by Jim Meirose.
I confirm I am indeed the very Maestro Artur Rubbinschteen, and that almost all I am about to say needs to first be caveat emptored by the reality which was is and happened for sure boss I too scared to lie sir I was scared sir I was scared that’s why I ran sir I am sorry I’m so scared oops wrong script here sorry please and thank you and rest assured this juvenile young outburst shall not be repeated what the correct page of the correct document as named in the most high contract scrawled sloppily over both some maximum supreme leader for life’s naked babysmooth upper thighs is that that woman there—yes, that women—well, okay, one of those two there that made me agree to half tutor half train their one-eyed husband yah that guy there with one dead eye—to force me, to terrorize me, and five times those two combined materialized by fat chance in a quick-thrust directly up through my corporeal center-line, right in the middle of another of my thousands upon scores of brilliantly virtuosic standing room only piano concerts, yes right up my middle up my center oh filling me hand-in-glove to the tips of my endtop but; she was no good fit a size or so over—so her breast-jut pressed in my chest-back causing my chest-front to push out all feminine—causing me to in the middle of my concert performance to barely be able to control the music since—eh, ah, heh—you know, judge, like how it looks when you got on a sock and you wriggle and clench and unclench and wiggle your toes the way the socktop crushes and stretches and roils about at the pleasure of the hidden toes without the toes being visible inside—and to the uninitiated shown only the tip of the sock writhing and pulling and thrusting in this way without knowing what it was would think—especially if viewing a video made with an obsolete flip-phone from ten or fifteen years backwards not hence not no but prior yes way way way so—the grainy image would cause any viewer to state after just a moment or thirty or less of a day-number of lightly refreshing reflection, What kind of animal is that heh? It is too active it is frightening and it is even more frightening because it is unknown. This surging and pushing and inning and outing black thing made blacker by the grainy colorless image of this shitty phone is terrifying we need to run if we opened a door and there it was we’d slam it if we were out in the woods walking a trail and encountered a rotting log we rolled over unveiling it or if we were doing back yard cleanup of some old rotting shed and knocked it all down to only a floor and lifted that floor and there it was striving at us surging muscles all scales all hide all fangs rippling snapping gathering itself up tight within itself ready to let loose spring up drive us back down on our butt with a single chest blow so fast as to leave absolutely no memory, causing us to go down so hard as to not care why but only what has been broken there has to be some bones broken the pain my God what if we can’t walk no more you know what they do to you when you can’t walk no more don’t you know what they do right you know what you know right? Yah yeh yo huh—I hope you get the gist of how I appeared in the moments after the entry of this terrible woman up in the core of my being. And you must know that the audience reacted with whistles catcalls boos and whistles and then, the stage pulled away under the back stage curtain pulled under me a white tile floor and the audience silenced and fell back rotating down under gone somehow pulling up in some circularly cylindrical resetting movement the back of a courtroom and twenty-five spectators I recognized as the competitors I had faced off against in the International Chaka Khanna Keyboard Speed Record Piano Competition back when I won it in the magic year nineteen hundred; I was about to cry out some words that I’d know when I heard them but my piano pulled away the music stopped the piano tilted back down and away gone into the floor, and; a great judge not one hundred percent human in size and strength but approximately twice that in every dimension said from within its voluminous judge-gown, You, Artur Rubbinschteen, are found guilty of impersonating a human male when applying to, preparing for, competing in, and winning the first prize of the Chaka Khanna Keyboard Speed Record Piano Competition way back when in some dark age there someplace—wish I could be more precise about when but that’s not the critical issue here—the issue is that you are actually a woman. Admit it now freely. You have already been found guilty and the prize will be stripped from you, but the additional punishment which will be placed in store for you, which by the way is completely at my discretion to impose, will be easier if you here and now admit that you are female not male to me, the court, the spectators present, and the world. So over to you, convict. How does it feel eh? Convict schvondik, poor Artur’s now a con-vic-c-c-t! playground mock no playground way baby join in all join poor Artur’s now a con-vic-c-c-t! Tee hee hee! Poor Artur’s now a con-vic-c-c-t! Tee hee, tee hee, tee hee! Okay now secret-woman, confess and avoid even more brutality being imposed to your foot tips. Go you got the floor.
Confusion this was but also none at all because when I swept all that judgenoise aside and the hallucinated court room which I refused to take seriously because it was not what was and not not was the fact of my being in the middle of a concert performance which was not only important in the same way any concert performance was important but which was also being broadcast via multiple worldwide mass media outlets. A lesser sinner might have given up beaten her breasts and surrendered to the humiliating failure of simply stopping going comatose with all that follows and all that that that—but I knew that I’d been transported into this off-center mystifying hallucinatory dimension because I had broken free broken out no longer did the physical limitations of earthly mind body spirit and being apply—I was tapped to the cosmos playing behind the scenes of this imaginary courtroom and beyond the terror of now being the host of the female parasite that was pushed up in me forcing her ample bosom against the back of mine forcing mine out even more ample and—yah that woman there—like I told you before—one of those two there with that guy with one closed eye—again, let the record show the witness pointed out Mr. Phineas Gage the defendant—okay judge, anyway this might have been the push I needed to at last release everything earthly and grasp the goal of transcendental virtuosity which had always seemed unattainable had always seemed beyond. My struggle against the pain of mortality had paid off when that woman came up in me—and now I release the music, I cried out! I release you my beautiful child, my music—and as Moses strove for the promised land and upon reaching the threshold was commanded not to enter with the rest of the Israelites—it struck me the as price she had given me. Who she? That she. That there she—who came in me and as God commanded Moses she commanded me without words to never ever hear the music I had been striving all my life to generate. Instead she turned me back to this silently supertense desert of the courtroom to accept my fate from this thundering-ugly flatfaced judge and wander out after carrying the burden of my sentence on on to where I will finally meet meet me-e-e-e-et God. Amen. So I spoke at last after this single mental reflection which in real time took just a blink.
I am not a woman judge. So I can’t confess that. To lie in court offends God.
Then—if you are not a woman, why the big chest huh?
Want the truth?
Of course.
A woman has invaded my body and I am not her size. That’s why the bulge in front.
What do you mean—invaded?
Like—like we all invade our socks when we push in our feet. Every item of clothing that we apply the phrase put on to the donning of—we are actually invading.
That is nonsense. Is your defense reduced capacity for reasoning?
Not nonsense. Ask any English Professor. A sentence using invaded your clothing instead of put on your clothing is not syntactically incorrect.
The judge fell silent but looked slightly at something hidden from view by the front of the heavy oaken bench. Now the common person who would share his view that my words were nonsense would automatically assume he was consulting some law book document or maybe his own notes or he may have been jotting down a note even but—I do not ever assume. That’s the difference between my style of piano mastery and that of the rest of you pug-nosed Pekingese. He could have been doing anything. He could have been simply staring at his hands out of fear that he would have to yield the point being discussed to me. He could have been trying to pick away a recently uncomfortable annoying recent hangnail the clipping of which is never thought of when there’s a clipping tool at hand and time and privacy to clip it properly, but only thought of when there is no tool at hand to clip it away and no private place to take the time to go to and cut it down properly. So the judge, if looking down concerned and distracted by the hangnail, may try to pick it away with his fingers—but in most cases it tears partially off when that is done or, worse yet, rips further into the flesh increasing the pain and maybe even causing a dot of blood to form under the nail concurrent with the sudden stinging bite-pain of torn fingertip-quick flesh. The same phenomenon applies to having means and opportunity to trim nose hairs means and opportunity to scratch the crotch means and opportunity to wipe an itchy uncomfortable ass not cleanly wiped after the most recent defecation—this is the means and opportunity law. Means and opportunity I had not to kill the yank, Doc. Means and opportunity I had not to slip that knife neatly between her fifth and sixths ribs on that crowded subway car, Doc. Means and opportunity—you got to have, Means and Opportunity yah! Yah, Means and Opportunity ho! Yah—means and Opportunity hey! Yah—but but something began growing within me and without me, by George, forcing this noisy word-train down quiet in my deepmud but it stayed Means and Opportunity—my voice was ripped down away and silenced, and—a miracle yes miracle the court spectator gallery had pulled over itself a choir disguise and I knew the truth I ducked down for safety and the hundred voice choir’s singsong thunderpeal went over me into the judge lifting his head holding him fast and telling him telling this, Means and Opportunity must be proven, Judgeman the Babyboy, Means and Opportunity must be proven, Senor Judgeboy our sweet, Means and Opportunity must—the gavel dropped with a head which must have equaled a hundred-pound railroad breaking gang’s sledge—a hundred men swung forth heavy from the miles-wide mouth of his honor crushing the choir down out of their costumes as a pedestrian Buicked down at dawnlight at sixty or above gets lifted clean out of its shoes and socks it being it because the last instant of the former he or maybe she’s life is gone snapped over to a mere meatslab by said Buick. Over the next month or two the dust settled revealing his Honor commanding, One more outburst like that and this woman will be found guilty just because I say so—I have that power so back off! Now, he leveled at me and fired off with as the meek crowd behind me meekly cringed down—tell me why I should believe that you are not a woman when one look at your chest bulges tell me you are lying?
The pressure of the prior demonstration filling me to near bursting began slowly escaping through the five million pores dotting my whole skin allowing a slow answer to begin slipping past my lips increasing in speed directly proportional to the decrease of the pressure within me—I said, Because a woman is what I am not. Everything not me is something I’m not and a woman is included in that mass of things because I am uniquely myself within God’s universe.
When his hand shot up cupping his chin an opening large enough to allow in a left hook gapped and I thrust in hitting him with, But, Judge, what difference does it make? Even if I were a woman, is that reason to strip me of the prize? Do you consider it impossible for a—a mere woman to reach the male-dominated summit of piano virtuosity?
That question mark somehow pushed a latch popping a big blank face over his saying loudly somehow magically through a lack of lips for him I assumed, Absolutely not. Both sexes are capable of reaching the summit of any area of endeavor that ever was or that ever will be.
Then why is my sex an issue?
Here—darken the room, officer—that’s right. Behold the last line of your application to the competition—let the record show the defendant is viewing the image of the application document projected on the screen up behind me.
The image came up focused and all read; Applicant sex: M or F:
Defendant; read the answer you put down aloud.
M.
This is the simple single irrefutable reason why you have been disqualified.
How? That is the right answer.
No. Look at you. The answer should have been F. Case closed. I find you guilty.
Under the immediate lift of the hundred-pound gavel I thrust an obstacle forcing the judge to hesitate—I have proof I’m a man judge I have proof I’m a man all, here; I didn’t want to stoop to this but here—the rising unbuckling turning fumble dropdown and cold air heated by someone saying whosaying mesaying here I am here’s proof I’m a man damn it a man I man God-damn it a man I am I am a man—here is it look at it see it and so—
Knowing I’d won thank God I’d won but—the fastest instant ever slapped over the judge sank down away the piano spun up next to me the spectators silenced and fell back rotating down under gone somehow pulling up in some circularly cylindrical resetting movement the concert hall packed full audience which apparently had been and now continued reacting with whistles catcalls boos and whistles it did not add up here’s something proving my innocence something one hundred percent human in size and strength plus approximately twice that, in every dimension in my hand here see it see it this said from within something within me I am damn it a man I am a man damn it see see see but though I went on proving and proving no matter what I could not please them—but damn them yes I had won yes won yes gone way past piano come on Moses come on let’s go the hell with both our damned promised lands.