The Mongrel Hound Trial

Once we had a law firm here in Lazarus. Blankenship & Blankenship. But he lit out of town for lack of work not long after the Mongrel Hound Trial. Folks in these parts have a way of solving their own problems without dragging in the law. And they certainly didn’t need the services of one man what used his name twice to make is business look bigger.

Seems Little Junior had a garbage eating dog. Every now and again, any trash can within a quarter mile of his place would be overturned and its entire contents dispersed across the landscape. Little Junior was at a loss as to how to control that critter of his, so Miss Cora, the spinster lady, took him into court over his dog’s periodic habit.

Miss Cora hired the firm of Blankenship & Blankship to represent her as the plaintiff against Little Junior and Two Bits the mongrel tick infested hound who had so many breed types in him he looked much like any dog around. All the critters, like most folks in Lazarus, were related in some way so it shouldn’t come as no surprise to learn that Little Junior was Miss Cora’s cousin’s nephew by her first marriage and her uncle twice removed by virtue of her cousin’s short-lived second marriage -- the details of which were so remarkable they are remembered to this day like some epic drama of bygone days belonging to legend.

Anyway, there they were in the courtroom. Miss Cora and her attorney Blankenship & Blankenship at one table, and Little Junior at the other, bib overalls, tie and all. The trial, being about as informal and anything else in town, started and ended pretty quick.

“So,” Judge Lincoln Jackson III said to Little Junior, “what do you have to say for yourself?”

“Well, Your Honor” he responded using his deepest voice trying to sound all lawyer like, “I would like to call Miss Cora to the stand and have her identify the critter in question.”

“You mean your hound?”

“I ain’t going that far, your Honor. But, with the court’s indulgence, “ he watched a lot of lawyer shows on TV to bone up for this moment. “I would like to introduce a dog for the plaintiff to identify as the critter in question?”

“I object!” Blankenship bolted upright and pointed to the ceiling.

“Oh, hush,” the Judge said.

So Miss Cora takes the stand fusses with her hair and parts of her clothing like there were TV cameras all around. She smiles at the Judge and then turns a cold eye on her adversary.

“Could you let in exhibit A?” Little Junior bellows making a dramatic gesture to the hollow core pressboard door at the back of the courtroom. And in trots a mongrel, tick infested hound being led by Big Junior.

(No one knows how Little Junior and Big Junior came by their names. Seems their daddy named them in the hospital when he was drunk and never could remember why. All he remember was hearing that he had twin boys and his wife only had girl names in mind so she left it up to her drunk of a husband to name them.)

“That’s the one.” Miss Cora shakes her boney old finger at the dog what’s busy licking folks all down the isle toward the bench.

“This dog here? Are you certain to a fraction?” Little Junior asks the courtroom before turning to Miss Cora.

“Yes. That’s the dog that’s tearing up the whole neighborhood.”

“Now Miss Cora, could you be mistaken? Could it be this hound, AKA, -- that means Also Known As, for you folks in the bleachers what may not be up on lawyer lingo -- Exhibit B. Both of these varmits live in the self same neighborhood as the defendant’s dog.”

And in trots another mongrel, tic infested hound looking for all the world like Exhibit A’s twin, being led by some volunteer drunk from the Bar None Bar and Barbeque. Seems Little Junior went just four houses down from his place and borrowed one of Two Bits’ litter mates.

Well, Miss Cora fell plumb apart cause she realized all sudden like that she was out witted by one of the Juniors. Still and all, that weren’t nothing compared to the humiliation felt on the part of the law firm Blankenship & Blankenship.

I reckon the neither Blankenship ever recovered from being outdone in the court room by Big Junior’s older brother Little Junior. It wasn’t long after that he packed up and left town, especially after folks started calling on Little Junior for legal advice.