"What?" he'd been browsing through his comm, tapping through what I assumed was my file. "No, no. It's perfectly standard. This isn't a trial, it's a hearing. We're all on the same side, here." He tapped some more. "Your side."
"Good," Art said. "My grandmother came down, and she wants to testify on my behalf."
"Oooh," the fixer said, shaking his head. "No, not a great idea. She's not a mental health professional, is she?"
"No," I said. "But she's known me all my life. She knows I'm not a danger to myself or others."
"Sorry, that's not appropriate. We all love our families, but the court wants to hear from people who have qualified opinions on this subject. Your doctors will speak, of course."
"Do I get to speak?"
"If you *really* want to. That's not a very good idea, either, though, I'm afraid. If the judge wants to hear from you, she'll address you. Otherwise, your best bet is to sit still, no fidgeting, look as sane and calm as you can."
I felt like I had bricks dangling from my limbs and one stuck in my brain. The new meds painted the world with translucent whitewash, stuffed cotton in my ears and made my tongue thick. Slowly, my brain absorbed all of this.
"You mean that my Gran can't talk, I can't talk, and all the court hears is the doctors?"
"Don't be difficult, Art. This is a hearing to determine your competency. A group of talented mental health professionals have observed you for the past week and they've come to some conclusions based on those observations. If everyone who came before the court for a competency hearing brought out a bunch of irrelevant witnesses and made long speeches, the court calendar would be backlogged for decades. Then other people who were in for observation wouldn't be able to get their hearings. It wouldn't work for anyone. You see that, right?"