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Volume 25, Number 1 & 2 (2001) reprinted by permission Legal Studies Forum SOLO LOWELL B. KOMIE He had refused to accede to the firm policy of 2,000 annual billable hours. It was an absolute. He knew about it but had defied it. He’d turned in only 1,750 hours again, but it wasn’t enough this year, and he had refused to pad his time. His senior associate had told him just to go back to his office, review his time sheets, and come back with the missing 250 hours. He refused to do it. So they let him go, graciously, but nevertheless absolutely, with two months severance ($12,000), one month for each year, and the proffered services of an outplacement service which he had also refused. Instead he took the $12,000, told them he was going solo, and leased an office. The office was in a northern suburb of Chicago in a new shopping center done in the style of a French manor house. He bought an antique mahogany desk with an embossed hand-tooled, gold-bordered leather writing surface ($1,500), and three sets of antique lawyers bookcases with glass doors ($1,000). Into these he inserted a new set of Illinois Annotated Statutes ($1,500). The salesman had also tried to sell him the United States Code Annotated at a discount price on installments, and he thought about it, but he had other plans. He bought a good computer and a printer ($2,500), and installed a phone with a nine-number memory, redial, call waiting, and call forwarding ($750). He had an instinctive fondness for hand-held plastic. Just the touch of new things seemed to assuage him, and bring him to a tactile sense of impending wealth and power. He thought of buying a FAX machine, but they wanted $500. There was also the matter of the security deposit, the first month’s rent ($750) on a year’s lease with an option for another year. He bought an adding machine, a small, quick, gray plastic machine with blue glowing numerals that showed the sums on a tiny slit. A postal meter ($150 deposit). An answering machine ($100). He practiced his message several times until it sounded right. He didn’t want to sound anxious. He wanted a confident, strong voice on the tape. What else? He bought a throw rug, an Icelandic heraldic design. What are Icelandic heralds, he’d asked the blonde saleswoman as she showed him the rug. She looked up at him and seemed really puzzled by the question, so he stopped interrogating her and bought the rug. She was just trying to make her living in a world of tangled skeins, he knew that. She’d showed him another rug she thought had been woven from albino yaks or was it white llamas? He’d meant to ask her but instead paid $950 in cash and walked out with the Icelandic rug twisted into a tight roll under his arm. Now he was his own herald. She did remind him of Andrea though, the same cool blonde fragility. He’d spent almost $10,000 and he still needed a sign for the door and malpractice insurance. So he did the sign ($150) but delayed on the malpractice insurance. Then he bought a cheap fare to London ($350 round trip) and sat in the rose gardens of Bloomsbury and tried to sort things through. He watched a couple sitting on a bench in front of the statue of Ghandi in the rose garden. She was sitting on his lap, and they were kissing. After a moment she got up and walked over to Ghandi seated like a Buddha and touched his toe, then went back to her lover’s lap, put her arms around him and kissed him again. Everyone in London seemed to be kissing—couples on the Tube, couples on the street, couples in the gardens—and he was alone. The previous evening he’d gone in a taxi to see Anthony Hopkins in M. Butterfly. Hopkins played the part of a French diplomat who had fallen in love with a Chinese opera star in Peking and had an affair with her for twenty years. She turned out not only to have been a spy but a man. How could Hopkins possibly not have known she was a man? Or had he known? In the end, Hopkins made himself up into Madame Butterfly, smearing on the white makeup of a Kabuki, painting on her red eyebrows, putting on her silken robe and a high, coiled, black wig, and then with his back to the audience, he held up a dagger glittering in the spotlight and plunged the dagger into his stomach. The white silk and blood, the yellow and blue streamers, the silk curtains covered with green dragons, the wailing sounds of the Kabuki violin and flute—it was very beautiful, very intricate and sad. Andrea came swirling into his mind again as he listened to the applause. The last time he saw her was at the office. She was wearing the same kind of white silk blouse the blonde saleswoman had worn. He and Andrea had made love twice. Once in Asheville, North Carolina, at a Holiday Inn where they’d been sent out as a deposition team on a tax case. Once in Rockford at another Holiday Inn when they’d rented a car and driven to a firm-sponsored video presentation on employment termination claims. That last time had been a month ago. On the night he’d been fired, he’d knocked on her office door to tell her, and she’d been strangely radiant so he didn’t say anything. She closed the door and kissed him. She was rushing to meet her parents and leaving for Japan tomorrow on vacation. He’d forgotten about her trip to Japan. She was meeting a law school friend in Kobe, and they were going inn-trekking. So he left without telling her and kissed her goodbye and wished her a good trip. She said she just wanted a rest from the telephone and the demands of the partners. She just couldn’t take it anymore. She laughed and said that maybe she and Nancy would both find jobs teaching English in Japan. Two weeks later he received a netsuke doll with a tiny scroll with a single red brush stroke. He showed it to a Japanese waitress he knew, and she told him the letter was the Japanese word for “friend.” So instead of waiting for her, he went to London. On the way back to the hotel from M. Butterfly, walking the deserted streets in Holburn, he thought about the character’s suicide. He could do that for the firm. If he was willing to do that for the firm and admit that he’d been mistaken, they might ask him back. But in his fantasy he would just pretend to kill himself. He would get a collapsing-spring fake dagger and a pill of fake blood. He’d seen them in a magic shop near the hotel. The English loved magic. The shop had hand buzzers, snakes, spiders, masks, invisible ink, whoopee cushions, blood capsules, plastic vomit, and two daggers, one rubber and then the one he wanted, spring action, collapsible. He would sneak into his old office in full Kabuki garb and makeup about 7:00 some evening while the summer associates were being herded to an expensive French restaurant by some of the partners and their wives. The wives had come into the city to make a tour of the new firm library. One woman would turn and see him through the glass panels, seated at his desk under a single light, in his robe and wig. He would cut his tongue for her, making himself into a Kabuki right in front of her. He would hold the glittering knife up high and all would turn to watch him, even the summer associates in their new pin-striped suits and fresh silk print dresses. He would slowly bow to them, spread the arms of his robe and shove the collapsible knife into his gut, slowly dropping his head onto the desk with the capsule of blood spewing from the corner of his mouth. There would be screams and then when they were sufficiently terrified, he’d just get up and leave. It might be a little dramatic, perhaps bizarre, but it would have been a perfect exit. The first day he moved into his new office he’d learned that he’d made the mistake of renting across the hall from a dental suite. The odors of clove and wintergreen came wafting through the air shaft and by midafternoon he felt queasy. Also, the walls were too thin, almost without insulation, and he could hear the insurance agent next door wheedling his clients for premiums in a brash, arrogant voice that apparently paid for the white Eldorado parked in his parking space. At noon he watched the man gun his car away. Always people gunning their cars away in this suburb, tires screeching while they’re talking on car phones. Later that week, he passed his card out to a group of real estate women. He hoped he might get some closings. One of them brashly told him she’d send him closings if he’d split fees with her. The going rate for a house closing was $350. She wanted a referral fee of $175 and she would guarantee two closings a week. If they worked well together, the two closings a week could easily become three or even four. He quickly calculated it would give him almost $1,400 a month as a base. When he said no, she smiled and patted his hand. She gave him her card. He went to a few meetings of the Chamber of Commerce, the Lions Club, the Kiwanis. Everyone was friendly, and he handed out more cards. He even ate roasted bear meat at the Kiwanis picnic, the annual men’s cookout. He mailed announcements of the opening of his office to his suburban high school and college friends. Many of them had returned to the suburbs as young marrieds. He received a few polite congratulatory notes. When Andrea returned from Japan she called him. She’d of course heard that he’d been let go and had received his card from London. She said she was shocked. She was swamped with work, working Saturdays and Sundays. She promised they’d be together in two weeks. She wanted to drive out and see his office. She missed him very much and wanted to make love again. Two days later she sent him a plant. He got his first case and he needed it badly because he was almost out of money. He had savings of $5,000, in addition to the severance check, but last month took over half his savings. The first fee was a $1,500 retainer from a sullen, acne-faced teenager. His mother hired him to defend her son against a DUI charge. He didn’t know what he was doing, but the assistant states attorney was kind to him, and because the client had no record, struck the DUI charge for a plea to reckless driving. The client was fined $500 and sent to six weeks of driver education with a six month suspension of license. The $1,500 fee paid the rent, the phone, and part of his initial printing bill, and left him $100. Two elderly sisters called for wills. When quoted $350 each, the woman on the phone hesitated and said that she’d call back. He knew they were shopping lawyers. Later, the woman called and asked him, if she’d keep it simple, would he do a will for $250? He agreed. She paid his bill without complaint, and then the second sister called and ordered her will. So he had planted three seeds, a scrofulous teenager and two elderly women with lists of porcelain cups. Still, it was the beginning of his client garden, and that’s how he thought of it, each client a tiny growing seed. If he took care of them, he would survive. Andrea drove out to see him in a new red Honda Accord. He asked her to spend the night at his apartment. Instead, she insisted on treating them to rooms at a Marriott that resembled a Japanese tea house, a small cluster of houses around a garden. They made love until he finally collapsed over her, exhausted. In the morning, when they said goodbye, she offered to lend him a thousand dollars, but he refused. She had to work that Sunday night and then fly to Cleveland in the morning. “Don’t give up, Mark,” she said. “It’s easy just to give up and start looking for another job. You’re doing fine. Just remember that you’re your own boss. No one tells you to fly to Cleveland tomorrow.” “It’s a nice car.” “I like it, but it’s just a car. It doesn’t put its arms around me. It doesn’t want to make love to me.” “Have a good trip.” “You know, if you keep going, Mark, maybe I could quit too. We could become partners.” “Is that a proposal?” “No, that’s a proposition.” She flashed her smile and he stood and watched her drive away and gave her a thumbs-up sign. The next week he turned to plastic for the first time for a cash advance. He had a three thousand dollar credit limit with Citibank Visa and he drew down half of it, paid his student loan, his office rent, and his apartment rent, and let the office phone slide. He called on the states attorney’s office, inquiring whether he could get a part-time appointment trying cases in a suburban court. The man smiled at him. You have to get in line, he told him. There are 2,000 lawyers in the county, half of them under 35, and there are at least 150 on a waiting list for assistantships or public defenders jobs. First thing, get on the list, but join the local Republican party and donate a thousand dollars to the Central Committee. The donation is no guarantee of a job, but it puts you on the list, and there’s a fairly high turnover rate, maybe six months to a year. He didn’t have six months to a year. He went to some of the local banks and passed his card out to the trust officers. They greeted him with the small-town camaraderie of long established local bankers. They’d be pleased to serve his clients. They didn’t get many walk-ins though, looking for lawyers. Most of the local people had their own lawyers and had been with them for years. One man gave him a calendar. Another a leather-covered kit of will forms naming his bank as executor and trustee. Then he got two real estate deals, both from having networked the local offices. No one asked him for a referral fee. They were both residential closings. One was for a family in California whose mother had died. They mailed him a $1,000 retainer to probate the mother’s will in Illinois and handle the sale of her home. It was a simple probate. It would take six months, and he was to hold the buyer’s $25,000 earnest money deposited in a trust account. He went to the trust officer who’d given him the will kit and opened the trust account and deposited the $25,000. The man shook his hand and thanked him. The trust officer told him that in exchange for the deposit they’d stop the monthly service charge on his checking account and provide him with free checks. It was the least they could do. He didn’t say anything. He’d give the bank a week. If they didn’t reciprocate and send him some business, he’d move the account. They had collection work, foreclosures, guardianships, wills. They could send him business. He was learning. You couldn’t just sit back and let them walk over you. Still, he couldn’t make it through the month on the $1,000 retainer and the other closing, so he drew his last $1,500 from his Visa and applied for two more cards, from two other banks. He knew that he was weaving a web, a dangerous web, and he might not be able to break out of it. Basketball was still fun for him, and jogging. He shot baskets after work. Every night he tried to jog three miles around the park, out to the reservoir and back to his office. One night after jogging, he was in the office, and a woman called about a divorce. Her husband was always working. She was left alone with two young children. She thought he was having a love affair. He could hear ice clinking and a child crying. What did he charge for a divorce? She had little money of her own. Could he force the husband to pay her fee? Could she put him out of the house and still get maintenance and child support? She had to have at least $1,500 a month to live. Would she pay a small retainer fee, he asked? No, she suddenly began shrieking, I can’t pay a retainer fee. All you lawyers are the same. All of you only want money from me. I have no money. Can’t you understand that? She began sobbing. “Madame, have you tried Legal Aid?” He gave her the number and gently hung up. The phone rang again, but he didn’t answer it. She called several more times, but he still didn’t answer. Only one of the new credit cards came, and he immediately drew the $3,000 limit and paid his bills. It had happened so quickly. He was into the banks for $6,000 at 20 percent interest and he’d only been practicing on his own for two months. He knew now that he’d spent his severance check foolishly. He didn’t need that expensive furniture or the trip to London. He wished he could start over again. He should have budgeted each month and been extremely careful with the money. Andrea was in New York working on a case. He hadn’t seen her in three weeks. She called him one night at his apartment while he was making dinner. “Why don’t you fly here and meet me this weekend, Mark?” “I can’t afford it.” “I’ll pay for the ticket.” “No. I can’t keep letting you pay for me.” She was silent. He could hear ice clinking in a glass, the same sound of the woman calling for a divorce. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Don’t be sorry. There’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s my problem.” “I keep trying to mother you.” “I could use a mother.” “So how’s it going, Mark? How’s it really going?” “It’s going okay.” “You don’t sound okay. Just get on the plane. Please.” “No.” “Okay. Goodnight, Mark. Why don’t you call me sometime? Why am I always calling you?” She hung up. That week he got the dog case. A group of neighbors had formed to protest the constant barking of a dog kept in a pen in a house just beyond their cul-de-sac. The dog, he was told, looked like a huge wolf with yellow eyes and a curved tail, and barked incessantly, day and night. It had made the neighborhood insufferable. The group of neighbors had written a polite note to the dog’s owners, a young couple. There was no answer. They’d tried a second note and called the local police, but the police refused to intervene. So he was called and met with them over coffee and cookies at one of their houses, and quoted $5,000 as his retainer for an injunction suit. One of the women challenged him. “Why $5,000? Isn’t that a lot of money for a dog case?” “No, it isn’t. There are a lot of variables to consider.” “What do you mean, variables?” She was like an angry little bird pecking at him. “Well, first of all, there’s the dog.” “The dog is a given.” He could feel them all staring at him. “Of course. But not the dog’s owners. The couple. They’ll retain their own counsel.” One man nodded at him. “We’ll have to go to court in equity. An injunction is an extraordinary remedy. It’s very hard to get. We’ll have to show irreparable damage, lack of an adequate remedy at law.” He began to spew legal jargon. “Well, do you guarantee this? Do you guarantee we win?” The woman whipped her glasses off and pointed them at him. “There’s no guarantee. Lawyers aren’t allowed to guarantee.” “Why don’t we just bribe the judge?” a man said brightly. “Judges are always being bribed in Cook County. Why don’t we just become Greylords and give the judge the five thousand?” Everyone laughed but they agreed to the retainer, although the angry woman said she’d forgotten her checkbook. He told them he’d pick up the check when he had their complaint ready. As he left the driveway, the hostess took him to the back of her yard and he could see the dog through the neighbor’s bushes in a pen under a spotlight. The dog saw them coming and began growling and barking. It was a beast, a snarling beast of a dog, like a huge wolf. He could still hear it barking a block away when he went to his car. No wonder they wanted to shut it up. That night he tried to call Andrea in New York, but she wasn’t at her hotel, and he didn’t leave a message. Three days later he returned to the client’s home for her to sign the complaint. He’d framed a good complaint, nicely written on his word processor. He’d driven into Chicago to use the form books at the library. Then he hired a stenographer at his office building to transcribe his word processing so it would look professional. He walked over to the circuit court clerk’s office and picked up the injunction forms. He prepared a summons, a notice of motion, and a draft order. He had sent the dog’s owners a letter. If they didn’t agree to muzzle the dog or keep it inside permanently, he’d file the lawsuit. “Oh, Mark,” his client said when she came to the door. “Oh, Mark, I don’t know what to say to you. I have your check here but something awful has happened.” “What’s happened?” “They had their dog operated on. They had its vocal cords cut so it can’t bark anymore.” He could feel gray wisps drifting into his eyes. He wouldn’t show her any sign. “So you don’t need my services?” She touched his hand. “No. Now we don’t need you. The barking has stopped. They must have gotten your letter.” “And had the dog’s throat cut?” “Yes.” She showed him the check made out to him for $5,000 and then asked him to follow her out to the dog’s pen. “Can’t we pay you something for the letter? I’ve been authorized to give you $250. They want you to have it.” “No. I don’t want anything.” The dog was immediately alert to their coming. It jumped up and down, clawing against the chain link fence, working its jaws furiously—but it was silent. She was right; they had slit its vocal chords. He stared at the yellow eyes, the vacant almond eyes filled with rage, and he knew the dog had reason to hate him. It was a dog now with the slit chords of a Kabuki, a gray-faced silent dog. He drove back to his office and shut the blinds. He tried not to think about what had happened and called Andrea again, but she still didn’t answer. He had needed that $5,000 desperately. He was so broke. He had $25,000 in the trust fund account. It would be easy to write a check against it. It would just be a loan. He’d pay it back as his luck changed. No one would know. And his luck would change. He looked at his hands. He thought of Anthony Hopkins’ hands, the gray-chalked Kabuki face, the glittering knife, and then the dog’s face, its jaws working to sound its severed chords. No, he wouldn’t do it. He would never do it. Somewhere in the dog’s yellow eyes and its ultimate silence he had learned something. Things would work themselves out. He was young. Time was on his side. But he was learning that he would have to give and receive injury. “Solo,” first published in 18 (4) Student Lawyer 34 (December 1989) and collcted in The Lawyer’s Chambers and Other Stories, pp. 31-42 Lowell B. Komie © [1994] . |
