There is sometimes an "Alice in Wonderland" quality to St. Louis Municipal Court, and I thought I was meeting Alice in Division 2 on Thursday. She was charged, I had been told, with destruction of private property for pulling weeds out of one of those large cement flower pots the city has plopped down on certain streets in an effort to curtail drive-by drug traffic.

"Why would pulling weeds be a crime?" I asked my tipster. He said, "Maybe it has something to do with the fact that she led the recall effort against her alderman."

That had a certain plausibility to it, so I went to court Thursday morning. The trial was supposed to start at 10 a.m., and I arrived a few minutes early. I looked around the waiting room. Most of the people were dressed casually. That was not surprising.

Even in circuit court, where the stakes are so much higher than in municipal court, defendants seldom bother to dress well. I remember one wearing a T-shirt emblazoned, "Public Enemy Number One."

As I looked around at the casually attired crowd on Thursday, a woman caught my eye. She was wearing a leather jacket, a black dress and heels. I figured she was Alice, or, more exactly, Debra Gordon, the woman whose trial I had come to watch.

She seemed a bit flustered when I introduced myself. I would have felt bad, but this is the sort of thing that happens when you fall into the rabbit hole. Strange characters want to put your problems on public display.

She told me she was a block captain in the 4300 block of North 20th Street. She said the city had put cement flower pots at the intersection of 20th and Ferry, and eventually the flowers had given way to weeds. They looked awful, she said. Somebody had to do something. "You ought to go by and look at the weeds in those pots," she said.

I told her I would do so after her trial. We waited. And we waited. Occasionally, somebody from officialdom would scurry past, headed from an office to a courtroom, or a courtroom to an office, and I asked one of them about Judge Margaret Walsh, the judge in Division 2. She is in an important meeting at City Hall, the person said. It was then about 11.

Shortly thereafter, the tedium was broken when Joe Williams of the city marshal's office brought Charles Brown up to a courtroom. Brown was wearing a yellow jumpsuit from jail. He has been locked up since July. He was charged with 38 counts of riding MetroLink without a ticket.

"Why do you ride the train so much?" I asked him. He looked puzzled. "I haven't ridden the train in a long time," he said.

Brown was taken to see Judge Richard Torack, who had in mind, I believe, accepting a guilty plea and sentencing Brown to time served. But Brown said he would not plead guilty.

Torack nodded. "I happen to still believe in the Constitution," he said. "I encourage people to take advantage of their constitutional rights." He set a trial date for November and set bail at $500.

We continued waiting. Gordon had a small entourage of supporters, including her mother and another woman, both of whom asked to remain anonymous, and Jeffrey Hardin, who not only supported the effort to recall the alderman, but ran against him in the last election.

Finally, about noon, a lawyer from the city attorney's office arrived and consulted with Gordon's lawyer. Sometime around 1 p.m., Gordon's lawyer came out and spoke with her. I remained with Gordon's entourage. She rejoined us. "It's over," she said. "I've agreed to pay a fine of $250."

I was puzzled at Gordon's sudden good cheer. This was curiouser and curiouser, I thought, as I followed Gordon into the courtroom. When Judge Walsh began speaking, I realized this wasn't a trial after all but a probation revocation hearing. Months ago, Gordon had been convicted of pulling flowers out of the pots, and the terms of her probation required her to plant and tend new flowers. Apparently, she had not done so.

Judge Walsh levied the fine and then told me she would not consent to an interview.

The next morning, I went to City Hall and spoke with Alderman Freeman Bosley Sr. I said that one of his constituents contended that her support of the effort to recall him was part of her legal problems. He said he had nothing to do with Gordon's problems. "She is ornery," he said.

I drove to the 4300 block of North 20th and looked at the cement pots. They were unsightly, but was that why Gordon pulled the plantings out of them, or was it because she pulled the plantings out of them?

I thought again of "Alice in Wonderland," and the Duchess who said, "Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it."

By the way, Brown did not make bail and is still in jail.