John Grisham

"Buddy ain’t right. I told you that last week."

How could I forget.

"How’s Donny Ray?" I ask.

She shrugs and moves to a seat across the flimsy dinette

table from me. "Good days and bad. You wanna meet him?"

"Maybe later."

"He stays in his bed most of the time. But he can walk around a little. Maybe I’ll get him up before you leave."

"Yeah. Maybe. Look, I’ve done a lot of work on your case. I mean, I’ve spent hours and hours going through all of your records. And I’ve spent days in the library researching the law, and, well, frankly, I think you folks should sue the hell out of Great Benefit."

"I thought we’d already decided this," she says with a hard stare. Dot has an unforgiving face, no doubt the result of an arduous life with that nut out there in the Fairlane.

"Maybe so, but I needed to research it. It’s my advice that you sue, and do so immediately."

"What’re you waiting for?"

"But don’t expect a quick solution. You’re going up against a big corporation. They have lots of lawyers who can stall and delay. It’s what they do for a living."

"How long will it take?"

"Could take months, maybe years. We might file suit, and force them to settle quickly. Or they may force us to go to trial, then appeal. There’s no way to predict."

"He’ll be dead in a few months."

"Can I ask you something?"

She blows and nods in perfect harmony.

"Great Benefit first denied this claim last August, right after Donny Ray was diagnosed. Why’d you wait until now to see a lawyer?" I’m using the term "lawyer" very loosely.

"I ain’t proud of it, okay? I thought the insurance company would come through and pay the claim, you know, take care of his bills and treatment. I kept writing them, they kept writing me back. I don’t know. Just dumb, I guess. We’d paid the premiums so regular over the years,

never was late on a one. Just figured they’d honor the policy. Plus, I ain’t ever used a lawyer, you know. No divorce or anything like that. God knows I should have." She turns sadly and looks through the window, gazing forlornly at the Fairlane and all the sorrow therein. "He drinks a pint of gin in the mornin’, and a pint in the afternoon. And I don’t really care. It makes him happy, keeps him outta the house, and it ain’t like the drinking keeps him from being productive, know what I mean?"

We’re both looking at the figure slumped low in the front seat. The overgrowth and maple tree shade the car. "Do you buy it for him?" I ask, as if it matters.

"Oh no. He pays a kid next door to go buy it and sneak it to him. Thinks I don’t know."

There’s movement in the back of the house. There’s no air conditioner to muffle sounds. Someone coughs. I start talking. "Look, Dot, I’d like to handle this case for you. I know I’m just a rookie, a kid almost out of law school, but I’ve already spent hours on this, and I know it like no one else."

She has a blank, almost hopeless look. One lawyer’s as good as the next. She’ll trust me as much as she’ll trust the next guy, which is not saying much. How strange. With all the money spent by lawyers on cutthroat advertising, the silly low-budget TV ads and sleazy billboards and fire-sale prices in the classifieds, there are still people like Dot Black who don’t know a trial stud from a third-year law student.

I’m counting on her naivete. "I’ll probably have to associate another lawyer, just to put his name on everything until I pass the bar exam and get admitted, you know."

This doesn’t seem to register.

"How much will it cost?" she asks with no small amount of suspicion.

I give her a really warm smile. "Not a dime. I’ll take it

on a contingency. I get a third of whatever we recover. No recovery, no fee. Nothing down." Surely she’s seen this drill advertised somewhere, but she appears clueless.

"How much?"

"We sue for millions," I say dramatically, and she’s hooked. I don’t think there’s a greedy bone is this broken woman’s body. Any dreams she had of the good life vanished so long ago she can’t remember them. But she likes the idea of sticking it to Great Benefit and making them suffer.

"And you get a third of it?"

"I don’t expect to recover millions, but whatever we get, I take only a third. And that’s a third after Donny Ray’s medicals are first paid out. You have nothing to lose."

She slaps the table with her left palm. "Then do it. I don’t care what you get, just do it. Do it now, okay? Tomorrow."

Folded neatly in my pocket is a contract for legal services, one I found in a form book in the library. I should at this point whip it out and sign her up, but I can’t make myself do it. Ethically I cannot sign agreements to represent people until I’m admitted to the bar and have a license to practice. I think Dot will stick to her word.

I start glancing at my watch, just like a real lawyer. "Lemme get to work," I say.

"Don’t you want to meet Donny Ray?"

"Maybe next time."

"I don’t blame you. Nothin’ but skin and bones."

"I’ll come back in a few days when I can stay longer. We have lots to talk about, and I’ll need to ask him a few questions."

"Just hurry, okay."

We chat a few more minutes, talk about Cypress Gardens and all the festivities there. She and Buddy go once a

week, if she can keep him sober until noon. It’s the only time they leave the house together.

She wants to talk, and I want to leave. She follows me outside, examines my dirty and dented Toyota, says bad things about imported products, especially those from Japan, and barks at the Dobermans.

She’s standing by the mailbox as I drive away, smoking and watching me disappear.

FOR A FRESH NEW BANKRUPT, I can still spend money foolishly. I pay eight dollars for a potted geranium, and take it to Miss Birdie. She loves flowers, she says, and she’s lonely, of course, and I think it’s a nice gesture. Just a little sunshine in an old woman’s life.

My timing is good. She’s on all fours in the flower bed beside the house, next to the driveway that runs to a detached garage in the backyard. The concrete is heavily lined with flowers and shrubs and vines and decorative saplings. The rear lawn is heavily shaded with trees as old as she. There’s a brick patio with flower boxes filled with vividly colored bouquets.

She actually hugs me as I present this small gift. She rips off her gardening gloves, drops them in the flowers and leads me to the rear of the house. She has just the spot for the geranium. She’ll plant it tomorrow. Would I like coffee?

"Just water," I say. The taste of her diluted instant brew is still fresh in my memory. She makes me sit in an ornamental chair on the deck as she wipes mud and dirt on her apron.

"Ice water?" she asks, plainly thrilled with the prospect of serving me something to drink.

"Sure," I say, and she skips through the door into the kitchen. The backyard has an odd symmetry to its overgrowth. It runs for at least fifty yards before yielding to a

thick hedgerow. I can see a roof beyond, through the trees. There are lively little pockets of organized growth, small beds of assorted flowers that she or someone obviously spends time with. There’s a fountain on a brick platform along the fence, but there’s no water circulating. There’s an old hammock hanging between two trees, its shredded cord and canvas twisting in the breeze. The grass is free of weeds but needs clipping.

The garage catches my attention. It has two closed, retractable doors. There’s a storage room to one side with covered windows. Above it, there appears to be a small apartment with a set of wooden stairs twisting around the corner and apparently up the back. There are two large windows facing the house, one with a broken pane. Ivy is consuming the outer walls, and appears to be making its way through the cracked window.