The Last Philosopher

Who helps the helper

It took a while for the groggy Earl to get into the office. He'd been sleeping in their little shack outside town when Charlene came to tell him Herschel was up. He lived his life in the office, and a bit at Bern's. But he wasn't about to start sleeping at his desk. His definition of a work-life balance was that he trudged back to the snooze shack every night.

Earl'd found the weirdo lounging in the tub, occupying both Charlene's clean cells. He would've preferred to wait 'til he was done, but the tall man had made a whole thing about how fine it was for him to ask his questions. He'd been too dazed and confused to make up an excuse on the spot. So he brought in a stool, but chose to sit with his back facing the tub. The slender stranger soaked without shame, like it was a means to an end. Earl felt a wash-cloth would do the trick most of the time.

He started with asking about the sloshing fella about his connection with the Nontie. Herschel claimed he'd met them and even wished he could say he was a Nontie, but that he was in fact not. At least that was something. But after that the old man's memory got fuzzy. Charlene reckoned the Fenmark boys'd knocked the sense out of him. But Earl wasn't convinced he wasn't faking this timely memory loss. Either way, he'd done his best to explain about property and stealing.

Herschel also freely admitted to the thefts. The confession made Earl's job a lot easier. Even if Herschel made it clear that taking them was not the same as being guilty. When it came to the incident with Geraldine, his sense of justice was satisfied the p-word rumour was just that: a rumour built on an accident.

"What's a p-word?" Herschel'd asked with a look that spoke volumes of incompetence on the subject, but Earl managed to avoid explaining any further.

After pickling for a good long while, Earl expected the man to be shrivelled like a prune. But he wasn't as old looking as he first thought. In Agalian clothes, he almost looked normal. Even wearing a white shirt in the standard size, a bandle. It was too short and wide for most, and more so for Herschel. He needed a hat, but he bucked at even trying the straw one Charlene brought for him.

Earl found the trick to talking with Herschel was to keep everything short and precise. It hadn't helped him gather much information, but it kept the rambling down.

What he had was a full name, a confession of theft, that he wasn't Nontie by birth, and that he'd escaped from somewhere far away. And that took most of the morning. Because Herschel was annoyingly literal. Also, he tended to answer questions with other unrelated questions. The kind that made Earl's head hurt.

Still, the odd-ball had already won over Rascal and Charlene. Earl thought of himself a simple man, and as such considered the law as something absolute. His job was to be the blunt instrument, and his opinion wasn't that important. He had no way of seeing how wrong he was, what he saw, was that Charlene had one foot in the trap of trying to save this long haired kook.

From Earl's perspective, she'd already saved them both by getting him to take Rascal to Fenmark. That should be enough. Even so, if she decided to keep the old man from the noose and failed, she'd blame herself. Herschel's trial and the hanging that was going to follow, was already planned for the next market in four weeks.

"People want entertainment and Bres wants to give it to them, if they can pay," Earl said into his hat, after coming back to his desk and putting his feet up.

Updated: 18.11.2023