Chapter 38 38

The courtroom is lit by a spherical glass chandelier that reminds Jess of the retail stores of her youth.The atmosphere in the courtroom was drowsy like that of a primary school classroom at the end of a winter day.As she made her way down the aisle, she became aware of two sensations—Blanton's hand still on the inward curve of her waist, and the veil tickling her cheeks like spiderwebs.The combination of these two feelings made her feel like she was having a strange wedding. Two lawyers stood in front of the bench, and the judge was leaning forward, looking down at their unraised faces.The three were lost in technical whispers that, to Jesse, looked like real-life re-creations of Boz's sketches in one of Charles Dickens' novels.The Marshal stands on the left, next to the American flag.Beside him, the court stenographer waits for the legal discussion before him to be concluded.Apparently Jesse hadn't heard the discussion.A railing separates the audience area from that of the debaters.At a long table on the far side of the railing sat a skinny and impossibly tall man in a bright yellow prison uniform.Next to him was a man in a suit who must have been another lawyer.A man in yellow national uniform is hunched over a yellow legal pad, apparently writing something.

Still far from the dock, Jessie felt Brandon Millhallan's hand suggestively on her waist. "It's close enough," he whispered. She moved away from him.He was wrong, it wasn't close enough.Brandon had no idea what she was thinking or feeling, but that was okay, she knew.All her voices temporarily became one voice.She enjoyed the unexpected, undisturbed pleasure.All she knew was this: if she didn't get closer to him now, if she didn't get as close as possible to him, he would never be far away from her.He would always be in the closet, or right outside the window, or hidden under the bed at midnight, smiling with a pale, wrinkled mouth—the kind that showed the gleam of gold teeth deep in his mouth.

She walked quickly down the aisle toward the railing that divided the courtroom.The misty veil brushes her cheeks like tiny fingers of caring.She could hear Brenton's displeased grunt, but it was at least ten light-years away.Still nearer, she heard a lawyer standing before the bench whispering: "... feels the State has been intransigent in this matter, Mr. Judge, if you only look at our citations of cases —most notably Kaston Grey vs. Hollis..." Get closer.The bailiff glanced up at her now, doubtful for a moment, then relaxed when Jessie lifted the veil and smiled at him.The bailiff jerked his thumb in the direction of Hubert.At the same time slightly shook his head.She was emotional, she felt intensely, and she could read the bailiff's gestures as easily as she could read a tabloid headline.That means: Ma'am, get away from that tiger, don't come within the reach of his paws.Then, seeing Brandon following, he relaxed his attention even more.If ever there had been a noble knight, Brandon was such a one.Apparently the bailiff didn't hear Brandon's growl: "Put down the veil, Jesse, why don't I let it go for you, damn it!"

Not only did she refuse to take his word for it, she even refused to look in his direction.She knew that his threats were empty—he didn't want to make noise in public in such a sacred environment.She liked Brandon, she did like him.But her days of following a man's orders are over.She was only on the verge of realizing that Brandon was hissing her, that the judge was still conversing with the defense attorney and the county attorney, and that the bailiff had slipped back into his half-dream, his dazed, dazed look.Jessie kept a pleasant smile on her face and disarmed the bailiff, but her heart was beating violently in her chest.She was now only two steps away from the railing-two short steps, and she saw that she had misread what Hubert was doing.After all, he is not writing, he is drawing.He drew a man with an erect penis about the size of a baseball bat.The man in the painting is sucking his own penis with his head down.She could see the painting quite clearly, but she could only see a small part of the artist's pale cheek, and the damp hair that hung in a mat on it.

"Jessie, you can't—" Brenton began, grabbing her arm. She withdrew her arm without looking back.All her attention was on Burt. "Hi!" she whispered to him, "Hi, you!" No response, at least not yet.A feeling of illusion passed through her heart.Is this what she is doing?Could this be real?No one seemed to be paying attention to her, not at all. "Hi! Damn guy?" She was louder now, angrily—still a whisper, but just enough to be heard, "Bah! Bah! Hi! I'm talking to you!" At this time, the judge looked up and frowned, as if she was talking to someone.Brandon let out a groan of despair and put a hand on her shoulder.If he tried to pull her back down the aisle, she would break free from him.Even if that meant ripping off the top half of her dress in the tugging process.Perhaps Brandon knew this, so he just forced her to sit on the empty bench behind the defense table (all the benches were empty. It was technically a closed hearing).At that moment, Raymond Andrew Hubert finally turned his head.

His queer star-shaped face, with its swollen, fat lips, its razor-like nose, and its bulbous forehead, had a very blank, utterly absent-minded look on it, but it was that face, and she knew it at once. up.The intense emotion that permeated her was not so much terror as relief. Then Hubert's face suddenly lit up, his razor-sharp cheeks showed a rash-like redness, and his red-rimmed eyes had that terrible gleam she had seen before.Those eyes stared at her now with the excitement and obsession of a hopeless madman, as they had stared at her at the cottage on the shore of Lake Mark in Cashwick.She saw in his eyes that he recognized her, and it was so bad that she went into a trance.

"Mr. Millhallen?" The judge seemed to ask in another universe, "Mr. Millhallen, can you tell me what you are doing here and who is this lady?" Raymond-André Hubert disappeared.It's space cowboys, love ghosts, monsters.Its oversized lips were puckered again, revealing its teeth—the teeth of a stained, unsightly, but very useful wild animal.She saw the gleam of gold teeth, like the eyes of beasts in the deep caves.Slowly, oh, very slowly, the demon came to life and began to move.Slowly, the demon raised its creepy, long orange arms. "Mr. Millhallen, please come to the bench with your uninvited guest. Come here at once!"

Shocked by the whipping tone, the bailiff woke up from his stupor.The stenographer looked back.Jessie felt Brandon pulling her arm, meaning to obey the judge's order.But she couldn't say for sure, and it didn't matter anyway, because she couldn't move, but she was buried up to her waist in cement.Of course it's eclipse time again, a total solar eclipse.After so many years, the stars twinkled in the day again, and they twinkled in her mind. She sat there, watching the grinning monster in yellow clothes raise its deformed arms, eyes still staring at her with rotten sockets.Its arms were raised, its long, thin hands in the air about a foot from its pale ears.This parody is so effective it's terrifying.She could almost see the bedposts as the thing in the orange national dress moved.

It first turned its hands with long outstretched fingers, and then shook them back and forth, as if they were bound by something that only he and the woman who lifted the veil could see.The sound from that grinning mouth formed an odd contrast to the overdeveloped whole face.It was a high-pitched cry, the voice of a mad child. "I see that you are nothing!" shrieked Raymond-André Hubert in that trembling, childish voice which pierced the stale, overheated air of the courtroom like a sharp knife, "You just made it out of moonlight!" Then it started laughing.Its hideous hands shook back and forth in handcuffs that only the two of them could see.It laughs... laughs... laughs...