The Permanent Record of Jude Wells

It's not like Jude Wells, electrical engineer and upstanding citizen of Carbondale, Illinois, hadn't been forewarned.  Like everyone in the United States, he'd been told by his teachers that everything he did would follow him for the rest of his life.

Jude was stopped on a dark Monday evening by the Carbondale police for running a red light.  Jude firmly believed that the light had been yellow when the tail of his Ford Taurus cleared the intersection, but Officer Warren Faulkner disagreed.  Jude received a ticket.

At traffic court three weeks later, Jude pleaded not guilty, but Judge Clyde Muggers threw the book at him after the bailiff handed His Honor a file while whispering in his ear.

"You can't evade the consequences of your actions any longer, Mr. Wells," declared the judge.  "I'm looking at your permanent record, and I don't think we can risk any further missteps on your part, Mr. Wells."

"Missteps?"

"It says here," continued the judge, "that you were punished in third grade for talking in class.  You also failed a math test in sixth grade, a test on fractions.  You being an engineer, I don't have to impress upon you the importance of fractions.  And then there was your suspension from the varsity track team in high school, as well as your first set of ACT scores."

"How do you know all this?" Jude asked, perplexed.

The judge merely held up Jude's file, his permanent record, which had been housed in an underground warehouse in Wyoming for thirty-eight years.  It's right next to the warehouse where everyone's IQ scores are kept.

Jude Wells was sentenced to twenty years of intense personal reflection at the state penitentiary.  His permanent record had finally caught up with him.

~William Hammett

SITEMAP

Home
About
Index of Short Stories by William Hammett
Richard Brautigan
Richard Brautigan: Stories in His Style
Ianthe Elizabeth Brautigan
Richard Brautigan Timeline
The Richard Brautigan Library
Articles on Richard Brautigan
Resources for Researching Richard Brautigan's Life and Work
The Prose Style of Richard Brautigan
Books about Richard Brautigan
The Novels of Richard Brautigan
The Short Stories of Richard Brautigan
Poetry Collections by Richard Brautigan
The Uncollected Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Unpublished Poetry of Richard Brautigan
The Ghost of Richard Brautigan
William Hammett
Contact