The Trial of Tea Gardner

Tea walked home, feeling like she was unreal, like she was made out of paper. Nothing felt right—her knees didn't fit in their sockets, and her skin wasn't sitting properly on her bones. It kept inching this way and that, and she had to keep patting her arms down. She blinked rapidly, over and over, then squinched her eyes shut, trying to make the world look normal again, to get the colors back to their proper brightness. People were moving either too slow or too fast.

To her relief, nobody looked at her, though for some reason the buildings were taller and leaned toward her, peering down at her. It was as if she was a newborn baby in a crib, or a dissected frog in a pan, or dog food in a dish. They were sniffing at her. She KNEW she had to look different, with her skin wriggling this way and that, and her eyes unfocused. Maybe she was levitating, but no, her feet were still on the sidewalk, and still moving forward, but they looked like they were just walking in place, and it was the concrete that was rolling by under her feet. She knew she smelled different. She smelled like Kaiba now, like sex and sweat and her own desperation. It was strange that only the buildings seemed to notice.

This made no sense. Nothing made sense.

She scratched her arm. It hurt, just like she had hurt Kaiba. Kaiba….

She should go to the police. She should go to the policeman on the corner.

She moved her feet faster and the sidewalk zoomed by under her feet. But the stores just moved by so slowly. They stretched off into the distance, each building getting longer and longer, red brick and stucco morphing into taffy.

What the hell was she supposed to say to the cop when she approached him? Should she tug at his coat and say, "Excuse me, I've been raped"? Should she start flailing and screaming? Was that what she should do? How could she? She couldn't speak. She was almost deaf. The city was mute. The commands her brain gave her body stuttered and slurred.

Besides, Kaiba was big. He was powerful. She couldn't say anything about him. He would put HER in jail. His lawyer would get up in front of the court and say, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Your Honor. If what Seto Kaiba, my client, did was so wrong, why didn't Tea Gardner fight harder? She could have forced him off. She is strong. She can run fast. She's a dancer. And if it was so horrible, what my client, Mr. Seto Kaiba (child millionaire and generous genius), did, why did she let him hold her? Why did she like his smell, and his heartbeat? Why did she like it when he told her that her skin was soft, and when he touched her neck? Why did she feel guilty about leaving him all alone in that room afterward?"

A mirage of Kaiba's desperate face appeared on the sidewalk ahead of her. The concrete pitched and hawed. Tea put her hand on a tree to steady herself. It was one she knew. Home, she was almost home. She broke into a run. Kaiba's imaginary lawyer droned on in her mind.

"And, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, and Your Honor, if she HATED what Seto Kaiba, my powerful, intelligent, client (who is also an EXCEPTIONAL older brother, I might add), did what this girl says he did, why does she still have his money?"

Tea ran across her apartment complex's front lawn. If she could get into the house, and in the shower, than she could think, and hear, and her eyesight would return to normal, and maybe she would even wake up, and shrug this all off as some weird dream.

"AND, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let's not forget that Miss Gardner was untrue to her friend Yugi, and the Spirit of his Ring. This is a girl who claims she LOVES the Spirit, and LOVES Yugi, and yet she was perfectly willing to follow a boy, no, I apologize, a man, a fine, upstanding young man, but one whom she BARELY knows, into a dark, dingy closet, ON SCHOOL PROPERTY, and let him fondle her, after her gave her only eleven dollars. ELEVEN DOLLARS! And then she took ELEVEN more."

Tea burst through the front door of the apartment complex and climbed up the stairs, her hand gripping the railing. She passed an elderly neighbor going down the stairs and knew that the old lady knew what she did, and the old lady was going to complain to the manager that she refused to live on the same floor as a WHORE.

With shaking hands she unlocked the apartment door. Her parents wouldn't be home for a while. Friday was grocery -shopping night. Ivan was at the groomer's. Her parents would pick up a squeaky clean Ivan, who would be clad in a fresh bandanna. Then, after they put the groceries away, they would go on a date. They would go out and have fun, and they assumed she was out having fun.

Clean. She had to clean. She would clean the bathroom and the kitchen and this would all go away. Yes. She would clean.

She pulled the bucket out from under the sink and carried it to the bathtub to fill it with hot water and bubbly antiseptic. She grabbed sponges and a mop. She flushed the toilet to wet its sides and squirted in electric blue toilet bowl cleaner. The cleaner dribbled down the sides and dissolved in beads in the bowl like alien blood.

Tea fell to the ground, bruising her knees, in her frenzy to scrub the tub. It was going to be all right. All this time she thought Joey would have to suffer for her mistake, for her nightmare, by not getting his Flame Swordsman. Now he wouldn't have to! She could get the money from her parents, after all! And Tea's parents weren't going to lose a spotless kitchen, an immaculate bathroom, or a devoted daughter. The money they would give Tea would be sinless and untainted. She would use it to buy Joey's Swordsman, and the Swordsman would be nice and clean, too.

She dropped the sponge. Kaiba's money. Where was it?

She got up and went back to the apartment's entryway. The four bills lay scattered across the floor. She picked each bill up, two tens, two ones, with her fingertips, and shoved them into her purse. She had to do something with it. Destroying it would be a federal crime.

She went back out to the street, turned right at the stop sign, and walked quickly toward the dumpster by the fancy Mexican restaurant. Her hips swung freely in their sockets, loose and light by the prospect of good karma.

He was there, leaning on the dumpster, facing the street with his cardboard sign against his chest and his Dixie cup in his hand. His tufted hair, the texture of fiberglass insulation and the color of steel, was covered by his trademark oily baseball cap. She ran up to him.

"Hello," she said. She was giddy. Close up, his face was red and wrinkled and sagged. He had a slight cataract, but underneath the silvery rheuminess his eyes were beautiful, a cocktail olive green. He smiled. His cheeks lifted an inch, and his eyes twinkled. Her mother would have called it an Irish smile, just like Tea's grandfather had. The steel of his hair was rusted with reddish gold. Tea knew he must have been a beautiful man, and for a moment, she forgot about Kaiba. This man was a more incredible mystery.

"Hello, there," he said. His voice was shy, high and hoarse, childlike.

Tea pulled out the twenty-two dollars and gave it to the man. His tiny, muscular hands were cracked and grimy. The old man's eyes were Christmas trees, a sunny pasture in the spring. His toothless smile spilled out over Tea, and she felt physically warmer.

"Oh, angel," he said, and Tea heard a distinct lilt. "You can't imagine how grateful I am. Bless you, bless you."

"What's your name?" Tea asked. She had to know it.

"My name is David, my dear, David Seamus."

"It's good to meet you, Mr. Seamus. I'm Tea."

"A lovely name," Mr. Seamus took Tea's hand. She didn't flinch, even though his fingernails were black and his palms were brown. "You're a good girl." He let go of her hand, and then Tea turned and walked away, back to her cleaning.

She felt acquitted.