“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God?” spoke the judge in a thick, nearly-incomprehensible southern drawl.
“With all due respect, your honor,” responded Bobby, staring out at a courtroom packed full of people he once considered friends and colleagues. “If I place my hand on this Bible, I will literally burst into flames.”
Last week, the campus support dog, Beacon, vanished without a trace, and seeing as Bobby Beacon has made his disdain for the pooch publicly known, he’s been accused of foul play. Vehemently denying any wrongdoing, the university decided to hold a trial to decide whether Bobby was behind the disappearance and whether he was fit to continue as the school’s mascot.
“Your honor, first off, it is my honor to be representing the University of Massachusetts Boston in this historic case.” The prosecutor, Lenny, was a disheveled man who stumbled up from his seat, clearly hungover. “Now, to make my case that Mr. Beacon is a deranged, dog-napping lunatic, I would like to call Bool Beacon to the stand.”
Once Bool got situated, Lenny began his questioning. “Now, Bool. We all know that biologically speaking, Bobby isn’t your father; however, having spent time around him, how would you describe his general demeanor?”
“He’s honestly the worst, most uncaring person I have ever met in my life!” replied Bool timidly. “At first, he pretended like I didn’t exist, but then he took the time to bond with me. I thought he cared! I thought he loved me. But then the paternity test came back and… I wouldn’t put anything beneath him! Not even murder!”
Audible gasps were heard from around the room as Bobby rocketed up from his seat in fury.
“You little f—ing s—, Bool! Most of that bonding s— happened in the comics and everybody knows the comics are soft canon! I’m sorry you didn’t spring from these loins, but them’s the brakes, pal! And look, I’ll be the first to admit that maybe sometimes, I’m kind of a dick, but that doesn’t make me a murderer!”
The judge hammered his gavel, frantically trying to regain order.
“Bobby, you’re being a pain in the royal buttoose! You speak when spoken to, you hear me, son?”
Slumping back into his seat, Bobby appeared defeated. Soon after Bool ran from the courtroom in tears, Lenny called his next witness to the stand: Our esteemed Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco.
“Mr. Chancellor, big fan,” spoke Lenny, figuring it best to kiss a little ass before plowing into his question. “The defendant claims that he is not of the murdering type; however, as I understand it, you disagree.”
“That lighthouse murdered my baby!” screamed the chancellor while adjusting the pasta strainer on his head. “Clump was my son, the noodle messiah, the Pastafarian Prince and our new mascot. Eaten up by seagulls? Yeah, right! I saw Bobby out on the Harbor Walk a few days prior getting real chummy with those birds. He was training them, I tell you! And I’ll tell you something else, when that Beacon feels his position threatened, he kills!”
“Now, Lenny,” interrupted the judge. “You can not expect me to equate the ‘killing’ of a spaghetti to that of a living thing.”
Sending the chancellor off, Lenny called Susan Macklowski, a more reputable witness.
“Bobby killed my husband one year ago,” claimed Susan. “It was in some kind of failed suicide attempt. He jumped off the roof of the Integrated Science Center and landed on my husband’s car. We thought he would recover, but he died in the hospital of an infection two months later!”
Bobby stared around the court blankly. “Wait, how do you guys know about that? I told that story to a friend in confidence!”
“Let the jury know that this event was documented in an article published by The Mass Media on April 28, 2023,” clarified the judge.
As Bobby shot a death stare to the back corner of the room where a certain newspaper humor editor sat diligently reporting on the trial, the judge let out a sigh of disappointment.
“Lenny, you’ve made your case that Mr. Beacon is capable of the crime, but what evidence do you have that he is behind this doggie’s disappearance?”
Lenny shuffled about awkwardly, having genuinely nothing to say and no plan in place for this scenario. It was at this moment that the doors of the courtroom flung open and a scruffy-looking figure in a trench coat and fedora stepped in.
“Well, toot my boot and give me a holler!” stammered the judge in disbelief. “Why if it isn’t acclaimed detective, T. N. Turner.”
“Your honor,” whispered Turner in a low, gruff voice. “I’d like to present some new evidence.”
The court was stunned into silence as they gazed at the object in Turner’s hand. Bobby let out a quick, “Well, I’m f—ed” as Turner gave the item to the judge. It was a “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” Do-It-Yourself book, and scrawled on the cover was the name, “Bobby B. Beacon.”
To be continued…