John Grisham

Prince offered to make me a loan to bail myself out, but

it wouldn’t work. He thinks I’ll soon be making big money as a wealthy young lawyer, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I may be with him for a while.

Nor did I tell him how hefty the loan would be. Texaco has sued me for $612.88, a sum which includes court costs and attorneys’ fees. My landlord has sued me for $809, ditto on costs and fees. But the real wolves are just getting near. They’re writing the dirty letters, just now threatening to send in the lawyers.

I have a MasterCard and a Visa, each issued by different banks here in Memphis. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas of last year, during a blissful little period of time in which I was assured of a good job in a few months, and while I was vainly in love with Sara, I set about to purchase for her a couple of charming gifts for the holidays. I wanted expensive things of enduring quality. With the MasterCard I purchased a gold and diamond tennis bracelet for seventeen hundred dollars, and with the Visa I bought my dearest a set of antique silver earrings. Cost me eleven hundred dollars. The day before she told me she never wanted to see me again, I went to a designer food store and bought a bottle of Dom Perignon, a half pound of foie gras, some caviar, some fine cheeses and a few other goodies for our Christmas feast. Cost me three hundred dollars, but what the hell, life is short.

The insidious banks which issued the cards had inexplicably raised my lines of available credit just weeks before the holiday season. I was suddenly able to spend at will, and with graduation and work only months away, I knew I would be able to plod along making the small, required monthly payments until summertime. So I spent and spent, with dreams of the good life with Sara.

I hate myself for it now, but I actually put pen to paper and calculated everything. It was workable.

The foie gras rotted when I left it on top of the refriger-

ator one night during a nasty bout with cheap beer. For Christmas lunch, I dined alone in my darkened apartment on cheese and champagne. The caviar went untouched. I sat on my unlevel sofa and stared at the jewelry lying on the floor across from me. As I nibbled on large chunks of Brie and sipped the Dom, I looked at the Christmas gifts to my beloved, and wept.

At some unknown point between Christmas and New Year’s, I pulled myself together and made arrangements to return the expensive items to the stores from whence they came. I toyed with the idea of throwing them off a bridge, like Billy Joe, or pulling a similar dramatic stunt. Given my current emotional state, though, I knew I’d better stay away from bridges.

It was the day after New Year’s. I returned to my apartment after a long walk and jog, and realized that I’d been burglarized. The door had been jimmied. The thieves took my old TV and stereo, a jar of quarters on my dresser and, of course, the jewelry I’d purchased for Sara.

I called the cops and filled out the reports. I showed them the credit card receipts. The sergeant just shook his head and told me to contact my insurance company.

I ate over three thousand dollars in plastic purchases. The time has come to settle up.

I’M SCHEDULED to be evicted tomorrow. The Bankruptcy Code has a marvelous provision which grants an automatic stay in all legal proceedings against a debtor. That’s why you see big rich corporations, including my pal Texaco, run into bankruptcy court when they need temporary protection. My landlord can’t touch me tomorrow; can’t even call me on the phone and give me a tongue lashing.

I step off the elevator and take a deep breath. The hallway is packed with lawyers. There are three full-time

bankruptcy judges and their courtrooms are on this floor. They schedule dozens of hearings each day, and each hearing involves a group of lawyers; one for the debtor, and several for the creditors. It’s a zoo. I hear dozens of important conferences as I shuffle along, lawyers haggling over unpaid medical bills and how much the pickup truck is worth. I enter the clerk’s office and wait ten minutes while the lawyers in front of me take their time filing their petitions. They know the assistant clerks real well, and there’s a lot of flirting and mindless chitchat. Gee, I’d love to be an important bankruptcy lawyer so the gals here would call me Fred or Sonny.

A professor told us last year that bankruptcy was the growth area of the future, what with uncertain economic times and all, job cutbacks, corporate downsizing, he had it all figured out. This was from a man who’d never billed an hour in private practice.

But it sure looks lucrative today. Bankruptcy petitions are being filed left and right. Everybody’s going broke.

I hand my paperwork to a harried clerk, a cute girl with a mouthful of gum. She glances at the petition, and studies me carefully. I’m wearing a denim shirt and khakis.

"Are you a lawyer?" she asks rather loudly, and I see people looking at me.

"No."

"Are you the debtor?" she asks, even louder, gum smacking.

"Yes," I answer quickly. A debtor who’s not a lawyer can file his own petition, though you’ll never see this advertised anywhere.

She nods approvingly and stamps the petition. "Filing fee i§ eighty dollars please."

I hand her four twenties. She takes the cash and looks at it suspiciously. My petition does not list a checking account because I closed it yesterday, effectively eliminat-

ing an asset with a value of $11.84. My other listed assets are: one very used Toyota-$500; miscellaneous furniture and furnishings-$150; CD collection $200; law books- $125; clothing-$150. All of these assets are considered personal and thus exempted from the proceedings I have just commenced. I get to keep them all, but I’m required to continue paying for the Toyota.

"Cash, huh?" she says, then starts to give me a receipt.

"I don’t have a bank account," I almost yell at her, for the benefit of those who’ve been listening and might want the rest of the story.

She glares at me, and I glare at her. She returns to her busywork and within a minute she slides me a copy of the petition along with a receipt. I notice the date, time and courtroom of my initial hearing.

I almost make it to the door before I get stopped. A stout young man with a sweaty face and black beard gently touches my arm. "Excuse me, sir," he says. I stop and look at him. He’s sticking a business card in my hand. "Robbie Molk, attorney. Couldn’t help but hear you over there. Thought you might need some help with your BK."

BK is cool lawyer jive for bankruptcy.

I look at the card, then at his pockmarked face. I’ve actually heard of Molk. I’ve seen his ads in the classified section of the newspaper. He advertises Chapter 7’s for a hundred and fifty dollars down, and here he is, hanging around the clerk’s office like a vulture, just waiting to pounce on some broke schmuck who might be good for a hundred and fifty bucks.

I politely take his card. "No thanks," I say, trying to be nice. "I can handle it."

"Lots of ways to screw it up," he says rapidly, and I’m sure he’s used this line a thousand times. "A seven can be tricky. I do a thousand of them a year. Two hundred

down, and I take the ball and run. Got a full office and staff."

Now it’s two hundred dollars. I guess if you get to meet him in person he tacks on another fifty. It would be very easy at this point to rebuke him, but something tells me Molk is the type who cannot be humiliated.

"No thanks," I say, and push by him.

The ride down is slow and painful. The elevator is packed with lawyers, all badly dressed with battered briefcases and scuffed shoes. They’re still jabbering about exemptions and what’s unsecured and what’s not. Impossible lawyer talk. Terribly important discussions. They can’t seem to turn it off.