Writing Ending with a Check

Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.

You didn't hear much about the end of the Kobe Bryant rape case. But then, crying is more interesting than check writing.

Crying brings out the TV cameras and the breathless reporters and the 100-point headlines and the interrupted newscasts. Crying sells, and there was plenty of crying when this saga began--Kobe in tears, next to his wife, lamenting his terrible "mistake." The young woman who accused him, reportedly in tears, not only over having her idol treat her like a hooker, but over the way outsiders ridiculed her, leading her to drop out of college and move from town to town.

Crying gets our interest. Jail time gets our interest. A hero falling from grace, facing prison, all over the jackpot of tongue-wagging news junkies--sex--that gets our interest.

But check writing? Settling out of court? Where's the ratings in that?

Perhaps this explains why last week, buried on the inside pages of newspapers, under no glaring lights, far from a police station or a courtroom or a bed, Kobe Bryant wrote a check to the woman he allegedly raped and she presumably cashed it.

And both swore never to speak of it again.

Now that's a real Hollywood ending.

Something terrible still may have happened here. But don't expect to hear about it. They say you can't buy or sell morality, but you can buy and sell silence. They just did.

And that's the end of the story.