Haunted By A Memory

Do you have a word? You know, a particular word that just seems to be your special word. One that always seems to suddenly stare back at you from the piece of scrap paper that lay on the table before you even though you were convinced you were doodling mindlessly. This word often appears when you are at peace with yourself and your mind is free. It is the word that you carve into a sandy beach with a piece of driftwood or a feather shed by a seagull as you sit just watching the rhythmic movement of the ocean and listening to the seductive sound of its relentless tide.

I had such a word. I do not know why it chose me nor from where it came, it just did.  My word was WITH. A simple word really, just four letters. There certainly seems to be little that is mysterious or particularly captivating about it. I have never quite figured out its symbolism to my conscious or unconscious self. I have surmised that perhaps it conveys the importance I place upon being a part of something, something meaningful, of striving to achieve a goal not just by myself but WITH others.

That seemed reasonable enough to me. That is as good as any explanation for why WITH had appeared again and again in my scribbles for as long as I can remember. Something changed about 8 years back. My word was no longer with me. It has not returned. In its place there has appeared a new word. I do not see this word in my doodles nor on any tranquil beaches. Instead, this word has imprinted itself in my thoughts and overwritten my ability to be at peace with myself. The word is disingenuous.

Up until about eight years ago I don't recall ever having heard of this word. That was when someone used it to describe me or, more accurately, my actions and behaviour with respect to a specific incident. I actually had to go and look up the word to find it's meaning. It wasn't flattering. The person who said I was disingenuous was a Judge and it was following testimony I had given about my reasons for arresting a person for drug trafficking. If you Google my name and any combination of words relating to drug trafficking then you are likely to stumble upon the Judge's written decision. It was his opinion that I wasn't forthcoming in my testimony and that I crafted it, after the fact, to fit the circumstances.

About the only thing on which the Judge and I agreed was that the guy I arrested had a lot of marihuana and cocaine stashed within a false compartment of his vehicle. His Honour wasn't buying my reasoning as to how I identified this guy and how I was convinced, without a doubt, that he was bringing a load of drugs from Quebec to Newfoundland. During my career I have lost other cases in court and I certainly made my share of mistakes along the  way. So why did this one affect me so deeply? I believe it was the fact that my integrity was being questioned and I believed unfairly so. In hindsight I probably could have done a few things better to expose the guy for what he was, a drug mule. I played an endless game of mental gymnastics, where I'd tumble and turn the actions that I took and the reasons leading to those choices, over and over in my mind. I became obsessed with reading and rereading the Judge's decision. I also replayed the trial over and over in my mind. I was stick in a loop. The here and now had no choice but to suffer as they took a back seat to those past events. Here and now encompassed family, friends, colleagues, my career, and my health.

I wrote a counter argument for every point that the Judge had cited in his decision. I thought by showing how wrong he was that I would slay my inner turmoil and recapture my professional integrity. Of course I couldn't publish my counter decision as the Judge had (I guess I could have included it on a blog but I chose not to) but I thought the simple act of writing it would be enough. Here I am almost eight years later so I guess it wasn't.

There was one very peculiar fact about that trial that has stood out in my memory. The trial was done in French, meaning that the judge, prosecuting attorney and defence counsel would be conversing in that language. Witnesses, such as myself, would have our testimony relayed by a translator. As I had arrested the guy and had spoken with him at length, I knew that English was his first language. During breaks in the trial I happened to speak informally with his lawyer and learned and he too was fluent in English. The prosecutor was bilingual but English was her first language. The Judge spoke French but he too was a native English speaker. It seemed that we had all gathered in St. John's as a show of our nation's constitutional commitment that an individual has the right to be tried in either English or French.

Here's where things turned strange. I listened and watched as the Judge posed a question to the defendant. It was obvious he had no clue what the Judge has asked so he turned to his lawyer and had him restate the question in English. All this fancy finagling to have a French trial and the only person, other than me, who didn't understand what was being said was the guy on trial. That was the most bizarre thing I had ever experienced in my career. To add insult to injury, I don't think the Judge ever realized that the defendant didn't speak nor understand French.  Nonetheless, the drug trafficking charges were thrown out by the Judge and the guy walked out of court that day a free man.

It's probably about time that I let all of this go and stop letting it affect me so much. In other words, I need to get WITH it. Writing this has been helpful but I still haven't achieved the peace and ease that I am seeking. Ultimately, I am the one who has to get over this hurdle. My wife says that no one else really cares about what happened at a fairly insignificant trial that took place eight years ago. I know she is right but like the Judge said when he referred to me: dis-is-no-genius. No I isn't!