Red from Shawshank Narrates My Day

 

It was 9 o’clock in the morning when Matt woke up that grey Winter day, the year of our Lord 2009.  And boy, did he have to piss somethin’ awful.  Like I said, the hard part about the prostate exam ain’t the business of knowin’.

Matt had a cup of coffee.  2 cups maybe.  By the time they tested the siren, Matt figured he should get to the gym.  Of course, it would be hard gettin’ in the snow that had fallen that previous night.  And my Lord, had that snow fallen like a virgin’s tears frozen crisp in time through the magnanimity of Mother Nature herself.  

The truth is, Matt never did get to the gym that day.

After reading a little bit about the fat cats and over-paid athletes, Matt turned on the television.  As it turned out, they was playing a Law & Order marathon on cable.  So after some watchin’, he took to it pretty well.  Before long, Matt was  3 episodes deep, and for the briefest of moments felt as one with Detective Briscoe, may God rest his soul.  They ain’t never made a procedural crime drama that could carry the water of Dick Wolf’s divine creation.

I wish I could tell you that Matt got off the couch that day.  I wish I could tell you Matt went down to the food depository and volunteered his time.  I wish I could tell you he still don’t have cereal in his facial hair from the breakfast he ate 7 hours ago.  But this is no fairy tale.

 In the Winter of’ ’09, ol’ Matt watched 12 straight hours of Law & Order.  

I’ve had some long nights during my time, but ain’t nothing like 12 hours of tv formula wrapped nicely in  separate one hour packets, each ripped from the headlines and shown so that the worst of human nature can be displayed for all who care to look, like a full Moon herself.  

I like to think that Matt solved all the mysteries by the midway point of each episode.  But that ain’t true.  Sometimes it makes me sad, but then I remind myself that he loves the surprise endings, the fork in the road where the truth is divulged from the mystery, the veil cast off, the butterfly emerging from its cocoon of intrigue.  I guess I just miss Lenny too.

Like I said, in the criminal justice system, the people are represented by 2 separate yet equally  important groups: the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.  But I guess maybe some things are better left unsaid.