the Season of Leo - 3. The Scales of Libra

The Scales of Libra

The time of Libra runs from the last week of September to the third week of October. It was appropriate because it was time for the preliminary hearing for the Prophet. He had court dates in the Forrest County Court House for state charges and at the US District Court in Jackson for federal charges.

As I was a potential witness, I wasn’t supposed to watch anything about the Prophet on television, radio or read about it in newspapers or magazines. That wasn’t a big problem for me. Radio sounded like cats in a blender, what little TV I had seen, was mostly loud commercials and I had no current subscriptions. I was good to go.

I also discovered that I was depressed. It wasn’t because I was beginning to think my name was dumb ass. It was because I was discovering just how freaky my upbringing had been. Dr. Price put me on something called Zoloft and told me that my anger was perfectly understandable.

Just when I was feeling like running away to join a circus, Dr. Price had me in her office to tell me about my tests. It was about what I thought it would be. My reading and reading comprehension were very good— senior level. My math, science, history and everything else… let’s just say it wasn’t my proudest moment. She told me that that the Education Department at the University of Southern Mississippi had designed a course of study for me and that if I worked at it, I could start school next fall. So there was light at the end of the tunnel.

That afternoon hurricane Jeb blew into our group. I call him hurricane Jeb because his chaotic energy was every bit as wild as any hurricane that ever struck this area. Jeb was a cute little thirteen year old kid with shoulder length hair that had a vocabulary that would make a sailor blush and enough anger to set things on fire at ten feet. He was loud, he was abusive and when I tried to look up some of the words he used on the computer, it told me that content is blocked and doused with holy water.

This little kid with white blond hair that looks like a Christmas card angel has such a mouth on him that he leaves almost everyone else speechless. The dopers that even tried to keep up were buried in a blizzard of obscenities delivered like machine gun fire.

I was fighting so hard not to laugh, I had to excuse myself and leave the room. When Dr. Price caught up with me I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. She tried to keep a straight face but couldn’t. It really was funny.

When I was done cracking up she told me that I had something in common with that kid. That instantly killed my laughing jag. There was only one thing I could think of that I might have in common with Jeb and it was ugly.

Later that night, I woke with a start as someone jumped on my bed. Jeb was sitting on the edge of my bed grinning at me. He said that he was another video star and recognized me from the web. I blushed so hard; I was glowing in the dark. He said don’t be embarrassed, you were hot. That made it even worse.

We talked for a while and we seemed to come to the same conclusions. We were both conned but in very different ways. Jeb was conned because he was lonely and needed attention and affection. I was conned because of the Prophet’s religious puffery.

The sex wasn’t really an issue for either of us. We would have preferred that it had been our own idea with our own choice of partners and privacy. Our biggest issue was the semi-public display of our wares on the internets. Neither one of us could go out in public without possibly being recognized by one of our “fans”.

I asked Jeb about why he came on so strong in group. Now it was his turn to blush. He said he saw in an old war movie that if you were outnumbered and outgunned you counterattack. When he was scared and intimidated, that’s what he did.

I’m not sure why I did it but I was moved to hug him at that point and he hugged back. While I was hugging him I told him that Dr. Price was nice, some of the others took some getting used to but, he had at least one friend in the funny farm.

He surprised me by kissing me on the cheek. I didn’t kiss him back but I stroked his long hair, looked in his eyes and told him he was cuter than a bobcat cub. That must have struck his as funny because he laughed all over. We agreed to meet for breakfast in the morning and I heard him laughing all the way down the hall.

With Jeb's arrival, things took a turn for the tolerable. Jeb calmed down in group and told people why he was so belligerent the first day. Later on in one of my sessions, Dr. Price thanked me for helping to tame the little firebrand. I told her that he had visited me and we had talked. She asked me about it and I gave her a broad outline without bullet pointed details. She approved.

As Jeb mellowed out, everyone started treating him like a favored younger cousin. I didn’t get as much of the dumb ass treatment anymore either. It was good to have a friend.

Toward the middle of the month, the Prophet’s preliminary trials came and went. Thankfully I wasn’t called to testify. That will come later, if ever. I was told that he might take a plea bargain and never go to trial. His new court date is sometime in January.

Testify is an interesting word: to give evidence in court, to make a statement based on personal knowledge or belief or, bear witness. The Prophet used to tell us to testify but I doubt there will be any hymns, singing or bible verses in court.

I got serious about my “course-ware”. It was a series of lessons on CD-ROM that held the classes that were planned for me. They were really surprised when I finished my first batch and was ready for the test. It was uploaded to be graded and the next batch of CDs would be sent.

Jeb was a regular visitor after lights out. We would talk laugh and surf the net for hours. They had a pretty good filter on the internet but Jeb knew just how to get around it. He knew about a proxy server in Bangladesh(and I know where that's at now) and boom— unfiltered access to the internets. Suddenly I had a LOT of questions. I’m like the I’m 12 and what’s this kid. (I have previously discovered memes.) What are those people doing with those gerbils? There are actually people who like midget porn? I don’t even want to know what the mustache and suspenders thing was all about.

There’re some really, really messed up people out there. Some of the feelings I get when Jeb and I accidently look at each other too long… makes me think I’m becoming one of them.