Right, you super-fans. Get ready for the grand finale (aka gross disappointment)! Poster Child ends here. I realize I could have broken up Parts One, Two, Three, and Four to make this ending part not seem so abrupt. But, you know, when you're hacking up a personal essay - you just hack with abandon. Thank you all for reading and for your kind praise!
POSTER CHILD
(finale)
by Eli James
On the morning of my birthday, I went down to the very same chambers that saw my first sentencing. I was working a temp job at an investment bank, and had told my boss I’d be in late because I had to “go to a court thing.” I could have told her anything else to explain my absence, but I was a very unimaginative liar. To my surprise, it didn’t seem to worry her. Perhaps she figured, whatever it was, I was innocent.
I was panicked thinking I would get the same Adjudicator as before. It seemed a likely possibility – it was the same court, roughly the same time of day. It was probably his shift. He was sure to recognize me and then let loose with the full weight of the law. I prayed he had called in sick, and then realized I would also have to pray that whoever filled in for him would be missing my file. I never felt so doomed. I wished I knew what type of fine I was looking at. Was it thousands? If so, I would have to call my parents who didn’t have thousands, but had closer to it than I did. If it was in the hundreds – I would still have to call them, and risk them telling me to go to hell.
It was an even older judge than the one before, perhaps in his early eighties, and he kindly informed me it was illegal to post signs on public property. I nodded. Gavel. “Case dismissed.” I didn’t hear a time limit.
I walked out of the courtroom, needing no direction this time toward the exit. I went back to the bank office, and all of the secretaries commented on what a nice suit I had on.
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