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thanks for the memories

2005-02-22 - 11:34 p.m.

I thought I did the equivalent of what was considered giving my two weeks notice today at work. Actually I gave a week and a half. No one is perfect after all. I didn�t expect the response that I received, actually.

For some reason, the owner and then the VP of the company thought I was leaving because I got a slight reprimanding for repeatedly calling my voicemail.

Owner: So you�re leaving because he told you to stop calling it so much?

Ohell: Well, that and the money. I got offered more somewhere else.

Owner: How much more?

Ohell: A lot more. And then even more after 90 days. You know, just more.

VP: When I wrote that memo to you, I really didn�t mean for this to blow out of proportion like this. You know you could�ve come to me. I really don�t want you to leave, Ohell.

Ohell: Well, it was that and the money.

In fact the whole place was a little off. Apparently I�ve made quite an impression there. Now we know who�ll be going to my funeral don�t we. My supe was pretty angry at me, demonstrated by periods of ignoring me and crying jags. I feel pain too, you know, I said to myself and then later, to Georgie. I cried quite a bit, but no one was particularly interested in these tears, they were more concerned with themselves, understandably. Georgie by the way, is a new person. Forget everything I�ve ever written about her suicide attempts and death threats to unsuspecting employees, she has a new guide and I suspect it�s Jesus or someone equally impressive. She gave me the pep talk of my life, something about me branching out and others needing to hold onto my branches. I got a sermon, is all I�m really saying.

My Father flew out here a few days ago and we went to my little brother�s arraignment Friday. We managed to joke around in the courtroom for the five hour wait despite the impending circumstances. We watched a few people get dismissed, and a few get to return back behind the metal door. I was as curious to know who and what was behind that metal door as I was in the seventies about Oscar the Grouch and who was hanging out in his garbage can. Ultimately I just pretended I was watching Court TV. It�s not like I ever watch the tube.

Somehow, as a favor, I got offered a free lawyer to represent my brother, and somehow, my Dad opted instead for the public defender to have the final say. That generation he belongs to always has the notion there are fees involved. Nevertheless, I managed well with the extra time I had between my brother�s sentence and those of the strangers around me.

In fact, when one woman took the stand to testify against her ex employee/accountant, who was forging checks and stealing her money, I felt for her. She didn�t seem like this was something she did quite often. She was the director of an African American batttered women�s shelter in L.A., and told the lawyer that no - those were not her signatures on the checks he wrote. The accountant was sitting there with his own lawyer, watching the whole thing quietly. So later in the hallway, she gravitated toward me and I told her she really did well up there, and she should be proud of herself. She said she was nervous being up there on the stand, and that this guy had ripped off three other people and gone to jail for it. Quality.

Since the entire building was pretty much cleared out for the next hour for lunch, the two of us got in some good talk time, and hit it off. My father and her male friend went downstairs to walk around and eventually she got up and spoke to a lawyer or two about the case. A few minutes later I started to think about what my little brother was doing behind that metal door and when his name would be called when I heard someone yelling at my new friend.

Originally I thought it was her male friend joking with her.

�I�ll git you, I know where you�re at.�

I thought wow, what a sense of humor, and interesting comedic timing to boot. But

�I�ll knock you out!�

didn�t sit well with me, so I got up to see who was yelling.

It was the previously well behaved defendant! The accountant. He was coming toward her with a (closed) umbrella raised over his head! I ran over to them and stepped in front of her like only someone in a B rated 90�s movie could. Dramatically, I had placed myself between them I guess.

�Don�t you talk to her like that! That�s not cool.�

�What? Don�t you get involved.�

�Don�t talk to a woman like that.�

�You can�t tell me what to do! You ain�t my Momma.�

Actually if I was his Momma, I would�ve made him eat that umbrella with no hands. He was right, I wasn�t his Momma. But I wasn�t scared of him, probably because I was in a courthouse. Besides the fact that anyone pertinent to my safety had already broken for lunch.

It wasn�t until he started to scurry away that anyone of major help (My Dad, her friend, a cop, the bailiff, an investigator) showed up.

�That guy threatened to knock her out!�

So two Q and A sessions and a restraining order (hers) later, I was ready for my brother�s cameo in this goddamed circus act.

But before that happened, my new friend and her male buddy thanked me profusely, and asked me to stay in touch and come to visit the shelter, which I surely will if the secret address is ever revealed. As she handed me her business cards and got my number and hugged me again, her friend casually mentioned to me that she was also the Consulate to the republic of Burundi, South Africa. Well of course she was.

One more new friend in the hallway gravitated to me before I got to see my brother, this time in the form of a newly sober angry wife of a three time offender guy, another one waiting behind that metal door.

�That man my man stealing laptops, he stealing all kind of stuff, I don�t have time for it, I got sober time now, you want some potato chips?�

�What is that you�re dipping them in.�

�Oh that�s Philly cream cheese. Try one. I hate my husband, he no good, I�m leaving him.�

It turned out her husband got two years for theft, and she did leave, disgusted. As my brother finally got called, my father whispered

�With all your bodyguarding, you could get a job as a court officer, I hear they�re hiring.�

�No thanks, I�ll keep my own fucked up day job.�

He appeared from behind the metal door at last, handcuffed to a Latin guy who didn�t look like he was happy about it either. He didn�t know I was coming with my Father, and nodded to us when he realized we were there. I held it together for at least two minutes but my eyes had plans for water sports. As tough as he pretends to be, this guy will always be the little kid who used to scream at a higher pitch than any of my brothers or me, the one I used to play detective with (not to be confused with Doctor), and the brother I have always confided in about anything anything anything. He ended up pleading no contest and got a little jail time, some rehab, some probation, and a felony.
Not bad for ten minutes.

When we got up to leave, I had to answer more questions about what the bad accountant did. I was told I�ll probably be back to testify as a witness. A crime within a crime, it turns out. Then the guy can threaten me in the hallway after I point him out. And the crooked world turns.

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