I’m no longer employed at Yogi’s. I work, but I now get paid in cash, no records. Nothing to garnish or attach. No obligation to share my meager wages with Texaco. I discussed my predicament with Prince, told him how bad things were, blamed it on tuition and credit cards, and he just loved the idea of paying me in cash and screwing the government. He’s a firm disciple of cash-and-no-taxes economics.
Prince offered to make me a loan to bail myself out, but
it wouldn’t work. He thinks I’ll soon be making big money as a wealthy young lawyer, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I may be with him for a while.
Nor did I tell him how hefty the loan would be. Texaco has sued me for $612.88, a sum which includes court costs and attorneys’ fees. My landlord has sued me for $809, ditto on costs and fees. But the real wolves are just getting near. They’re writing the dirty letters, just now threatening to send in the lawyers.
I have a MasterCard and a Visa, each issued by different banks here in Memphis. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas of last year, during a blissful little period of time in which I was assured of a good job in a few months, and while I was vainly in love with Sara, I set about to purchase for her a couple of charming gifts for the holidays. I wanted expensive things of enduring quality. With the MasterCard I purchased a gold and diamond tennis bracelet for seventeen hundred dollars, and with the Visa I bought my dearest a set of antique silver earrings. Cost me eleven hundred dollars. The day before she told me she never wanted to see me again, I went to a designer food store and bought a bottle of Dom Pérignon, a half pound of foie gras, some caviar, some fine cheeses and a few other goodies for our Christmas feast. Cost me three hundred dollars, but what the hell, life is short.
The insidious banks which issued the cards had inexplicably raised my lines of available credit just weeks before the holiday season. I was suddenly able to spend at will, and with graduation and work only months away, I knew I would be able to plod along making the small, required monthly payments until summertime. So I spent and spent, with dreams of the good life with Sara.
I hate myself for it now, but I actually put pen to paper and calculated everything. It was workable.
The foie gras rotted when I left it on top of the refrigerator
one night during a nasty bout with cheap beer. For Christmas lunch, I dined alone in my darkened apartment on cheese and champagne. The caviar went untouched. I sat on my unlevel sofa and stared at the jewelry lying on the floor across from me. As I nibbled on large chunks of Brie and sipped the Dom, I looked at the Christmas gifts to my beloved, and wept.
At some unknown point between Christmas and New Year’s, I pulled myself together and made arrangements to return the expensive items to the stores from whence they came. I toyed with the idea of throwing them off a bridge, like Billy Joe, or pulling a similar dramatic stunt. Given my current emotional state, though, I knew I’d better stay away from bridges.
It was the day after New Year’s. I returned to my apartment after a long walk and jog, and realized that I’d been burglarized. The door had been jimmied. The thieves took my old TV and stereo, a jar of quarters on my dresser and, of course, the jewelry I’d purchased for Sara.
I called the cops and filled out the reports. I showed them the credit card receipts. The sergeant just shook his head and told me to contact my insurance company.
I ate over three thousand dollars in plastic purchases. The time has come to settle up.
I’M SCHEDULED to be evicted tomorrow. The Bankruptcy Code has a marvelous provision which grants an automatic stay in all legal proceedings against a debtor. That’s why you see big rich corporations, including my pal Texaco, run into bankruptcy court when they need temporary protection. My landlord can’t touch me tomorrow; can’t even call me on the phone and give me a tongue lashing.
I step off the elevator and take a deep breath. The hallway is packed with lawyers. There are three full-time
bankruptcy judges and their courtrooms are on this floor. They schedule dozens of hearings each day, and each hearing involves a group of lawyers; one for the debtor, and several for the creditors. It’s a zoo. I hear dozens of important conferences as I shuffle along, lawyers haggling over unpaid medical bills and how much the pickup truck is worth. I enter the clerk’s office and wait ten minutes while the lawyers in front of me take their time filing their petitions. They know the assistant clerks real well, and there’s a lot of flirting and mindless chitchat. Gee, I’d love to be an important bankruptcy lawyer so the gals here would call me Fred or Sonny.
A professor told us last year that bankruptcy was the growth area of the future, what with uncertain economic times and all, job cutbacks, corporate downsizing, he had it all figured out. This was from a man who’d never billed an hour in private practice.
But it sure looks lucrative today. Bankruptcy petitions are being filed left and right. Everybody’s going broke.
I hand my paperwork to a harried clerk, a cute girl with a mouthful of gum. She glances at the petition, and studies me carefully. I’m wearing a denim shirt and khakis.
“Are you a lawyer?” she asks rather loudly, and I see people looking at me.
“No.”
“Are you the debtor?” she asks, even louder, gum smacking.
“Yes,” I answer quickly. A debtor who’s not a lawyer can file his own petition, though you’ll never see this advertised anywhere.
She nods approvingly and stamps the petition. “Filing fee is eighty dollars please.”
I hand her four twenties. She takes the cash and looks at it suspiciously. My petition does not list a checking account because I closed it yesterday, effectively eliminating
an asset with a value of $11.84. My other listed assets are: one very used Toyota—$500; miscellaneous furniture and furnishings—$150; CD collection $200; law books—$125; clothing—$150. All of these assets are considered personal and thus exempted from the proceedings I have just commenced. I get to keep them all, but I’m required to continue paying for the Toyota.
“Cash, huh?” she says, then starts to give me a receipt.
“I don’t have a bank account,” I almost yell at her, for the benefit of those who’ve been listening and might want the rest of the story.
She glares at me, and I glare at her. She returns to her busywork and within a minute she slides me a copy of the petition along with a receipt. I notice the date, time and courtroom of my initial hearing.
I almost make it to the door before I get stopped. A stout young man with a sweaty face and black beard gently touches my arm. “Excuse me, sir,” he says. I stop and look at him. He’s sticking a business card in my hand. “Robbie Molk, attorney. Couldn’t help but hear you over there. Thought you might need some help with your BK.”
BK is cool lawyer jive for bankruptcy.
I look at the card, then at his pockmarked face. I’ve actually heard of Molk. I’ve seen his ads in the classified section of the newspaper. He advertises Chapter 7’s for a hundred and fifty dollars down, and here he is, hanging around the clerk’s office like a vulture, just waiting to pounce on some broke schmuck who might be good for a hundred and fifty bucks.
I politely take his card. “No thanks,” I say, trying to be nice. “I can handle it.”
“Lots of ways to screw it up,” he says rapidly, and I’m sure he’s used this line a thousand times. “A seven can be tricky. I do a thousand of them a year. Two hundred
down, and I take the ball and run. Got a full office and staff.”
Now it’s two hundred dollars. I guess if you get to meet him in person he tacks on another fifty. It would be very easy at this point to rebuke him, but something tells me Molk is the type who cannot be humiliated.
“No thanks,” I say, and push by him.
The ride down is slow and painful. The elevator is packed with lawyers, all badly dressed with battered briefcases and scuffed shoes. They’re still jabbering about exemptions and what’s unsecured and what’s not. Impossible lawyer talk. Terribly important discussions. They can’t seem to turn it off.
As we’re about to stop on the ground floor, it hits me. I have no idea what I’ll be doing a year from now, and it’s not only probable but very likely that I’ll be riding this elevator, engaging in these banal debates with these same people. In all likelihood, I’ll be just like them, loose on the streets, trying to squeeze fees out of people who can’t pay, hanging around courtrooms looking for business.
I’m dizzy with this terrible thought. The elevator is hot and airless. I think I’ll be sick. It stops, and they rush forward into the lobby and scatter, still talking and dealing.
The fresh air clears my head as I stroll along the Mid-America Mall, a pedestrian walkway with a contrived trolley to carry the winos to and fro. Used to be called Main Street, and is still home to a huge number of lawyers. The courthouses are within a few blocks of here. I pass the tall buildings of downtown, wondering what’s happening up there in countless firms: associates scrambling about, working eighteen-hour days because the next guy is working twenty; junior partners conferencing with each other about firm strategy; senior partners holding forth in their
richly decorated corner offices as teams of younger lawyers wait for their instruction.
This is honestly what I wanted when I started law school. I wanted the pressure and power which emanate from working with smart, highly motivated people, all of whom are under stress and strain and deadline. The firm I clerked for last summer was small, only twelve lawyers, but there were lots of secretaries and paralegals and other clerks, and at times I found the chaos exhilarating. I was a very small part of the team, and I longed to one day be the captain.
I buy an ice cream from a street vendor and sit on a bench in Court Square. The pigeons watch me. Looming above is the First Federal Building, the tallest building in Memphis, and home of Trent & Brent. I would kill to work there. It’s easy for me and my buddies to cuss Trent & Brent. We cuss them because we’re not good enough for them. We hate them because they wouldn’t look at us, couldn’t be bothered to give us an interview.
I guess there’s a Trent & Brent in every city, in every field. I didn’t make it and I don’t belong, so I’ll just go through life hating them.
Speaking of firms. I figure that since I’m downtown, I’ll spend a few hours knocking on doors. I have a list of lawyers who either work by themselves or have clustered with one or two other general practitioners. About the only encouraging factor in entering a field so horribly overcrowded is that there are so many doors to knock on. There is hope, I keep telling myself, that at the perfect moment I’ll find an office no one has found before, and latch onto some badgered lawyer in dire need of a rookie to do his grunt work. Or her grunt work. I don’t care.
I walk a few blocks to the Sterick Building, the first tall building in Memphis, and now the home of hundreds of lawyers. I chat with a few secretaries and hand over my
résumés. I’m amazed at the number of law offices that employ moody and even rude receptionists. Long before we get around to the issue of employment, I’m often treated like a beggar. A couple have snatched my résumés and shoved them in a drawer. I’m tempted to present myself as a potential client, the grieving husband of a young woman who’s just been killed by a large truck, a truck covered with lots of insurance. And a drunk driver behind the wheel. An Exxon truck, perhaps. It’d be hilarious to watch these snappy bitches spring from their seats, grinning wildly, rushing to get me some coffee.
I go from office to office, smiling when I’d love to be growling, repeating the same lines to the same women. “Yes, my name is Rudy Baylor, and I’m a third-year law student at Memphis State. I’d like to speak to Mr. Whoever about a job.”
“A what?” they often ask. And I continue smiling as I hand over the résumé and ask again to see Mr. Bigshot. Mr. Bigshot is always too busy, so they brush me aside with the promise that someone will get back to me.
THE GRANGER SECTION of Memphis is north of downtown. Its rows of cramped brick houses on shaded streets provide irrefutable evidence of a suburb thrown together when the Second War ended and the Boomers began building. They took good jobs in nearby factories. They planted trees in the front lawns and built patios over the rear ones. With time, the mobile Boomers moved east and built nicer homes, and Granger slowly became a mixture of retired pensioners and lower-class whites and blacks.
The home of Dot and Buddy Black looks just like a thousand others. It sits on a flat plot of no more than eighty by a hundred feet. Something has happened to the obligatory shade tree in the front yard. An old Chevrolet
sits in the one-car garage. The grass and shrubs are neatly trimmed.
To the left, the neighbor is in the process of rebuilding a hot rod, parts and tires strewn all the way to the street. To the right, the neighbor has fenced in the entire front yard, chain link with weeds a foot high growing in it. Two Dobermans patrol the dirt path just inside the fence.
I park in their drive behind the Chevrolet, and the Dobermans, not five feet away, snarl at me.
It’s mid-afternoon and the temperature is pushing ninety. The windows and doors are open. I peek through the front door, a screen, and tap lightly.
I do not enjoy being here because I have no desire to see Donny Ray Black. I suspect he’s just as sick and just as emaciated as his mother described, and I have a weak stomach.
She comes to the door, menthol in hand, and glares at me through the screen.
“It’s me, Mrs. Black. Rudy Baylor. We met last week at Cypress Gardens.”
Door-to-door salesmen must be a nuisance in Granger, because she glares at me with a blank face. She takes a step closer, and sticks the cigarette between her lips.
“Remember? I’m handling your case against Great Benefit.”
“I thought you was a Jehovah’s Witness.”
“Well, I’m not, Mrs. Black.”
“Name’s Dot. I thought I told you that.”
“Okay, Dot.”
“Damned people drive us crazy. Them and the Mormons. Get the Boy Scouts on Saturday mornin’ sellin’ doughnuts before sunrise. What do you want?”