The Clarence Mitchell, Jr. Courthouse is a massive building smack dab in the middle of Downtown Baltimore. It is, as you might expect, a pretty busy place. It is bordered by four busy streets, and if you are familiar with Downtown Baltimore, then you probably aren't surprised to know the four streets surrounding the courthouse are one way streets. You also wouldn't be surprised that parking for the courthouse is practically non-existent. So while many people will just ride public transportation to the courthouse, many others will have someone drop them off in the half hour or so leading up to the court's opening its doors at 8 AM. Given the madness of rush hour traffic, people being dropped off generally have enough sense to get the heck out of the car and keep things moving with as little disturbance as possible. But there's always gotta be somebody messing things up...
The St. Paul Street entrance is the busiest of the four sides to the courthouse, as it where people with court dates go into the building (the other three sides have entrances for employees, people on jury duty, and prison buses bringing in inmates for court appearances). St. Paul Street itself is a one way street headed South, which in this case means the driver's side of cars is on the curbside of the courthouse, so if you're being dropped off, you should be quick but careful to get out of the car while avoiding oncoming traffic in the center lane. Today, however, some fool that had gotten out of the car dropping him off decided he had some more things to talk to the driver about, so he had the passenger door cracked open while he leaned down to continue his conversation. Not only was the car blocking traffic in his lane, but the knucklehead standing outside on the passenger side was forcing drivers in the center lane to veer slightly to the right to avoid the possibility of hitting him. As you might guess at 7:45 in the morning, this action was not exactly popular.
The driver of the pickup truck directly behind the car, who had been laying on his horn something fierce, stuck his head out of the window, and yelled, "MOVE YOUR FUCKIN' CAR!" The two jackasses stopped their conversation; the driver stuck his head out of the window, and yelled, "I ain't hear you, why don't you get out your truck and come down here and repeat that?" Meanwhile, the other idiot yelled, "Don't get fucked up in front the courthouse, White boy..."
Well, the "White boy" in question got out of his truck, and as it turns out he wasn't just any ol' White boy; he was a big, muscle bound, crew cut wearing, jarhead Baltimore City Police Officer, who carried himself with a swagger that suggested it would make his day to put his club upside somebody's head a couple, three times. And just like, all the toughness melted right out of the two big talkers:
"Oh shit, COP!" the guy standing outside the car said, as he slammed the door and scampered behind the car as it peeled off. And back to the pickup truck strutted the officer, with a look on his face that was part smug satisfaction and part disappointment that he didn't get to settle the matter of who was going to fuck WHOM up...
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