How Stupid Can You Be?

I just had a long lunch on our patio with Carl, publisher of the Wire. The sky was strikingly blue and the passing storm had pulled all the moisture out of the air so that a dry breeze drifted off the Atlantic playing every now and then with my wide-brimmed luncheon hat with the silk roses.

Carl had just been to court with a friend of ours who had be roughed up on the beach by two thugs in a show, it seems, to impress their girlfriends. They chased the boy down the beach yelling the usual "fag" (funny in a town of fags) and gave him a few cuts and bruises. The boy called the police immediately and they responded within minutes, walked down to the blanket the thugs were on with their girls, (God forbid, they move to another spot) identified them, and hauled them off. The Police Dept. of Chief de Luca has a Zero Tolerance attitude for hate crimes.

This is what astounded me today: In preparation for the October trial which can put this thug away for decades the thug pleaded "Not Guilty". There was a lot of blah, blah after that Carl said as we consumed I Roveri pinot grigio and egg salad sandwiches (very white lady, I know). Then the judge asked the thug, "Is there anything you would like to say to The Court?" Obviously, his public attorney was not the sharpest pencil in the box, because before he could be stopped the thug turned the the fag and said, "I just want to say I'm sorry for beating you up so much."

Carl and I howled with laughter and ordered another bottle.