Who’s the dummy?

A play in one act

By Marty Widemargin

JOTR Dramatist

SCENE 1: Oak-paneled board room of Detroit bridge company. Long oak-topped table surrounded by oak-armed swivel chairs. Room is empty save for Old Man who is busy coloring the face of a mannequin.

SOLILOQUOY by Old Man: So the judge thinks he can make me come to court, does he? Nobody tells Lord Matty what to do! I’ll show Hizzoner whose honor he has. It’s My Honor! Am I not a billionaire? Yes, by gumption, that is what I am! How did I get to be a billionaire? By doing what judges tell me to do? No, sirree! I buy anything I want. Anybody gets in my way, I buy them or destroy them. But this judge is a pain in the kaiser roll. Does he really think he can put me in jail? I can do what I want to do. Nobody puts King Matty in jail! Now, who’s that at the door?

SONNY BOY: Hey, Daddy-O. Why so glum? That damn judge is all through. I’ve got his number.

OLD MAN: What you gonna do, Sonny Boy? Send some shotgun totin’ goons to fix his wagon?

SONNY BOY: Nothin’ that crude, Daddy-O.  I’m gonna slander the son of a bitch. Make up some bullshit story about the judge and heave it out to the news media. They been beatin’ up on you, it’s time they beat up on the judge an’ the governor.

OLD MAN: That judge is a pain in the kaiser roll. What kinda bullshit you gonna throw the media dogs?

SONNY BOY: Pain in the keister, Daddy O. Not kaiser roll. Here’s what I’m thinkin’, Daddy-O. What if we pretend the judge has a CONFLICT OF INTEREST?

OLD MAN: What CONFLICT OF INTEREST you thinkin’ of? How about an affair with the governor’s wife?

SONNY BOY: No, no, no, Daddy-O. Way too crude.

OLD MAN: Well, how ’bout the judge has an affair with the governor?

SONNY BOY: No, no, no, Daddy-O. It’s got to be somethin’ the dupes of the press will believe. Nothin’ much. See, the beauty of a CONFLICT OF INTEREST is that once we put out a press release that the judge has a CONFLICT OF INTEREST, well, he HAS a CONFLICT OF INTEREST whether he do or don’t!

OLD MAN: I don’t get it.

SONNY BOY: I’m gonna say that the judge’s SON wants a favor from the governor. The governor wants a new bridge that will run our old bridge out of business. So we don’t like the governor. The judge wants you to tear down some gas pumps and your duty-free store because they don’t comply with your contract with the state highway department. That happens to be true, but we don’t care because we do what billionaires do and the truth be screwed. The judge’s been rulin’ against your bridge since long before the governor was a governor, but the numbskulls from the press won’t remember that. So we don’t like the governor and we don’t like the judge. How can we smear the judge? Very simple. We accuse his son of wanting a favor from the governor and put out a press release and say that is a CONFLICT OF INTEREST.

OLD MAN: I don’t get it. How’s the judge’s son wanting a favor from the governor connect the judge to the governor in a CONFLICT OF INTEREST? It doesn’t make sense.

SONNY BOY: Now you got it! It doesn’t make sense! It doesn’t HAVE to make sense. The press will swallow it whole because they don’t have any sense. Nothing has to make sense to the media for them to slobber all over it and act like it’s manna from heaven.

OLD MAN: I think I get it. It doesn’t make sense, so it makes sense.

SONNY BOY: Right you are, Daddy O! It’s a non sequitude! It do not follow. That is the beauty of it. We paint the judge with a phony rap of CONFLICT OF INTEREST. Our claim is bullshit. But by making a claim of CONFLICT aimed straight at the judge, we create a CONFLICT OF INTEREST between us and the judge. How can he be fair in our bridge case when we’re slandering him?

OLD MAN: Slime a judge! I love it. We call the judge names, then claim he can’t be just because we crapped all over him. Sonny Boy, you are a genius!

SONNY BOY: Why’re you’re colorin’ the face of that mannequin, Daddy O?

OLD MAN: I’m not goin’ to court. You’re gonna take this dummy and tell the judge it’s me.