COURTROOM DRAMA — JOE SOMEBODY
CALL OF THE CALENDAR
The courtroom is always colder than it needs to be. Cold air, hard benches, and the kind of silence that isn’t peace, it’s control. Joe Somebody sits with a stack of papers that look too thin next to the binders across the aisle. On the other side: polished shoes, crisp suits, legal pads with tabs like a command center. Counsel who greet each other softly, familiar, like this is just another Tuesday.
A bailiff calls the department number, the judge enters, and the room rises in synchronized obedience. Joe rises a half-second late, not from disrespect, but because he’s still memorizing the choreography of power. Everyone sits. The clerk begins to read the calendar in a voice that treats human conflict like inventory.
“Case number…” the clerk continues, monotone, and then it lands: Joe’s case. A title with too many names on one side and only one on the other. The kind of caption that already tells you how the story is expected to end.
APPEARANCES
The judge looks over the file briefly, then up. “Appearances for the record.”
Defense counsel stands first. “Good morning, Your Honor. [Name], appearing for defendants.” The tone is calm, assured. Not arrogant. Just practiced. As if the outcome is already filed in a drawer somewhere and everyone is here to pretend due process requires a ceremony.
A second defense attorney rises. “Joining, Your Honor, on behalf of additional defendants.” Then another. Then another. It’s a choreography of abundance: more voices, more suits, more paper. The message is subtle but unmistakable: you are outnumbered, and we can do this all day.
Joe stands. He feels the moment stretch just a little longer because there’s no chorus behind him. “Good morning, Your Honor. I’m the plaintiff. I’m representing myself.” He hears the words land and sees the faintest shift in the room. Not ridicule. Something worse: recalibration. They file him instantly under a category. Pro se. Amateur. Manageable.
Inside, he repeats it: Stay calm. Don’t perform. Don’t beg. Just be exact.
THE DEMURRER
Defense counsel speaks as if reading from a script that has won a thousand times. “Your Honor, defendants demur to the complaint on the grounds that it fails to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. It is time-barred. It fails to plead fraud with the required specificity. It alleges unprotectable ideas rather than protectable expression. It is, respectfully, defective on its face.”
The judge nods slightly. He is not agreeing yet. He is acknowledging familiarity. The argument is not new to him. It’s a genre.
Joe watches counsel’s hands. No trembling. No hesitation. He notes the discipline: never emotional, never personal, never acknowledging the human being in the caption. It’s all doctrine. All procedure. If you turn a person into a pleading problem, you never have to face their story.
JOE’S TURN
“Plaintiff?” the judge asks, not unkindly. Just efficiently.
Joe steps forward. He doesn’t bring theatrics. He brings a map. “Your Honor, I understand the standard on demurrer. I understand the Court must assume the facts pleaded are true, and then decide whether I’ve stated a claim. I’m not asking the Court to decide the merits today. I’m asking for the opportunity to prove them.”
Defense counsel’s eyes flicker for a moment at the phrase “prove them.” A micro-expression: We don’t want discovery. We want dismissal. Joe sees it.
Joe continues. “There are documents, submissions, communications, and a pattern. If my pleading needs tightening, I’m prepared to do that. But denying leave to amend—before discovery—ensures there will never be a merits hearing. It converts procedure into outcome.”
Inside, he hears another voice: Say it plainly. You’re not fighting the judge, you’re fighting the machine.
THE JUDGE’S QUESTIONS
The judge leans back slightly. “Mr. Somebody, let me ask you—how do you get around the statute of limitations?”
Joe has expected this. He has lived with this question in his dreams. “Your Honor, I understand the time limits. My position is that certain claims are timely based on delayed discovery and continuing effects, and the record distinguishes among defendants. I’m not treating them as one monolith. Some parties are situated differently.”
Defense counsel interjects smoothly. “Your Honor, delayed discovery is conclusory here. It’s not pleaded with facts. It’s merely asserted.”
Joe holds the urge to snap. He keeps the line steady. “Your Honor, certain facts aren’t available to a private individual without discovery. I’m not asking the Court to accept speculation. I’m asking for the chance to plead with greater specificity where specificity depends on information controlled by defendants.”
The judge’s eyes narrow slightly, not hostile—analytical. “And the fraud claims? Fraud requires particularity.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Joe says, “and I’m willing to amend. But again, the level of particularity becomes impossible if the relevant facts are locked behind defendants’ control.”
He thinks: They call it law, but it feels like a locked door with a sign that says “Come in only if you already have the key.”
THE SYSTEM SPEAKS BACK
Defense counsel resumes, calm, patient, lethal. “Your Honor, plaintiff’s argument is essentially a request for discovery to find a claim. That is not permitted. A plaintiff must state a claim first. Moreover, these are ideas. Themes. Generalities. Those are not protectable. Even if plaintiff believes there is moral unfairness, the law does not provide a remedy for every perceived wrong.”
Joe hears the phrase: “the law does not provide a remedy.” He recognizes it as a polite synonym for: Go away. He also recognizes the trap: if he argues morality, they say he’s emotional; if he argues law, they say he’s insufficient; if he asks for discovery, they say he’s fishing.
Joe answers carefully. “Your Honor, I’m not asking for a remedy for a feeling. I’m asking for the application of rules that assume access and evidence can be examined. If the Court closes the case at pleading stage, the only evidence that will ever be considered is the evidence defendants allow to be seen.”
He pauses, then adds, quieter. “That’s not a merits adjudication. That’s a gate that never opens.”
UNDER SUBMISSION
The judge looks down, makes a note, then looks up. “All right. The matter is submitted.” The gavel doesn’t fall, but something heavy does. The calendar moves on immediately. Another case. Another set of names. Another human story turned into a stack.
Joe returns to his seat. He does not feel defeated yet. Not because he’s optimistic, but because he refuses to assign finality to a single hearing. He gathers his papers carefully, as if they are sacred, because in a world that moves too fast, the record is all that remains.
THE WAIT
Weeks pass. In the mailbox, advertisements arrive, catalogs arrive, everything arrives except what he is waiting for. At night, he reads cases, highlights passages, writes margin notes. The language is relentless: “conclusory,” “insufficient,” “time-barred,” “leave to amend denied.” It is a vocabulary that does not include the word “truth.”
He remembers the letter from college, the one about prayer and public figures, the hundreds of envelopes, the silence, and then later—seeing a book on a shelf that made his stomach drop. He remembers thinking: Maybe the broadcaster never read it. Maybe an assistant did. Maybe nobody “stole” anything. Maybe the system simply absorbed it.
He thinks: That’s what this feels like too. A system that absorbs the person and outputs a result without ever acknowledging the person was real.
THE ORDER
The order arrives. Demurrer sustained. Certain claims dismissed. Leave to amend denied on key theories. The language is polite, firm, final in the way only paper can be final. Joe reads it once. Then again. The third time, he stops looking for comfort and starts looking for structure. Where did the judge close the door? On what grounds? What must be changed? What can survive?
He does not rage. He adjusts. He amends where allowed. He refines. He removes anything that could be called conclusory. He tightens language until the complaint is not a story anymore—it’s a skeleton with muscles of citations.
THE MOMENT “JOE SOMEBODY” BECOMES REAL
In the middle of this, the title appears again in his mind: Joe Somebody. In Hollywood, it’s a joke, a brand, an everyman costume. In real life, it’s a courtroom posture: one person standing alone, with documents, against coordinated counsel who are paid to make the case end before the facts can breathe.
He begins to use the name, not as marketing, but as prophecy. Not because he wants to be seen, but because he finally sees what’s happening. The system calls him “plaintiff.” The film calls him “somebody.” His life calls him “witness.”
THE APPEAL
He appeals. The brief is written in the language the system respects. Standards of review. Citation to authority. A careful argument that dismissal at pleading stage is not the same as adjudication on the merits. The record is presented cleanly, without insult, without conspiracy, without theatrics.
The appellate opinion arrives months later. Affirmed. The words fall like a curtain. Not cruelly. Just conclusively. Joe reads it, then sits quietly for a long time, staring at the last page. He feels the temptation to interpret “affirmed” as “false.” He rejects it instantly. Affirmed means: procedurally over. It does not mean: untrue.
THE AGGRESSIVE POSTURE OF TRUTH
This is where the courtroom drama turns into something else. The aggressive posture is not yelling. It is refusal. He refuses the system’s final attempt to define him. Dismissal will not become shame. Silence will not become erasure. The record will not become rumor.
He begins to narrate. He begins to archive. He begins to write as if the reader is decades away and needs clarity, not emotion. He writes the way court orders write—tight, controlled—but with something the court orders never include: moral meaning.
And he includes the letter. The old letter. The celebrity prayer letter. Not as proof of theft, but as proof of continuity. A young man writing about prayer and humility long before the system called him litigious, long before anyone could dismiss him as reactive. The letter is evidence that the posture existed first: sincerity, restraint, witness.
He mentions the bookstore moment as an aside, because it taught him how systems absorb ideas. He notes that a public figure may never have read the letter at all. An assistant could have read it. A ghostwriter could have assembled it. A machine could have converted it into a product without anyone ever feeling they stole anything. He does not accuse. He observes.
He thinks: That’s the enemy. Not a villain. A machine that forgets where things came from and calls that innocence.
THE LAST SCENE
Years later, if you replay that courtroom moment, the dramatic line is not the judge’s question or counsel’s confidence. The dramatic line is the quiet fact that one man stood alone and insisted, without theatrics, that truth matters even when it cannot win within the system’s rules.
The bailiff’s voice fades. The calendar moves on. The attorneys walk out talking about lunch. But Joe gathers his papers like a survivor gathering proof of life. He walks out into daylight carrying what the system could not dismiss: a record that exists.
The truth speaks for itself. Not because it was rewarded, but because it remained intact.
End of courtroom drama.
