Elaine did call me back.

She had heard from the Clerk.

She was able to postpone our — my — appearance until one of two dates: January 28th or February 4th. The long time waiting, which had already racked itself up to two and a half months, would be more than three when all was said and done. I could expect another expository phone call at the end of the month.

The original date on the summons was January 4th–

I suddenly remember and also appreciate what the officer might have done that synchronous night: Delayed the appearance from October until the semester break, since when he asked me what I was doing in the Bronx, I said I was a student at Fordham.

The 4th was a Tuesday. I think I slept in that day, probably went over to a diner to get a bacon omelette and as many cups of coffee as my jittery hands wouldn’t spill. A little investigating has proven that I did blog early in the morning of the 4th, so my estimate of sleeping in is probably quite accurate.

I was able to take ‘er easy because my graduate coursework was done; no more trips from the East Village to the Bronx would be called for. Preparation for the culminating comprehensive essay test could be done anywhere.

I would become an idler, a rebel without a cause for getting up in the morning. All that lay on my agenda for the next three months was a court date I didn’t have to worry about, a new part-time gig scorekeeping basketball games, and a list of books, plays and poems that I would have to know frontwards and sideways by the first week of April.

I remember thinking to myself that night, “If things had turned out differently, I would have been in court today — I should have been in court today. Funny.”