Pirates in Paradise 2008 - Key West, Fl
Extra Page: The Tryal of Stynky Tudor
Stynky caused no end of trouble at PiP this year, so a tryal was held to examine his many crimes. This is the transcript of that tryal. (With a tip of the Patrick Hand original planter's hat to Hurricane for sending me the script for the Tryal of Anne Bonny and Mary Read.)
(Photo: Poppa Ratsey , Callahan Digital Art)
Bailiff: "Good people of Key West, please rise! Presiding over our hearing is his
excellency, most excellent and unctuous Sir Samuel Yohsomittie, lord god king
governor and all-round swell guy, by virtue of a commission from his majesty, King
Whilee under the great seal of Warner."
Yohsomittie: "Harumph!"
Bailiff: "Assisting him are his right most nattily worsted and insufferable Count
Marvin duMartan and his most estimable deafness Sir Elmaeres Fuoud."
Fuoud: "Eh?"
Yohsomittie: "Right, then! Bring on the prisoner and let's get on with the charges!"
Bailiff: "Bring out the prisoner!"
(Photo:Callahan Digital Art)
Bailiff: "The prisoner who stands before you…er, kneels before you, begging and
pleading... is charged with feloniously and wickedly, and in a hostile manner
stealing bottles of mead, receiving stolen mugs, selling stolen mugs, conning
innocent pirates out of their hardly-earned twenties, inciting citizens to brash
and vexatious behavior, bathing in a public place and, contrary to the laws of
this state, the accused is accused of soliciting women of questionable character.
Bailiff: "Mr. Tudor, have you heard the charges filed against you? Oh, for God's sake,
stand up man. How do you plead?"
Fuoud: "Guilty as the day is long!"
duMartan (whispering): "We haven't heard the evidence yet."
Fuoud: "Eh? Speak up, I can't hear you, my boy!"
Yohsomittie: "Proceed."
Fuoud: "What?"
Yohsomittie: "Call the first witness. Quickly!"
Bailiff: "Er, ah, yes. The court calls Miss Imogene Pritzie to the stand. Do you,
Miss Pritzie, swear by the great name of the ever-living God, to tell the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but the truth, according to the righteous rule of God's
Word, so help you?"
Miss Pritzie: "Yeeaaasssss."
Bailiff: Thank you, Miss Pritzie. Do you recognize the man weeping and moaning at the bar?"
Miss Pritzie: "Yeeaaasssss."
Bailiff: "Was he the man you saw bathing in the ocean?"
Miss Pritzie: "Yeeaaasssss."
Bailiff: "Did he not, as you say in your deposition, fail to wear a bathing cap?"
Miss Pritzie: "Yeeaaasssss."
(Photo: Fayma Callahan , Callahan Digital Art)
Yohsomittie: "What is the relevance of this?"
Bailiff: "There were women and children present , my lord."
Woman in Court Audience: "Oh those poor innocent babies!"
Court goes into an uproar.
Yohsomittie: "Order!"
Yohsomittie: "Order, order!"
Fuoud: "We're taking orders? Is it already time for lunch? I want a ham
sandwich!"
Bailiff: "It would seem that a woman has fainted dead away in the audience."
Yohsomittie: "It's not that Miss McKinney again, is it?"
Bailiff: "I couldn't say, my lord."
Yohsomittie: "Oh, fine. We can't very well have the floor littered
with unconscious women, can we? A recess to clear the court!"
(Photo: Mission Collection, Mary's Camera)
Bailiff: "This court is re-convened! All rise!"
Bailiff: "The court calls Mr. Devlin Tazmun to the stand. Do you, Mr. Tazmun, swear by the
wondrous name of the ever-lasting God, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but
the truth, according to the righteous rule of God's Word, so help you?"
Tazmun: "Yes, sir."
Bailiff: "Please tell the court your name and title.
Tazmun: "But you just said my name."
Bailiff: "Do it anyway. We have to establish you as a character."
Tazmun: "Oh, very well. I am Devlin Tazmun, proprietor of Ole Zach's Tavern."
Bailiff: "Do you recognize the subject at the bar?"
Tazmun: "I do."
Bailiff: "Please tell the court how you came to know this…man."
Tazmun: "He spent Sunday night, the 7th of December, in my Tavern."
Bailiff: "Was he there in the company of anyone else."
Tazmun: "At first just one very drunken and foolish man in a silly hat. He was later joined by many other people."
Bailiff: "What did he do while he was in your Tavern?"
Tazmun: "He started by stealing a bottle of my finest mead! After he had gone behind the
untended bar and retrieved it, he returned to his table. Upon realizing it had a cork in it,
he had the cheek to go back behind the bar to get my cork-puller!"
(Photo: Mission Collection, Mary's Camera)
Bailiff: "What did he do then?"
Tazmun: "Why, he and the man in the silly hat drank it."
Bailiff: Yeah, yeah. And then what happened?"
Tazmun: "Then he started soliciting other patrons to buy drinks for him and his cronies."
Bailiff: "How did he do this?"
Tazmun: "Using a remarkably absurd con! He would ask the patrons if they wanted some mead.
Well, who wouldn't? But when they said they did, he'd ask, 'Do you have $20?' Then he'd encourage them to buy mead and bring it to him so he could pour it for them!"
Bailiff: "People actually fell for that?!"
Tazmun: "Three or four times by my reckoning."
Bailiff: "What happened next?"
Tazmun: "Then I saw the prisoner cavorting in the arms of many, and I mean to say, many, women."
(Photo: Callahans , Callahan Digital Art)
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(Photo: Callahans, Callahan Digital Art)
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(Photo: Mission Collection,
Mary's Camera)
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(Photo: Callahans, Callahan Digital Art)
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(Photo: Mission Collection,
Mary's Camera)
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(Photo: Callahans, Callahan Digital Art)
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(Photo: Callahans, Callahan Digital Art)
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(Photo: Mission Collection,
Mary's Camera)
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Yohsomittie: "Where they women of loose character and questionable morals?"
Fuoud: "What?"
duMartan: "Women of loose character and questionable morals!"
Fuoud: "Oh, yes! I'll take two please!"
Yohsomittie: "Please go on."
Tazmun: "I could not say if they were women of loose morals and questionable character
for certain, but many of them were later seen in the company of known pirates!"
Fuoud: "Off with his head!"
Yohsomittie (sotto voce): "No, not yet!"
Bailiff: "Thank you, Mr. Tazmun. You may step down."
Bailiff: "The court calls Dr. Hyrum Eique to the stand. Mr. Ick, do you swear by the stupendous
most earnestest name of the long-suffering God, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing
but the truth, according to the fustian rule of God's Word, so help you?"
Eique: "It's not pronounced 'Ick', it's pronounced 'Eique'. As in Eye-Que."
Bailiff: "Sorry. Eique."
Fuoud: "Eye wash?"
duMartan: "No. Eye-Que."
Fuoud: "Eye-Queue?"
duMartan: "No. Eye-Que."
Fuoud: "Ah. Once again, then?"
Bailiff: "Mr. Eique, do you etc. etc., so help you?"
Eique: "I do."
Bailiff: "Please tell the court your name and title."
Eique: "Hy Eique, surgeon aboard Her Most Royal Majesty's Good Ship Lowlie
Pup.
Yohsomittie: "Hy!"
Eique: "Well, hello!"
Yohsomittie: "No, is your name Hyrum or Hy?"
Eique: Everyone calls me Hy.
Fuoud: "What was that?"
deMartan: "Hy!"
Fuoud: "Well, hello!"
duMartan: "We already did that bit!"
Fuoud: "Oh, sorry. I spilled coffee on my script."
Bailiff: "Will you tell the court what happened on December 7th, Mr. Eique?"
(Photo: Mission)
(Photo: Jessica Bagley)
Eique: "Well, our ship was in port and we were all at Ole Zach's Tavern enjoying ourselves when a man stole
my hat."
Bailiff: "Is that man here today?"
Eique: "Yes, he's at the bar."
Tudor: "I should be so lucky."
Eique: "So I asked for it back as I was wanted to deliver a baby outside."
Bailiff: "You need your hat to deliver a baby?"
Eique: "Not really. It was an excuse to get my hat back. I actually
forgot to bring the hat.
Bailiff: "Then what happened?"
Eique: "He gave it back and asked me if I wanted some mead. Then he asked me if I had $20. Then he stole my
bone saw."
Yohsomittie: "I dare say!"
duMartan: "You dare not. Your wife will be furious."
Yohsomittie: "Quite right. Proceed"
(Photo: Jessica Bagley)
Eique: "After which he stole a bunch of people's mugs and started sending them to me."
Court Audience: "Ohhh!"
Bailiff: "Why did he send them to you?"
Eique: "I think he intended for me to sell them and return the profits to him. I saw him
convincing a young lad to sell stolen merchandise to unsuspecting tourists."
Court Audience: "Ahhh!"
Eique: "Then he suggested I should have committed acts of moral turpitude."
Fuoud: "Moral…?"
Eique: "Turpitude!"
(Photo: Mission Collection, Mary's Camera)
Fuoud: "Well that's not so unusual is it? Happens to me all the time. I even encourage it sometimes."
Eique: "He cited scripture as proof!"
Court Audience: "Gasp!"
Eique: "He also got people to buy our crew mead until we were so drunk that we played this
stupid game that involved exchanging hats. He then provoked my fellow sailors into two dozen
acts of perversion...so profound and disgusting...that decorum prohibits listing them here."
Fuoud: "Can you at least give us some hints?"
Eique: "They involved salaciousness, salubriousness, sinfulness, supineness, sprightliness and sottishness."
Court Audience: "Eh?"
Bailiff: "Is there anything else?"
Eique: "No, sir."
Bailiff: "You may step down."
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Yohsomittie: "We find the accused here before us - Stynky Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Appauling
Pall Tudor... "
duMartan: "Also known as the 'Rat'."
Yohsomittie: "..and any other aliases he might have, to be guilty on all counts! Do you have anything
to say, or offer the court before sentence is passed?"
Bailiff: "Oh, quit snuffling! And wipe your nose, too!"
Yohsomittie: "Now what should we do with him?"
Man in the Audience: "Crucify him!"
All three judges: "What?!"
Man in the Audience, louder: "Crucify him!"
Bailiff: "Ah, I think you're in the wrong re-enactment. The one you want is three doors down on the left."
Man in the Audience: "Oh...sorry!"
(Photo: Mission Collection, Mary's Camera)
(Photo: Red Jessi)
Yohsomittie: "Now where were we?" (Pulls out a script, flips through
it.) "Oh, yes…Now what should we do with him?"
duMartan: "Hanging's too good for him."
Yohsomittie: "Hear, hear! Quite right!"
duMartan: "Let's make him the lifetime midnight steward of the Fort
toilets."
Fuoud: "What?"
duMartan: "Clean the toilets!"
Fuoud: "It is my turn already?"
Yohsomittie: "I think this is a sound decision. Are we agreed then,
gentlemen? Right. You, Stynky Benedicto etcetera, etcetera, are to go from
hence to the toilets at Fort Edward/Zachary Taylor where you will be shall
be chained to them and made to severely clean the said toilets on the midnight
watch for the remaining years of your life under the watchful eye of Master M.A. d'Dogge.
And God in his infinite mercy be merciful to your soul."
Court Audience: "Yellow fever! Yellow fever!"
Stynky: "I plead my belly; I am quick with child!"
Bailiff: "Oh, shut up."