(2014) The Professor

by Robert Bailey

  “Hell, yeah, it is,” Bo said, smiling. “So, what are you gonna do now?”

  Lighting his cigar with the tip of Bo’s, Tom shrugged. “Don’t know. Gotta get through the damn cancer treatments first. This–” he gestured to the cigar “–probably ain’t helping.”

  Bo laughed. “One won’t kill you. Now, how long will the treatments last?”

  “The first one is next Friday. Bill referred me to Urology Associates in Huntsville, a Dr Kevin Banks. I tried to schedule the appointments for Fridays, so it wouldn’t hurt your work week too much.”

  “Professor, I would’ve taken you first thing every Monday morning if you had asked.”

  “I know you would have, Bo. Just trying to make it easier.”

  “Anyway, so the first treatment is next Friday. Then what?”

  “Got four total per session, so three more after that. Wait two months. Then four more. Wait two months. Four more. Then, they scope me and make sure none of it’s come back. If the scope is clean, I’m good to go. After that, they’ll just re-scope me every six months.”

  “And you said some folks live more than thirty years doing this?”

  Tom nodded. “That’s what Bill said.”

  “And the treatment puts you down for about thirty-six hours?”

  Tom blew a cloud of smoke to the side and took a sip of beer. “What is this? A cross examination?”

  “Just trying to understand. Thirty-six hours, right?”

  “Right.”

  Bo set his cigar in an ashtray and leaned forward on his elbows. “Then I have to ask you. What are you doing here, Professor? You need to be in Tuscaloosa, fighting to get your job back. For three out of the next six months, you’re going to miss a day and a half per week due to the treatments. But the other five and a half days you’ll be fine. The other three months you’ll be fine. It’s not like you’ve been sentenced to bed rest. You worked as hard as I did for the past two days, and you’re a week removed from surgery and I’m twenty years younger.” Bo paused, leaning back again. “So, what are you doing, Professor? It’s not like you to quit.”

  Tom felt a flash of anger. “I’m not quitting, Bo. It’s a zoo in Tuscaloosa right now. Reporters wanting interviews, newspaper articles, crazy allegations that are total bullshit. I didn’t want to stick around and endure it in the face of cancer. I... I just needed a break from all of it.”

  “I get that, I do. But didn’t you always teach us to hit first and hit hard? And if you couldn’t hit first, strike back twice as hard as your opponent. Jameson and the Board hit first, but we can strike back by suing them. You had tenure. You were forced out for bullshit reasons. It’s straight-up breach of contract and maybe fraud.”

  Tom smiled, shaking his head. “Bo, I appreciate the pep talk. But that would just make things worse. The press would never let it go. Besides, I’m not even sure if I want to teach again. At this point in my life, I’m not sure what I want.”

  “So you’re just gonna wait?”

  Tom shrugged, but didn’t answer.

  “For what?” Bo pressed.

  “I don’t know. If the treatments don’t work...” Tom stopped, not wanting to say the obvious. “Bo, I’m sixty-eight years old. My wife is dead. I’ve lost my job and I’m too sick to start a new one,” Tom continued. “I guess maybe I came here to...”

  “Whoa, now, dog. You’re startin’ to sound like a country music song.” Bo paused, taking a sip of beer. “But I feel you now. I get it.”

  “You do?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Then, tell me. Because I haven’t the faintest of clues.”

  “It’s like that break between the third and fourth quarters in a football game. When the teams switch sides of the field and TV goes to commercial, and everyone on both sides of the field makes a four with their hands.” Bo pulled his thumb back and held his hand over his head. “You know what I’m talking about?”

  “I know the part of the game you’re talking about. But what’s your point?”

  “That’s where you are. This farm. This place. This is the sideline. You’re about to start the fourth quarter, but you’re not there yet.” Bo paused. “They’re still at commercial.”

  Tom laughed. “You’re so full of shit, Bocephus.”

  “No, sir,” Bo said, smiling back at him. “I’m speaking the truth. You’ve got one quarter to play, and you have to decide what to do.”

  Tom looked away, to the fields of corn past the freshly mown yard. “What if I’m at the end of the fourth quarter, Bo? What if I’m at the end, and the other side’s snapping the ball and taking a knee? There’s time left on the clock, but there ain’t a damn thing I can do. They’re goin’ run the clock out on me, and I can’t win.” Tom paused and looked into Bo’s dark eyes. “What if that’s where I’m at?”

  Bo looked back at him, his eyes sharp, piercing Tom with their intensity. “Is that where you think you’re at?”

  Tom didn’t answer. As the crickets chirped and the lightning bugs flashed around them, the question hung in the air like a bubble.

  I don’t know, Tom thought. I just don’t know.

  An hour later, the food and beers were gone, and Bo had to go home. “Jazz will have my ass if I’m not home by 10,” Bo said, rubbing Musso behind the ears and opening the door to his SUV.

  “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot.” Bo reached into the car and pulled out two large manila envelopes. “The mail has started to come to my house like you asked, and you got these two packages.” Bo handed the packages to Tom, whose stomach tightened when he saw Rick Drake’s return address on one of them.

  “Thanks,” Tom said.

  “No problem. Your first treatment is next Friday at 9am, right?”

  “Right. You sure you don’t–”

  “Don’t ask me that again, Professor. You know I don’t mind. If it wasn’t for you, I’d probably be a PE teacher somewhere. You saved my life by introducing me to the law, and now it’s time for Bocephus to pay his debts.” Bo winked at Tom, then started the ignition. A minute later, the Lexus was pulling out of the driveway.

  Tom brought the packages into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. The other envelope didn’t have a return address, so Tom opened Rick’s first. Inside, the heading read “Ruth Ann Wilcox, as Personal Representative of the Estates of Bob Bradshaw, Jeannie Bradshaw and Nicole Bradshaw v. Willistone Trucking Company, Inc.” The date of filing was Monday, January 31, 2010. Rick had filed suit less than forty-eight hours after getting the referral. On the top of the first page, there was a yellow sticky note with five words scribbled in blue ink – “I won’t fuck it up.”

  Tom couldn’t help but laugh. Piss and vinegar, he thought. That boy is piss and vinegar and the rest balls.

  Tom opened the other package, still thinking about Drake. The boy was probably about to be hit with a firestorm of discovery by whoever was hired to defend Willistone. Tom cringed, remembering Rick’s converted loft of an office and his lack of office staff. He can’t do it by himself. He has no partner, no associate and no clerk, and he may have lied about having a secretary. How the hell is he going to handle everything?

  Sighing, Tom pulled a bound notebook from the second package. What the hell is this? he wondered. Flipping the notebook over to the front, Tom read the cover page out loud: “McMurtrie’s Evidence, Fifth Edition (Daubert Excerpt)”. Flipping through the pages that followed, Tom saw a nice summary of all the cases dealing with the Daubert expert witness standard since the publishing of his last supplement. Well, I’ll be damned… The actual cases were also attached with a notation on the front of each case that said, “Still Good Law”. Tom closed the notebook and ran his hand through the package to see if there was anything else. He pulled out a small piece of pink notebook paper. It was short and written in cursive handwriting:

  Professor, I’m so sorry about your retirement. Please know that all the students are very upset about it, especially me. I was really looking forward to being y
our student assistant. Anyway, I finished your first assignment and I wanted you to have the benefit of my work. Though you didn’t ask, I went ahead and prepared an excerpt, summarizing the cases I found so that you would have it for your new edition. Please call me if you have any questions. Home (205) 451-0777. Cell (205) 555-2330.

  Dawn

  Tom couldn’t believe it. In his rush to get out of Tuscaloosa, he had forgotten all about Dawn Murphy. Reading the note again, he was relieved that it appeared that Dawn had no idea that she was implicated in his being forced to leave the school. At least Jameson kept his promise about that.

  As Tom looked again at the notebook, he felt a lump in his stomach. The assignment had just been to find the cases, but Dawn had gone above and beyond. This is exactly what I would have wanted, he thought. She had anticipated correctly and finished in record time. She’s good, Tom thought. Very good.

  Glancing from Dawn’s work to Drake’s complaint, an idea popped into Tom’s head. Dawn Murphy had wanted to be Tom’s student assistant because she needed money to provide for her daughter.

  Now she’s out of a job...

  Tom picked up Dawn’s note and looked at the phone numbers printed at the end. You told Rick that you would stay away. That you wouldn’t interfere.

  He stood, walked into the den and grabbed the phone. Looking at the note, he started to dial Dawn Murphy’s cell number. He hesitated before pressing the last number. This is crazy, he thought. Just hang up the phone and stay out of it. Tom started to lower the phone, and then his instincts took over. Fuck it, he thought, pressing the final digit and holding the phone to his ear.

  21

  Wilma Newton, bride of the late Harold Newton, now lived in Boone’s Hill, Tennessee. According to Doris Bolton, Wilma’s next-door neighbor in Northport, she had moved sometime around the first of November. Ms Bolton had been nice when Rick had dropped by. Invited him in for tea and talked about a host of different subjects. The weather. Her late husband Earl. Alabama football. After he had been there almost thirty minutes, Rick had asked about Harold Newton. “Poor Wilma,” she had said. “A widow at thirty-one. Damn shame.” Ms Bolton didn’t have the address or number, but said that Wilma and her girls had moved to Boone’s Hill, Tennessee – “you know, over there by Fayetteville” – a few months back. Rick didn’t know, but nodded as if he did. Fifteen minutes later, he was gone, having to promise Ms Bolton that he would come by for tea again sometime. “Roll Tide,” Ms Bolton had yelled from her front door, as Rick opened his car. “Roll Tide,” Rick had yelled back.

  When Rick had returned to the office, he called information and learned that there were five Newtons in the Fayetteville, Tennessee area. He started calling them and got a hit on the third, when a girl who sounded about eight answered the phone, saying, “She’s not here right now,” when Rick asked for Wilma. Instead of leaving a message, he told the girl that he’d call back later and asked if her mother would be home that night. “She’s working late at the Sands, so I don’t know,” the girl had said.

  Rick then obtained the number and address for the Sands Restaurant online. He called the number and asked for Wilma. When whoever answered the phone said, “She’s taking an order right now, can she call you back?” Rick had politely declined, saying he’d call back later.

  But he wasn’t going to call back.

  “Sure you want to just drop in on her?” Frankie asked, handing Rick his briefcase.

  “I’m sure,” Rick said, annoyed at being questioned. “She’ll be more willing to talk if she knows I’ve come a long way. On the phone, she could just tell me to go to hell and hang up on me.”

  Frankie was sucking on a green lollypop she’d gotten at the bank, and she made a loud smacking sound with the candy. “She could tell you to go to hell in person, and slam the door in your face. Be a lot quicker to call. We called ahead with Carmichael, and you are meeting with him tomorrow night at 5.”

  “That’s different,” Rick said, biting his lip. “We called ahead with Carmichael, because we got to him through Ultron. If I just showed up at the Ultron plant in Montgomery and asked to talk with the loaders of Harold Newton’s rig on the day of the accident, the plant manager would have me thrown off the premises.”

  “The restaurant manager could do the same thing tonight,” Frankie said, sucking on the lollypop. “Could throw your skinny butt right out of there.”

  Rick started to snap something back, but stopped himself. Sighing, he shook his head at her. “Thanks for the support.”

  “Just telling you like it is,” Frankie said, biting off a piece of the lollypop and turning around. As her teeth began to grind the candy up, she added. “If you come back empty-handed, don’t blame me.”

  Rick gritted his own teeth and, with Frankie’s back turned to him, he made a choking gesture with his hands towards her. Then he opened the door, and began thinking about how he would prove his secretary wrong.

  He was so lost in his own thoughts, he almost ran over the young woman standing at the foot of the stairs.

  “Are you Rick Drake?” the woman asked.

  Leaning back from her, Rick sized the woman up. Black pant suit, brown hair cut off above her shoulder line, around five feet four inches tall with olive skin and brown eyes. Beautiful, no doubt but, judging by the needy look in her eye, she wanted something from Rick. Another reporter, he thought.

  “Look, if this is about the Professor, I’m not giving any interviews,” Rick said, brushing past the woman and beginning to walk towards his car. He had continued to be pestered by various news outlets since the Professor’s retirement, and his stance hadn’t changed. He would not be made a fool of.

  “I don’t want to interview you,” the woman said, catching up to him. “I want a job.” Rick had started to walk faster, but then stopped in his tracks.

  “What?”

  “Mr Drake, I’m a second-year law student at Alabama and–” she sucked in her breath “–I was hoping to talk to you about a job.”

  Rick laughed, and started walking again. “Tell Powell I said this was very funny, but I don’t have time for pranks. I have a long trip ahead of me. How long have you been in the DA’s office?”

  Rick pressed the unlock button on his keychain and reached for the door, but the woman stepped in front of him.

  “I don’t know what you think this is,” she began, “but I don’t work for the DA’s office and I don’t know anyone named Powell. I want to work for you. I want to be your law clerk.”

  Rick started to make another smartass comment, but stopped when he saw the look in her eyes. She was furious. This can’t be real.

  “You want to work for me?” Rick asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Me?” Rick repeated.

  “Yes, are you deaf?”

  Rick chuckled. “Insulting me is probably not the best way to go about this.”

  The woman’s face turned crimson. “I’m sorry, I...”

  “I’m kidding,” Rick said. “Look, I appreciate the offer, but the fact is that I just don’t have the funds to take on a–”

  “I’d work for free,” she interrupted. “For the experience. If that’s OK.”

  Rick’s jaw dropped. “You’re shitting me?”

  For the first time, the woman smiled. “No,” she said, stepping closer to him. “I’m not. Here.” She reached into the small briefcase she was holding and pulled out a sheet of crème-colored bonded paper. “This is my resume. I’m in the top twenty per cent of my class. I’m on law review. I clerked for Tomkins & Fisher last summer and got the defense perspective, but now I want some experience from the plaintiff’s side. I’ll work around my school schedule and I’ll work weekends if need be. I...” She paused, gathering herself. “I want to be a trial lawyer... like you.”

  Like me? How did you even hear of me? Rick wondered, glancing down at the resume. It was all there: 4.0 undergrad from Alabama and a 3.8 at the law school. Top twenty per cent, law review, etc. “I...
I don’t know...” Rick said. He was stalling, trying to figure out what to do. This is crazy. He thought about the four-hour trip he was about to make. What would Wilma Newton be like? Receptive? Defensive? A grade-A bitch?

  Then he turned back to the woman, who, now that he had a chance to size her up, looked every bit the part of the eager law student. Naïve. Sincere. Passionate.

  “Look...” Rick began to tell her “thanks but no thanks,” then stopped. She might be able to help. If Ms Newton won’t talk to me, then maybe...

  He gazed into her brown eyes, which did not waver from his own. Beautiful, smart and she wants to work for me. Rick almost laughed at the absurdity of it. Then, remembering the immortal words of Crash Davis – “Don’t think, Meat. It’s bad for the ball club” – Rick made his decision.

  “OK, I’ll hire you but only on one condition.”

  “Name it,” she said, her eyes narrowing.

  “I’m leaving right now to go to Boone’s Hill, Tennessee to meet with a witness. It’s four hours away, so we probably won’t get back until past 2 in the morning. I’ll brief you on the way, but you have to go with me. Now.”

  The woman didn’t blink. Instead, she stepped around Rick, and hopped into the front seat.

  “Fine by me,” she said, smiling up at him. “But I get to drive.”

  Rick gazed down at her, feeling completely out of sorts. He had not expected her to say yes. Forcing his legs to move, he walked around the front of the car and opened the passenger-side door. He had never sat in the passenger seat before nor had he let anyone else, even Powell, drive his car. This is surreal.

  He looked at his pretty new clerk, and held out the car keys. When she took them, he held onto her hand.

  “I guess, before I let you drive my car, I need to know your name.”

  The woman smiled. “It’s Dawn.” She squeezed his hand and then put the key in the ignition. “Dawn Murphy.”

  22

  The Sands Restaurant had a “Waffle House” feel to it, Rick thought, as he looked around the place and took in the scent of grilled hamburgers and coffee. There were several booths that lined the main window with a view of the parking lot, and Rick and Dawn had taken one of these.