the plaintiff: michael from atlanta, georgia. dark slate grey pants, light grey blazer, sky blue shirt, lipstick red tie. there’s a lot going on here at first glance, but it also somehow works?
the defendant: larry from buford, georgia. beautiful grey suit, crisp white shirt, pink tie. larry came to court dressed. i take back whatever compliments i just gave michael.
the complaint: michael says that he and larry used to be good friends until they became roommates and larry started “hanging out with the wrong crowd.” this is probably a good time to point out that they appear to be anywhere between 28 and 40, when there is no such thing as a “wrong crowd,” there’s only “shitty coworkers you have to grudgingly be nice to even though you hate them because you have to see them every single day.” michael also contends that larry was in a high speed chase with police and accidentally shot himself when throwing his gun out the car window, and that doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with the case but please god if you actually exist please let him tell greg about it!
what does he want: $1600 for the balance due on a loan.
how it went down: michael, a very good boy, starts by telling the judge that his mother loves him and admires his work. listen, every judge mathis taping i attended looked like wednesday night bible study: black women dressed in their ashley stewart finest, smelling good as hell with their hair laid, and me tagging along in my nicest ill-fitting out trying not to make any distracting noises while my grandma flirted with the pastor. anyway, all the ladies from the prayer breakfast love greg.
michael and larry became friends in high school and moved in together shortly thereafter. they were as close as brothers and spent a lot of time going out dancing and partying. oh shit, we’re getting the chase story early! well michael glosses over the details of the chase slash accidental shooting, but he says that when he was with larry in the hospital afterward he thought to himself “is this the kind of person i want to live with? i should move out.” damn, man, can you make sure he survives before you put him out of the house??
michael was playing all “innocent guy from the suburbs” until larry revealed that he was selling drugs and mike was helping him by providing him with customers. mike also snitched larry out to his main girlfriend by introducing her to his side girlfriend when he was laid up in the hospital after a car wreck (should this dude have his fucking licensed revoked? probably!) because he was jealous, which is some sucker shit. i’m soft and from the suburbs too and even i know that. also also larry had weed in the car when he wrecked it and the cops had questions and mike gave them answers and larry got charged as a result! GODDAMN, MAN. is bro code still a thing?
years passed because, as larry said, “there’s a penalty for snitching.” they reconnected and michael said larry presented himself better and had clearly changed his ways. they buried the hatchet and caught up, then larry borrowed $1800 for a motorcycle. are you kidding me with this shit. this motherfucker crashed two motherfucking cars and you want one thousand eight hundred of my dollars for another motor vehicle for you to drive that shit off a cliff or whatever the fuck you do? ummmm okay no i will call you an uber, pal. but mike is a good and forgiving friend and gave him the money. the more i watch this show the luckier i feel for having the friends that i do. maybe i will lend one a large sum of money i cannot afford to part with!
the ruling: larry said that mike hired him for a job and, despite not having given him a timetable for the money to be repaid, started skimming money off his paychecks to go toward the loan. that’s a crime, right? is this what racketeering is? or grand larceny?? (i’ve watched a lot of robert deniro movies but still don’t understand what any of these words mean.) he didn’t quit the job, though, but he did start selling drugs again on the side. maybe the suburbs are harder than the judge has given them credit for.
oh my god LARRY THEN TOTALED THE FUCKING BIKE. is he cursed? i wouldn’t even walk near a car this dude was sitting still in, sheesh. the judge asks larry if his defense is that mike never gave him a due date and, in a shocking turn, larry says no, his actual defense is that mike disrespected his mother a long time ago and never apologized so he refused to pay him. since that’s not in the goddamned constitution, larry loses. good luck on the bus.
did uncle greg say anything fucked up to anyone: when talking about the police chase incident michael said that he and larry weren’t gangsters and didn’t grow up in a rough neighborhood, and larry interrupted to say that he was from jacksonville, florida, which is very rough. but he does concede that he eventually moved to the suburbs, to which greg says “man you ain’t in the game, you wouldn’t have shot yourself! be who you are, man, be who you are! you middle class suburban guys kill me!”
*bangs gavel*