People Thrilled by Verdict for Man They Don't Know

San Mateo jury came back with the verdict of guilty for Scott Peterson Friday, and a lot of people who couldn't possibly have known the accused mortal to any real degree were really, really pleased. Roars of approval sounded when news of the verdict reached crowds outside, spending valuable time from their lives involving themselves in a case with absolutely no bearing on them.

Peterson, who may receive the death penalty for his crime, had been accused of the murder of his wife and unborn son, and also committed the despicable crime of occupying TV sets everywhere for more than a year when word of his sensationalized crime reached news organizations. His high-profile lawyer, smarmy Mark Geragos, defended his client as "an abominable dick, but not guilty of the crime." While for the opposing side, prosecutor Rick Distaso painted a picture of a man who was "a dick who did exactly what it sounds like he did."

Details of the trial captured the imagination of America, as the miseries of others in the world whose fate our actions control went forgotten. The case became even more fascinating for the uninvolved when it was revealed Peterson had kept a mistress massage therapist named Amber, and the jury were treated to tapes of their sexy phone calls. For months, viewers followed the search for the remains of Laci Peterson, Scott's wife, and their unborn son, and ratings went through the roof when they were discovered in the San Francisco Bay. Peterson was arrested with blond hair, but not for that reason, and was carrying $15,000 the prosecution said he was using to flee to Mexico.

People in no danger from Scott Peterson at all expressed how relieved they were he would be going to jail, or would receive the death penalty. Like Mitzi Kownuhno, of Gleaton, Rhode Island.

"At last, the world makes sense again," over-dramatized Kownuhno, upon watching the verdict on TV.

Those who showed up in person to hear Peterson's fate were also happy about his guilt.

"He's going to get exactly what he deserves, and I would like to be the one to pull the switch," said Herbert Teal of San Mateo, a jobless man who would like to apply for a public executioner position.

Fellow bystander Kiki Armoire agreed. "It's the kind of crime where you have to sit up and take notice. A woman, carrying her husband's child, betrayed by a man she thought was faithful to her… it's scary to think it could happen to any of us." Armoire, 34, admitted she had no husband or children, and had been watching the case extensively between reruns of C.S.I.

"We got him," exclaimed fellow outsider Michelle Pozowonysk, hugging a nearby stranger as she cried. "Thank God we got him!"

In other cities, people gathered in groups to watch the announcement of the verdict on CNN and Court-TV. Living viewers in public establishments such as Vorlon's Tavern in New York City awaited the verdict with baited breath, as if it mattered in the slightest in their insignificant, quickly-evaporating human lives. Most reacted with a swell of joy at the decision, though some demonstrated a degree of disappointment.

"Well, shit," said Jimmy "Meatball" Hughes, a sanitation engineer from Brooklyn. "That's all I had to watch until they start showing the Christmas specials on the TV."

etrayed by the voters of Ohio, America and the rest of the world summoned immense courage Nov. 3 and admitted, in the wake of the concession of Democratic candidate John Kerry, George W. Bush would get four more years as president of the United States.

In a race described as "pubic hair close," numbers built up all election night in the columns of both candidates. However, the president piled electoral votes all night long as Kerry generally lagged behind, if not all that far behind. With key states still slow to declare their choice as winner, Kerry conceded the presidency when the numbers demonstrated a reasonable lead by Bush in the popular vote and in the state of Ohio. The Democratic candidate delivered his speech on Nov. 3, after a sleepless night of feeling the voters would support him with the final numbers.

"To all my supporters I have this to say: I have watched the race closely, as you have, and consulted with my advisors, and I have reached a single conclusion: God must really hate me," said the Massachusetts senator. "There can be no other explanation for the fact that I have lacked the personality and excitement to build on my distinguished career and commendable war record, and convince America I couldn't possibly be a worse president than Mr. Bush. A president universally abhorred outside our national borders, a president who will undoubtedly go down as the most insidious man to ever be re-elected by the American people, and I have somehow failed to channel his monumental boners into a Democratic victory. I go now, forever exiled from politics, to live in a cave somewhere. I wish I were speaking in metaphor, but I am being quite literal."

Following Kerry's concession, nervous states with votes still out rushed to throw their now-useless electoral votes behind the president, fearing many, many more visits by future Republican candidates. The final count became Bush at 286 electoral votes, Kerry at 252. Ralph Nader ran a distant third, and somehow even failed to draw the 0 electoral votes he hoped to get.

Political analysts detailed many factors in voters' decisions to re-elect the man who has pissed off virtually everyone in the past four years. Voters for Bush overwhelmingly cited clichés, such as "stay the course," and wanting to show "support for a war-time president," even though it's highly unlikely a Republican holding the office would not be a war-time president. They also showed an amazing recollection for Bush soundbites, disparaging John Kerry as "a flip-flopper" and a man with "no experience as president." Other election analysts, more extreme in their calculations, suggest Bush found himself re-elected because Americans are masochists or simply hate the rest of the world, or a large collection of people really enjoy Michael Moore films and wanted to see a lot more.

In his victory speech, the president managed to just barely restrain his smugness, keeping it at an 8, tops, and usually just below a 5.

"The American people have spoken, and I won," gloated the president Nov. 3. "I showed you who's boss. We told the rest of the world we don't care if they don't like us. But we'll show them—we'll show them all. We'll make them like us. We're big enough, we're strong enough, and Jesus speaks to me nightly."

The president also reached out to Kerry supporters, attempting to rally them to his second term agenda.

"I know who you are. It's okay if you voted for the other guy. But this is your last warning—fall in line. I have the power of the United States at my beck and call now. I cannot, and will not, ever be stopped."

According to my idiot neighbor Dale, a watched pot never calls the kettle black, or rust never sleeps, or something. The point of it being (I think) that you have to take the initiative if you don't want some weird German dude with no body hair eating your lunch. Because it's a dog eat dogfood world out there. And I have to admit that his confusing point really hit home for yours truly, and it gave me indigestion. It's clear that Omar Bricks has rested on his laurels far too long. It's time to build an underground city.

According to this issue of Omni magazine, which my neighbor Dale got a subscription to because for some reason he thought it was going to be full of cheesecake pics of the girls from those Robert Palmer videos back in the 80's, but it's actually all about science and bullshit future predictions, but according to Omni we're all going to be living in underground tunnels in, like, five years. That's because you can only fit so much shit on an acre of land, but if you tunnel down to the center of the earth, that's like five acres or something. Way more room. So it's basically free land, the kind of thing this country hasn't seen since the Gold Rush or back in the day when people would run around grabbing trees and lakes and crabs, yelling "Mine!"

Now you know Omar Bricks is going to jump the gun on that inevitability, sure as futuristic shit. So I immediately drew up plans to add an extension to my house—straight down. I figured it would be bitchin' to make another mirror image of my entire house underground, just the kind of thing to freak people out and make for some righteous "Dancin' on the Ceiling" video re-creation hijinks and whatnot. But then I realized that even if I pulled that off, I still wouldn't have a pool, so I decided to tunnel under my neighbor Dale's house as well, since that lazy fucker hadn't even read his own magazine. His loss is my real-estate gain. And from there, who knows? We could have a real Omarpolis on our hands in no time.

The more I thought about it, it became clear that I should probably start Project Dig under Dale's house, since it was his magazine and everything. All I needed to start was some kind of crazy-ass digging machine, since Omar Bricks has never been good with a shovel or backbreaking physical labor. I was drawing up plans for a complex Bricksmobile modification involving a gigantic diamond-tipped drilling cone piloted by test monkeys (just for the shit of it) while I waited in the drive-thru lane at Arby's, when the divine inspiration hit. Why waste precious Bricks-hours and other people's diamonds building a Digmobile that was just going to sit in the garage and collect dust when I was done, when I could just hire the crew of this Arby's to do the same thing for a day's wages? They all looked like strong, able-bodied men and boys, with hardly a green card between them. It was brilliant.

The sell took some doing, since I don't speak any Spanish, and one guy kept trying to give me curly fries, but within minutes I had Arby's entire workforce in my trunk, heading back to the Bricks Manor to make suburban history. Did I feel a little guilty about the whole thing? Of course. That guy behind me in the drive-thru lane probably sat there for hours before he realized nobody was coming to take his order. But you don't make history without some sacrifices.

After liberating a half-dozen shovels and a wheelbarrow from my other neighbor Mitch's garage, Project Dig started smooth like a shaved baby's ass. Those guys could tunnel like the Vietnamese, only without the distracting hats. Though it turned out Dale was a little smarter than I gave him credit for, since he rigged the land under his house with all kinds of crazy booby traps and shit, trick pipes blocking the way that spray ice cold water when you try to hack into them with an axe, electric cable shock traps, and a huge underground tank of shit I don't even want to know where he bought.

But rest assured that Omar Bricks and Team Dig went all Tomb Raider on that bullshit, and the dig went silky smooth until we got to the other side of Dale's house, when that unreliable fucker's foundation collapsed, caving in the tunnel back to the base camp behind us. Luckily for us, those Mexicans dig faster than I can breathe, and we came aground in Dale's neighbor's garden like some kind of gopher from hell. I don't even know who lives in that house, since the only time I'd ever been over there was the time Foghat came home drunk one night and passed out in the wrong doghouse, and some asshole woke me from a dead sleep like he was absolutely certain it was my dog that barfed on his garage. Some people.

So in the end, a valuable lesson was learned. You have to tunnel more than six feet deep if you plan on digging under a house that's full of heavy shit. Wiser and dirtier, I paid off the Mexicans and bought their silence with the promise of a ride back to Arby's.

True, the cause of underground living was set back a bit that day, but future underground-living generations will no doubt benefit from the knowledge gained. They won't have to suffer though having their neighbors' houses collapse into the earth, sending shockwaves through the ground that knock over their favorite Darts Champion trophy back home, cracking the top corner a little. But all the pioneers have to suffer; it's a fact of life. If that's what it takes to be remembered forever, then Omar Bricks says "Hey, fuck it."

Bricks out.

º Last Column: Remorse Code
º more columns