John Grisham - The Street Lawyer

It was rare for one of our partners to earn less than a million a year, and some earned over two. And once I became a partner, I would be a partner for life. So if I made it when I was thirty-five, which happened to be the fast track I was on, then I could expect thirty years of glorious earnings and immense wealth.

That was the dream that kept us at our desks at all hours of the day and night.

I was scribbling these numbers, something I did all the time and something I suspect every lawyer in our firm did, when the phone rang. It was Mordecai Green.

"Mr. Brock," he said politely, his voice clearly audible but competing with a din in the background.

"Yes. Please call me Michael."

"Very well. Look, I made some calls, and you have nothing to worry about. The blood test was negative."

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

"Just thought you'd want to know as soon as possible."

"Thanks," I said again, as the racket rose behind him. "Where are you?"

"At a homeless shelter. A big snow brings 'em in faster than we can feed them, so it takes all of us to keep up. Gotta run."

* * *

The desk was old mahogany, the rug was Persian, the chairs were a rich crimson leather, the technology was state-of-the-art, and as I studied my finely appointed office, I wondered, for the first time in many years there, how much all of it cost. Weren't we just chasing money? Why did we work so hard; to buy a richer rug, an older desk?

There in the warmth and coziness of my beautiful room, I thought of Mordecai Green, who at that moment was volunteering his time in a busy shelter, serving food to the cold and hungry, no doubt with a warm smile and a pleasant word.

Both of us had law degrees, both of us had passed the same bar exam, both of us were fluent in the tongue of legalese. We were kindred to some degree. I helped my clients swallow up competitors so they could add more zeros to the bottom line, and for this I would become rich. He helped his clients eat and find a warm bed.

I looked at the scratchings on my legal pad--the earnings and the years and the path to wealth--and I was saddened by them. Such blatant and unashamed greed.

The phone startled me.

"Why are you at the office?" Claire asked, each word spoken slowly because each word was covered with ice.

I looked in disbelief at my watch. "I, uh, well, a client called from the West Coast. It's not snowing out there."

I think it was a lie I'd used before. It didn't matter.

"I am waiting, Michael. Should I walk?"

"No. I'll be there as fast as I can."

I'd kept her waiting before. It was part of the game--we were much too busy to be prompt.

I ran from the building, into the storm, not really too concerned that another night had been ruined.

The snow had finally stopped. Claire and I sipped our coffee by the kitchen window. I was reading the paper by the light of a brilliant morning sun. They had managed to keep National Airport open.

"Let's go to Florida," I said. "Now."

She gave me a withering look. "Florida?"

"Okay, the Bahamas. We can be there by early afternoon."

"There's no way."

"Sure there is. I'm not going to work for a few days, and--"

"Why not?"

"Because I'm cracking up, and around the firm if you crack up, then you get a few days off."

"You are cracking up."

"I know. It's kinda dim, really. People give you space, treat you with velvet gloves, kiss your ass. Might as well make the most of it." The tight face returned, and she said, "I can't." And that was the end of that. It was a whim, and I knew she had too many obligations. It was a cruel thing to do, I decided as I returned to the paper, but I didn't feel bad about it. She wouldn't have gone with me under any circumstances.

She was suddenly in a hurry--appointments, classes, rounds, the life of an ambitious young surgical resident. She showered and changed and was ready to go. I drove her to the hospital.

We didn't talk as we inched through the snow-filled streets.

"I'm going to Memphis for a couple of days," I said matter-of-factly when we arrived at the hospital entrance on Reservoir Street. "Oh really," she said, with no discernible reaction. "I need to see my parents. It's been almost a year. I figure this is a good time. I don't do well in snow, and I'm not in the mood for work. Cracking up, you know."

"Well, call me," she said, opening her door. Then she shut it--no kiss, no good-bye, no concern. I watched her hurry down the sidewalk and disappear into the building.

It was over. And I hated to tell my mother.

* * *

My parents were in their early sixties, both healthy and trying gamely to enjoy forced retirement. Dad was an airline pilot for thirty years. Mom had been a bank manager. They worked hard, saved well, and provided a comfortable upper-middle-class home for us. My two brothers and I had the best private schools we could get into.

They were solid people, conservative, patriotic, free of bad habits, fiercely devoted to each other. They went to church on Sundays, the parade on July the Fourth, Rotary Club once a week, and they traveled whenever they wanted.

They were still grieving over my brother Warner's divorce three years earlier. He was an attorney in Atlanta who married his college sweetheart, a Memphis girl from a family we knew. After two kids, the marriage went sour. His wife got custody and moved to Portland. My parents got to see the grandkids once a year, if all went well. It was a subject I never brought up.

I rented a car at the Memphis airport and drove east into the sprawling suburbs where the white people lived. The blacks had the city; the whites, the suburbs. Sometimes the blacks would move into a subdivision, and the whites would move to another one, farther away. Memphis crept eastward, the races running from each other.

My parents lived on a golf course, in a new glass house designed so that every window overlooked a fairway. I hated the house because the fairway was always busy. I didn't express my opinions, though.

I had called from the airport, so Mother was waiting with great anticipation when I arrived. Dad was on the back nine somewhere.

"You look tired," she said after the hug and kiss. It was her standard greeting.

"Thanks, Mom. You look great." And she did. Slender and bronze from her daily tennis and tanning regimen at the country club.

She fixed iced tea and we drank it on the patio, where we watched other retirees fly down the fairway in their golf carts.

"What's wrong?" she said before a minute passed, before I took the first sip. "Nothing. I'm fine."

"Where's Claire? You guys never call us, you know. I haven't heard her voice in two months."

"Claire's fine, Mom. We're both alive and healthy and working very hard."

"Are you spending enough time together?"

"No."

"Are you spending any time together?"

"Not much."

She frowned and rolled her eyes with motherly concern. "Are you having trouble?" she asked, on the attack.

"Yes."

"I knew it. I knew it. I could tell by your voice on the phone that something was wrong. Surely you're not headed for a divorce too. Have you tried counseling?"

"No. Slow down."

"Then why not? She's a wonderful person, Michael. Give the marriage everything you have."

"We're trying, Mother. But it's difficult."

"Affairs? Drugs? Alcohol? Gambling? Any of the bad things?"

"No. Just two people going their separate ways. I work eighty hours a week. She works the other eighty."

"Then slow down. Money isn't everything." Her voice broke just a little, and I saw wetness in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Mom. At least we don't have kids."

She bit her lip and tried to be strong, but she was dying inside. And I knew exactly what she was thinking: two down, one to go. She would take my divorce as a personal failure, the same way she broke down with my brother's. She would find some way to blame herself. I didn't want the pity. To move things along to more interesting matters, I told her the story of Mister, and, for her benefit, downplayed the danger I'd been in. If the story made the Memphis paper, my parents had missed it.