks of vacation. I'll find out then.

Epilogue
Who designed the Criminal Court system anyway? Maybe it's the same jerk that invented flamable Christmas trees. Criminal Court has the dynamic of a barnacle, each department sprouts on top of another forming a headless-tailless colony of disconnected shells. Will it collapse? I hope my CS hours count, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't. So far I've been good at filling in the blanks and catching the fallen pieces. There's an odd comfort in knowing that I'm not the only one afflicted with this. In the court room triage, it could be much worse. Not unlike the trash we picked up today, each department thinks we're another one's problem.

I try to approach each Saturday with enthusiasm that Oliver Sacks might share. Otherwise I'd probably have to shoot myself in the head. I don't expect things to happen as they were described to me at my sentencing. I'm reminded of a chidlhood experience. I sent away for the prize on a cereal box and then was horribly surprised at what I actually received in the mail: a coupon book for more stuff.