“I call Richard Schmutz to the stand,” the attorney announced. Richard shuffled to the front of the courtroom and took a seat. And with that, the boring filler court procedural began.

“State your name for the record,” the attorney droned.

“Richard Schmutz,” replied Richard Schmutz predictably.

“State your profession for the record, please.”

“I’m a private detective.”

“Objection!” the opposing attorney declared, in a way that never happens in real life, where such claims are usually made politely, and in the judge’s chambers. “What evidence is there that he’s a private detective, as opposed to, say, a subway fondler?”

“Well, I’m wearing this suit and this hat,” Richard pointed out. “And I have a trench coat; it’s hanging over the chair.” Making his case even stronger, all were the standard bland tan color, as if coming straight out of central casting. “Why else would I be dressed like this, unless I was a private detective?” After pausing for effect, he continued. “In addition, there are no subways in this city.”

The opposing attorney held her mouth open for a pregnant pause, then sat down and pouted, also in a way that never happens in real life, but looks snazzy on TV.

“If I may continue…” the attorney blathered. “You are employed by my client to gather evidence for this case, are you not?”

“I am,” assured Richard.

The attorney stumbled briefly, but caught himself before falling. “Sorry…trying to stay awake here.” He straightened his jacket pointlessly. “And it’s my understanding that, last night, you shot a video whose contents are material to these proceedings?”

“I did,” agreed Richard.

“Then,” the attorney mumbled as he turned to the judge, “if it pleases the court, I would like to show that video.”

The judge waved dismissively. “Sure, why not,” he croaked. “It might liven things up around here.”

Pressing a few buttons on a remote control, the bailiff lowered the lights, switched on the giant flat-screen TV mounted on the wall behind the judge, and began to play the video.

“Objection!” the opposing attorney interjected. “Where’s the wheeled TV stand? And the grainy videotape? I wanted to sow reasonable doubt based on the video quality!”

“You’re about twenty years out of date, counsel,” the judge sighed. “It’s all digital now. If the video has surround-sound audio,” he continued, pointing to the speakers mounted on the back walls, “we could play that too.”

The wife turned to her attorney. “So is nothing I’ve seen on TV about courtrooms accurate?” The opposing attorney just shrugged as the wife demurred. “I’ll never trust Tom Cruise again,” she remarked bitterly.

“I think you mean Aaron Sorkin,” her attorney corrected. “Tom Cruise didn’t write his own lines.”

The video played, the picture quality as clear as a department-store sliding glass door that risked causing customer nasal injuries, the audio only distorted by the light noise of a typical urban evening as it washed through the grid-like, not at all spider-web like, streets of the city. The judge smiled as the action grew heated. “Oh yeah…this’ll wake us up.”

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A sudden video transition interrupted the flow, though the action continued pretty much as before. “Objection!” the opposing attorney petulantly shrilled. “This video is obviously edited! What is counsel trying to hide?”

“Yeah,” the judge pined. “What are we missing? Did you cut out any good stuff?”

“Richard…?” the attorney queried dramatically.

Richard blanched visibly. “Do I have to?”

“I move for a mistrial!” the opposing attorney declared triumphantly. “They’re clearly trying to alter the evidence, solely to make my client look bad!”

“What do you have to say for yourself, witness?” the judge intoned.

“Um…technical difficulties?” Richard offered.

“In a modern video camera?” the judge retorted incredulously. “What, was part of the solid-state drive corrupted? The camera should have been able to detect that in real time and compensate for it. What sort of technical difficulties could you have possibly run into?”

Richard glared silently before continuing. “I didn’t have to deal with defective equipment…I had to deal with a defective person.”

“Huh?” the judge blubbered. “What does that even mean?”

Richard sighed heavily as he pulled a thumb drive from his pocket. “Fine. Here. This is the entire unedited video.” He handed it to the judge, who passed it to the bailiff, who dutifully plugged it into the digital video player. A few seconds later, the video started over, repeating its familiar beginning.

Richard winced as the video reached the edit point. The horrible voice boomed in his ears once more, brought into even sharper relief by the courtroom’s theater-grade speakers. “Evening, citizen!” After a pregnant pause, everyone else in the room started laughing riotously.

Richard slumped in his chair; his hat tipped slightly, partially covering his eyes. He felt his brain trying to pull away from the sides of his skull, in a futile attempt to not be where it was. Every laugh felt like a hot knife through a fattened pig, ready for the slaughter, to be served at dinner for an irreverent off-brand holiday, like National Corn Dog Day. The laughter slowly died down as the video ground to its expected conclusion and switched off.

The judge continued to giggle as he fought to regain his composure. “Wow. That was great. Certainly broke up my day. How come they never show anything like that on TV?”

“Objection!” the opposing counsel once again stridently asserted. “The full video makes my client look even worse than the edited one!”

“Overruled!” the judge declared. “She didn’t look bad at all. In fact, she was kinda hot. Certainly much better than I expected her to look, at her age.”

The opposing attorney collapsed into her chair like a used car dealer’s air dancer at the end of a three day weekend. Her client glowered like a spoiled housecat being served generic-brand wet food by an unmotivated, penny-pinching pet sitter.

“Well, counsel,” the judge announced, “unless you have questions for the witness, or you can produce similarly-compelling evidence against your opponent, I’m inclined to find in favor of the husband in this case.”

The opposing attorney stirred listlessly in her chair, as if she was suddenly two weeks behind on her caffeine. “No, your honor.”

The husband and his attorney erupted in cheering and applause. Richard slowly rose from the witness stand and shambled back to his seat, grateful that no one was paying attention to him. The wife and her attorney packed up their things and stormed out of the courtroom, chased away by juvenile catcalls from the victorious duo. The judge and bailiff played the video over from the beginning, their attention riveted on a fraction of the legally-relevant details.

Richard scooped up his trench coat and moved to skulk quietly out of the courtroom. Suddenly, the entire room went silent; the video had been paused, and everyone was looking straight at him. Richard’s heart skipped a beat.

“Mr. Schmutz,” the judge began. Richard swallowed the lump in his throat. “I know this couldn’t have been an easy day for you, but in the end, your evidence made all the difference, even with the unscheduled comic interlude.” The judge leaned forward and looked Richard straight in the eyes. “All I can say is…you’ve gotta be the hardest-working detective in all of Tucson.”

The frown at the edge of Richard’s lips slowly curled upwards; his eyes glowed with warmth.