A girl with unrecognizable features in the rear of the bus suddenly stands. Slender and coiled like a snake, she raises the binder over her head and violently smashes it down on the cranium of the child in the next seat. She appears to laugh, but the overwhelming sound of screaming and grinding bus gears drowns out any hope of hearing this one incident in a sea of ongoing insanity.
A moment later, a boy with a brightly colored shirt and khaki shorts explodes into the aisle of the moving bus. He negotiates through the hands and knees of other children who are half on seats and half in the aisle themselves. Suddenly, the young Dwight Stones, leaps onto the top of row four, and like a cat stalking an insect in tall grass, he commando crawls over the seat tops. Like a soldier slithering on his belly, he quickly arrives at the back row, only to melt into the confusion of desultory body parts and ominous laughter.
Throughout the video tape, white paper balls fly like popcorn exploding in hot grease. From the back row a barrage of spherical paper bullets streak through the air. They bounce off a girl’s head, slamming off the side of a child’s shoulder. Just as suddenly, a boy stands on a seat and hocks a crumpled piece of paper into the temple of a child beside him. The act is ferocious and volatile. Had the object in the boy’s hand been anything other than paper, the police would have had to surround the bus with yellow crime tape. Instead, the young victim wipes his head, laughs out loud and slugs the boy who threw the projectile. Within minutes a ream of note book papers are tossed into the swirling air, scattering over children and seats, eventually floating to the floor where a hundred shoes quickly grind the white paper into a filthy, tattered mess of grey.
This is the video of one ride home aboard Bus Number 120. It’s May 17, 2007 and the bus is bringing home Lavergne school kids. » Continue Reading
The temperature is sweltering as we slowly navigate the no wake zone of Percy Priest Lake.
I stare into the calm water off the port side as the 17 foot, classic, Carter Craft slices through the smooth lake water.
I am struck by the sun’s brilliance. The reflection undulates in the rhythmic ripples being created by the V hull as we slowly glide over the smooth surface of the lake, like an ice cube sliding over cold marble.
The reflective spots of sunlight explode like golden snow flakes lit up by a disco ball.
My ears are filled with the constant roar of the 60 horse power outboard engine that spits out a thin grey veil of exhaust. » Continue Reading
Her living room is a disaster. Boxes are everywhere, surrounded by moving files and receipts. Internet pages line the coffee table with headlines like: Moving Scams dot com. She has documents from the Department of Transportation and the Better Business Bureau.
Karen Coulthard is a tall slender woman who is at her wits end.
She moved her belongings to Nashville from San Antonio on July 3rd. What has transpired to this moment, (8-14-07) is a Messed Up odyssey that no one should experience. » Continue Reading
Crieve Hall is a neatly manicured section of Nashville. Like a foot in a tight shoe, this middle class community in the Music City is wedged between Edmondson Pike on the East, Franklin Road on the West, OHB on the South and Harding to the North.
As our news mobile moves down the freshly black topped road, I take time observe the community. The lawns are maintained. The flower beds colorful and surprisingly free of weeds. The sky is blue and the birds singing. » Continue Reading
The theme from Mission Impossible kept jamming through my head.
I imagine a white haired Peter Graves listening to his Impossible Mission assignment. Then, after absorbing the complexity of the task, the recording bluntly states: “This message will self destruct in 10 seconds.”
The tape recorder ignites and all traces of the mission plan destroyed.
Thankfully, the plasma screens inside the Department of Public Works’ surveillance van are not about to catch on fire.
The 65,000 dollar vehicle is parked in a discreet location at the entrance of a problem alley known for notorious dumping. » Continue Reading
Messed Up is going to a Braves Game. Back Wednesday at 5pm. Enjoy the assorted array of email:
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i live 3 miles from a convience center,but now they tell me i cant take my trash there anymore,because i live over the county line.my daughter lives in the next county and does not drive or have a car,she lives within a mile of the convience center,but i cant dump her trash because i have the wrong tags on my car.what are people suppose to do with there trash when they wont let you place it in the dumpsters?
what is the purpose of the convience center anyway?
Somehow the adults botched things up outside the lines.
I’m talking about the Goodlettsville Blue Sox Dixie League Baseball team.
Whoever won the game was suppose to represent Tennessee in the World Series in South Carolina this weekend. But league officials disqualified the Blue Sox claiming they used an ineligible player.
Maybe they did. Maybe they didn’t. It seems it depends on whom you talk to. I know the league office thinks that there was some hanky panky and subsequently disqualified the Blue Sox.
Just to be clear: I am not doing an investigation into the league or the team or the unbelievable amount of paperwork associated with this season. I have heard from parents and coaches from Adams and Springfield and Goodlettsville. I have received calls and emails and paper work galore.
The one thing that is painfully obvious to me is that some serious house keeping needs to be implemented here.
Just to be clear, I haven’t interviewed every coach and player from every squad. I don’t have the time or energy to do so.
Once again, to be clear, this is a story, in my mind, plain and simple about kids playing baseball, and adults messing it up.
Who cheated? Did anyone cheat? Should someone else have gone to the World Series instead of the Blue Sox?
Holding campaign literature from Karl Dean and Buck Dozier, I pick up my cell phone and stare into the camera.
Big Al, my mastodon sized photographer, is smirking as perspiration cascades down his Mount Rushmore shaped forehead.
“Since mayoral candidates don’t have any problem calling you at all hours of the day and night,” I say punching buttons on my cell phone.
Al wipes his brow and focuses on the paperwork from Karl Dean’s office.
The phone rings.
“I’m calling Karl Dean’s people. Let’s see how they like it.”
A homeless man stops momentarily. He adjusts himself and grunts, then stumbles up Church Street. Not a registered voter I muse to myself.
An MTA bus roars by just as someone at the Dean Campaign HQ answers. The air is filled with noxious fumes and rumbling horsepower. Carrying on a normal conversation will be about as easy birthing a calf with salad tongs.
I plug my ear with my finger. Al moves toward me. His head is glistening, reflecting the noon time sunshine like beveled glass.
“Hey this Andy Cordan with news 2. How ya doing?”
The person on the other end says something. The bus is still passing, and it’s hard to hear. » Continue Reading
According to the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Fleischman went on line and struck up a conversation with a 13 year old girl. The Brentwood husband and father was reportedly on a business trip in Chattanooga. Police tell me he was in a motel room, using a company lap top when he pulled out his penis and masterbated on the web camera. Police tell me that Fleischman arranges to meet the 13 year old girl for the purposes of having sex with her.
Just one problem for Norman; that 13 year old girl is really a Franklin Detective who is documenting every bit of this nasty transgression.
Bam! Norman is arrested as the worst kind of cimminal. A scuz bucket who preys on children.
I look at a booking photograph of Stormin Norman Fleischman. He looks like a chubby faced howdy doody, I wonder how this noodle spanking sick o is going to do in the “big house” when the other cons find out he is Chester the Molester. Word up: cons hate child perps. » Continue Reading
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