TO-WIT: DRIVING MISS CRAZY
It’s my secretary's fault, truly it is. Had she not been on vacation, she would have taken the call. And had she taken the call , she would never have put it through to me. After being with me for thirty years now, she can smell out the crazies with the same unerring accuracy, the
same artful facility, with which she is always able to recognize I'm lying when I tell her she's getting a raise.
"I'm sorry," she would have said in her most sincerely prevaricacious tone, "at the moment, Mr. _______ is dead.” And that would have been that.
But she was not here, and as a result, to my eternal dismay, I was not dead. No, I was manning the phones, and I took the call.
"You are the only lawyer in the world who can help me," the caller advised, "please be my savior." Now I am always suspicious of these "savior" calls, and this time I had good reason. She had addressed me by the name of the lawyer who immediately precedes me alphabetically in the phone book, a clear sign she was working her way through the yellow pages and had now reached the middle of the alphabet with no takers.
Now normally I would have ended the conversation right then and there by asking her who was currently representing her. These folk always already have representation with
whom they are at odds , and that inquiry usually affords me the most effective way of terminating the conversation mid-rant.
"He (or she) is a really good lawyer," I would have lied, "and I'm sure your interests are well protected." But it was a slow day, I had nothing better to do at the moment, and so I decided to hear her out.
Now trust me , had she wanted to , say , sue the Pope as an agent of God because lightening had decimated her entire herd of dairy cows, or had she been convinced that the fillings in her teeth were reporting on her to the CIA, I would have immediately declined. But she couched her request as a civil rights matter, my favorite kind of case, and I bade her continue.
What she wanted to do, as she explained it, was to sue the state governor, the state police commander, the local police chief and Barbie, the code enforcement officer/mayor's girl friend for conspiring to deprive her of her constitutional right of speech and assembly. Apparently she was convinced it included the right to assemble in her back yard with her family and gang meow, yes, meow, mockingly at her elderly female neighbor who had complained to the aforesaid Barbie about the noise and smell that my caller's seventeen household cats made at all hours of the day and night. Her meowing had garnered her a family citation for harassment and disorderly conduct, and that's what necessitated her need for representation.
"Who represents you now," I queried, falling back on my ace card and yearning once again for a l a s t name that began with "Z." She hemmed, she hawed, but she eventually disclosed the name of a local colleague. I assured her that
he was an able guy, quite well qualified to handle her case, and with that I bid her adieu.
I immediately placed a courtesy call to the colleague. "I just wanted to tell you that your client called me," I said, "and I thought you should know."
"She gave me a five hundred dollar retainer," he informed me, "but I'll make it a thousand if you'll take the case."
I'm so tempted to say he should have known better than to take this case, and behind his back I probably will. But here, in public, how can I criticize him or any other colleague for doing what I myself have so done many times over the years. In such "savior" calls, there is both intrigue and vanity, and they combine in a most alluring array to seduce even the most cynical of hearts.
Who among us hasn't yearned to be thought of as "the" lawyer for a tough case? Who hasn't harbored fantasies of being the only, the most gifted lawyer in town, thus attracting by reputation those desperate calls from those desperate souls? Oh, oh, oh, oh, it is good to be the savior, and if your realm is that fantasy, those calls are surely your coin.
It was mine for a long time. But the passage of time and the butt kick of experience has long since throttled those fantasies into docility. They now lay curled up in a corner like a beaten dog, surfeit with whimper, devoid of bang and bark, content to leave baying at the moon to others.
Yet even after all these years, every time the office phone rings, that old dog pricks up its ears, wondering for just a moment, one brief, pitiful, psychotic moment, if this is "the" call, if it is "the" dog, and off in the distance isn't that the meowing of cats.
© 2006, S. Sponte, Esq.