LISA: He took the best post-tennis pro years of my life...then he only married me when I got pregnant and he made me get a divorce one month that only lasted 28 DAYS after the marriage and now he refuses to give me adequate child support.

KIRK: My ex wife, if you can call her that…

JUDY: Nonsense. Don't go there, Mr. Kirkorian. You picked her and you married her, just get on with it.

KIRK: Very well, all right. I put my ex-wife, Lisa, in a multi-million dollar estate in Beverly Hills; she's got a settlement which she can spend, save, invest—and extremely generous stipends. The house is even in her name and she has every right to sell it and do what she wants with that money.

Judy rolls her eyes and sighs, slapping her bench and sucking in her cheeks at Bert, her Bailiff.

JUDY: Mr. Kirkorian, your divorce agreement is not what we're discussing her. This is about child support. Do you or do you not pay child support regularly?

KIRK: Yes.

JUDY: Well, how much???

KIRK: First I paid her $50,000 a month, then she said THAT wasn't enough so I gave her 75K a month. Now that's not enough. Now she wants $325,000 a month.

JUDY (confused): Mrs. Kirkorian. Is this true? Does this man pay you that much to support a three-year-old and you turned it down?

LISA: Yes, but our three-year-old baby girl Kira is accustomed to living a much higher standard of life and just because I am not with her father she should not have to suffer.

JUDY (Laughing while staring right at Lisa then over at Bert, who's shaking his head down at the floor in disgust): Suffer? SUFFER? Mrs. Kirkorian, I had to support several children on a salary that was less than his smallest offer to you...and sometimes my husband at the time! What kind of high-falutin' needs does a 3-year-old need that exceeds almost half a million dollars every month?

KIRK (interrupting): If I may Judge? May I say something?

JUDY (testy): Yes.

KIRK: She spent $70,000 at the Hotel Bel Air for my daughter's birthday party. She doesn't have play dates. She flies kids from all over and puts them up at the house or fancy hotels and they take limos to Sea World where they rent Shamu for the night. She says she needs over $6,000 for eating out—that's just for my daughter alone—and another $4,000 for eating at home—food which she doesn't cook because she has a chef and several nannies. She wants over $144,000 a month for travel expenses.

JUDY (Making that face that says, "I just ate rotten seal meat"): Mrs. Kirkorian. $144,000 EACH MONTH? For travel expenses? I fly back and forth from N.Y. to L.A. to tape a television show named after me, and I don't even get to fly first class. I went to college for almost fifteen years, served the public in family court for decades and only retired to do this show where I think I can get a general dose of common and legal sense out to those people who don't show up in front of me in real court. You're living in Beverly Hills in a mansion and you're claiming you can't afford to take care of a three-year-old little girl?

Judy opens her mouth as if she's about to say something but turns her head away at the last minute and sighs in disbelief

LISA: Your honor, it's not what you think. My ex-husband—who I gave up professional tennis for and spent my most fertile and youthful and productive years being his professional girlfriend not to mention the mother of his child—makes $40 million EACH MONTH.

KIRK: Oh, stop it. You're lying, Lisa. She's lying. Your Honor, she's lying.

JUDY: Mr. Kirkorian, do you really pull down $40 million a month?

KIRK: No, she's lying. The most I've ever made in a month is $25 million and that's money tied up in my major enterprises and casino holdings. I don't have access to the kind of money she's talking about, not liquid assets. She has done nothing with her life for ten years including not paying a single bill, not working, not cleaning her own house or cooking her own meals and she's traveled the world several times over and now that we're divorced she leaves me. She's only leaving me and she only married me because I said I didn't want to get married because I'm too set in my ways and too old.

LISA (crying, Bert brings her over some tissue, she dabs invisible tears and says): Judge Judy, he only married me because of the baby. I said, this is your baby too and she needs her father and she needs to have your name because she's not a bastard, Kirk. I was with you ten years and you wouldn't even marry me and I still had to beg you after I got pregnant. You never rubbed my feet or got me ice cream in the middle of the night once.

KIRK (lighting up with amusement): That's right, I didn't. Your personal assistant or one of your nannies had to! Who paid for that? You never wanted to stay with me. You stayed until you got pregnant. You know I'm almost 80 and the odds of me getting you pregnant are so slim it took nearly ten years for it to happen-and, your honor, she said she didn't want kids and was on the pill. Tell the Judge how you lied about that.

LISA: How dare you, Kirk. Really, shame on you. You know the pill is not 100 percent effective. Shame on you.

JUDGE JUDY: Mr. Kirkorian, where do you live?

KIRK: Las Vegas.

JUDGE JUDY: You were married before? Let me guess, more than once?

KIRK: I don't see what any of that has to do with this...

JUDGE JUDY: Oh, ohhh, I'll tell you, Sir. How often do you see your daughter?

KIRK: Not since she filed for divorce and got the Beverly Hills house. She won't let me.

JUDGE JUDY: Mr. Kirkorian, do you know what people who really want to see their children do? I'll tell you what they do. They drive hours every other weekend, they call and send money and gifts and take part in their child's healthcare and education, they buy diapers and clothes and send pictures and they fly to their children or pay to have them flown out...better still...they live in the same state as their child if they can possibly afford it. If the other parent breaks their agreement or the law and denies you visitation, you do have the courts to resolve these issues and demand visitation. When you tell me that you live in Las Vegas and make tens of millions of dollars every month, give or take another ten million and that you lived with this woman for ten years without marrying her—a woman who is young enough, sir, to be your grandchild—and you tell her to get a divorce for whatever cockamamie reason the two of you cooked up and only you two really know the answer to that one—and instead of paying her off what she wants you continue to fight this in court—what are you doing?

KIRK: Your Honor, she only wanted me for money and now it's as obvious as all hell.

LISA: He's lying. You are such a liar, Kirk. You know I loved you. When we got pregnant what did you say?

Kirk shakes his head and waves her off with an inaudible word.

LISA (CONT.): What did you say, Kirk? You said, 'Are you sure it's mine?"

KIRK: You see how she is, your Honor, I wouldn't believe her if she said the sky is blue...

JUDGE JUDY: You're absolutely right, Sir. I don't believe her and I don't believe you either. Mrs. Kirkorian, you had a great career that put you into the introductory atmosphere that brought you and your ex-husband—a mega-millionaire—together. You knew he was old enough to be your grandfather and you chose to put your career, your youth, and everything else aside just to stay close to and live with and live the lifestyle of this very rich and very old gentleman. He told you he didn't want to get married for some very good reasons. And I'm sure when he's alone he knows he also didn't want to marry you because he was afraid you'd do exactly what you're doing.

KIRK: YES. THANK you. That is EXACTLY right. She worked the marriage thing and when I didn't let up she went and got pregnant.

LISA: So it was ALL a lie, Kirk?

JUDGE JUDY: Mrs. Kirkorian, what were you hoping to gain by marrying an elderly rich man who didn't want kids or marriage? How many guns were pointed at your head daily preventing you from playing tennis all those childless years? Did your husband tell you he didn't want you to work...before you got married or pregnant? Do you even beg your ex-husband to fly out and spend time with your daughter? Do you fly her out yourself? Have you ever thought about living in a smaller house that would still be bigger than any American could hope to live in during their entire lives of hard work? Have you ever thought about cooking a meal yourself?

LISA: It's not like that, Your Honor.

JUDGE JUDY: Oh, it's EXACTLY like that. You, Mrs. Kirkorian have some nerve calling yourself either a wife or a mother.

Kirk claps lightly and turns to his supporters sitting behind him.

JUDGE JUDY: Mr. Kirkorian. You neither fight for the right nor take your basic rights and extraordinary income to guarantee visitation with your daughter. You never wanted to marry her but again, there must've been some really nasty armed men around marshalling you around for seven years making you stay with her and live with her as a wife and finally marry her. You didn't want children but you couldn't find the money to have a vasectomy? You didn't encourage her to keep her career or find a new one and you really thought she'd walk away quietly after you insisted you divorce her 28 days after marrying her?

KIRK: I did tell her, and I married her only because my ex-wife insisted that it was shameful for an innocent baby not to have her father's last name?

JUDGE JUDY: You've been on this planet how many years and you want me to believe that you really mean that? Don't say another word. I've heard all I can stomach.

She stacks papers roughly then slaps them down again.

JUDGE JUDY (CONT.): Neither one of you is thinking about that little girl. Not only does she not see her father or have any real input from him outside of checks, but you probably are too busy shopping and decorating and eating out to spend time with her. You two are really something. Neither one of you were thinking responsibly for the last decade. Just all about you, you, you. You picked each other. You made a baby. Pay for it. I really feel sorry for your daughter. She is going to need the best counseling money can pay for someday probably sooner than later. The two of you should've thought twice about bringing a child into this world where the father isn't going to be around for her junior high graduation most likely, to be blunt. YOU (Judy points at Lisa) made it worse by turning her birth into a legal justification for you to try and milk millions out of this man old enough to be your grandfather ten years ago when you had a good career going and are a very attractive young woman even today.

There's something wrong with you, Mrs. Kirkorian that you can't take care of a 3-year-old with fifty thousand dollars a month, madam. Something WRONG, I mean it. Think of your baby, Mrs. Kirkorian.

LISA (Now sobbing): I am...I am, Judge Judy. He's not telling the truth. He's the one that wanted the divorce, not me.

JUDGE JUDY: Mrs. Kirkorian. He made a big mistake marrying you and he knew it going in. He was foolish not to get this all in writing; you'd have saved yourselves a lot of trouble if you had. He made a mistake. I don't know what you made but it's rather more than a mistake.

Judy turns to Kirk again ( cont.):

If you want her out of your life and to see your daughter, which you should—you should've given her what she wanted at first. Put a period on it and move on with your life, however much you have left and do something nice for the city where you live in your daughter's name so she has something to remember you by other than her mother's stories about you.

Judy lifts her gavel, stands and gestures with the gavel at Lisa.

LISA: Your honor, he's forgetting about the jet. I need a private jet at my disposal for my daughter if she's going to see him.

Judy curls her lip.

JUDGE JUDY: FORGET IT. Judgment for the plaintiff in the amount of fifty thousand dollars a month, with the stipulation that every penny is spent on the care and welfare of the child and receipts are presented. Mr. Kirkorian, see your daughter. Mrs. Kirkorian, get a job. That's all.

The gallery claps and hurrahs meekly, as Mr. Kirkorian bumps into the gallery half wall while trying to exit the courtroom.

OUTSIDE THE COURTROOM:
Lisa is standing next to a young swarthy male wearing a designer suit in the foreground while Kirk, Raoul Felder, a nurse with an oxygen tank, all roll their eyes and laugh too hard in the background at everything Lisa is saying.

LISA: All I have to say is don't sleep with elderly tax evading jerks. And if they tell you that their sperm count is low, don't believe them. And don't marry them unless they marry you before you give up your career and youth and beauty. (The swarthy man whispers something to her after a quick nudge). Oh, yeah, and get everything in writing with an attorney he hasn't paid off.

CUT TO: MOMENTS LATER:
Kirk and his 'crew' are now in the foreground. Lisa stands behind them with her arms tightly crossed in front of her. She's tapping her feet manically and the young handsome male is rubbing her back and laughing too hard at all that Kirk is saying. Lisa is not smiling.

KIRK: All I can say is don't trust a young, young woman when you're a wealthy, older man and don't want kids. And I DO see my daughter...I just can't see her that well at my age. Don't get married.

LAST CLOSE UP OF LISA AND HER MAN IN THE FOREGROUND:

LISA: Don't sleep with old geezers. I hope he dies soon so our daughter can't even remember him.

LAST CLOSE UP OF KIRK:
Just like the Judge said, "Get a job..."

Copyright © 2002 Viki Reed. All Rights Reserved.

Viki Reed is a regular contributor to *spark-online.