August 15th

The Year of Our Lord 2011

To the Honorable Judge _____

Your Honor:

Sir, I take pen (or keyboard) in hand in a state of highest dudgeon and fiercest wrath to address the grievous, near unbearable wrong you have perpetuated upon two of my dearest friends. I am speaking in regards to the mockery of justice which you — in your obvious, painful ignorance of morality, decency, and legal matters in general — handed down Friday last from the bench in family court of the capital of our fair state.

For reasons known only to God and no doubt sprung from His most rued creation, Lucifer, you have separated a caring, loving, hardworking, decent, God-fearing and law-abiding man of unimpeachable honor and impeccable upbringing from his dearly beloved son. You brought about this sorry state of affairs by granting full custody of an impressionable, naive child in the very bud of his adolescence – a time when he will need his father most of all — to a shameless hussy, inveterate liar, brazen barmaid, and unrepentant harlot.

To make matters worse — as if you in your ineptitude could manage such a feat — this Moll Flanders is recently wedded, if such “common-law attachments” are recognized in polite society, to nothing less than a slothful, n0-count, layabout sluggard unable to maintain gainful employment because he thirsts so for the waters of iniquity — Demon Rum.

Both of these pernicious and slovenly members of the dregs of society are known for wanton, unchecked consumption of opiates and narcotics gained by devious — possibly extralegal — means. Even the child is distressed by the amount and frequency with which this woman of the evening and her mewling consort take their ill-gotten “medication.” I maintain this lad is entirely too tender in years to dwell perforce in such a  chaotic state of fear and filth.

In stark contrast to the worthless, rum-addled companion of this remorseless camp follower, this young child’s father– after enduring years of loneliness spent tending only to the needs and care of his son — has but recently wooed and wed a veritable flower,  a guileless blossom of an old and distinguished Southern family. This true belle femme with education, refinement, and grace in addition to an angelic countenance has — in her brief time with the lad and his father — forged a strong and loving bond. The only logical reason for the boy’s near instant cleaving to this spotless magnolia bloom is she provides such a stark and complete foil to his opium-sotted mother.

Ever since making the young boy’s acquaintance, his stepmother has sought only his utmost good and had planned — before your imbecility of a ruling — to daily convey him to a quality school and from thence home again having never had to endure the complete lack of care he will experience in some wretched after-school day care facility. Of course, he will only be called upon to bear up under such adversity in the unlikely event his mother — if she can be called such in aught but a biological sense — and her ne’er-do-well companion manage to find someone charitable — or foolish — enough to provide either of them with employment.

You, Sir, who are sworn to protect the innocent, would rather thrust a child–  hardly more than a babe — into such a bottomless pit of perdition? And for what reason? The supposed quality of the SCHOOLS? The sex of the defendant? My good sir, it takes much more than test scores to make an excellent school and much more than a set of ovaries and breasts to make a mother! I see, however, that you are ignorant of such facts, which is all the more a shame as it is my understanding that men who sit upon Lady Justice’s bench usually possess vastly more mental acumen than you have exhibited thus far.

I press my case on by pointing out how this Corinthian woman claims to be a nurse — an angel of mercy — and yet I have seen personally a wound upon the boy’s person — obtained under her “watchful eye”  no less — infected upon the very cusp of blood poisoning. Did she avail herself of any of her “thorough and detailed medical training” to render succor and treatment to her child? No, she simply sent him off — wounded and suffering — to his father who, though not as educated in the arts of healing as this Lilith purports to be, cleansed the festering wound and bandaged it with tenderness and care so that within the weekend it was scarcely noticeable.

I allow to you that it grieves my heart to the deepest depths of my soul that this unbearable outrage, this incredible miscarriage of justice, did not occur in the halcyon antebellum days gone by. For if it had, IF IT HAD, I can assure you with utmost certainty I would forgo the posting of this missive in favor of having it delivered in person by my man with explicit instructions to closet with the suitable second of your choosing, there to make arrangements for us to settle this matter post-haste as men with implements of your choosing.

Unfortunately, decaying years and men’s callowness have robbed gentlemen — here I am generously giving you benefit of doubt as your conduct belies any notion you understand the term — of such final and effective means of gaining satisfaction when faced with such an act of reeking, ignoble dishonor as this which you have so callously foisted upon my kin and those nearest my heart. Such is the ignominy of these latter days that the only “weapons” I may use with impunity are the biting words of acerbic rhetoric.

In finality, Sir, I have no direct knowledge of your ancestry and so cannot accurately discern whether you be carpetbagger, Copperhead, or scalawag, but I am able to deduce from your actions that you are a scurrilous, low-born blackguard and a rank, base, and abject cur.

Good day to you, Sir. Good day and may Almighty God — who does not suffer the folly of the wicked but delivers true  justice in due time — reward you amply your due for this horrible, wicked act.

Sincerely,

G.S. Feet, MA, SoCV, Esq.