DEGREES OF PERCEPTION

THE JUDGE LOOKED a real gentleman. Like the judge who’d sat on Tania’s murder case. They had a look the same, used their spectacles as a stage act, and a voice to suit. Seemed to Abe that this one would have children near Abe’s age, so he’d be sympathetic, if not completely understanding, that a man had had no choice. (I swear I had no choice.)

Dave Busby had just given a sworn reference in the witness box, in praise of Abe Heke, his employee, and the person he saw with potential to be in business himself. Abe felt a kind of affirmation to hear his boss describe him as a true gentleman, for it meant he had achieved his goal of distancing himself from his father’s ways. Dave Busby told the judge that one of his tests of a man’s character was how he conducted himself with drink, that it was a truth potion that spoke well of Abe Heke, and whilst awaiting this court appearance had he promoted Abe to foreman and had no reason to regret the decision, for the young man had leadership skills to burn.

Dave went on to say he was in no doubt his employee must have been severely provoked because he was not a man of violence, not under any circumstance.

The judge reminded Dave, and in a sharp tone, that Heke had pleaded guilty and been subsequently convicted on an assault charge of a most serious kind, that of grievous bodily harm. He warned Mr Busby to confine his comments to reference on Heke’s behalf, not an opinion of law or fact. That’s my job.

Abe wanted to speak out of turn, out of order if he must, to tell the judge, Sir, if you’re confronted by four guys with only one agenda, to do you and your mate over, you just fight like hell. You go into a necessary blind kind of rage because you know you’re going to get hurt badly. Even if Abe had felt a calmness come over him, and no sense that all was lost.

Ryan was in the courtroom. The seven months since the incident they’d talked it to death. Ryan knew he had provoked it, and that he’d not put up any fight. What could he say but sorry?

Abe’s lawyer offered mitigation along the lines of Dave Busby’s plea. Judge Armstrong nodded and seemed to be pleased at how well thought of Abe Heke was. Now it was his turn.

Abe had this last thought, that the judge was not going to send him to prison. (I just know he’s not.)

Judge Armstrong recapped what Dave Busby had said and how good it was being a foreman of a thriving sheetmetal business, and how rare it was to have before him someone who had such a position of responsibility, not least given the nature of the charge — which on the face of what we’ve heard of your character, Abraham Heke, does not fit the picture of one who inflicted such injuries on three of these four young men. Notwithstanding that they had followed you and your friend and that their confrontation in numbers of two to one was in no doubt intended to be violent. For that is only the face of it, perhaps a fairly commonplace event between young males testing one another. However … (however what?)

However, the judge said on a sigh and a personality change all in the one expulsion of breath, this court cannot condone, nor be seen to condone, any extreme act of violence unless the situation is life or death. It has to be asked why your companion of that fateful night did not react with any violence and yet he was the first to be assaulted by these four men on their own admission.

Abraham Heke, you tore away a wooden fence paling and you set upon these four young men and inflicted sickening physical harm to three of them. (But, judge.) You used your fists on them after you had knocked them to the ground with this make-shift weapon. (Well, sure I did. What fists are for, given you’ve made the reluctant decision to use them. I’m not to know if they’re going to get up and turn the tables on me.) Can you tell us why you acted in such an extremely violent manner?

Abe was nervous in the instant. The answer just spilled out: I lost it. (I lost it completely. It was like this other person existed inside me who just came charging, roaring, flailing out.) I just lost it, sir.

You lost it, did you? Sounds to me like that’s a cop-out. I mean you can’t blithely say you lost it. Lost what? For clearly the evidence, the outcome of serious injuries against these complainants — victims, may I remind you — is proof that you never had control to lose in the first place.

Abe wanted to refute that. More than anything he wanted to refute the judge’s viewpoint. (I’m not like that. I don’t talk violent. Even in the sometimes truthful realm of dreams, I, the dream character Abe Heke, am not violent. Jesus Christ, judge, in my dreams I’m hugging and comforting babies, rescuing children in danger. Crying for a host of different, sometimes unfathomable, reasons.)