Image: Dan Harlow, Route 66 University

 

Ladies and gentlmen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the simple, misinformed, noble-winged seraphs that hover above God’s throne in Isaiah’s vision, could not understand, try as they might.

I present to you a collection of work, an assemblage of words, nouns and verbs, expressions of a soul that spoke to me directly as if they had been written expressly for the consumption of my soul. The words, ladies and gentlemen, were not written by your humble supplicant but rather for me. I defy you to prove otherwise, what with the decedent, the author of the words, the dripper of honey, long in his grave, placed there by my hand, of that I, Wilhelmina Shakespeare Proctor, do solemnly and humbly confess.

Exhibit number two is a yellow notebook (note the coffee ring stain and the cigarette burn on the cover) that was purloined from the motor vehicle of the decedent while parked in the lot of The Wigwam Village Motel 6 in Holbrook, Arizona, the city of my residence until I was taken into custody by officers of the law in December of this year. Said theft occurred during the late night hours of November 16 of this year of our Lord.

Consider, if you will, the unlocked door of Room 317 of the Wigwam Village Hotel, the victim, the spinner of words of my soul, laying prostrate upon the bed. He sleeps fitfully, ladies and gentlemen, for his body is ravaged by cancer and he, a poet, is not long for this mortal shell and how vile it is for the seraphs to allow such a great man, a man who stole glimpses into my soul, to expire from such an insidious disease. Do you not see the unfairness, the imbalance, of it all? Your supplicant most certainly did see not only the injustice but the just death such a man so deserved, the quick dispatch to his great reward; it was swift and painless and, yes, at my hands, at my mercy, at my benevolence.

You will hear testimony, dear gentle men and women of the jury, that I was “obsessed”, that I “stalked” the victim and his betrothed, Lorraine but I ask you how one can stalk that which belongs to them? To their soul? Their spirit? I urge you to disregard these slanderings in your final deliberations.

You may also disregard the unreliable testimony of  Officer William “Bill” Dent of the Arizona Highway Patrol who took me into custody fifteen miles outside of Holbrook, Arizona, out on a lonely stretch of old Route 66 where the ghosts of old motels rot and die, ladies and gentlemen, because Officer Dent has known me from childhood and it is well known in the small community of Holbrook that he holds great personal animosity toward your supplicant, that he has often referred to me in public dialogue as “crazy” and “mad as a hatter” and, indeed, “dangerous.” Where does Mr. Dent rest his authority to declare such pronouncements?

You may also disregard the testimony of the decedent’s widow. She knows not what she speaks of.

If you choose, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you may also disregard my testimony as I may be nothing more than a figment of your imagination.

Thank you and God bless our souls.

(Editors Note: Wilhelmina “Willie” Shakespeare Proctor, the author of this statement, died in legal captivity, of coronary thrombosis, a few days before her trial was scheduled to commence. Her lawyer, my good friend and relation, Charles Darrow Clint, Esq., now of the State of Nevada bar, asked me to edit and publish the statement, basing his request on a clause in his client’s will which empowered my friend to use his discretion in all manners pertaining to the disposition of her estate, including all writings, correspondence, and this, her final statement.)

Previously in “Everything Stuck To Him”: A Book of Common Prayer