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
resumes. 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 resumes 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 resume 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 jiist 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?"
"Well, if you have a minute, I'd like to talk about your case."
"What about it?"
"I'd like to go over a few things."
"Thought we'd already done that."
"We need to talk some more."
She blows smoke through the screen, and slowly unhooks the door. I enter a tiny living room and follow her into the kitchen. The house is humid and sticky, the smell of stale tobacco everywhere.
"Something to drink?" she asks.
"No thanks." I take a seat at the table. Dot pours a generic diet cola over ice and leans with her back to the counter. Buddy is nowhere to be seen. I assume Donny Ray is in a bedroom.
"Where's Buddy?" I ask merrily, as if he's an old friend I sorely miss.
She nods at the window overlooking the rear lawn. "See that old car out there?"
In a corner, overgrown with vines and shrubbery, next to a dilapidated storage shed and under a maple tree, is an old Ford Fairlane. It's white with two doors, both of which are open. A cat is resting on the hood.
"He's sitting in his car," she explains.
The car is surrounded by weeds, and appears to be tireless. Nothing around it has been disturbed in decades.
"Where's he going?" I ask, and she actually smiles.
She sips her cola loudly. "Buddy, he ain't goin' nowhere. We bought that car new in 1964. He sits in it every day, all day, just Buddy and the cats."
There's a certain logic to this. Buddy out there, alone, no cigarette fog clogging his system, no worries about Donny Ray. "Why?" I ask. It's obvious she doesn't mind talking about it.