Letters From Will

Chapter Eighteen

Tom

What is this place? I look around... I see legs... table legs... I am under a table? On a carpeted floor? I'd better get up... Bloody hell! I hit my head on the table top above me... Oh, God, my head... Anybody got the licence plates of the lorry that ran me over? Ooh, I'd better lay down again and the world could, please, stop spinning...

"What are you doing under the table, Thomas?" Rita's voice reverberates inside my skull. She's heading to the curtains to pull them... No! I turn to the other side so the light won't hit me directly in the eyes... "We need some sun in here," she states.

"No, we don't..." I don't recognize my own voice.

"What are you playing next? Dracula?"

"For the love of God, Rita, what happened last night?" I croak, my throat feels like it's covered in sandpaper and my mouth tastes like the inside of a badger's arse. "What happened to me?"

"It's not my fault if you can't hold your liquor." Rita's voice echoes inside my ears.

It's hard, but I crawl out from under Rita's conference table and sit up cross-legged, my head in my hands. "What do you mean, I can't hold my liquor? I'm a 6'2 tall Englishman, I weight roughly 180 pounds, and I have regularly drunk scotch, quite a lot of it, since my teens, among other assorted beverages."

"You still can't hold your bourbon, Thomas."

Little by little... painfully... slowly... I start remembering the events of the night before...

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The jury was filing out of the courtroom to start deliberations and the judge was heading to the back door to her chambers. A... what's the title...? C.O. or correctional officer in uniform roughly grabbed Percy's arm to pull her out of the courtroom, and she yelped. I jumped out of my chair in the back and called her, loud, making my voice carry to stop everyone on their tracks. Rita shot out with her hand telling me to stay put, and she said something to that lout. I saw his face pale and he released Percy's arm, instead touching her shoulder and leading her out more gently.

Later, when we were back at her office, getting started on what would turn into a night to forget washed out in bourbon and fuelled with Chinese takeout, I asked Rita what she had said to the brute. "I told him if he manhandled her in any way again, I would know and I would have his job. And his head," she answered.

"Would you really know?" I asked her.

"Yes, I have my sources," she told me. "I have sources everywhere in the Justice system." And she added, "By the way, great advice. I've been told Percy has the other inmates enthralled with her tales. They are protecting her, 'cause they love her stories."

I nodded and took another sip of Woodford Reserve. I wouldn't forgo my Jameson for this spirit, but... well, all in all, not a bad alternative. "Storytelling is a weapon. I can feel its power when I'm acting on stage, how the audience responds."

"What play did you feel it stronger?" asked Rita, pouring herself her third dose, neat, and showing absolutely no signs of the drink's effect.

"Coriolanus, hands down," I answered. "It was semi-arena, not Italian stage, and we were very close to the audience. It was electrifying."

"Did you see the gay juror when the man grabbed Percy and you reacted, Tom?" asked Charlie, who had been sitting silent all that time.

"No, I was looking at Percy," I answered.