In a suburban home�s family room, Supreme Court Justice
Clarence Thomas is watching a DVD. Hearing the garage door grind open, he jumps
up, ejects a Long Dong Silver cassette, quickly places it in a case, titled
�Recount,� and shoves it behind the Bible in the built-in bookcase. Ginni
Thomas enters through the kitchen and walks into the family room seconds after
Thomas has zipped his fly.
Ginni: Please, before you say anything, I . . .
Clarence: What were you thinking?
Ginni: I . . .
Clarence: I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the
years and ask you to consider something? I would love you to consider an
apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my
husband? So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to
understand why you did what you did? Okay, have a good day?????
Ginni: I, uh . . .
Clarence: People had forgotten this. Don�t you understand?
It�s been years and, now, it�s everywhere. Do you remember what I said in my
defense? Let me remind you:
This is a circus. It�s a national disgrace. And from my
standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks
who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have
different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order,
this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by
a committee of the US Senate rather than hung from a tree.
You�ve resurrected the past, opened a floodgate that was
closed almost two decades ago.
Ginni: Oh, Clarie, I fell in love with you all over again
that day. Your eloquence, your fury . . .
Clarence: Don�t. Don�t try to use psychological flattery. I
could be impeached. You might as well go outside, choose a tree, and put my
name on it. Because that�s what this feels like, another lynching.
Ginni: Look, I�m the one who�s being lynched.
Clarence: Whoa, don�t even go there. No Caucasian could
comprehend lynching. Don�t even go there.
Ginni: Go there? I think someone�s feeling Christ-like.
Again.
Clarence: And why shouldn�t I? It was persecution. I was
nailed to a cross, plain and simple, but it was forgotten, and you�ve . . .
Ginni: Look, I�ve been criticized for Tea Partying. You
know, conflict of interest because of your position. Your position. What about
my position? What about me? If 15 gazillion women came forward today and each
one said you asked her who put pubes on your Coke, you�d still wear the robe.
Suppose you WERE obsessed with porn, WHICH I don�t believe for one second, but
all you�d have to do is have a David Vitter moment and say you�d asked
forgiveness from God and me. Anyway, Clarie, I don�t mean to whine but I do
have a law degree. I want to be somebody. And this is it for me, my time among
the Mama Grizzlies. If I resurrected . . .
Clarence: Baby, I love the way you say �resurrected.� You�re
right. It�s okay. If they didn�t impeach Bush, they won�t impeach me. Even the
latest WikiLeaks documents won�t shock anyone. The public doesn�t care. C�mere
and place your Liberty Central smack dab on my resurrection. Tell me your
breasts are bigger than Sarah�s, than Christine�s. You happen to know their bra
size? And call me Justice.
Missy Beattie
lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Her email address is missybeat@gmail.com.