Call it a farce, call it a travesty, call it legal loonie tunes. Paul Kelly still can’t get into the cabin he owns in Exeter near the Rhode Island Veterans Cemetery. He pays the taxes and pays the mortgage, but he can’t walk in the door.

“I’ve spent so much money,” says Kelly, “and I haven’t even gotten up to the plate yet.”

Kelly, who went to war in Iraq at the age of 51, not only can’t he get in his cabin, he can’t even stand up in court and say why it’s so crazy and unjust to keep him out.

He goes to court regularly with his lawyer, Pat McKinney. And he hears Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson grant yet another continuance before testimony can be heard. There were continuances in January, February and March.

The case of Paul Kelly-and-home-denied is scheduled for its next court go-round in May.

In another three months, Kelly will have been out of the cabin on Mail Road for two years. Unless there is some serious acceleration in the pace of the case, he will begin a third year in domestic exile in July.

Back in December 2007, a District Court judge showed a sure grasp of the obvious and ordered Pocahontas Cooley, Kelly’s former girlfriend, evicted from the cabin. It seemed a logical conclusion to a strange situation since she appeared to have no legal right to be there.

But it was only the beginning.

Cooley appealed the eviction to Superior Court. It has dragged on ever since. And Cooley has been in the cabin and Kelly has been out.

Kelly, who works at Electric Boat in Groton and serves in the Navy Reserve, continues to live in the basement of his sister’s house in Narragansett.

If you drive by the cabin in Exeter, you will see a large sign right at the property line. It was put up by David Barone, Kelly’s friend and neighbor. The sign says “Iraq War Vet Back In The USA Without His Own Home.” People honk their horns and give thumbs up when they see the sign, says Barone, who has accompanied Kelly to court a few times. Two veterans who had been visiting the Veterans Cemetery recently stopped by and offered a donation to the cause. Barone declined the offer but thanked them for their support.

“This is a very undignified situation,” said Barone.

Not to mention absurd and insulting.

Kelly explains that the only relationship he has had with Cooley was boyfriend-girlfriend and that ended five years ago. When Cooley showed up at his door just before he deployed for training prior to going to Iraq, he says he allowed her to stay temporarily because she had nowhere else to go.

She hasn’t left. She has claimed she is Kelly’s common law wife, a claim supported neither by Rhode Island law nor the alleged husband. Kelly says he is sure he would know if he’s married and he’s not. And common law marriage requires the man and woman to hold themselves out to the public as married.

But that has not meant resolution. It has meant something indescribable at the courthouse. The case sort of got started last summer, but then was stopped to allow Cooley to have a number of subpoenas served, including one for 10 years worth of East Greenwich High School yearbooks. Cooley is representing herself.

Then, in January, Cooley said she had fallen on ice at the courthouse and was given a 30-day continuance. The subsequent delays have also been for alleged medical conditions or the need to gather medical evidence.

The next court date is May 4. The case will not be settled then.

Pat McKinney asks the question that fairly jumps out from this mad legal tangle:

“Why aren’t we getting everybody in a room and getting this done?”

Ah, yes, that would do it, wouldn’t it? Just lay everything out. Finally give Paul Kelly a chance to be heard. Actually deal with the question of why Pocahontas Cooley is allowed to stay in a house that isn’t hers.

So far, little has been said in court that actually relates directly to the situation at the cabin.

There was, however, Cooley’s assertion in the courtroom that Kelly had never gone to Iraq, that he was just “hiding out.”

Kelly went to Iraq. He served nine months on patrol boats. Then he got one very strange welcome home.

What David Barone wants to do is give his friend a real welcome home. He wants to put those words on top of that sign when Kelly finally gets his cabin back.

When that will be is, of course, unknown. And further clouding the issue is Judge Thompson’s possible move up to the federal bench. If that happens before the case of the cabin in Exeter is settled, it could mean a new judge, more delays.

And more time for Paul Kelly in his sister’s basement.

bkerr@projo.com