Two Steps East: the detective life... is what it is

So there are three guys sitting around me, all in their 50s, all with the grey, shaved heads of old cops or ex-cons. All three are wiry, jaded types who still spend some time in the gym.

One has the scarred knuckles of an MMA coach, a second has the displaced phalanges of a punch gone bad, maybe to a forehead, maybe through a door. We vaguely recognize each other as cameras click in a semi-frenzy—but nobody says hello.

Private detectives.

In other words, welcome to the XIII oddzial of the KRS court. Down the way are two blue/haired babcias. They are taking pics of court docs too. They look meaner than the lot of us. Faster than us, for sure. And precise. More exact.

And I think: Hope I never run in to them in court.

It is a monotonous, grim morning. Every so often there is a pause to the beat. The clicks subside—someone has found something, caught someone out. Then it’s back to the frenzy. To the clicks and the flipping of pages.

Damn. To hell with this, I think, shifting the weight of my ridiculously heavy Nikon off the back of my neck. Funny, the males in the room are all retro, all using big DSLRs. The two old ladies? Cell phones. So they are smarter than us too.

A shrug. Only two tomes, maybe 600 pages to go.

I do wonder sometimes how I got here. Between camera clicks, I mean.

Then I think: Oh well.

It’s ok.

Kinda nice to finally fit in.

by Preston Smith, Oct. 3, 2023

(Copyright Preston Smith, Oct. 3, 2023).