You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
A courthouse brawl. Well almost…..
DATELINE: NASHVILLE, Tennessee.
Here’s a story from the WTF file.
I’m in the Nashville courthouse. The place is full of scuzz buckets and criminals and average working stiffs. Nobody is happy to be there. Not the guards, not the traffic school people, not the motorists who have been cited who are now roaming the traffic court hallway like zombies on a heroin high.
So I’m suppose to be in court at 8:30 but I’m late.
Maybe it was the construction on every street. Maybe it was the parking garage jammed full. Maybe it was the metal detector idiots making me walk through twice like I’m a terrorist from Sudan.
By the time I get to court, the bailiff stops me and says the court I’m authorized to video tape is over.
He looks at me like a child staring at cream spinach. He doesn’t like what he sees and he just wants to push it away.
There’s not much I can do so I exit the courtroom.
I’m in the hallway, getting my bearings trying to figure out what to do next.
It’s dark and dreary and the mood ultra depressing. I expect a mortician to step out of the bathroom any minute.
I check my blackberry. The text is a downer. Al needs to come back. He’s doing a story on firefighters wearing pink.
I shake my head. I’m doing hard news, journalism with a capital J and I am now losing the guy who takes the pictures and allows me to be a reporter.
Before I can absorb this request, out of the darkness, I hear; “What is the problem. Wouldn’t they let you in the court?”
I look up. It’s a well dressed man who identifies himself as an attorney.
I don’t feel like giving him my whole life story. It’s kind of strange that he stops and interjects himself into my life. I decide to be cordial.
“Yeah, they wouldn’t let me in.”
He begins telling me about traffic court issues and Hispanic people who can’t afford to lose their licenses so they go to multiple driving schools.
I’m half paying attention.
Just then another text comes in from the station.
They want to know when the cameraman will be available. I feel my blood pressure percolate ever so slightly.
The attorney is standing almost on top of me. He is sucking up oxygen I consider mine.
What’s with this guy, I think to myself.
I stare into his gigantic nostrils. “Multiple driving schools. Yeah, well tell that to the lady who got hit and almost lost her life,” I say with the same darkness that permeates the building.
The well groomed attorney loses his mind. You would have thought I called his wife fat and his momma a hooker.
Now I know why he stopped, why he violated my personal space without an invite. He was looking for a confrontation.
“You’re a smart ass,” he screams, his breath filling my space.
I am startled by this sudden and unexpected escalation.
What the hell is this guy yelling about, I think to myself.
“Maybe if you weren’t such a smart ass, they’d let you stay in court.”
He walks away like a caged animal looking for meat to chew.
I see the court bailiff in the bright blue shirt keeping an eye on this strange turn of events.
“What is your name?” I shout.
He charges back to me, his loafers smoking on the carpet.
He pulls up in my face.
Is this a seedy bar or a court I chuckle to myself.
“I don’t have to tell you my name,” he spews.
I laugh at him. I feel calm. This is the calm I often feel when it’s about to get crazy. I stare at this guy with the big pores and flaring nostrils. I sneer back. I almost want it to get crazy. I’m all ready pissed.
The morning’s events run across my mind. I’ve missed my court time. The people I need to interview are hiding in the back offices like little mice. And now this barrister of stupid, who is obviously misinformed and probably off his meds, is all up in my grill telling me I’m a smart ass.
He walks away like the cock of the walk.
I shout in his direction. “Chill out pal! You won’t even tell me who you are. Get out of my face.”
He screams something from the foyer of the building and disappears.
“What the hell was that about?” my camera man asks.
“I don’t know. Guy lost it.”
I look around and the courthouse denizens are staring at me.
I feel pretty good for a guy in a double breasted suit. I didn’t back down from the challenge and in fact I was ready to rock this guy’s world.
I laugh a little laugh. Two guys in suits squaring off and throwing hay makers under the scales of justice. That would have been awesome, at least good TV.
Maybe next time. One can only hope.
And that is crazy.™