Chapter 6

The company had a legitimate line of business, they made biographies upon request. Quite a few of them were shown on TV, on the Biography Channel among others. Some were for politicians, or companies and so on. I got involved in that part of the business, just like I got tied up in the x-rated areas.

One of the staples of a biography was the shots of neighborhoods, cityscapes, and so on. It helped give context to some of what people saw. Somebody had to get those shots, and I was one of those who was chosen, just the thing you need a Production Assistant for.

I was given an afternoon to learn how to use the camera. This wasn't the lightweight type you could buy in stores, but the heavier type with all sorts of processing, power, memory, and so on. The thing weighed a ton, but when balanced on my shoulder with the gyro turned on, really was kind of handy. It also had a microphone attachment, and this thing shaped like a funnel that let you pick up noises in the distance.

I was given a list of establishment shots they wanted and sent forth into the world in a company car. It was kind of fun for the first day or so. Then it got to be just work. I'd go to the address they wanted, match up the shot with the still photo I'd been given—they wanted action, cars or people moving in the foreground to give life to the piece—set up the camera, spend a few minutes getting two or three shots, and then move on to the next one. It didn't matter if it was cloudy or bright, they added texture to the shots, and I got some really good shots of rainstorms, and so on.

On this particular day it was like 95 in the shade. I was drenched in sweat and it wasn't even mid-morning. My fifth stop was a cityscape, and that meant I got up to the top of a building so I could look out over this particular suburb of Ft. Worth. The producer wanted twenty seconds of tape, and I figured I'd give him three or more shots from different parts of the roof of the building so he could choose whatever one was "right".

I was on my third shot, set up on the corner overlooking a grade school playground with the buildings of downtown Ft. Worth in the distance. The light was behind me, and it was just the kind of shot that felt absolutely right. That's when I heard the roaring engine and squealing tires.

There was a pick-up truck on the street below. It was headed toward the playground and doing 40 or 50 miles per hour. I'd completed my shot, so I thought I'd try some live-action and focused the camera on the pickup. I panned back a little so everyone could see the entire street. That's when it hit me. He wasn't going to be able to stop before hitting the fence around the playground. This was going to be something serious.

A small car on a cross street saw what was happening, and the driver suddenly shot out into the path of the truck. This could only end one way, and I hit the sound button in time to hear the crash.

The truck was knocked off course, ramming into a telephone pole and knocking it over. I kept the camera focused as I hit my cell link.

"Studio—Remote 5."

"Go ahead five. What's happening Amber?"

"Check my feed. Something's happening here, maybe just an accident, but I'm not sure."

"Switch on the transmitter."

I'd forgotten that. I felt along the side of the camera and managed to turn the uplink on.

"Okay, we're getting it. Keep on the wreck."

A man had staggered out of the truck. There was a large woman in the small car, and she had blood on her face as she pried herself out of the remains of her car. She said something to the man, and then they struggled.

People were gathering around the wreck, and then one of the men nearest the pickup ran at the kids lining the nearby fence, yelling at them. The kids scattered. While he was doing that, the man from the truck pulled out a gun and tried to use it.

This was Texas, and a lot of people carried firearms. I zoomed in as a regular little gun battle broke out. I could hear sirens in the distance, but tried to ignore them. I had something that wasn't a staged TV drama right in front of me, and I felt calm and totally detached, determined to get it on tape.

For all of the shooting, nobody seemed to be getting hurt. Then the bigger woman got behind the truck driver and hit him with her purse. That knocked him down, and then she did this sort of dive onto him that I'd seen in professional wrestling. Oof! I'd had heavy guys on top of me, but this was different. She jumped on top of him and for a moment I thought he'd be squashed like a bug.

There weren't any bullets flying, so people rushed him. About then the first police car arrived, and the officers started trying to bring order out of the chaos that had erupted. I stood there on my building top, faithfully recording everything.

Eventually they got the combatants separated. Then a cop looked in the back of the ruck. Suddenly they were pushing people away.

"What's going on?" I asked the studio. "I can't hear them."

"One of the officers is saying there's a bomb in the truck."

This was like that idiot who'd tried to truck bomb the White House a few years before. Only this didn't have Secret Service protection and barriers, just a chain link fence between a bunch of kids on a playground and a wacko with a bomb. If it hadn't been for that woman in the car...

I recorded for the next thirty minutes, and then a crew from the studio showed up. They took over for me, which was great as I was practically dying of thirst—did I mention how hot it was?—and I really needed to pee. They got me rehydrated, and then I was back up with the camera watching the police as the bomb squad showed up.

By the end of the day I was exhausted. I hadn't eaten, I was really thirsty again, I think I sweated a gallon of water, and I needed to spend some time in a cool area. I had a monstrous headache from the light. Overall I was a mess, but I'd held it together long enough for the professional crew to get there and take over. I took some pride in that.

The police were interested in my video. They interviewed me as well, and I told them what I knew, which wasn't much. Everything I'd seen had been through the viewfinder. But the detectives were especially interested in the sound of the revving engine, which had been my first clue.

The footage made it onto national TV. All well and good, and I was given credit for being lucky: I was only supposed to get two shots, but had stayed for a third, and recorded ordinary citizens averting a tragedy.

A week later, when I was involved in something completely different, a process server hit me with a lawsuit. Apparently I'd videotaped his client (the truck driver) without the latter's permission, and I was expected to pay all sorts of money or something.

"Bullshit!" the company lawyer told me. "He's just trying to muddy the waters."

"Muddy the waters? What's that mean?"

"If you don't have much of a case you go after everyone you can in hopes that they'll recant their testimony and cut the legs out from under the other side." She got this really cold smile. "Well two can play at that game."

The next day I read in the paper that a lawsuit had been filed on my behalf charging the truck driver's attorney with barratry (I had to look that up) and asking that he be dismissed from the case and lose his license to practice law. Oh, there was also some money involved.

Over the next few months, as I got wrapped up in classes, this whole thing played out in court. In late January I had a meeting with a company lawyer who explained what had happened in non-legalese to me.

First, the suit against me was dismissed as without foundation.

Second, the truck driver was convicted of a whole mess of attempted murder charges, and the judge decided he had to serve his 142 sentences in succession. That meant this whack job was going to be in prison until he was 165.

Third, his attorney was disbarred, and even ended up spending some time in prison. They used the lawsuit against me as evidence of how he'd tried to use the law to hurt people (that's what barratry is).

Fourth, the Texas State Legislature reformed the legal code in Texas to keep such tactics from happening again. All sorts of legal tactics that had been used in the past got specifically outlawed.