Davening on Avenue Y

I have been a municipal judge in the southern district of Brooklyn, New York for twenty-four years, but this morning was the first time I ever gave a police officer a $125 summons for violating Statute 10.3 of the Ticketing Religious People Code.

If you’ll accept an ounce of honesty (to go along with the thirty extra pounds I happen to carry around), I am as fair and honest as they come. I never bend the law—but sometimes I allow good people to slip through a crack if they’re good citizens and the slipping through doesn’t hurt anyone else. 

I’ve seen it all in front of my bench: parents who were arrested because they forgot their baby in the car when they went shopping; teens and preteens caught smoking pot or drinking beer or taking their parents’ prescription drugs behind the high school; teachers who seduce their students; elderly people who steal merchandise on the street because they didn’t realize it was part of an outdoor display; overworked young fathers who temporarily lose their minds and run through the park or across the marina completely naked. 

I could write a book. 

I know a lot of the people in this part of town. The cops who arrest them or issue them tickets are usually right for having done so. Most of Brooklyn South’s finest are fine. 

Two or three are a pain in the ass. 

One particular pain in the ass is Officer Rance Cunningham. You could say he rubs me the wrong way. (Though if you say it, you’d be understating it.) I’ve had a handful of brief conversations with Officer Cunningham over the six years he has been with Brooklyn South. A few times I bumped into him at the commissary shared by the police station and the attached courthouse. Once or twice it was in the hallway that connects the two. He loves to hear his own voice. He’s the kind of guy who, when he talks to you, looks at the person next to you because that makes him think that two people are listening to him instead of just one. Also, he’s far more interested in himself than he is in anyone else, and he’s been known to walk away from a conversation when it no longer serves his purposes. What’s more, Officer Cunningham always manages to slip into every conversation the fact that he’s a proud atheist. Don’t ask me why, but he wears it as a badge of honor. I’m not an atheist. I believe in God. I may not remember the last time I went to church, let alone confession, but I consider myself a spiritual man. But in truth, that that has nothing to do with why I can’t stand Officer Cunningham and his atheistic self-righteousness. It’s the attitude I despise. The tone. The way he obviously thinks he’s right and everyone else is wrong. His facial expressions clearly indicate that he thinks he’s exceptional and that the rest of us are morons.

Officer Cunningham issued a $125 traffic ticket to Rita and Marvin Greenbaum three weeks ago. The Greenbaums are in their seventies. They have never been in front of my bench, but I saw them twice at the police station. The first time it was to report a break-in at their apartment, and the second time to file a report about not having received mail for a week. Rita and Marvin seem to be good people. Very nice. Decent. Honest and kind. Officer Cunningham knows them, too, since he was the responding officer who went back with them to their apartment when they reported the break-in. I would bet a thousand dollars that Cunningham saw a mezuzah on their front door and maybe a Jewish calendar on their kitchen wall and proceeded to boast about being an atheist. That’s just the feeling I have. I don’t know if that’s what really happened. It wouldn’t surprise me, though.

When I saw the names Rita and Marvin Greenbaum on my docket that morning, something compelled me to conduct just four or five minutes of research. I do that sometimes; once in a while it helps during the hearings. I discovered that the Greenbaums are on a fixed retirement income and have only limited savings. Marvin used to run a small knish concession stand at the marina. Rita never worked because of fragile health. After doing the research it became obvious to me that their financial situation played at least one part in their decision to delay paying the $125 traffic fine and instead, go to the Brooklyn South Municipal Court to plead their case in front of a judge. 

That judge was me. 

On the day of the hearing, the first question I asked Officer Cunningham was if the man standing to his left was the driver of the car to whom he had issued a traffic ticket. Cunningham confirmed that it was. Then I asked why he had issued a ticket, and the officer responded that it was because Mr. Greenbaum, the driver, had ignored a stop sign at the busy intersection of Avenue Y and East 27th Street. 

Then I turned to Marvin Greenbaum. I asked him why he had ignored the stop sign. Marvin said that at the moment he and Rita passed the intersection, it was completely empty of cars in all directions, which was such an odd and pleasant surprise that it distracted him and he never realized that he had not fully stopped. He did, however, slow down significantly, he said.

Then I asked Mr. Greenbaum if that was why he was fighting the ticket—because he was distracted and because he had slowed down significantly at the empty intersection. (I also reminded him that slowing down is not the same thing as a full stop in the eyes of the law.) 

Mr. Greenbaum said no, that was not why he was fighting the ticket. The reason he was fighting the ticket, he said, was because the ticket had the date September Fourteenth written on it, whereas the day the incident occurred was September Fifteenth. He said he was certain of that because September Fifteenth was the day of his youngest grandson’s bar mitzvah, which is where he and his wife Rita were going when they were stopped by Officer Cunningham. 

I had a copy of the ticket in front of me. I looked it over. The date Officer Cunningham had written on it was September Fourteenth. 

So I turned to Officer Cunningham and asked him to please check his ledger to see what date the offense had actually occurred. Cunningham took his thick black flip-book out of his pocket and checked. He uttered a low Hmmm—then acknowledged that the offense had indeed occurred on September Fifteen, not September Fourteenth, as he had written on the ticket. I reminded Officer Cunningham that such an error would legally void the ticket. I asked him how such a mistake could be made. Cunningham explained that he, too, became distracted when he was talking to Marvin Greenbaum because Mr. Greenbaum was rocking back and forth in the driver’s seat of his car, in his sitting positing, and humming what to him sounded like a religious chant. Cunningham said it was one of the weirdest things he had ever witnessed as a police officer.

I asked Marvin Greenbaum if he had indeed been rocking back and forth, and if he had indeed been humming, and if so, why. Mr. Greenbaum said that he was davening, which he explained to me is the Hebrew word for praying. I asked him what he was praying for. Mr. Greenbaum looked at Officer Cunningham and said he was praying that the police officer would write the wrong date on the ticket, which he knew would render it void. God granted his wish, Mr. Greenbaum added. 

I looked at Cunningham’s face. His expression was priceless. I can’t explain it. I won’t even begin to try. (Maybe I won’t write a book.) 

So I voided the ticket and told Officer Cunningham that either he’d be fined $125 for violating Statute 10.3 of the Ticketing Religious People Code, or that I could dismiss his violation if he’d simply agree to give fifty dollars to Mr. & Mrs. Greenbaum for their troubles. The officer reached into his pocket, took out his wallet, and handed Marvin Greenbaum two twenties and a ten. 

Of course, Statute 10.3 of the Ticketing Religious People Code does not really exist. I made it up on the spot. Maybe I’ll go to confession. Or maybe I’ll just pray.