Learning to act right (27)… I didn't see anything, really!!
Torrey Orton
July 03, 2012

"I did not see anything I could swear to in a court of law"

Six months ago I wrote:

I am surprised to re-learn (assuming I ever did originally learn this) how unreliable my perception of live events can be, how open to multiple interpretations, how filled with material lacunae such that a report of the event would be more holes than whole. …

…How easy it is for my reason to fly off in a rage where my righteousness rules the moment to moment equation of time seeking justification in worthy action.

A few days ago this happened on the same stage:

Dramatis personae – Eddy the Wednesday security guard, me, Purple Shirt the lone HoGPI and an FCC staffer; a patient couple were 100 metres away to the east. Not a single local passing by.

Action – Eddy trailed Purple Shirt over towards the couple and I stayed put at the front gate. As they were beginning to go through the offer, refusal, re-offer, push-off dance that happens a dozen times a morning, an FCC staffer ambled out and said hello, then wandered off towards the tree planter under which the HoGPIs stand for prayer and preparation to harass daily. There was a small, somewhat ornate, crucifix facing my way leaning against the tree planter. Purple Shirt places it there when she arrives daily.

I looked back up the street to the distant unfolding of the usual travesty of protest which is mainly punishment for patients exercising their legitimate rights. When my look returned closer to hand the FCC staffer was coming back my way with open hands, simple open shirt and a slight smile. Behind him the cross had disappeared. A few minutes later Purple Shirt got back from her latest harassment effort up the street and discovered the absence. Shortly thereafter a couple of her male colleagues of long standing arrived and a low grade gnashing of teeth and wailing set up at the loss.

One of the men suggested Eddy or I should go into the clinic and retrieve the absent cross. I suggested the guy go himself and denied with confidence that I knew anything of the matter. On the subsequent arrival of the first divvy van in 5 minutes I pre-empted the police enquiry of my awareness of relevant matters saying "I did not see anything I could swear to in a court of law" without any internal conflict. They accepted this for what it was.

I knew something had happened between looking up to see Eddy and Purple Shirt dance the patient harassment defence dance and looking beyond the FCC staffer as he passed by me towards the clinic. I ran it over three or four times to make sure. I still cannot recover any memory six days later. I am aware that my short-term memory has about a 5 second hole in it. Anything occurring in that sort of time frame may escape my notice unless lodged in a solid ongoing flow of attention – the kind which is characteristic of focus. I was focussed elsewhere at the time.

Resolution – Fifteen minutes later the second couple of police emerged from the FCC, walked over to the planter and appeared to wave their hands over the lily foliage and up sprang the lost cross. It was returned to Purple Shirt. Seemed it had been misplaced. At the time I did not know how it got there, and still do not.

The second cop couple had pulled up 5 minutes after the first and reran their interviews of those present who had been present from the start. The hands in the foliage foraged somehow from their efforts.