Brooks: "I'm the assemblyman of sorrow"

In four brief, surreal conversations, alternately heart-wrenching and frightening, shortly after he was expelled from the Assembly, Steven Brooks said he is "the assemblyman of sorrow," wondered why his colleagues "hate me so much" and declared he was going to "break the state" with a lawsuit worth at least $10 million.

Brooks was alternately angry, with expletive-filled rants directed at Speaker Marilyn Kirkpatrick and Majority Leader William Horne, despondent, weeping and saying he was checking himself into Seven Hills, a Southern Nevada treatment facility, and suicidal, saying he had no other recourse.

Brooks later said to "tell them" he was in Carson City, but I don't think he was serious. But how do I know for sure? He added, "I'm filing TPOs on (Kirkpatrick) and William and they better get out of the fu--ing way."

Brooks directed me to the song, "King of Sorrow" by Sade. The lyrics are incredibly, well, sorrowful, including:

I'm crying everyone's tears/I have already paid for all my future sins/There's nothing anyone /Can say to take this away/It's just another day and nothing's any good

"I'm the assemblyman of sorrow," he declared. "Why do they hate me so much? Fill in the blank: I'm so angry I could (blank) myself."

Brooks told me he was "on my way to Seven Hills to check myself into the hospital. He began weeping when I asked why, adding, "I have no other resort. I'm going to kill myself if they keep this up. I have nowhere to go. I'm the assemblyman of sorrow."

He would later add, "I don’t want anyone else to think I'm crazy…I'm all cried out, man. I've done everything right and it’s wrong."

Brooks also told me that the leaders were fueled by hatred of him. Why?

"You know why they hate me? You know why want to kill me because I know all of their secrets."

What secrets?

He then went on an expletive-drenched rant about several lawmakers, with the kind of ugly calumny about sexual habits I decline to repeat.

But he did not seem able to keep his thought pattern linear, suddenly saying, "I need a book deal."

Brooks clearly thinks he has been done wrong by Kirkpatrick and Horne, whom he referred to as "the stupidest motherfu--ers I've ever met in my life." Brooks said he "fell on my sword" for the two Assembly leaders, adding, "Loyalty doesn't exist anymore."

He did not elaborate.

Brooks then asked, "Have you ever heard of the lawsuit that will break the state? They are going to have to give me at least 10 million."

For what?

He alluded to the secrecy of the proceedings (although his lawyer refused to waive confidentiality), but not much else that made sense.

Brooks also confirmed he was at the Grant Sawyer Building on Tuesday evening, hoping to testify at the select committee hearing. It was not videoconferenced, however. Brooks said he was accosted by legislative police "who tried to serve me papers and told me to get the f--k out."

It was a truly bizarre series of phone calls that made the case all too clear that he needs help and is not fit to serve. I surely hope he was telling the truth about going to the treatment facility and that he is not coming to the capital.