Velociworld

A SENATOR TALE

This one isn't pretty by any recognized standard of beauty, but it bespeaks volumes of the Olde South, circa 1963. What did they call that? The Jim Carrey Era? Something like that.

At any rate, my father and his law partner were at odds over who the biggest hard-ass was in the Great Cross-Examination Competition. And I won't aver here and now that this was the actual Prize, but it occurred nonetheless.

The Senator had an especially plum hostile witness on the stand. Hostile being not what this poor black woman considered herself, but what she had been entered into the Senator's ledger as. Nothing personal, I suppose. Just an opportunity for a bit of gamesmanship. For all I know it wouldn't have made any difference if that had been my father's own grandmother in that chair.

Legend has it he whooped , hailed, cajoled, threatened, barked, screamed, postured, emoted, gesticulated, spittled, all under the baleful eye of a compliant judge on the bench. All under what artistic license allows me to imagine was a smouldering summer afternoon in Savannah, ante-air conditioning. Hand fans languidly fluttering.

And when all was said and done, when that poor woman was finally released from her torment, there it be: a small, unmistakable puddle in the center of the witness chair. Testament to a vicious hectoring by one intimidating mother.

I have no idea if any small trophy exchanged hands, or if there was even a verbal acknowledgement between them. Could have been a simple cocktail. But there was a new cock of the walk that day. And the Senator could play bantam rooster with the best of them.

The old man would be positively nonplussed in today's environment, I think. A Different World, as they say.