The Trial Of The Man Who Said He Was God Read Free Page A

for any officer of the law to handle. Apprehending this suspect would be like taking the West Wind into custody, he told me.
    COUNSEL: You proved him wrong?
    OFFICER: I surely did, sir. He came along quietly, and there was no trouble on the way to the police station. There, he started up again. He kept boasting that no cell was strong enough to hold him, and promised to smash down at least one wall and break out of the building. There was something I didn’t get, about taking off into space.
    COUNSEL: Was he claiming to be an unusually clever magician, or perhaps a second Houdini, an escape artist of the sort you see on the stage?
    OFFICER: Not really. The impression I got was that he was rather mad, and convinced he wielded some kind of divine power.
    COUNSEL, to Jury: Note the words ‘divine power’. You might suppose that the Accused, content with announcing his divinity to the world in season and out of season, would let up a little in prison. But not so. Here we have indeed a blasphemer for all seasons!
    [To Witness] So you decided to see whether handcuffs would curb this marvellous power?
    OFFICER: That’s right, just to make sure. It seems they did. Either the power he packed wasn’t Godlike enough to unlock an ordinary pair of darbies (let alone smash walls) or else it didn’t exist at all.
    COUNSEL: So what happened in the end?
    OFFICER: Nothing special at all. The handcuffs soon came off, and John a-Nokes turned out to be a quite normal prisoner. Rather better behaved, I reckon, than most. But every bit as human. That stuff was just talk.
    COUNSEL: There you have it all, Jury. A small man talking bigger than big.
    That’s all, Officer. But stay in the box: I think he has some questions to put to you.
    Defence: My Let-out and My Let-in
    MYSELF: Officer, was my conversation with you abrasive, or humorous?
    OFFICER: More humorous, I’d say. Funny stuff - with an edge to it.
    MYSELF: And casual too, as if something perfectly obvious were being pointed out?
    OFFICER: Well, yes, in a way.
    MYSELF: What made you change your mind and decide to give the impression in your testimony that I was a wild and aggressive prisoner, if not actually raving mad?
    OFFICER: Well, I don’t know... I wasn’t concerned with giving impressions, one way or another, but just answering Counsel’s questions. I didn’t say you were wild and aggressive. Only that you talked that way.
    MYSELF: Thank you. No more questions from me. [The Witness stands down.]
    Ladies and gentlemen of the Jury, let me tell you about a very significant thing that happened in that prison. After the Officer had satisfied himself that I would give no trouble, he took my handcuffs off - as you’ve just heard. Also, at my request, he gave me drawing materials. I wanted to verify how impossible it was to make a sketch of myself from inside that cell.
    If you will please turn to Diagram No. 1 in the pamphlet which the Defence has supplied each of you with, you’ll find a copy of my sketch.
    The ‘cell’ wasn’t a cell (the rear wall was missing) and I wasn’t in what there was of it. All I found of myself was the odd arm and leg thrust in from outside. I was no more held in that cell than in that cracked basin while washing my hands. The truth is that I peek and prod into rooms, advancing a tentative feeler or two, but never O never - like other people - venture inside. You’ll not catch me in one of your mantraps! Not nowadays you won’t!
    What happened to me was this. Having been told from an early age that the word ‘cell’ - or room, or compartment, or chamber, or courtroom - means a space closed in on all sides, I tailored my experience to the language. I hallucinated to order. And was everywhere a jailbird. But one day - O happy day! - I noticed that the poet Lovelace, writing from jail, said truly:
Stone walls do not a prison make
Nor iron bars a cage.
    I came to my senses, and saw my way back to freedom. Not just figuratively but literally, saw my