Literary Work
Shadow Boxing with the Law in the Time of Corona Joshua Moody
I recently received a letter in the mail from a traffic court in a small town in upstate New York. Out of respect and/or fear of legal retribution I will refer to this small town exclusively as Small Town from here on out, but hey, Small Town—you know who you are. The letter—or bill, really—informed me that the Small Town Traffic Court had graciously accepted my guilty plea for a parking ticket I’d found tucked under my windshield wiper about a month ago. While I had to appreciate the alacrity with which they reached out to collect their prize, I couldn’t help but take issue with two minor wrinkles in my speedily resolved case. Firstly, the ticket in question was—to put it gently—complete and utter bull, and secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I hadn’t pled guilty at all. I discovered the ticket following a lovely day spent around a lake with my socially distanced pod of friends—we swam, we sun bathed, we discussed the possible scenarios of the apocalypse unfolding around us. It was very relaxing. The sudden appearance of this unfounded ticket, however, tossed all of my fleeting serenity out the window like so much bubonic diarrhea from a chamber pot. You see the supposed infraction was listed as “parking in the street,” yet my car was very clearly parked on the grassy shoulder of the road, at least a yard away from the pavement. What’s more, while there were signs prohibiting street parking about a mile away, this part of the road had no signage whatsoever, and we all know the famous saying that isn’t actually a saying but let’s just pretend: “no sign, no crime.” What’s even more, my friend’s car, parked directly in front of my own—while still not parked in the road—was nonetheless at least a foot closer, and yet she found her windshield as clean as my driving record up until this moment. As you can imagine, I was perplexed and incensed. I huffed. I puffed. I took photos of the scene, the lack of signage and the other three—miraculously ticketless—cars parked in the same area. When I got home I filled out the back of the ticket immediately, checking the box marked “not guilty” multiple times, writing so dark you could practically read it from the other side. Before stuffing the ticket into an envelope and dropping it into the mailbox I even took a picture of my ticket, filled out as plain as day, some wily part of me fully expecting shenanigans. As the court date written upon my ticket approached I’d received not a word in response to my not guilty plea, so in an
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excess of caution, I dialed the listed telephone number for the Town of Small Town Traffic Court. An answering machine picked up with a message explaining that, due to Covid-19, the court was indefinitely shuttered, and not to worry, because court dates would be rescheduled and no warrants would be issued for outstanding payments. This was a twist. Perhaps the message was legit, I thought, and this was the explanation for the radio silence on the other end of the traffic ticket line. And yet, what if they forgot to change the answering machine message? Small Town is, after all, a pretty small town, and it’s entirely possible the limited employees simply hadn’t gotten around to it. So, in an excess of excess caution, I decided to drive to the address on my ticket at the date and time of my scheduled court date regardless, just in case. I put on a shirt and tie. I pulled up my pants an inch higher than usual. I gathered my printed evidence photos and finally I entered the address written on the back of my ticket into Google Maps and headed out for Small Town. I pulled up in front of the Small Town Traffic Court with ten minutes to spare before my trial, but imagine my surprise when I discovered that the court was neither open nor closed—it wasn’t there at all. In its place was a private residence, a small log cabin home with a sky blue Toyota Tercel parked in the drive, yet nary a bailiff nor barrister wandering the yard. Thinking maybe the address had been written incorrectly on my ticket I then googled the Small Town Traffic Court. Sure enough, the address of this cozy summer cottage popped up on the screen of my phone. It was now confirmed—I was definitely in the right wrong place. Perhaps they knew I was coming despite their little message, I thought. Perhaps they pulled up roots in the dead of night and fled before I could smite them with my hammer of righteous indignation and my sword of copious, multi-angled
