Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net NIGHT COURT BY NORMAN ARKAWY _With a new cast nightly, it was the best show in town. Gay crowds mobbed the box office for tickets; but few went back more than twice...._ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, June 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The old courthouse was in the unreconstructed part of town. No buses ran out here, and the only way that Stan and Julie could reach the court was on foot, threading their way through the debris of neglect and vandalism that littered the narrow streets. This was a part of New York that Julie had never seen. Twentieth century tenements, dimly illuminated by ancient incandescent lamps, lined the rubble-filled streets, where garbage and the decaying carcasses of poisoned rats lay stinking in the gutters. The night was warm, but Julie shivered. She hurried along at Stan's side, trying to hold her breath to shut out the unpleasant smells. They stopped at the edge of the sidewalk across the street from the court and watched a crowd of people milling about the entrance, anxiously pressing to the box office to try to get hard-to-get tickets. "Look at that mob!" Julie said. "We'll never get in!" She tried to sound disappointed, but she knew that she could not hide her feeling of relief. She didn't want to go in. She wanted to go away, back to the clean, pretty city she knew. Stan smiled and patted her hand. "You underestimate me, honey. Little Stanley knows how to take care of himself. I knew there'd be a crowd tonight, so...." He drew two tickets from his pocket. "If you don't reserve 'em, you don't deserve 'em, I always say!" He took her hand, and they started across the street toward the courthouse. It was a bleak, gray, stone-faced building whose ornate sculptured trim was weather worn and darkened with age. Once an aspiration to architectural beauty, it was pathetically ugly, a melancholy reminder of a bygone and possibly better era. A modern theater marquee had been incongruously added to the old structure and, atop the shiny new addition, huge letters of light spelled out NIGHT COURT. Smaller cast aluminum letters protruded upward from the metal rim of the arcing canopy and formed the words of a motto: "Judge not, that ye be not judged". Bold type plastered across the gleaming glass facade of the marquee loudly proclaimed: "NEW SHOW NIGHTLY".