It has to be written. Last week Little Sis had her first court date for a ticket she received back around Thanksgiving. Kudos for being 33 and just now receiving your first ticket. Life could be worse. That said, a ticket is a ticket and court is court. Even if you’re a tried and true vet of our judicial system, which I hope you are not, it can (or at least should) be a bit unnerving to have to face the consequences of your illegal actions.

Her court was in a small town in North Georgia, population hovering near 10,000 with a reputation for being pretty petty. She called telling me all about how backwards they were, the inappropriate attire of the attendees, the gossipy nature of her fellow offenders, you know, basically the small townness of it all. I had to laugh at that because no matter how bad and backwards she thought it was, nothing could compare to Clifford’s and my experience in Metter.

Metter is a known speed trap in Georgia. It sits about an hour outside of Savannah and when Clifford and I were in school, we had to drive through it every time we went to Atlanta to visit his folks. Of course we knew it was an infamous speed trap area. The fines were typically doubled or more and they showed no mercy so we were always careful to be hovering right at the speed limit as we breezed through the beginnings of good old Candler County (man that sounds so Dukes of Hazzard in my head).

Anyway, it was 1999 and we were headed up to Atlanta for something. We typically waited till classes were finished on a Thursday evening and drove during the night. Far less traffic that way. We headed out and were approaching the area we knew embraced the speed trappings of Metter. Clifford slowed down and set his cruise control right around the limit just to be safe. We were all good till we approached a semi up ahead. The semi was going the speed limit, too, maybe fluctuating a bit above and below which is how we were able to catch him. We weren’t going quite fast enough to pass him though. (reminds me of US 6 back near Nappanee. Two lane area where the trucks hover right at 54mph in a 55 and it’s just busy enough you can’t quite pass… that’s a special kind of hell when your thisclose to being home)

Being stuck behind the truck shouldn’t have been that big of a deal. We were just waiting till we were through Metter to pick up the pace, but then we watched as the semi began to swerve to and fro. I don’t know if the trucker was tired, had a few too many or what, but he was becoming more and more of a threat to our safety, particularly with us right behind him.

So Clifford did what he had to do. When the guy swerved back right, Clifford took the opportunity to speed up and pass him on the left. Of course just as he settles back in front of the truck, lowering back to his original speed, we hear the sirens and see the lights. Now don’t get me wrong, Clifford was a speed demon back in the day and there are many many instances where he probably should have been thrown in the back of a paddy wagon and not just given a ticket and a fine. This, however, was not one of those instances.

We sighed and he pulled over. True to form, what was a stereotypical backwoods Georgia cop in my Hoosier mind (I was still pretty new to the state), approached. He was a jackass through and through. Clifford tried to explain about the semi , but he maintained the jackass parameters he set for himself from the beginnings of our unexpected and unfortunate middle-of-the-night highway rendezvous.

Once he saw he wasn’t getting anywhere, Clifford accepted the ticket and we carried on our way. We eventually looked more closely at the ticket, as we were going to need to call in about a week to find out the cost of the fine when we saw Clifford had been clocked at 13 over and the jackass cop marked that there were wet roads and bad weather conditions. NOT TRUE!!! It had rained earlier in the day, sure, but by the time we were making our way through the Metter area, the moon was out, the stars were bright and the roads were dry. When we found out the fine for Clifford’s infraction was going to be a whopping $386, that’s when Clifford decided to go to the mattresses. We were going to go to court, I as his witness, and explain what happened. It was only an hour away. We could miss a class. $386 on a good day is too much money to ignore, let alone when you’re a college kid barely scraping by.

The court date had arrived. Clifford donned his best suit and I a professional blouse and skirt combo. We were going to be clean, courteous and respectfully object to the erroneous claims the cop made on the ticket.

Clifford was big talk all the way there.

“Hell no are they making me pay this.”

“I’m going to tell that judge exactly what happened.”

“They can shove their fine up their asses because this is bullshit and I’m going to tell them so.”

He went on and on like that all the way to the courthouse exit off I-16. He emerged from the exit onto what appeared to be the town’s Main Street or what led to the town’s Main Street. Little Sis was complaining about her “small town” and what went with it, but Metter back in 1999 had a population of around 4,000. This wasn’t going to be good.

I stared out the window as Clifford followed our printed MapQuest directions. It was like we’d entered the Twilight Zone. We were literally in Mayberry, but a Mayberry where Andy Griffith was more like a Little Children’s Jackie Earle Haley and Deputy Fife wasn’t just a buffoon but a racist redneck buffoon.  People were staring at us from the street because they just knew Clifford’s Saturn didn’t belong.

As we entered the courthouse and looked around, we saw people in wife-beaters who hadn’t showered in days, one person without shoes, a teenager who was pregnant standing next to her barely pubescent boyfriend and their parents (maybe getting married?), a few people who looked like courthouse commoners, and several  nods between the cops, the security guards, the clerks, the lawyers, etc. throwing out greetings in the most Southern of drawls such as, “Morn’n Clyde.” A nod and a tip of the hat in response with, “Ellen Sue.” I would love to be making this up, but even I’m not that imaginative. I have never heard so many Billy Joes, Billy Bobs and other two-first-named individuals sharing salutations and skulking in one place.  Clifford and I looked like we walked in from Wall Street in comparison. Yeah, this was so not going to be good.

We took a seat in the courtroom as instructed, waiting to be called. Our designated time came and went as we simply watched case after case go before the judge. Pretty much everyone in the courtroom from the lawyers to the judge to the stenographer to those accused of a crime were all on a first name basis (two-named first name basis). It was unreal. Maybe the spittoon the cops were treating like a water cooler in the corner as they spat their tobacco and the day’s gossip back and forth should have been the foreshadowing we needed to just get the hell out of there but for whatever delusional reason, we remained. Clifford insisted he was going to fight the system as he was a wronged man and would receive his justice. That boy was so so naïve.

Shortly before Clifford was called, a frail 80 year old woman with coke bottle glasses and the sweetest little grandma dress weakly worked her way in front of the judge. They said she was clocked going 140 mph in a 65. Clifford and I did a double take. Surely they said 104mph, which was still totally ridiculous. Nope, 140mph. Apparently grandma fell asleep at the wheel which caused a bit of a lead foot. We were speechless. The judge was really nice, knocked a bunch of charges down or off her record completely, no jail time and a fine roughly around what Clifford’s was for 13 over. Wow.  Maybe Clifford had this after all.

Finally, after 4 hours in a fairly empty courtroom, Clifford was called before the judge. He whispered, “This is it. I’m seriously going to let them have it. And you can back me up.” I just smiled and squeezed his hand before he left our bench and headed towards the front of the room. He stood up straight and yes sir’d and mam’d the right people on his way there. I was proud of him. He was about to be my hero. If some grandma going 140mph got reduced to basically a fine the size of his, maybe Cliff could walk away with just a warning once all the facts were on the table.

Clifford listened carefully as the judge read through his report. After listening to him for hours drone on about what he was going to say and the argument he was going to make, I was ready to see him in action. I could barely hear a thing though. Damn my deafness! I was leaning in and the judge was asking Clifford something. I couldn’t hear what it was, but his tone was definitely not the one grandma received. I heard, “Yes, Sir.” Another question then, “Yes, Sir.” One more question, “Yes, Sir.” Then the judge closed the file, said something to Clifford pointing towards the exit on the right of the room and which had Clifford responding with, “Thank you, Sir.” and a nod.

What just happened? Did my boyfriend essentially just bend over in front of the judge saying the equivalent of, “Please, Sir, may I have some more?” because THAT’S what it looked like.

Clifford looked at me and nodded to the right. I saw him heading towards the exit the judge had pointed out, so I grabbed our things and left the way we’d come in. I assumed Clifford was going to meet me out front, you know, to celebrate the victory he just claimed, because that better be what had just happened.

Alas, I exited the courtroom to see Clifford down the hall paying the cashier. For all his bravado, we had taken off school, driven an hour out of our way to the most Podunk town we will likely ever visit, and all for Clifford spinelessly, yet graciously, accepting an outrageous fine of $386. Little Sis didn’t have it quite so bad.