United States vs FR Drury

Inside the ADMIN build­ing, I fall prey to yet another fan­tasy as my thoughts drift back to the first time I won­dered why the Lord of Dark­ness had fought so hard to keep me in the dark about this tiny island of mine. For if left alone, long enough, I’d invari­ably get sucked into the fight as the forces of dark­ness rose up against me, like a tsunami, to inun­date me with their lies. So would I lose sight of who I really am until I reemerged from this lat­est flood of images with some heretofore-​​unrecognized truth about myself. Unchal­lenged, I would never have taken the plunge into this two-​​dimensional, holo­graphic world of his to free my soul from her impris­on­ment in nature. Nor would I have ever got­ten to the bot­tom of the mat­ter of the United States ver­sus FR Drury.

“You’re late,” booms out a voice from some­where across the thresh­old of con­scious­ness as I step forth from the looking-​​glass world of my soul to greet the only defense I have, a legal adviser of my own ilk will­ing to take on Uncle Sam’s lieu­tenants for the sake of the soul alone.

“Have you rewrit­ten your state­ment?” he asks as I enter the court­room to be judged, this time around, on the grounds of my own being instead of theirs.

“I have,” I respond with a big grin on my face, “to more accu­rately reflect what has taken place inside me over the past two years.”

“Good,” he replies.

With that, in bursts the recorder–or lawyer for the Navy–like a steam engine from the judge’s cham­ber. As the five offi­cers, who will decide my fate, file past ‘m, like empty box­cars, to take up their pre­dis­posed posi­tions on this lone­some freight, he com­mands the real E. J. Drury to please stand up.

Not until the only ear on the whole damn train, the court reporter in the caboose, has set her­self up to record all this gib­ber­ish, am I told to be seated by the senior mem­ber of the board, a throw­back to pre­his­toric times named Fitzgibbons.

As he swings from one limb to another in my mind’s eye, like some great tail­less ape does he con­vene the hearing.

SENIOR MEMBER: This hear­ing will come to order. This hear­ing con­vened in the Gen­eral Court Mar­tial Room of the Com­man­dant, Four­teenth Naval Dis­trict, U.S. Naval Sta­tion, Pearl Har­bor, Hawaii, in accor­dance with the Com­mand­ing Offi­cer, USS Golds­bor­ough DDG-​​20, appoint­ing order ser­ial 603 dated 4 Novem­ber 1968. The appointed mem­bers of the board are all present.

The board con­vened at 0927 hours, 7 Novem­ber 1968.

FR Drury is the respon­dent in this hear­ing and will be referred to as such through­out these proceedings.

Mr. Brook Hart will rep­re­sent the respondent.

As this great ape swung past the court reporter to intro­duce us all to the recorder, another tail­less ape of less rank named Glea­son, I fell vic­tim to my own thoughts about my defense.

An attor­ney admit­ted to prac­tice before the Bar of New York and Hawaii, this young and impec­ca­bly dressed upstart had been retained by the Hawaii Resis­tance to defend me, one among a grow­ing clien­tele of young rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies refus­ing to coöper­ate with either the mil­i­tary or the draft. Even though he, him­self, had not evolved that far, he adamantly defended those who like myself had. For he still believed that the legal sys­tem pro­tected such rights as con­sci­en­tious objec­tion, or at least afforded redress when these rights were tram­pled upon by the old evo­lu­tion­ary order. And because he believed that the law could change the atti­tudes of these Nean­derthals, that court­room drama could trans­form their hearts, he was for­ever encour­ag­ing me to oper­ate within the frame­work of the law.

As I begin to won­der what effect, if any, I will have on these Nean­derthals today, I am pulled back into this cha­rade by way of an inquiry from the leader of this pack of tail­less apes.