The Angry Exile: By any other name...

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Monday 4 July 2011

By any other name...

I'm all for the principle of everyone having the right to their day in court but sometimes I do wonder how the hell some people expect to have their day without being openly laughed at. The list of legal actions falling somewhere between the frivolous and the outright ludicrous is ever increasing, and from America we have one that may just top them all. A prison inmate, Gerard Domond, is suing the prison service for US$50 million for...

Actually, before I continue I should perhaps warn readers to carefully put down any food or drink well away from the computer and swallow anything they'd already taken a bite or slurp of before sitting back down and reading on, as this has the potential to ruin a few keyboards. Done that? Okay. Prison inmate Gerard Domond is suing the prison service for US$50 million for calling him a prison inmate. Yes, really. It's stigmatising him, apparently.

THE family of a cold-blooded killer serving 25 years to life in state prison for shooting a man in the head complained he was being stigmatised by the use of the term "inmate".

Okay, well it seems it's actually his sister doing the suing, but still. And why does she have a problem with her prison inmate brother being called a prison inmate?

The label "implies that our brother is locked up for the purpose of mating with other men," Marie Domond claimed in a lawsuit against New York State Correctional Services Department.

Yes, her surname is Domond and not Malaprop, and since her dear brother has been locked up since 1987 I find it difficult to believe that she's only just heard that he's been referred to as an inmate and that she doesn't actually understand what the word means. For her benefit a quick visit to dictionary corner is in order (Webster's since we're interested in the American English definition), and it says anyone who is lawfully detained so as to take it up the Gary Glitter with monotonous regularity. No, of course it doesn't. It says this:

I've checked a couple of other dictionaries and nowhere is there any suggestion that the word inmate implies any particular purpose in locking up people, least of all the specific purpose of encouraging hot botty man loving. In fact it doesn't even necessarily mean that someone is locked up, although that is a common enough usage that the word probably does imply that someone is forcibly confined. Not that that helps the Domonds since Gerard is without doubt forcibly confined. So why is...

Acting as her own lawyer...

Ah. I've never been a fan of that lawyers' sneery line about someone representing themselves having a fool for a client, but I have to admit that there's probably something in it now and then. This might be one of those times.

Acting as her own lawyer, Marie insists: "The suggestive nature of the word is disgraceful. This cruel psychological programming has weighed heavily on our emotional and psychological well-being.
[...]
"I couldn't understand why no one recognized that somebody being labeled an inmate, why they wouldn't recognize that."

Oh, good grief.

"It's something that's bothered me for a long time."

But, and I'm assuming for the moment that all of that is genuinely meant, it doesn't seem to have bothered her enough either to have questioned why nobody else has been bothered by the use of the word over the centuries or to have done anything about it until only a couple of years before Gerard may get out. Ignoring the possibility that fingers may be crossed in the hope of a fat windfall coinciding with whatever they call release on licence in New York state, it doesn't seem like it's been much of a priority, does it?