Watchlist (45 page)

JUDGE JUDY:
I certainly do not.

SAKSHI KARNIK: What I'm saying is, afterward, after she left me, and found me, she whispered into my hair that she loved me. That she was sorry.

JUDGE JUDY:
For not paying you back for the groceries?

SAKSHI KARNIK
: For everything.

JUDGE JUDY:
But she never paid you for those groceries?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
No.

JUDGE JUDY:
What else, Miss Karnik? Any other expenses?

SAKSHI KARNIK: One morning I woke up and I was outside on the glass. The grass. It was wet. My teeth tasted like fillings. She was inside, in bed. A coyote slunk by, and I said sir, is it not too close to dawn to be out here, your kind? And he said ma'am, is it not too far from kindness to be out on this lawn? And I said touché.

JUDGE JUDY:
Wrap up your story, Miss Karnik! How is that an expense?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
My clothes were ruined.

JUDGE JUDY:
Why were you out there?

SAKSHI KARNIK: She said that I had thoughts about others. That I wanted to leave her. That I was thinking about other people during—you know.

JUDGE JUDY
: No, I don't know. During what?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
Sex, Your Honor. She would grab my chin and say, “I can see you somewhere else, who are you thinking about fucking? Come back here, love me.” And I would drift away. But only after. Never before.

JUDGE JUDY:
Tell me about the assault.

SAKSHI KARNIK:
And then I started getting sick. She made me sick.

JUDGE JUDY:
What do you mean, she made you sick? When did she make you sick?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
This morning, this beautiful autumn morning. I woke up, the air was thick and the color of honey, but darker, like a tamped-down sunrise. The window glazed with rain. I opened up the front door. Outside, it was chilly and wet. Golden leaves were pummeling off the trees, whizzing down into the brilliant green grass like bees, and the air leaked and loosened. Part of the sky was amber sun, part of it was dense, black clouds, and thunder snarled overhead. It was like some alien world being birthed, or perhaps coming apart—the end of its days. Then the light dimmed, the sky became grayer, and realness seemed to seep back into the air. When I left to go to work, my car was covered in splayed maple leaves that clung wetly to its surface like so many starfish.

JUDGE JUDY:
On that morning, she made you sick?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
Yes. She had one. I turned my face because I did not want it. But then she kissed me and kissed me and then there was this thing on my lip. This red thing. It was hot. It bloomed out of me.

JUDGE JUDY:
I don't understand.

SAKSHI KARNIK: She said, don't you love me?

JUDGE JUDY:
I still don't understand.

SAKSHI KARNIK:
A fever sore, she gave me a fever sore.

JUDGE JUDY:
A cold sore.

SAKSHI KARNIK:
I'd never had one before but then she gave it to me.

JUDGE JUDY:
You don't know that she did that, or that she even did it on purpose. Everybody gets cold sores. My grandkids get cold sores! Did she give them cold sores, too?

SAKSHI KARNIK: Probably not, Your Honor.

JUDGE JUDY:
So you got a cold sore. So what?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
And then it began to bubble and blister and then it erupted.

JUDGE JUDY:
So. What.

SAKSHI KARNIK:
And there was an eye there.

JUDGE JUDY:
You got one in your eye?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
No, Your Honor, when the blister burst there was an eye inside, watching me.

JUDGE JUDY:
I don't understand.

SAKSHI KARNIK:
It was her eye. She had always kept it on me but now it was there, in the open.

JUDGE JUDY:
In the sore?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
In the sore.

LOLA ZEE:
If I may, Your Honor—

JUDGE JUDY:
Hup hup hup hush.

LOLA ZEE:
But Your Honor—

SAKSHI KARNIK:
Rolling around as if the tender rim of the wound was a socket. Every time it blinked, I felt the nerves fire. It wept, sometimes. Infectious tears.

JUDGE JUDY:
What happened next?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
I felt like I was unraveling. I was ugly, watched. I begged her to make it go away. It knew what I was thinking. Knew I was afraid. I said please, please let me have my own mind back. I wept. It read my mind, betrayed me. I fell down in a street, crying. Eye was responsible.

JUDGE JUDY:
You were responsible?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
No, eye.

JUDGE JUDY:
When you say that it read your mind—

SAKSHI KARNIK:
It knew. It knew what I did in my room, alone. It knew what I read. It knew everything new. And she knew. Before she could possibly know.

JUDGE JUDY:
What happened next?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
And then the eye began interfering with my own eyes, like a signal. It interfered with my reading.

JUDGE JUDY:
What do you mean?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
I would try to read and the text would be blackened out, like a hand had gone over with a censor's hand. And it could read my thoughts and perceptions. It discerned and influenced like a king's mistress.

JUDGE JUDY:
What did you do next?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
I went to a woman who lived deep in South Philly, who was rumored to know how to make the eye go away.

JUDGE JUDY:
And?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
I found her. She told me to run.
She told me that I needed to get it out and I needed to run away as fast I could before the ember that I am is stomped out into nothing, into ash. She gave me instructions.

JUDGE JUDY:
Did you
do what she instructed?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
I tried. I followed her directions exactly. I
bought
the goose. I cut its throat on the
full
moon and then
cooked
the bird, ate it
while
lying on the
bed
where Lola and
I had
once come,
and
come, and come,
and
I
burned sage, and rubbed orange
oil in
my hair and kissed the ground and licked my palms and prayed for deliverance. I wanted to be free. I needed to be.

JUDGE JUDY:
What?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
Free.

JUDGE JUDY:
What did it cost you?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
More than I had.

JUDGE JUDY:
And then what?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
Nothing. Nothing happened. It stayed there.

JUDGE JUDY:
It's not there anymore!

SAKSHI KARNIK:
You can't see it, but it's there. It's like the morning after a fine meal, and as you drowsily floss, you rock a sliver of basil leaf, which had been wedged between the cloven hooves of your teeth, into your mouth. And then among the notes of blood and wax, there is a sweet bite of herb, a memory.

JUDGE JUDY:
But where is it?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
It's hiding, Your Honor. It's shy.

[
Titters of laughter from audienc
e
]

JUDGE JUDY:
All of you, shhhh! I will kick you out. [
To
LOLA] All right, your turn. Uncross your arms! Now, tell me about this party.

LOLA ZEE:
It was my birthday and I wanted to celebrate.

JUDGE JUDY:
And how did you want to celebrate?

LOLA ZEE:
You know, choice booze, choice food, choice weed.

JUDGE JUDY:
Wipe that smirk off your face! She might be crazy but you've got an attitude and I don't like attitude. Byrd here will tell you that I hate attitude.

BYRD THE BAILIFF:
[
Inaudible
]

LOLA ZEE:
Sure. So I was going to buy all of the groceries and stuff but then I had stuff I had to do and she offered to buy the groceries. So she bought the groceries.

JUDGE JUDY:
Did she offer, or did you ask?

LOLA ZEE:
Oh, she offered.

JUDGE JUDY:
Then what?

LOLA ZEE:
She bought the groceries.

JUDGE JUDY:
And you never paid her back?

LOLA ZEE:
It was a gift. She was my girlfriend at the time.

JUDGE JUDY:
Did she ask you to pay her half?

LOLA ZEE:
Nope.

JUDGE JUDY:
When did you and Miss Karnik break up?

LOLA ZEE:
About a month later.

JUDGE JUDY:
Miss Karnik, I'm afraid I can't award you anything. These groceries were—well, you bought the groceries. Presumably as a gift for the defendant's birthday. This cold sore was not an injury.

SAKSHI KARNIK:
Fever sore, Your Honor.

JUDGE JUDY:
Fever sore, cold sore, what difference does it make what it's called? It's the same thing.

SAKSHI KARNIK:
It makes a difference to me, Your Honor. The cold lays the body low. The fever burns the body bright. One is submission. The other, resistance.

JUDGE JUDY:
Well either way, it's not an assault.

SAKSHI KARNIK:
But Your Honor—

JUDGE JUDY:
Did you miss work?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
No.

JUDGE JUDY:
Did you go to the hospital?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
I tried, but eye wouldn't let me.

JUDGE JUDY:
Were you afraid for your life?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
[
No respons
e
]

JUDGE JUDY:
Miss Karnik, I—

SAKSHI KARNIK:
She doesn't need to pay me. No one needs to pay me. Just take it out. Please take it out. There's nothing between it and I, between eye and it. We are inseparable. I want to be separated. Eye does not, but I do.

JUDGE JUDY:
Miss Karnik, you're no longer dating Miss Zee.

SAKSHI KARNIK:
Not her. It. Please. Please. I need justice from the state.

JUDGE JUDY:
From the state?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
For my state.

JUDGE JUDY:
Miss Karnik, I feel for you. This was obviously an unpleasant situation, one that you should be happy to be free of. But there are no damages here.

SAKSHI KARNIK:
Your Honor—may I show you something?

JUDGE JUDY:
No funny business, Miss Karnik.

SAKSHI KARNIK:
On my life, Your Honor. None.

JUDGE JUDY:
Fine. Byrd, take that from her. Miss Karnik, what is this?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
A vial of my tears, Your Honor.

JUDGE JUDY:
You know, Miss Karnik, they don't keep me up here because I'm beautiful. They—

SAKSHI KARNIK:
I know, Your Honor. I wish I could say the same.

JUDGE JUDY:
What do you want, Miss Karnik?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
Anything, Your Honor. A dollar. A nip of thread. A piece of paper that says “You were right to trust.” It's the symbol that matters, Your Honor. My honor, Your Honor. You understand.

JUDGE JUDY:
Miss Zee, reach into your pockets.

LOLA ZEE:
What?

JUDGE JUDY:
Your pockets. Am I speaking English? Your pockets. Turn them out. What do you have there?

LOLA ZEE:
A peppermint wrapper. A paperclip. A condom. A—another condom. A penny.

JUDGE JUDY:
Please give her the penny and the paperclip.

LOLA ZEE:
I don't—

JUDGE JUDY:
Byrd, please take the paperclip and the penny. There, Miss Karnik. Are you satisfied?

SAKSHI KARNIK:
Yes. Thank you. On the matter of the eye. The one that remains inside?

JUDGE JUDY:
Miss Karnik, there's no eye. We're done here.

BYRD THE BAILIFF:
Parties are excused, you may step out.

Final Interview:

LOLA ZEE:
I don't know what she's talking about. She's crazy.

SAKSHI KARNIK:
I'm not crazy, I just want to be alone again. So does eye. We are tired of each other.

LOLA ZEE:
Whatever, yeah, I've moved on, no biggie. Got a new girlfriend.

SAKSHI KARNIK:
Sometimes, I wonder if the eye is just below the surface, waiting.

LOLA ZEE:
It's not like I did any of that stuff anyway, she's just crazy.

SAKSHI KARNIK:
How else did she know that I think that fig seeds explode in between my teeth like tiny glass beads? How else would she know I knelt down in front of the mirror and spread? Why else would I have listened, and listened, long beyond the edge of my patience or understanding? How is it possible that love can stretch so thin, so long?

Tucker Pluid stared at the hollow eyeholes, trying to decide. Blue? Hazel? Or the old standard, amber?

He pinched the bridge of his nose. This was important. Whatever he chose for Herman Knight's elk meant, essentially, that was the color of eyes the animal was born with. It didn't matter if no one ever saw a blue-eyed elk before. If that's what he glued in the head, then by gum, that's how it was when Knight shot it and dragged it off Arrow Mountain. Besides, from all he'd heard about the schoolteacher, Tucker doubted he'd even notice anything wrong with the head.