A Long Hearing (Dedicated to Mark Lipinski)

A LONG HEARING

If you head to Court in Bradenton

Across the street you'll see

An old brick building marked 1922

The Law office of Mark Lipinski

Mark brought me on board to help defend

A very serious situation

His client was facing years in prison

Accused of a violation of probation.

Gary the client looked like Elvis

If Elvis had reached his declining years

He was used to talking himself out of anything

But this time it looked bleak I feared.

I went early to the office,

to help organize the files

so that Mark would have the tools

to defend Gary all the while.

We looked for justice to the judge,

a prim and proper sort.

She cast a withering glance upon us

 as we entered into her court

The hearing began at nine am

and had a promising legal beginning

And even though there was no chance in hell

I thought we might be winning.

Gary was not allowed to work

 at any job or avocation.

We were saying he had not

 And thus no violation of probation.

A lunch break came and the lunch break went

 but Mark he did not eat

He sat in a room with stacks of files

to scrawl upon and read.

In the afternoon the case went bad

 as soon as the first witness was called

She testified and almost cried.

The judge began to bawl

But then Mark had some questions,

maybe just one or two.

He went on for more than an hour

and still he was not through.

At three thirty pm on Friday

Conflicts with the Judge arose

Mark moved to disqualify her

“Overruled” she snapped, “Let’s go.”

When the clock struck five, the State rested

Saying “Judge, that’s all there is.”

We applied for a continuance.

The judge said: “Call your next witness!”

At seven o’clock the air conditioning shut off

making a loud and lonely bang

 As I sat there, with sweat down my face,

the judge said “cross-examine?”

No real breaks were taken

 to relieve the prostates of old men

There was no time to eat, no time to call

before we were at it again.

The water had run out long ago,

while the bailiffs softly laughed

But Mark, mighty Mark, kept talking

 There were still more questions to ask.

Around about nine pm, he leaned over

And asked “How we doing Pal?”

”Going down like the Titanic” I replied

And all he did was smile.

The hearing didn’t end until eleven pm,

as Gary was hauled off to jail in tears.

But damn it Mark was still arguing for him,

even as the courtroom cleared.

Walking to the office I heard Mark exclaim,

“Break out the booze, I’ve got some I think.”

But though there was water, water everywhere

There was not a drop to drink.

At the end of this long hearing

We were tired, hot and hungry

“We will fight another day,”
said lawyer Mark Lipinski.