You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The animosity that lurks, that slithers along the periphery of humanity, that suckles at the teet of intolerance.
The man on the other end of the phone is angry.
His words are snake venom, his sentences karate blows to the adam’s apple.
I don’t see him, but I know what he looks like.
I have gazed at his mug shot all day. I didn’t think much of him when I gazed upon the dull jail house photo.
He looks like every other insignificant bug that’s hit a windshield and exploded in an ink blotter of lime green goo.
I try and remain calm as he goes on a rant. He is emotional, frenetic, uncivilized. He is spitting and spewing and telling me that I don’t know his side of the story.
In many respects, he’s right.
I don’t know his side of the story.
I know very little about this vomit bag of flash.
Police didn’t give me his personal information so I couldn’t find him for the story.
His significance to the story is really inconsequential. To me, he is the glue on the back of the postage stamp that you have to lick for a moment.
No more, no less.
But what I do know about him in the story I’m doing is 100 percent accurate.
He was charged with resisting arrest and simple assault.
“I’m going to bash your F***ing” head in” he hollers.
I don’t hear that a lot. It catches my attention, as well it should.
Now I feel angry too.
I’m angry because I called him.
I called him on my cell phone.
Now he has my number.
I debated calling him, but I thought that I would defuse the situation with a quick call.
Stupid. I didn’t diffuse Jack Squat.
I stuck my finger in the bleeding wound of a serpent and pulled out his stomach bile.
He’s pissed. I’m pissed. This is a Mexican stand off of pissed.
Nobody threatens me in my own kitchen.
That’s right, I’m on the phone in my kitchen talking to this mutton-chop.
At the end of the day, it’s a good thing I’m on the phone with this unpredictable canker sore. Up close and personal my not end well for my dental plan.
It’s 6:30pm. He just watched the lead story at six. He is more dissatisfied than one of Hugh Hefner’s wives.
The story was about a local race track where police say there have been an unusual amount of fights and arrests over the last few weeks.
I air video of a raucous scene that shows officers using pepper spray to control the agitated crowd.
One man is arrested during this incident.
Only one arrest in a chaotic event.
That man is on the other end of the phone.
I show that man’s mug shot and indicate he was the only person arrested in the entire event.
In the over all context of stories I have done; this is hardly brain surgery.
But this man didn’t like the fact his face was on TV.
You portrayed me like I was a rapist he will shout, making no sense.
A rapist?
You didn’t get the story right, he spews.
Really? What part? The part where you were arrested, booked, and charged?
Oh I think I got that plenty right.
“I want a retraction,” he says having watched one too many movies.
I’ve heard all this before, many many times.
I try and remain calm.
“OK sir, what would you like to say? Do you have a comment?”
He wants to come to the station and do an on camera interview.
I wonder if this guy is all there?
Why the hell would he want to do that.
If he was upset about a 10 second mug shot on the news, is he really going to want to put his face on again, explaining what we said was actually correct, though didn’t reflect his entire life story?
“That’s not impossible,” I say, “but it ain’t going to happen tonight.”
He doesn’t like that.
He tries to tell me that my story is wrong, again.
I tell him that the story is accurate.
“Did you get arrested for resisting arrest and simple assault? Did you not get a mug shot at the Robertson County Jail?”
“yeah, but you don’t know the real story.”
And so it goes.
And then he goes and says it.
“I’m going to come down there and bash your F***ing head in.”
Now I’m mad.
I’m the bull. The cape is red.
Bash my head in?
You are putrid Ebola smeared on a tongue depressor in some West African clinic.
“You’re gonna bash my F***ing head in? So now you’re threatening me?”
“I don’t make threats. I take action,” he indicates.
I stare at his mug shot.
He is a lanced boil of a man.
He’s 25 and he’s big. He looks fat. I know he is prematurely balding. Maybe this adds to his sullen disposition.
He looks like Mr. Clean’s little acne faced brother.
You want to do something constructive? Go break all the mirrors in your house so you don’t have to look at yourself.
That’s what I feel like blurting out.
“So now you’re threatening me? Communicating threats?,” I scream.
I am glad he’s not in my kitchen. But in a weird way, I wish he was.
I wonder if he would bash my F***ing head in.
It would almost be worth him bashing my head in just to know that he really had the stones to do it.
People always talk, but when it comes to action, what do you got?
I’ve been banging on doors longer than this sour milk puss hole has been alive.
And if he takes his best shot, am I a piece of lamb pudding? Am I gonna just lay down and get pummeled?
Am I gonna be the butt of late night jokes on Jimmy Kimmel?
Hmmm? Let me think for about a second and a half.
Ah, No.
I’m going to unleash the werewolf of London on his dopey ass.
I’m angry just writing this mess.
I tell him to call me tomorrow, knowing full well, I won’t ever answer his call again.
That’s now for others with higher security clearances to deal with.
I hang up and text my assistant news director.
I call the assignment desk and warn them they will be getting more angry calls.
I call the police chief with whom I based my story today.
“Hey this guy claims I got all my facts wrong?”
The chief double checks.
“Nope. He was charged with exactly what we said he was charged with.”
“He also said he is going to bash my F***ing head in.”
The chief tells me that if he makes any more threats he wants to be advised.
Sure thing.
And so it goes.
It’s not enough to be right. It’s not enough to be concise and precise and creative.
You have to worry about upsetting someone who is all ready upset.
He is concerned about his image on Facebook.
Facebook?
Yes. he’s concerned about what people on Facebook think.
Facebook is the devil’s ignorant playground.
Facebook has the credibility of a fashion model winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
What a douche.
I blocked his calls and have put him out of my mind.
I’ve been doing this a long time.
I haven’t been hurt yet.
I’m not going to let this romper room reject mess up my perfect record or shiny teeth.
“Bash in my F***ing head?”
Not today Hoss.
Go break some mirrors.
Life’s Crazy™