SUE!

(From Tales of a Decket County Child)

By

Larry Eugene Meredith

The name is Barble. B-A-R-single-B-L-E. I’m a lawyer, or was, a damn good lawyer. I’m out of the trade now. Retired, you might say early retirement. Been thinking about skipping down to Florida. Grow citrus along one of those beach lots, lying in a hammock sucking on an orange and getting tan as a berry. Get away from this cold and damp air forever. What? Oh. My age. Thirty-eight next month. Successful? Yes, was, very. I said I was a damn good lawyer. Only lost one case. Well, I didn’t exactly lose I defaulted. I tossed it out the window right onto the garbage heap, you might say. It had something to do with tonight. If you want, I’d be glad to tell you the whole sordid affair.

You see I spent thirteen years working for one client, our friend over there on the wall. What do you think of that portrait? It doesn’t look half bad above the fireplace. I’m surprised he had it painted. He commissioned some Italian artist; cost him over a thousand bucks and he had to fly the painter here from Rome. I bet that nearly killed the bastard. He wasn’t quick to let loose of his purse strings. It’s his vain streak got him to shell out that much for a picture. Sometimes I wonder what was his greatest characteristic: stinginess or vanity. It doesn’t even look like the guy. The artist wasn’t one of those who painted things as he saw them. He painted things as you told him he saw them. He put laugh lines around the eyes. I remember my boss laughing once and once would hardly produce laugh lines. Sure, go on over and take a closer look. It’s a good painting otherwise.

You want to know how I met my boss? It was rather ironic, an ill wind, as the saying goes. You might even say I made him what he was and he made me what I am. Yes, almost precisely thirteen years ago. Hmm, that must have been an omen.

I was fresh from law school. I had been valedictorian. I always was smart. I graduated near the top of every class I was ever in, which made me pretty cocky. I passed the Bar feeling I could immediately start my own office. This or that firm had taken in my fellow classmates for the most part. I had offers, but I was sure I could do better on my own. Therefore, on that fateful day, I was wandering about town answering classified ads: rental ads. I was trying to find a suitable office location without much success. But it didn’t matter after I met him. From then on I was in constant employ.

I had inspected an office on Walnut Street and was walking back up town when I saw this man fall. It was a cold wet February. There was a streak of black ice running across the sidewalk in front of one of the buildings, the result of water melting on the roof and running down the rainspout. It was supposed to drain down into the sewers, but the pipe was broken at the base and it had run across the pavement and froze during the night. It was at the place where that hat boutique is now. Do you know where I mean? Well, back then there was a doctor’s office located on the lot. I didn’t really think too much about this man falling, at least not right away until I noticed the M.D. sign hanging by the door. The sun was shining and the silver letters were brightly reflecting the light. That was what attracted me to the sign. Otherwise, I would have never noticed it. If that day had been overcast everything might have been different

I see the sign and I start thinking, doctor, doctors are loaded. My mother wanted me to be a doctor because all doctors are rich. Rich doctors can afford to lose a few hundred thousand dollars, and even if they couldn’t, their insurance companies could and juries love to lay it on the insurance companies. Don’t know why. Could have something to do with revenge. A man pays premiums to an insurance company all his life and maybe never sees a dime returned. You put that man on a jury and he’ll see to it that somebody gets a return. Of course, you’re not supposed to mention anything about insurance at the trial, but there are ways, there are ways.

That was one of the reasons, you see, that we made it big as we did. I know those ways. I could slide in a hint that insurance was involved. Of course, sometimes there really wasn’t an insurance company involved, but that didn’t matter. You let the jury believe they’re only soaking some big corporation and they give you the big punitive damage figure. When there is no insurance it usually ruins the defendant.

So I see this guy take a tumble and I see the M. D. sign and figure maybe we can sue for a few thousand bucks. Ethics was never my strongest subject. I walked over to the fallen man.

“Don’t get up,” I said.

“He smiled at me. “Wasn’t about to.”

“You hurt?”

“I think it’s my back,” he said still smiling. “You a lawyer?”

I was a bit surprised he asked that. “Yes, I am.”

“Then you better call me an ambulance, son.”

To get to the point, we sued the doctor and we won the case. The guy didn’t suffer much of anything except a bruise or two, but he showed up in court with a neck brace and riding a wheelchair.  The jury awarded us a whole lot of that doctor’s bank account; of which, I got thirty-three percent.

Doctor’s name was Davies. His practice went down hill after the trial. He faded out of business eventually. I did my job. What happened to Doc Davies later was none of my concern.

The guy I represented hired me at once to handle another suit he was bringing against his neighbor for property damage. We won that one as well and he put me on permanent retainer and became my sole client. We have been a successful team for thirteen years.

This is how we made our living. He’d sue practically every John Doe with the misfortune to cross his path and I’d win the case for him. We won them all. I will say it again, not meaning to be immodest, but I’m a damn good lawyer. We had every kind of civil suit you can think of under our belts in those thirteen years, under our thumbs, too. Let me see, we took the local newspaper for libel and Jess Kipper for slander. Kipper was the editor and the paper wrote a story accusing us of fraud. We nailed the Sweet Shop because the boss got sick on their candy. We even got Officer Kaninski for false arrest after a DUI. I could tell a hundred stories. We were real go-getters.

Look at the time. Want to ride out to the funeral with me?

I’m glad you came along.  I hate going to funerals alone. It won’t be much. He was tight with his money. He’s going to have a thin slab marking the grave instead of a stone. His will stipulated it. I wrote his will. I got most his estate. He didn’t have any family to my knowledge except a brother. They weren’t on speaking terms. He sued his brother years back before my time. Broken contract it was. It was some stupid thing they drew up as kids where his brother promised never to quit working for him to take a better job. They were children at the time. His brother collected discarded pop bottles and the boss sold them.

The judge tossed it right out of court. Torn his lawyer a new one too. Accused him of taking advantage of children and filing nuisance suits among other things such as unprofessional behavior. You want to know the upshot to the whole affair? When the boss hired me we sued that old lawyer and won back the boss’ fee.

Actually I shouldn’t be attending his funeral. I should be working on our last case, but I discovered some facts making me doubt I can win this one for him.

Hmmm, see what did I tell you? No tombstone except a tiny little slab. It isn’t even fancy. He didn’t want anything on it but his name, Stanley Ulysses Eels. His name was his biggest vanity. The Ulysses was not a given name; he legally added it. He was very vain about it.

I told you I was working on one last case for the boss. Would you care to hear about it?

Okay, I’ll tell you.

It was last Thursday. We had settled a case and were leaving the courthouse. He decided to go see this woman. You know why? He was going to sue her for breach of promise. How’s that for a switch? It could have been – should have been – the other way around. He never had any intension of marrying anyone. Why get married? He was getting everything he wanted by just making the proposal, if you catch my drift? Anyway, she lived in the slummy side of town, in one of those broken down apartments by the river. The one she lived in was the worse of the lot. The landlord didn’t do anything other than collect the rent once a month. You can’t imagine the place. It was a shade away from condemnation and that was only because the Housing Commission was corrupt. The place was such a mess even the rats stayed away.

I have no idea how he got involved with the woman.

We went directly there. The boss was in a hurry. I don’t think he liked going there to begin with; didn’t like being seen there probably. The place is right on the corner and can see it from three blocks away. I don’t know what held it up; will power maybe. You’d think the interior had to be better, but it was worse. Peeled wallpaper and fallen plaster littered the halls, the doors creaked and the walls were crumbling. The place smelled of ill health.

This woman lived two flights up. We climbed the stairs, the boss half running and taking two at a time. He was in a furious rush, as if afraid of being caught there, to tell the truth.

I don’t think there was a light in the building. Those stairs were as dark as a bat’s underarm. Frankly, I was a bit fearful. There were no banisters on the steps. Halfway up the first flight the boss gave a yelp like he stubbed his toe and then he fell down the steps. I tried, but wasn’t quick enough to catch him. What happened, I wondered? He had stepped in a hole rotted through the wood and tripped.

There wasn’t much anyone could do for him. He landed atop his baldhead and snapped his neck. I knelt beside him to listened to his last words. I knew what they would be, Sue! Sue!

And I knew I would.

He said something. It was but a croak. I leaned closer to hear, but it was too low. He looked up at me with a long grin. He tried to speak again, but his jaw fell open and he was gone.

You should have been at the viewing. Everyone, well, the few who attended anyway, commented on how happy he looked. I knew the boss and you could bet he died happy knowing some poor sap was going to be sued. I didn’t think he looked happy, though; he looked more like a man laughing at a secret joke.

I could have let it go, of course. What the hell, he was dead. I figured I owed him something for leaving me all his dough. I started the suit. First, I went downtown and filed in his brother’s name to make it look right. All I had left to do was find the landlord.

It was a cut and dried case. That place was in violation of every building code. The landlord had to be a bloodsucker that milked every drop out of his tenants while the roof slowly caves in on them. I was right, too, and that’s why I don’t want to win this case.

Don’t give me that odd look. I found the name at the record bureau and the guy was one of the cheapest around. It would be quite satisfying to nail his hide to the courthouse wall. I had the boss’s brother suing for every cent the bastard had, and as stated, it is an open and shut slam-dunk.

I have every bit of information needed, including the landlord’s identity, one Stanley Ulysses Eels. Yeah, that’s right. If I win this suit the entire estate goes to his brother instead of me. Ain’t it sad? I’d love to sue the boss. It’d make up for a lot of hurt people over those thirteen years.

Instead, I’m leaving Formton. I’ve dropped the suit. I’ve retired. Maybe I’ll see you around.

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