Legally Wasted

by Tommy Strelka

Larkin set his glass down. An image of his soon to be ex-wife slamming a telephone book of expertly crafted pro-se work product upon a desk flashed through his mind and his stomach turned. “Yes,” he groaned. “Dear God,” he muttered, “am I going to get sick again?”

  “You better not,” said Trevor. “I’m meeting someone later on.”

  “Of course,” said Larkin as he wiggled his wrist and swirled his drink. He stared at the small whirlpool of gin he had created while concentrating on his breathing.

  “Do you own an ugly home?” Madeline asked.

  Larkin looked up. Madeline stared at him from the television screen. Her brown hair fell upon her shoulders in broad attractive curls. A charcoal business suit and a strand of pearls did very well to diminish her look of vulnerability. She looked like a million bucks. The screen blinked and showed a home with a sagging roof. A cartoon frowny face bounced across the screen.

  “No matter the home,” said Madeline as the advertisement showed a series of dilapidated homes, “no matter the condition, Simmons and Associates can make the dreams of a sale, become a reality.” The screen blinked again before showing Madeline hanging a “SOLD” sign in someone’s front yard.

  “Thanks,” said Larkin to Trevor after the commercial had ended.

  “Your welcome,” said Trevor. It had been agreed upon that Trevor would no longer comment on how hot Madeline looked in her commercial.

  Larkin slid off of his bar stool and headed for the bathroom. He pushed against the door and raced for the small sink. With his lips locked tight to prevent anything from coming up, he repeatedly splashed cool water against his face. After a minute, he turned off the flow and stared at himself in the mirror. Water droplets slid down his tired face.

  Suddenly, a loud snarling noise forced him to jump. He spun, but no one else had entered the bathroom. As he grabbed a paper towel to dab at his face, he heard the noise again, but this time, it was unmistakable. Someone was snoring.

  Larkin crept slowly to the only closed bathroom stall and peaked through the crack between the scuffed door and the frame. A man sat fully clothed on the toilet seat with the back of his head pressed against wall.

  “Fucking, Deveraux,” said Larkin. He watched him for a moment. Every three or four seconds, Deveraux’s whole head shook until an immense snore erupted from both his nose and mouth. A tipped over whiskey sour lay at his feet. The maraschino cherry waded in a pool that could have been equal part booze, bile and urine. When Larkin had entered Marty’s earlier that evening, Deveraux must have already been in the bathroom. At least now he knew that he had probably taken the shots.

  As Larkin watched the slumbering man, his temper gradually calmed. While he certainly had experienced one shitty afternoon, at least Larkin was not unconscious on a toilet. He wondered if he had some sort of obligation to help Deveraux. Part of him wanted Deveraux to wake in the filthy bathroom with a splitting headache while his conscience debated a rescue attempt. He continued to stare, his face pressed against the crack when the main door opened behind him.

  “What are you doing?”

  Larkin turned. One of the legal eaglets stood in the doorway. “I, uh . . .” he started. The eaglet then decided that his desire to piss outweighed his interest in what appeared to be a bathroom peeping Tom. He walked quietly by and headed to the urinal.

  “I know the guy,” said Larkin in his defense. He then realized that he had not really explained a thing. The eaglet stood with his back to Larkin and silently began to use the bathroom. “You don’t understand,” said Larkin, “he’s a guy that I practice with. Not that we work together, but I see him from time to time.” The eaglet’s silence pissed him off. “I’m not peeping,” he barked, just as his cell phone began to ring.

  He reached into his pocket to withdraw it, but his fingertips were still wet from the water. As he pulled on the phone, it leaped out of his hands. His hands frantically swatted at the phone, but Larkin only succeeded in smacking it like a volleyball and sending it flying across the bathroom. It landed with a clatter on the tile floor and slid across the restroom floor. It stopped not two inches from the eaglet’s mahogany brown leather left shoe.

  “Shit,” said Larkin. The eaglet looked quizzically at the phone and then back at Larkin.

  “Is that a camera phone?” asked the eaglet.

  “What?” said Larkin.

  Rather than retrieve it, the eaglet turned and kicked the phone with his toe with just a little bit too much force. The phone skidded across the tiles toward Larkin. Both men stood still.

  “You could have just . . . ” started Larkin, but he lost the will to continue.

  “Hello?” the cell phone asked. The eaglet or the fall must have hit the button to activate the speaker phone. “Larkin?” asked a gruff man’s voice.

  Larkin lunged for the phone. As he fumbled with the button, the other attorney glided swiftly past him and out the door.

  “Larkin?” asked Ron, the phone still on speaker mode.

  “I’m here, Ron,” said Larkin as he finally discovered how to disable the function. He pressed the phone to his ear, but immediately recoiled as he remembered that it had just rested on the bathroom floor at Marty’s.

  “I’ve got one for you,” said Ron. His voice was hushed. Larkin heard others talking in the background. “He’s on the third floor. They’re going to operate on him tomorrow morning. You may want to stop by as soon as you can.”

  “Hmmmmm,” said Larkin.

  “It’s good, Larkin. By the way, did you talk to my wife’s attorney about the dresser with the comic book?”

  “I left some messages,” he lied after wiping the phone on his sleeve. “I’m going, Ron.”

  “Hey, man. Are you going to come by?”

  “Yeah . . . maybe,” said Larkin as he closed his phone. He straightened himself and retreated to the bar. All of the eaglets turned when he exited the bathroom. He wanted to shoot the bird, but his shame prevented it. As he made his way to his barstool he caught glimpses of himself in the dusty mirror hanging behind the top-shelf liquor. Deveraux might have it better off after all, he thought.

  Trevor had abandoned his post at the bar. The man was constantly on the move. Like the true gentlemen that he envisioned himself to be, Trevor had left a tall fizzy glass near Larkin’s stool along with a five-spot.

  “Nice,” said Larkin as he ignored the stares from the eaglet’s nest and made his way to the bar. His phone rang as soon as he sat. “What?” Larkin shouted into the receiver. “I’m coming over at some point, dammit.”

  The individual on the other end of the call cleared his throat. “Mr. Monroe?” asked a man’s voice.

  “Uh,” said Larkin.

  “This is Detective Kincaid, Big Lick City Police Department.”

  “Yes,” said Larkin. He pushed his drink away as if his Baptist grandmother had just walked into the bar.

  “I need to meet with you to discuss a matter. I know that you’re busy, but I need to meet with you as soon as possible.”

  Larkin again attempted to straighten a tie that was not there. The cop’s voice was not outright alarming, but his voice’s deep tone demanded attention. “What’s this about? Is this an old case that you’re looking into?” The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Again, he remembered his ethics award. Three of the most significant criminal cases that he had worked on in the past year flashed through his mind, but all three were drunken driving charges.

  “No, sir. This is a criminal investigation. We’re investigating the death of Alex Jordan.”

  “The law clerk.”

  “Did you know Ms. Jordan?”

  “No,” said Larkin, “but I just saw the news. Terrible incident,” he said with little emotion. What in the world tied him to the dead girl?

  “You never met her?”

  Larkin bit his lip. “No. Why are you calling me? What makes you think I did?”

  “Can you come into the station tomorrow morning?”

&
nbsp; He wanted to say, you didn’t answer my question. Instead, he lied. “I think I have court.”

  I see,” said Kincaid as he held out the last word. “I want you to stop by my downtown office as soon as court is over tomorrow.”

  “I already told you I don’t know her.”

  “I understand, Mr. Monroe, but I still need to meet with you.”

  Larkin ended the call but held the phone in his hand for a full minute. He dropped it onto the bar wondering if the alcohol in the wood could sufficiently sterilize it. A yawn crept through him. He needed a night off. Too much had happened all at once and he was about half a liter deep in Beefeater gin.

  Ron’s call demanded attention, but his mind wandered to his worn leather sofa that fit his outstretched body like a mit to a baseball.

  “A worn baseball,” he said as he swirled his drink with the swizzlestick. He could kick off his shoes, while Rusty found a comfortable spot near his toes.

  “Shark week,” he said as he imagined picking up his remote. That’s what he’d watch: gnawing, ripping sea monsters.

  Loud laughter erupted from the eaglets’ table. Larkin turned. All but one of the eaglets bobbed up and down in their seats, laughing louder and louder. The man that Larkin had encountered in the bathroom stared directly at him. They met eye to eye, neither blinking for a long time. Larkin balled his fists.

  With an audible grunt, Larkin leaped off of his stool and bounded for the eaglets. They gasped as he stopped at the edge of their table and cowered as they beheld the perspiring weirdo from the bathroom in all his glory.

  “Rawwwwr!” yelled Larkin in his best imitation of a roaring tiger shark. Someone screamed and he bolted out the door. With a smile on his face, he double-timed it back to his car. He cruised to the hospital with the windows down and his first smile of the day. The breeze tousled his hair, but he did not care. His second wind, perhaps his fifth or sixth of the day was hurricane strength. Several minutes later he parked at the hospital and again straightened his missing tie.

  40 Proof

  Bright light from the emergency room entrance cut through the dark parking lot. Newly installed energy efficient exterior lighting had flickered on a moment ago, but the green glow could not compete with the halogens over the ER. Men and women wrapped in a rainbow of scrubs swirled around stretchers while a small man in a yellow vest tried to coordinate traffic in the busy drop-off area.

  Larkin hung back behind a row of pines that concealed a dumpster and a coffee can filled halfway with cigarette butts. A secret nurse hideout. He flipped open his phone, but the brightness of the backlit screen surprised him and he retreated further into the trees.

  “Christ,” he spat as he cycled through his contact list to call Ron. Shortly after he hit send, the theme song from Law and Order began playing not twenty feet away. Larkin turned. The orange ember of a lit Winston Light bobbed up and down as a stocky man in a baseball hat approached. He spotted Larkin behind the trees and waved.

  “The theme from Law and Order is your goddamn ring tone for my calls?” asked Larkin.

  Ron silenced his phone. “The theme song from Law and Order is my goddamn ringtone for everyone’s calls. I love that show. Why are you always back here? It smells like old cigarettes and trash.”

  “And Christmas,” said Larkin as he moved away from the tree, but remained in its shadow. “I don’t want to be seen.”

  “Hell, man,” said Ron as he turned to look at the ER, “a marching band could head through there and no one would ask a question.”

  “You have only one volume setting, Ron.”

  “Allison says the same thing. Hey, man, are we ever going to get this thing with the comic book resolved?”

  Larkin had represented Ron in a brutal divorce that had lasted over two years. Unfortunately, Larkin saw no sign that it would end anytime soon. With Larkin by his side, Ron had fought bitterly over almost every issue a couple could seize upon. They had been on the losing end of things for some time. The court had ruled against them in the last four hearings and Ron had not paid Larkin in nine months. The latest fight regarded the alleged existence of a rare comic book, the first ever appearance of . . . someone. Daredevil? Aquaman? Larkin could not remember. Regardless, the comic was supposedly accidently left in a sock drawer which now sat in a dresser in Allison’s new home, surrounded by a tall fence, two Dobermans, and one hell of a restraining order.

  “You know if we get that comic, I can get you some money,” said Ron.

  “What have you got for me tonight?”

  “He’s on the third floor. I’ll show you.” Then returning his attention to the comic book, “Don’t you want the money, Larkin? I mean this whole barter thing doesn’t seem to have really worked out for you.”

  Larkin laughed. Did Ron really believe that he had a chance to get that comic book back? “A paramedic loaded with a lawyer’s business cards. How could it lose?”

  Ron shrugged. “I need a few more.”

  “Was it an auto accident?”

  “No, no. Come on I’ll show you.”

  “That doesn’t sound promising.” Larkin followed Ron out from behind the trees and headed toward the small carnival that was the ER. The notion of bartering lackluster legal representation for direct access to personal injury clients seemed like a good idea when he had first considered the deal months earlier. However, as he made his way across the dim parking lot he felt as if he had crossed a line. The high contrast between the dark lot and the bright hospital entrance did not help the situation. As his mind wandered back to his fake ethics award and Madeline, his left foot smacked against a curb and he stumbled.

  “Christ!” he yelled as his arms flailed to catch himself.

  “Watch your step,” shouted Ron.

  “What the hell is with the lights?”

  “It gives us more customers.”

  “You know what Ron? Don’t talk to me until we get to this guy’s room.”

  Ron smiled but said nothing. They proceeded through the entrance. Cool antiseptic air kissed his skin. Larkin kept his head down and stayed several yards behind his guide. For a moment, he was glad he had left his tie at the office. As he made his way past a group of nursing assistants wielding metal carts, he passed a very pregnant woman on a stretcher. He instantly thought of Madeline with her big manila envelope.

  “Christ,” he whispered as he attempted to wait for the elevator nonchalantly next to Ron. After a moment of thought, he slid about a foot to the left to give himself more cover. “This is a threshold,” he whispered. “A moral one. A professional one. I should be on the couch.”

  Ron laughed once they entered the elevator.

  “What?” Larkin shouted. The word echoed against the aluminum plated elevator and stung their ears.

  “You know, Larkin,” said Ron, “there might be more lawyers here than doctors. You can take it easy.”

  “I’ve reached my threshold,” said Larkin. “So it wasn’t an auto accident.” The elevator doors opened to reveal a much quieter hallway.

  “It’s good,” said Ron as he took a quick left turn.

  “It’s good. Hooray for me.”

  They entered room 320 and as soon as he saw the patient to his right, the couch was a distant memory. “Wow,” he said as he hustled to a man half-wrapped in plaster with a four-lane highway of tubes entering and exiting his veins at different junctions in his battered body. “Can you hear me, Mr.,” Larkin glanced at the man’s identification bracelet, “Chambers?” The man’s eyes remained shut.

  “Larkin,” Ron called from across the room.

  “Mr. Chambers, can you hear me at all?”

  “Mr. Monroe!” cried an all-too familiar voice. Larkin turned. Terry Woolwine sat up in his hospital bed and flashed Larkin a half-toothed grin as he waved his gauze-covered left hand.

  “Oh my God,” said Larkin. He looked angrily at Ron. “This? This is why you called me? Because goddamn Terry Woolwine hurt his hand?” He kicked a biohazar
d waste basket near Mr. Chambers’ bed. It rocked and wobbled but did not topple. Larkin had spent half of his career representing Terry and other members of the immense Woolwine clan through assaults, batteries, domestic disputes, vagrancy, vandalism, pandering, check bouncing, two fake bomb threats, prostitution, solicitation, drunk moped driving and half a dozen other charges. Though they might be troublesome mountain folk, the Woolwines stuck together. This solidarity extended toward the typical Woolwine mindset on bills: they never paid.

  “I got a claim, Mr. Monroe,” said Terry from under his ever present CAT hat. He spat his words, but with his missing teeth the words still rolled together, like the sound of field mouse running over the frets on an out-of-tune banjo.

  “He’s got a claim,” repeated Ron.

  “I can’t believe this horseshit,” said Larkin. “I can’t believe this day. Ron, this whole,” he waved his arms back and forth, “thing we have together is supposed to help me out. Good cases, Ron, money cases. Slip and falls, cases with skid marks, exploding propane tanks. I don’t want Terry Woolwine after he got in his twenty-eighth fight with his girlfriend.”

  “But there were skid marks,” yelled Terry. Drops of blood dotted his sleeveless shirt.

  “A car hit you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who was driving?”

  “Crystal.”

  “You’re girlfriend.”

  “We got engaged, Mr. Monroe. She’s my fiancé right now.”

  “So what do you want me to do?” asked Larkin as he leaned against Mr. Chambers’ plastered legs, “You want me to sue your wife?”

  “She’s going to be my proper wife, Mr. Monroe, but, no sir. I don’t want you to sue her. She don’t have no money.”

  Larkin threw his hands in the air. “Jesus Christ, Ron! This is what you call me for?” He slapped the hard cast encasing Mr. Chambers’ right leg. Mr. Chambers didn’t budge. “This is what it’s supposed to be about, casts and tubes and people who can’t open their damn eyes. People on the verge of the great beyond.” He pointed to the cast again. “Who the hell is this guy anyway?” Larkin thumped the cast again. “Did you pick him up and run out of business cards? Where the heck was the call for this guy?”