Mac read the motto on Relationship Judge Gunner U. Johnson’s black muscle tee, having had to tune out the busy, dim atmosphere inside Din Tai Fung at Westfield Valley Fair Shopping Center, where the venue hosted Santa Clara County Couples’ Court with Relationship Judge Gunner U. Johnson at Din Tai Fung, a local sleeper hit television show broadcast on KQED Plus every Thursday night at nine.
“Live, Laugh, Love”? That’s a little on the nose, eh God?
The cool metal of the pink fuzzy handcuffs connecting him to Hannah dug raw red trenches around his wrist, his palm getting sweaty as he laced his fingers with hers under the table. He stole a glance at her lovely freckles and intense gray eyes that always hung on the moment, never a second into the past or future.
Always so stoic. But I guess you have to be to stomach relationship law and overpriced xiao long bao. Serious Dumpling makes a meaner dumpling, not gonna lie… But hey… Dinner’s on the state tonight, so I can’t really complain. And I can do WAY worse than being handcuffed to Hannah. Manipulative Maria? Candid Carla? Jumbo Jackie? Yeah, no thanks.
“Savannah?”
Hannah hesitated briefly before turning; their act playing as Jack and Savannah wasn’t fully polished yet. “Yeah?”
“Love ya. In a legally deniable way. You ready for this?” Mac sighed, the wear evident on his face.
Hannah smirked, giving Mac’s hand a firm squeeze back. “Ditto, dork. And… Of course. Between us, you were always the smoother talker, Honey. But if you ever need help, just remember our vows.”
“I would never forget them, Banana.”
Clearing his throat and nudging his black wraparound Oakley shades that made him look like a Deus Ex-dolt, Judge Johnson made his presence known. “Court is now in session. Davey Meyers and Savannah Carol St. Clair, it says on my docket that you are charged with relationship fraud and holding a wedding for less than N$1,200 all in. Probable cause checked out and you both plead not guilty. Let’s begin.”
The live studio audience sitting at the banquet table behind their moody booth, a jury of six couples, two throuples, and a polycule, all of varying ages, creeds, races, and sexualities, banged their fists on the table and cried in uproar at Mac and Hannah.
“Ay, we saw that wedding on Twitch. This is an affront to the American romance-industrial complex and the current thing!” a man with a pink mohawk and an eyebrow piercing jeered.
A woman, part of one of the throuples, with a big schnoz and even bigger glasses, tacked on her articulation of the jury’s collective scorn. “Just say it and they’ll let you go! Say the three stupid little words to each other without any take backs, for fuck’s sake!”
“You can’t be doing all that perfect relationship mushy gushy bullcrap without declaring public intent!” a non-binary in a beanie shrilled.
“Order! ORDER!” Judge Johnson raised his water glass up high and tinkled it with his porcelain soup spoon.
Judge Johnson’s bailiff, a uniformed officer from the California Department of Marital Oversight Inspection Service, glared at the jury. “Just because y’all made a reservation to be here tonight doesn’t mean that you get to act up in a court of law. Watch in peace, or I will forcibly relocate you to P.F. Chang’s my goshdarn self—and I know they always screw up the Chang sauce. If you really misbehave, I will have no choice but to put you on the Panda Express. Don’t risk it. I see you, Sock, Ray, Blue. Toe. The. Line.”
A Chinese waiter in a black waistcoat and slacks came by, carrying a tray of food. “The first of your order, Your Honor. Our Cucumber Salad, Sweet & Sour Pork Baby Back Ribs, and Kurobuta Pork Xiao Long Bao. We’ll keep them coming.”
He set the steamer holding the xiao long bao on the table and opened it. Then, he set the plates of cucumber salad and ribs down before scurrying off to his next case.
Mac was aghast. The food smelled AMAZING, but—No rice?
As he took a sip of ice water with his free hand, he inspected Judge Johnson’s expression in expectation, but all he got was a scowling, wrinkled beam of derision in return. “If you were expecting a side of rice, tough titty, lover boy. Budget cuts.”
“This is terrible, Carol. The inhumanity!” he looked to Hannah with his puppy-eyed stare and faked a cry into her broad, stacked shoulder.
Judge Johnson slicked back his Brad Pitt wannabe gelmet and sniffed sharply. Smelling that the food was to his satisfaction, he began the tests. “The first test I’m gonna have y’all do is the Appetizer Selection Synchronicity test, or A.S.S. for short.”
Mac chortled through his crocodile tears.
“Hold up, hold up, hold up, is this FUNNY to you, Mr. Meyers?”
Mac chuckled. “Yes, Your Honor. It would be perjury if I said no.”
The jury kvetched and groaned. They’ve heard the same tired joke on the show many times before.
“Fair. Anyways, the test is simple. You are allowed ten seconds to look into each other’s eyes in silence and agree without making a sign on which appetizer to try first. If you both reach for the same dish, you pass,” the judge explained. “Ready?”
Mac turned to Hannah, sharing a look with her. She nodded. Then, he turned back to Judge Johnson. “Yes, Your Honor, we’re ready.”
Judge Johnson prompted his phone and set it down on the table. “Hey Siri, give me a ten-second timer.”
Locking eyes with Hannah once again, Mac tried his best to read her eyes as Hannah did the same with him.
Staring contest with Cheer Captain. Adorable… Wait. What’s she gonna pick? Knowing her, she probably wants to go for… Nah. That’s a stupid way to go about things. What WOULDN’T she go for first? That one’s pretty easy: the cucumber salad. So it comes down to the ribs and the xiao long bao. I know she loves meat, but… Wait. I’m overthinking it. Xiao long bao is the best when it’s fresh from the kitchen! Hannah’s smart. She would know this as well. Daddy knows his dumplings…
On the table, the judge’s phone played the classic alarm: a piano rendition of the intro of “Bad to the Bone” by George Thorogood and the Destroyers, interrupting Mac’s regularly scheduled logic spiral.
“Time’s up. Please choose your dish now.”
Without hesitation, Mac lunged for the bamboo steamer with his soup spoon in blind faith that Hannah would do the same with her chopsticks. A flash of bamboo picked up a dumpling and placed it into his spoon.
Perfect.
Cradling his bounty back to his mouth, he side eyed Hannah, a mischievous smirk painted on his lips as he bowchickawowwowed at her with his eyebrows.
Hannah smirked back, her freckled cheeks turning rouge in the half-light.
What? No such thing as halfway crooks if we’re mining for a guilty verdict…
He nibbled a small hole into the wrapper of the dumpling, making sure to catch any leakage with his tongue.
“Mmm… Ohh…” Mac moaned softly, swirling the drops of fragrant broth in his mouth.
“You okay?” Hannah asked, shamming concern for her new husband.
Suuuuck!
He moaned again, this time even louder. “Oh God, you’re right there… Oh GOD!”
Some diners close to their table stopped and stared. Mac put the dumpling in his mouth, his moans turning into shouts of unashamed, full-body pleasure as he started chewing, the fresh ginger, green onion and the secret blend of herbs and spices melting into the fat of the Kurobuta pork for the perfect bite, his tongue making sweet love to all eighteen folds of the wrapper: the best dumplings were always the free ones. Doubly so at Din Tai Fung. “Yes, yes, yes, YESSSSSSS! OH~!”
Mac closed his eyes, observing all the stars in the known universe all at once, an astronomy documentary narrated by Whoopi Goldberg projecting behind his eyelids.
At this point, all of Din Tai Fung was held hostage, beholding the divine work of a meme lord gourmet at the peak of his powers: the kind of dumpling whisperer who only came around once in a lifetime. The kind to see, even touch the white light reaching for him in bits like this, only for him to take a step back from the void at the last possible moment. Mac. Him. Same difference. With regards to enjoying a succulent Chinese meal, that was.
He swallowed, satisfied. “Ahhhhh…”
A giggly Hannah dabbed his lips with a napkin.
The woman with the big schnoz flagged down a waitress. “I’ll have what he’s having.”
Mac looked back and mean-mugged the jury, as if to razz them with a “You liked that shit, didn’t you?”
In response, the jury held up their scorecards in silence. Perfect tens across the board. Except for the non-binary in a beanie. They threw up a hating-ass nine.
Man, whatever. Junior’s is better than Katz’s anyways. Eat your heart out, Meg Ryan!
Judge Johnson jotted something on his legal pad, grunted, and adjusted his shades. “Let’s… continue the trial.”
Mac and Hannah continued their aggravated assault on acceptable public displays of affection as they started feeding each other the rest of the appetizers.
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As Mac and Hannah smashed the rest of the appetizers posthaste, the waiter came back with expert timing, this time with a tray holding only one dish. Being careful not to spill a drop of the test material, he set it down dead center on the table and picked up their empty plates. “Our Braised Beef Noodle Soup, just at the right temperature to start the Soup Harmony Enlightenment Tasting test, or S.H.E.T. for short. Be careful. Very hot.”
Hannah spit out her ice water to the side in a frantic scarper, a bid to self-arrest her psyche’s fall into madness. She could only muster one word. “Deadass?”
Judge Johnson sighed, kneading the stress wrinkles forming between his eyebrows. Some of the more sensitive members of the polycule started to murmur in objection, but the bailiff cleared his throat, shutting them up for the time being.
Mac played good cop off Hannah’s contact, tugging at his sweaty black button-down collar with a finger in feigned agitation. “Savannah! Please keep it together. They might find us in contempt. Do you WANT us to spend extra time in horny jail?”
“Jack… You’re right. Stick to the plan,” Hannah replied, hanging her head in spurious shame.
Raising an eyebrow, but ultimately convinced at their childish attempts to self-police, Judge Johnson nudged the bowl of noodle soup closer to Mac and Hannah, the steam condensing on his dark specs. “The S.H.E.T. test is designed to assess your ability to eat noodles in harmony even under duress. You are allowed three attempts for you both to slurp the same noodle and touch lips without breaking it. Do that, and you pass.”
“What, like Lady and the Tramp?” Mac asked, knowing and dreading the clarification deep down.
“Yes. Like Lady and the Tramp,” Judge Johnson deadpanned.
“Type shit,” Hannah quipped, before covering her smart-ass mouth.
Choosing to ignore Hannah, Judge Johnson gave the signal to begin.
Okay. Focus Mac. One noodly kiss, career goals. Ignore that you’re in love with her. We need this guilty verdict BAD.
Hannah dug in first, moving the beef and the bok choy out of the way, disrupting the surface tension of the pristine, translucent terracotta broth, kicking up the delicate aromas from the steamy bowl and exposing the house-made egg noodles underneath.
Mac cheated his soup spoon over and filled it up with the soy and earth-flavored elixir and shuttled it back to his mouth: if he was to stand any chance of passing the S.H.E.T. test, he needed to wet his lips for the best possible noodle slurp experience. He smacked his lips, letting the taste flood his palate. Yum!
The jury went bananas, exploding in horrified gasps and side chatter. The man in the pink mohawk took charge. “HEY! Won’t somebody PLEASE think about the children?!”
“Mr. Meyers, please remember where you are! You are in a COURT OF LAW, not sitting down for Sunday dim sum!” the bailiff warned, smacking the dividing wall between the bar area and the regular tables.
“Let him cook,” Judge Johnson declared, bridging his fingers together as a grim guffaw escaped his lips. “I’m amused now. I wanna see what this lover boy’s got.”
Mac dismissed their concerns with a single “Heh,” wiping under his nose with a finger and shaking his head as he snickered to himself. Even Hannah cringed, nearly mangling a perfect candidate noodle as she dredged the bowl with her chopsticks.
“Ai ya! Found one, Honey! Help me out here. Grab the other end. Let’s get this show on the road,” Hannah called out, her chopsticks holding up one end of a monstrous noodle.
Just like defusing a bomb. Which wire, McGuire?
Taking the other end of the noodle in his chopsticks, he put it in his mouth. Hannah did the same.
Slurp! The noodle stretched but didn’t break. Now facing each other, they slurped some more, inching closer to the hackneyed desired result. Then, the moment passed.
Everybody in the restaurant sighed in relief. No further theatrics. Just a chaste, made-for-Disney, vanilla, safe, boring, noodle kiss.
The judge scribbled another note in his legal pad, taking a deep breath. “S.H.E.T. passed. Next is the Dessert Involvement Critique, or the D.I.C. test for short. What’s your dessert order? You’re allowed two. We’ll take a fifteen-minute recess here.”
Mac shared a shit-eating grin with Hannah before transmogrifying into a couple of tittering teenage dirtbags. “D.I.C. huh? Heheheheheh!”
The jury griped as they stood up holding perfect tens across the board except for the non-binary in a beanie, who again raised up a hating-ass nine, before setting the scorecards down in a hurry. Some scraped their chair legs on the floor to excuse themselves to go to the gender-neutral bathrooms or to enjoy a cigarette in the cavernous parking dungeon.
---
Back from recess, the Honorable Relationship Judge Gunner U. Johnson wasted no time getting on with the trial. It was the defendants’ constitutional right to a speedy one, after all, for whatever that meant in current year. The D.I.C. test could not afford to be delayed!
What a jobsworth…
Mac’s butt slid uncomfortably on the vinyl posing as leather as glasses clinked, utensils clattered, and people’s second Lychee Mojitos, Cucumber Gimlets, and DTF Old Fashioneds arrived for the back half of this barnburner of a dinner trial. Truly gripping public access television.
The waiter made his rounds once again, depositing Mac’s order of Sweet Taro Buns and Hannah’s order of Sesame Buns in front of them. Glancing briefly at their orders, and then their faces, the judge raised an eyebrow behind his Oakley sunglasses as if he had gained a glimmer of an insight into another part of their dynamic (he didn’t).
“Getting on with it. The D.I.C. is critical in determining your guilt or lack thereof. What we need to see is a willingness to share desserts with bona fide generosity and loving. You will be judged by how genuine you look,” Judge Johnson prattled on, reading verbatim from his massive book of random rules and regulations only comprehensible to people who went to legal school or whatever made them qualified to work in the legal industry in Mac’s mind. “Ready?”
Hannah gave the signal to Mac, a small squeeze of his hand under the table. Mac sighed and knitted his eyebrows together, still faking it, still milking the state for a free date night with Hannah. “Yes, Your Honor.”
Mac smiled at Hannah, the type that always got her to melt. “Hey Sugar… I know sesame’s not really my flavor, but I wanna try one. I’ll give you one of my buns if you wanna try taro.”
Emboldened by the results of the previous tests, Hannah risked it, shoving her steamer of sesame buns towards the center of the table in real rage. “Can’t you see what they’re doing to us, Honey? Din Tai Fung doesn’t normally serve anything like this! They serve it family style.”
In slack-jawed horror, Mac stared at the uncovered unwritten and unspoken legal booby trap lying before him before turning back to Hannah. “Savannah… You saved our asses again. Almost tripped on a land mine. Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” Hannah replied, the blush on her face creeping with a knife behind its back up to her smirk, her expression wavering between wanting to marry him all over again and wanting to kill him for such a basic miscue.
Evil laughter from the judge. Then more of it. The jury, wasted off their ass on courtroom-grade cocktails, pealed in rowdy merriment and catcalls. Even the bailiff couldn’t stifle his giggles out of professional respect.
Judge Johnson smirked. “Well done.”
Then, turning to the audience, he addressed them. “DIN TAI FUNG! HOW THE FUCK ARE WE FEELING TONIGHT?!”
“URAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” the crowd roared, raising their drinks and scorecards up high. Even the non-binary in a beanie raised a ten this time.
“Alright, alright. Settle down now. We still have one more test to go!” Judge Johnson ordered.
The restaurant quickly quieted in anticipation. This was the moment they all made their reservations for.
“Are you ready for the grand finale? This one I like to call…” The judge cupped his ear towards the jury. “SAY IT WITH ME!”
“SPONTANEOUS. HONESTY. ADVANCEMENT. MONOLOGUE!” Judge Johnson and the crowd recited the full title of the last test.
“What does that spell?” the judge asked the crowd.
“SHAM!” the crowd responded in kind.
“Louder!”
“SHAM!!”
“I can’t hear yoooooou!”
“SHAM!!!!!”
The man with a pink mohawk, the lady with a big schnoz, and the non-binary in a beanie fainted in their chairs from delirium. They all came to not even fifteen seconds later. Nothing a few complimentary orange slices couldn’t fix.
Judge Johnson introduced the test, closing his massive book of random rules and regulations with a thump. “Did you know that people are always more open-minded after a nice meal? Both of you, please say something honest about your partner.” With an upturned, beckoning palm, he nodded at Mac, flashing his eyes above his lenses. “Jack. You go first.”
Mac looked over at Hannah, and fell in love all over again. “I had a grand damn gesture all worked out, full of zingers that would’ve made my Hinge profile blow up if I still had one. But I’m not going to read it.”
Pushing his chair back and making a most inelegant SKRRRRRR, Mac stood up. “I’m here to apologize. I’m just some dude from Salt Ponds. I’m just some twenty-something burnout nobody office drone, a dime a trillion who literally lucked into meeting my ideal partner at work. I wish I could say our love started under more compelling circumstances, but you cannot hold Savannah Carol St. Clair responsible for my shortcomings.”
Mac met eyes with everybody in the restaurant. “You see, in all this performing this love for public consumption, to buy and to sell, something has gotten lost, and that something is our marketability.”
“Now, it is incumbent upon those who are romantically involved not to just talk about the marketability, but to actually live it, to laugh in it, to love in it. My mother and father taught me that. Yeah, I admit that Savannah and I are a couple of dumbasses who are way too poisoned by irony to ever live up to the mainstream’s standard of romantic love, but y’all saw our wedding on Twitch! We passed the A.S.S., S.H.E.T., and D.I.C. tests in front of y’all. We didn’t cheat!”
His eyes turned wild as he flapped his free hand around, a cross between an AirDancers Inflatable Tube Man and the most expressive Greek uncle on a two-Red Bull dinner date with the foxiest auntie in Oia. “What is in us that seeks acceptance from the mainstream? Is it our minds or is it our hearts?” Mac posed, before galloping forth with more senseless drivel. “I set out to prove that a straight white couple in their physical primes could receive a fair trial in the Bay Area, that love is love in the eyes of relationship law. That’s not the truth, because the eyes of relationship law are human eyes—yours and mine—and until you can see us as unmarketable to Hollywood and the entertainment industry at large despite that, justice is never going to be evenhanded. It will remain nothing more than a reflection of our own prejudices, so until that day we have a duty under God to seek alpha in this dating market, not with our eyes and not with our minds where fear and hate turn unmarketability into prejudice, but with our hearts, where we don’t know better.”
Someone in the jury started coughing, choking back their laughter as they glared at Mac.
Mac penciled in a smirk on his lips so thin and long that it could’ve garroted a humpback whale. “Now I wanna tell you a story. I’m gonna ask y’all to close your eyes while I tell you this story. I want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to yourselves.”
Nobody closed their eyes.
“This is a story about a couple who, in the process of getting married at the Santa Clara County Clerk-Recorder’s Office, started to say vows so based, County Clerk 27, the most lenient clerk in all of Northern California, had to tell them to hold their wedding elsewhere. I want you to picture this couple,” Mac began.
Nobody was listening.
He carried on anyways, because they needed that guilty verdict something fierce. “Suddenly they’re on Twitch in front of thousands of viewers thanks to their friend. The person waiting at the altar is sweating like hell, and the person who marched up to the altar tore their outfit at the part covering their butt because they couldn’t afford anything nicer. Both of them are crying at the top of the courthouse steps as their friends nearly get blinded by their love.”
Mac’s lip trembled, his eyes blinking rapidly trying to hold back the last of his fraudulent tears. He paused for dramatic effect. “Now come the vows: lifelong promises of undying devotion no matter the circumstances. But like, ironic. Then the ring exchange. N$80 for a set of real-deal sterling silver bands issued by Santa Clara County. And finally, the kiss that lasts two whole minutes, blocking in multiple bailiffs from leaving for their lunch breaks and setting a PogChamp streak of at least 51,293. Cute, quirked up, and affordable, right? Now imagine they were straight, white, and in their primes.”
Judge Johnson facepalmed. The jury booed, everybody holding up zeroes, except for the non-binary in a beanie holding up a negative one.
“Guilty… On both counts and for cringe. I don’t even wanna hear Savannah’s closing argument. I sentence you both to a year in horny jail for relationship fraud, and a bid of six months for holding a cheapskate’s wedding. The sentences are to be served consecutively. Bailiff, please get them the fuck outta my sight.”
TING TING! The judge dinged his water glass once again with his soup spoon, locking in his verdict.
