B. CRAIG GRAFTON - THE TRIAL OF MR. AVAILABLE

Author is a retired attorney having practiced for 35 years in Illinois who now lives in Texas and started writing stories about a year and a half ago.

THE TRIAL OF MR. AVAILABLE
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​     Mr. M. Available, the M was for Manfred, was a Black Angus bull on trial for his life, i.e. his right to exist as a male of his species. He was a peaceful individual by nature and never expected to go to war with the Bovine Women’s Moovement. But now they wanted to make mincemeat or rather hamburger out of him. They had accused him of numerous unmentionable sexist crimes against the humanity of women.
     His attorney was Red McRooster, a red feathery old fowl of a fellow with a bright red comb that always stood upright, stayed in place, and never flopped around. Some say that wasn’t natural and that he used lots of hairspray to keep it that way. His defense to all these ‘trumped’ up charges as he called them was the classic ‘femme fatale ’ defense. That is females, especially the sexy sultry kind, like these accusers, were the ruination of not only his client but of men everywhere and not the other way around as they alleged..
     Representing the State was Wren Deering, a flighty, fighty, flutter of feminine featherhood. She had the bulldog tenacity of a pitbull and Red knew that he was in for one hard cock fight.
     The judge was The Most Honorable Judge Trudith Schweinlin commonly know as Judge Trudy and she was a self admitted femme legalist.
     They now all were engaged in the process of picking the last juror and so far the jury was diverse to say the least. It was comprised of a mixed breeds herd of Herefords, Guernseys, Holsteins, Limousins, Charlaises, Jerseys, Longhorns, and one purple cow, which no one had hoped to see and certainly no one hoped to be one. But alas not one Black Angus was on the jury nor was there one male of the species either. They were all cows. Mr. McRooster  objected that having all those females on the jury was unfair and prejudicial to his client. To which Judge Trudy replied that his client was in deed  getting a fair trial by a jury of his peers because peers mean equals and females and males were all equal under the law. And when he objected that there were no Black Angus on the jury she convolutedly countered that there was already enough diversity on the jury and that too much diversity was not a good thing and in fact could be harmful to the judicial governmental system for then there would be no unity, no tying link that binds and brings us all together and gives us closure. In other words it wasn’t sustainable she said.
     Red McRooster scratched his comb on his head until it bled trying to figure that one out. But he still had one last chance though. As said one more juror needed to be picked and the prospective juror now before the court was one Stevie Steer, not a bull, a former bull, now a steer, yet still a male, kind of. Being a steer he had been ‘degenderized’ and because of that Wren Deering had no objection to him being on the jury nor did Judge Trudy. In fact Judge Trudy thought it would be cool, i.e. enlightened, to have a genderless no gender person on the jury. Red McRooster had no objection either. He would play on this former male’s sympathies, harken him back to the days of his youth when he was a real man and thus bring out those sympathies to persuade him to find in favor of his client.
     And so the trial began.
     Wren Deering called her first witness the Complainant one Mamie, aka, Mame, Moorow, Mamie Moorow the famous bovine actress.
     “Please tell us Miss Moorow  when you first came to know Mr. Available, in the Biblical sense of the word that is,” she asked for inquiring titillated minds wanted to know.
    “Well I was put out to pasture by the dairy/cattle industrial complex with the Defendant many, many, years ago. I can’t remember exactly when and where or any dates or things like that because it was such a long long time ago. But I’ll never forget what he did to me. That’s for sure.” She wiped a tear from her big brown eyes.
    The jury was mooved.
    “And what did he do to you dear?”
    “He impregnated me. That’s what he did.”
    Gasp! Gasp!
    “How many times dear?”
    “I can’t remember. Just many that’s all.”
    “Your Witness Mr. McRooster,” chirped Wren.
    “No questions Madame Your Honor,”  McRooster then offered a stipulation. “In the interest of judicial efficiency the defense will stipulate that the testimony of the next dozen witnesses or so that the  State intends to call will all be of the same nature as Miss Moorow’s testimony and thus just be a repeat of a bunch of sad but titillating tails, excuse me tales, and a waste of the court’s time. We’ll accept their testimony as being the same as Miss Moorow’s.” He then went on and on repeating this point over and over for the next ten minutes or so until Judge Trudy  finally cut him off with, “What say you Miss Deering?”
     “No objection Your Honor as long as the Defendant admits to impregnating eighty six other females and some of them a couple of times or more.”
     “So agreed Your Honorness,” crowed McRooster.
     “We rest then Your Honor,” twerped Prosecutor Deering. Such overwhelming mountains of evidence and a pro female judge was a slam dunk conviction as far as she was concerned.
     “Call your first witness Mr. McRooster.”
     “The defense calls Peggy Porker.”
     “Objection Your Judgement. That woman is a pig and unfit to testify in these matters of bovines.”
     “Your Holiness, she is a woman and therefore qualified to speak to all things female regardless of her ethnicity.”
     Judge Trudith Schweinlin was proud of her swineish heritage. She wasn’t going to deny one of her own the privilege of testifying in her court.
     “Miss Porker may testify.”
     “Thank you Your Graciousness. Miss Porker please state your name and address for the record.”
     “My name is Margaret Porker but everyone calls me Peggy. I live at Dell Manor Farm rural route 1 Jonestown here in the state of Confusionia.”
     “And what do you do there?”
     “I produce piglets.”
     “And are you good at your job?”
     “Very,”
     “And are you familiar with one with one Mamie Moorow who resides there too?”
     “Yes. She’s a milch cow. Know her quite well.”
      “And what is her job?”
      “Well besides getting her udders milked daily she produces calves. You could say that she’s like me in the reproduction business.”
       “And what would happen to her or to you too for that matter if you didn’t reproduce?”
       “We’d be out of a job.”
       “How so?”
       “Like we’d become sausage or mystery meat or Spam or something like that,”
       “So is it safe to say that you and Miss Moorow are actually just doing your jobs by getting knocked up and that you are actually advancing your careers in the process by doing so?”
      “Yes that would be safe to say.”
      “No further questions. Your witness Miss Endearing,” mocked Red McRooster.
      Ms. Deering flew up to the witness stand and fluttered in Peggy’s face.
      “Is it also safe to say that Farmer Dell, your boss, could have just as easily had you artificially inseminated?”
      “I suppose that’s possible.”
      “And isn’t it also possible that he could have had Miss Moorow artificially inseminated instead of letting the Defendant here, Mr. Available, have his way with her?”
     “Oh I suppose that’s possible. But what’s the fun in that dearie?”
     That last remark drew a stifled chuckle from Stevie Steer. Red McRooster, saw it, picked up on it and winked at him. Stevie gave him a thumbs up and winked back.
     Then Ms. Deering made the classic lawyerly mistake of not quitting when you’re behind, of asking that one question too many.
     “But it is possible isn’t it?” she insisted.
     “Yes suppose it’s possible if you don’t mind someone sticking their arm up to their elbow in your butt and mess around with your insides for a few minutes and hope that they get it right the first time so they don’t have to do it again. Yes that’s possible.”
     The jury dropped their jaws. Their mouths were locked open in shock.
     Wren Deering slumped down in her chair and tweeted, “No further questions.” Her cross examination had been self rendered worthless.
      “Next witness Mr. Mc Rooster,” grunted Judge Trudy.
     “The defense calls the Defendant Mr. Manfred Available,” cackled attorney McRooster.
      Mr. Available humbly took the stand, head upright and proud, he raised his right hoof and was sworn in while in his left hoof he waived a miniature American flag.
      “State your name and address please”, squawked McRooster.
      “My name is Manfred Available and I live at the same farm as Peggy and Mamie.”
     “Please tell us how Miss Mamie Moorow came to know you in the Biblical sense of the word that is.”
      “Well like always I was put out to pasture, minding my own business, just chewing my cud, ruminating and all, when she comes up beside me and starts rubbing up against me getting me all excited and stuff if you know what I mean.”
     “Then what you do?”
     “What could I do? She starts bating those long eyelashes of hers at me, looking at me with those big beautiful brown eyes, and then waving those big baggy udders of hers back and forth.”
     That last remark got a two thumbs up from Stevie Steer.
     “Then she starts whining and tells me that she needs to get pregnant to keep her job and advance her career and would I help her with that.”
      “So what did you do?”
      “ What could I do? I didn’t want the poor girl to lose her job. So I did what any gentleman would do. That’s all.”
     “So this wasn’t your fault then was it?
     “No it wasn’t. I blame Mame. I put the blame on------on her.”
     “Your witness Ms. Deer Run.”
     “And it wasn’t your fault in the other eighty six cases either was it Mr. Available? Was it?” she screeched.
     “No it wasn’t. Can I help it if eighty six women just happen to be in the same pasture as I’m in. I’m the one who’s the victim here not them.”
     With that answer both sides rested and the case went to the jury.
      Hours later the jury came back. Not guilty. Stevie Steer, being a kind of man was the jury foreman, and he put the ‘man’ back into foreman and had steered the jury his way.
      Judge Trudy couldn’t believe it. It went against the weight of the evidence on the judicial scales of justice. Being a woman she couldn’t have such an outrageousness anti-woman ruling in her court. Some had to pay. Someone had to be hung out to dry, hung out to dry like they dry cowhides that is. So she had bailiff Bird steer the jury out of the courtroom and onto an awaiting cattle truck where the jury was cattle called and hauled to the local abattoir, that’s slaughterhouse in English. Within twenty four hour hours the jury was rendered into corned beef, beef jerky, 10 per cent beef hot dogs, 10 percent beef burgers and parts of them like intestines, brains, stomachs, eyes, hooves and jaws, into Spam. As said someone had to pay and if it wasn’t  going to be the defendant then by god Judge Trudy, or by God Judge Trudy, same thing either way, had seen to it that the jury paid for their stillborn miscarriage of justice. And as a final note to prevent this from ever happening again, no longer would the prejudicial word foreman be used in her courtroom. From now on it would be forewoman.