plaintiff: shaun from lemay, georgia. shaun glides into the courtroom smooth as silk, wearing a black mandarin-collar dress shirt under a fitted black blazer, accented by sparkling diamond studs in each ear, a shiny gold watch, the glint of a gold bracelet peeking out from under his left cuff, and a beard so sharp you could use it to slice deli meat. he’s fancy!
defendant: royce from atlanta, georgia. royce is tall and lean, caramel-complected, with skinny auburn locs and a skinny auburn goatee. if these two were in a sexual relationship, i fully understand why. he’s gorgeous!
the complaint: shaun says he moved in with royce three months after they met (mm hmm) but claims he caught him dancing with another man at the club soon after. shaun says royce then vandalized his home, so he’s suing him for damaged property and a phone bill!
what does he want: $2413!! countersuit is in the building: royce would like $1102 for the cost of a TV!
how it went down: before we dive in, a little treat: my friend tim just released a podcast (stay with me, i promise it’s fucking cool even though he is a man) called judge travis, a scripted audio series about a fake TV judge who maybe kind of sort of a little bit bears a resemblance to a real fake TV judge with whom everyone reading this is intimately familiar. it’s comedy (we live in hell, trust i will never suggest anything serious ever) and stars two of the most hilarious and perfect dudes on this planet, langston kerman and my alternate universe husband bashir salahuddin. he’s incredible. i mean, watch this one, too. and this!! bashir’s not in this one, but it’s one of my favorite sequences in the entire series so you should watch it anyway. wait, why not just go watch every season of south side if you haven’t already? i’ll be here when you get back. back to our regularly scheduled programming!
shaun says that he met royce in january and they got close very quickly, so quickly that royce moved in with him in march. (that’s too quickly.) shaun says their relationship started to go downhill immediately after royce moved in; royce like to drink and party and stay out until five in the morning. greg says, “what was he doing until five in the morning?” and royce answers, “at the after hours spot,” which reminded me that i went to bed at midnight and was wide awake at three-thirty and i couldn’t even summon the strength to get up and use the bathroom, how in the world was dude partying until five??? i know the answer is “youth,” BUT: were we ever that young? royce should be in the olympics.
shaun says he popped up on royce at the after hours spot and caught him dancing with another man. greg, gay mess aficionado, eagerly asks, “like a lap dance?” shaun says no and he continues, “oh, were they dancing close all up on each other?” and diva??? please relax?????? shaun says that royce was dancing with his mouth near the man’s ear and his hands in his pants, and i just finished reading all six of the heated rivalry books so my brain immediately thought “stroking his rigid member as it strained against his tight jeans.” i gotta keep reading gay smut i guess, because now that i’m versed in the lexicon i no longer understand any other english words. if you’re not talking to me about a hot release splashing up your chiseled abs and coating your nipples, you are not talking to me.
shaun says he didn’t want to cause a scene, so he took royce outside and calmly told him to come remove his belongings (including his two dogs) from his apartment when he was done dancing. he did and they broke up. royce says that they weren’t together when he was dancing on the man at the club, because shaun had texted him while he was at work saying he no longer wanted to be with him. shaun cuts his eyes and warns, “be truthful!” in the same tone my mom used to hiss, “don’t touch a goddamn thing in here!” while digging her nails into my upper arm as we crossed the threshold of literally any store. that kind of shit is why i have mommy issues! i liked it :(
royce says that he knew shaun was talking to another man and disapproved of it, and greg puts his cape on and says, “how do you know he wasn’t talking to him about you? maybe he was bragging!” and yeah, okay, that is a thing that absolutely happens between young, attractive people! royce says that he went through their text messages and it seemed like the two of them were trying to rekindle a past romantic relationship so he assumed he was going to get dumped soon. superjudge once again dons his cape to defend shaun and i’m like, “does he know him?” innocent until proven guilty, for sure, but if you’re regularly talking to your ex about revisiting the good times you had together and i met you a scant twelve weeks ago, i don’t think it’s totally out of line to go spelunking in another man’s cave on the dance floor!
it’s february, did you know?, so lately i’ve been lulling myself to a fitful, inconsistent, overheated menopause night nap with the help of some dusties. it’s real night moods with mel devonne on v103 hours every night over here (in my headphones only, my lady goes to sleep at seven-thirty and i am not allowed to make noise). my birthday is on friday the 13th (it’s giving CURSED) and babyyyy i’m inching close to fifty, which is insane. first of all, why am i not dead? second, i still have the instincts and humor of a geriatric twelve-year-old boy, is that ever going to change? anyway, here’s some tunes if you’re trying to channel auntie late at night. THIS IS GROWN FOLKS’ MUSIC:
love won’t let me wait major harris
been so long anita baker (her best???)
you sure love to ball marvin gaye (this is a mother! fucking! jam!)
lady of magic maze and frankie beverly
love bankrupt patti labelle
ebony eyes rick james
you are my starship norman connors (remember when you could be a famous singer even though your name was fucking norman?!)
let me down easy the isley brothers
i try angela bofill
why have i lost you? cameo
tell me if you still care the s.o.s. band
judge mathis definitely has a quiet storm playlist on his ipod, right????? okay, royce says that in addition to the texting, he also saw shaun’s snapchat in which another man (presumably the ex?) was in the background in his bed. i know none of this matters because we’re here to talk about broken television sets and unpaid phone bills, but if i had to date right now i would pass away instead. first of all, i thought snapchat was over. second, the energy to chase someone from app to app to monitor their activity in an effort to ensure they aren’t cheating on you: where does one find the energy? i would give myself an aneurysm trying to analyze instagram stories and scan linkedin connections and read other people’s idiotic texts trying to discern their subliminal meanings. how do you find that many hours in a day? how do you protect yourself from getting scammed?? do you ever get to fucking relax??? imagine how trash my hinge profile would look, my stupid fucking jokes. i couldn’t do it, no way. if my lady leaves me one of you will have to mercy kill me with a hammer.
shaun is suing royce because royce disputed a cell phone payment he’d made with his bank (that is a clunky sentence but you’re smart, you get it) then broke his phone when he threw it at him. this was during the “pick your shit up” phase of the breakup, and shaun told royce that since he’d stopped payment on the phone he couldn’t also take the TV they’d gotten together. a few days later shaun went to st louis to visit his mother and royce broke into his house, destroyed the carpet and the television (jail!) and a bunch of clothing, then he stole his passport. three months in and they’re on a shared phone plan and already know where each other’s important documents are? i’ve been with my lady for thirteen years and she couldn’t tell you where my passport is with a gun to her head! she doesn’t know what my blood type is!! we have never shared a bank account!!! BRING BACK BEING A MYSTERY TO YOUR PARTNER.
the ruling: royce admitted to shaun that he’d reversed the payment on the phone bill out of spite and he admits as much to the judge today in court. he also copped to breaking into shaun’s house and tearing it up, and that’s really honorable but he’s gonna have to pay for that. i hope it at least felt good in the moment? as far as his counterclaim is concerned, royce has proof that his mother was the one who purchased the television set (boring receipts!) and text messages in which he and shaun were arguing back and forth and shaun told him that he would give royce the TV in exchange for the phone (fun receipts!) he threw at him and broke. everyone gets everything, but shaun gets a little more.
standing in the hallway with doyle the bailiff after the case, the tension between these two is so thick i can actually see it on my computer screen. they both wish each other the best (they don’t mean it!!!) and shaun gives royce the runner-up coldest “good luck” of all time.
did uncle greg say anything fucked up to anyone: to shaun “ooh, he’s so jealous! you must’ve really put it on him, huh?”
speaking of putting it on somebody, a few more bangers to get you right:
key to love (is understanding) the majestics
you’re still a young man tower of power
feel the fire peabo bryson
games people play the spinners
irons in the fire teena marie
*bangs gavel*
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