Inspired by Balancing Act by Richard Boyer and Connected by Vincent Figliol
John Grassby
The judge’s bench is elevated well above the rest of the courtroom. This, the old-before-hertime little girl notes, enables him to look down – literally and figuratively – on all the lesser beings crowded into the hot, humid space. The stench of nervous sweat is overpowering. Accompanied only by his court-appointed lawyer, the little girl’s father, appearing smaller and more beaten down than she remembers him being, stands in front of the judge. It has been obvious to the little girl from the outset, that the lawyer resents having been appointed to this case and his desultory representation has reflected that. She cannot hear his brief pre-sentencing words to the judge, but when he and the judge laugh together, shrug, and shake their heads in evident mutual exasperation at the moral turpitude of all defendants, she knows to expect the worst. In a louder voice than 14 | EKPHRASIS 2022
necessary to be heard over all the others, the judge announces, “The court having previously found you guilty as charged, you are hereby sentenced to three years in state prison. Let this be a lesson to you and all your countrymen who seem to think you can waltz across the border at will, then misbehave however you want.” The little girl sees her father sag even more. Before the hearing her father had taken her aside to say, “Ay, m’hija querida – my daughter, my beloved daughter. Your dear departed mother and I are why you were born in this tortured time and place, this maelstrom known as la frontera, or the borderlands – a no man’s land marked only by arbitrary, otherwise meaningless lines in the desert. On one side one culture dominates, on the other side another, each fundamentally different from the other, each with its own reality
