Expensive Janitor - The True Stories Of A Trial Lawyer

Book excerpt

Chapter One - Another Day In Purgatory

Hi, my name is David and I am an expensive janitor.  Why expensive janitor you ask?  Because I am a lawyer, a litigator actually which according to that 90’s cheesy movie, Clueless, is the ‘Scariest kind of lawyer.’   So you probably get the expensive bit as lawyers while not cheap can be had, but maybe you’re confused by the janitor bit.  Perfectly understandable, but by the end of this book, you should have a pretty good idea what I am talking about.  Essentially, when you, being the potential client, make a complete mess of your life, and trust me you will; I will clean up your mess, but for a price.

I thought about calling the book, ‘Expensive Prostitute,’ but I while this is also a correct description of me, I thought that it would confuse the reader who would be thinking they were about to get an expose on a Hollywood Madam instead of the life story of a middle aged fat white guy who cleans up other people’s messes.   Why Expensive Prostitute you ask?  Because instead of selling my body, I whore out my mind, instead.  Frankly most people would pay good money to see me keep my clothes on, rather than take them off in public, so my brain is my commodity.

 Also, like most hookers, I am regularly compelled to work with or for people I would ordinarily not give the time of day.  When I say people, I mean nearly everyone: other vultures (lawyers) who are circling over the same monetary carcass, extreme toxic narcissists (judges) who were too stupid to survive in private practice, and the worst of them all, the morons who pay my mortgage (clients). 

Is this a cynical book written by a bitter burned out lawyer, well of course it is, but more than that this is a diatribe about my life, the really odd things that have happened to me and the reasons that I became and remain a member of the 2nd oldest profession.  So, pour yourself a shot of good Tequila, an Anejo from Jalisco is a good place to start, and come along for the ride if you dare.

Forgive the forthcoming flashbacks as I narrate my current life in Albuquerque with interludes and vignettes from days gone by so that you the reader can really experience, the sights, the sounds, the uncomfortable boiling bile that fills each and every day.

Arriving at the parking lot near my office on a hot day at the beginning of June, I get into the graffiti covered elevator, reeking of urine to descend the 3 flights of stairs to the ground floor.  Why not take the elevator instead of the stairs?  Because yesterday, I had to step over two passed out Native American winos asleep in a pool of vomit.  Whose vomit belonged to whom was a question that briefly popped into my head, but as I really did not want to know the answer, I did my best not to slip and fall.  While you can make money off of slip and fall cases, the city of Albuquerque refuses to pay these cases without actually going to trial, but more on that later.

I double checked, and yep the same two winos were sitting there with a third person, laughing and shouting in a mix of English and Navajo, taking up the entire landing.  Right so the stairs are out, so into the elevator I go.   I have to be very careful in the elevator though, as the local Junkies are starting to put more and more of their dirty used syringes inside the armrests, with the needles pointing upwards.  Presumably they want us to get AIDS, Hepatitis C, and every other disease they have.  And people wonder why my sympathy to the plight of the less fortunate is somewhat reduced these days?

So, striding into the summer heat, it’s about noon and I am preparing to start my day.  Start at noon you ask?  Yep, I hate early mornings, always have since I was 4 and still do.  My biological clock or circadian rhythm for those who enjoy more precise terminology is skewed about 4-5 hours forward.  This means that I naturally don’t get sleepy until 3-4 am, and don’t want to wake up until noon.  As this is completely impractical, even for a solo practitioner, I take half a pharmacy to go to sleep every night along with alcohol, and better living through chemistry is proven yet again.

So, here I am walking the short block and a half to my office when I am accosted by one of Albuquerque’s finest.  Not a cop, no they are rarely seen unless they are shaking down dealers for bribes or getting a freebie from a sidewalk stewardess.  No I am talking about the hordes of the homeless that fill many American cities, Albuquerque in particular.  Why Albuquerque?  Because, the weather is not so lethal that they risk freezing to death when they pass out and because other cities give them a bus ticket to Albuquerque.  That’s right you read it correctly.  It’s much easier to get rid of the homeless by literally putting them on the bus with a one way ticket than it is to pay for the mental health care that most of them need.  You can thank Reagan for destroying the mental health budget in the US back in the mid 80’s by the way. 

Back to the homeless guy.  So here he is skinny from the meth, twitching like he stepped onto a live power line and about to ask me for money.

‘Hey man, can you spare some change for the bus?’ 

The bus, of course…they are never honest and say that they need money for their next high; they always try to couch their addiction in respectable terms, as if they have a job interview somewhere.  Frankly, I am tired of this crap so instead of saying ‘no, I do not have any change.’ I decide to lawyer him for a bit.

‘Where do you need to go?’  I ask.

‘What?’ he sputters.

‘Where do you need to go?’ I repeat patiently, silently sweating under the blazing sun. 

‘I got to get on the bus.’

‘Right, but where do you need to go, hospital, welfare office, back to jail, where?

‘Why you asking me that man?  I just need money for the bus!’

‘Because I have a car, and I can give you a ride, just tell me where you need to go.’

‘Fuck your car, just give me some fucking money!!’ he screams at me.

‘Now that’s not polite.  I am willing to give you a ride, but not any money, so for the last time where do you need to go?’

‘Fuck you man, if you not giving me any money quit wastin’ my time!!’

‘Time is all you have left my friend; that is until your liver fails.’

Blinking in the hot sun, homeless stares at me trying to comprehend what I am saying, when the twitching in his eyes gets so bad they start to water and gurgles out one last retort,

‘Fuck you man, I’m out a here.’ And he staggers down the sidewalk bound for an empty lot.

With this charming interlude over, and silently cursing the ever present heat, I proceed towards my office in the Sunshine Building.  The Sunshine is actually charming in a run-down 1940’s sort of way.  Its only claim to fame is that it was the last building in ABQ to have an actual elevator operator riding in the elevator car.  Inside, are the foyer with white marble tile on the floors and a grey marble stair case with a brass banister ascending to the upper floors.  Exiting the elevator, you see the hallways are reinforced concrete plastered over, painted white, and a dark wooden chair rail running along the middle of the wall, which matches the baseboard.  Each office door is smoked glass inside a dark wooden frame, something right out of a Dashiell Hammett novel.  You expect to meet Humphrey Bogart with his Fedora and cigarette; instead you bump literally into John Lowenbrau, a fellow vulture, in the first office. 

John is an enigma, larger than life because he is actually larger than most people; he is easily 6’3’ and 400 pounds, gynormous.  Beneath the sloppy exterior of food stains on a 4XL golf shirt and 3XL plus sized cargo shorts, rests the heart of a depressed cynic who still cares for people.  It’s really weird as he only does “family law”, which is code for screaming crazy clients in the midst of a divorce.  You really have to be a true bottom feeder, or in his case, socially non-functional, with an odd enough a social conscience to do family law.  From my point of view, there is not enough Prozac in the world that you can chop up and snort to have me work on divorces, but hey, we all have to make a living. 

‘Hi John, what you up to?’ I ask.

‘Nothing much, how about you?’

‘Just having another day in paradise.’  I don’t bother to tell him about the homeless encounter because he is such a big softy, he would have given him money.

John darkly chuckles, ‘Paradise right, you hate Albuquerque David.

‘True, it is horrible.

‘Why are you still here?

‘I don’t know where else I can move too that I can afford with enough room for the dogs.’

Sadly it’s the truth.  At this point in my life, post divorce, all I have are my five surviving shelter rescue dogs in my rather empty existence.  All of them were rescued on their last day, sadly the shelter people see me coming, so they bring out the biggest hairiest dog that they have when I go visit.  According to my vet Dora, I am no longer allowed to adopt any more dogs, so long as she is treating them for free.  Anyway, they are over 100 pounds, as the big dogs never make it out alive from the shelter. 

Why the biggest dogs you ask?  Because statistically, a dog less than 25 pounds has a 80% chance of getting out alive.  Bigger than 25 pounds, but smaller than 50 pounds, they have a coin flip of a chance.  More than 50 pounds up to about 75 pounds, they have a 10% chance of survival, but more than 75 pounds, forget it.  I take the dogs that no one else can take, as I have 2 fenced acres for them to run around on. While I really do care about people, I have been taken advantage of way too many times, so I rescue animals instead.  At least animals don’t screw you over whenever they get the chance.    They might dig enough holes, so that your backyard looks like a scale model of Verdun after the shelling, but they are always happy to see you.

‘Why are you still here?’ I ask him 

‘It’s not so bad,’ he responds. The lie coming easily off his tongue.  ‘Besides the golf is cheap and it’s not grey and depressing for 6 months like it was in Wisconsin.’

John hails from Madison, where he and I went to college together.  We never knew each other at school as there were literally 52,000 drunken students on campus then, but we had some similar experiences. 

He is right about the weather, it’s rarely cloudy 3 days in a row in ABQ and if you have SAD (seasonal affective disorder) like most Americans, you put up with a lot to stay in the sunshine.  John is similar to me in the respect that we both went to top 20 law schools, yet both wound up in a poor violent town full of vicious peasants, who have been angry and violent for 300 years.  If you ever want to meet someone who comes from 10 generations of poverty who is going nowhere and is thrilled to death about it, Albuquerque is your place.  Really weird actually, but if I had a normal life I would not be writing about it and you would not be reading it either. 

Anyway, I jabber with John for a few more minutes about football, and then continue down the hall to the next office whose occupant keeps even later hours than my office; Abdul, the Pakistani repo guy.  Abdul makes more money off of human misery than I do, which is saying something.  Abdul gets a list of houses in foreclosure and sends them a letter offering financial help.  What Abdul actually does is buy the ‘right of first refusal’ from the home owner.  This means that when they lose their house, Abdul has the legal right to buy the mortgage from the bank before anyone else does.  Much of the time Abdul can get the house by offering 30% of the loan amount outstanding and then turn around and flip the house quickly for 10-20% profit on the initial purchase.  The misery part comes in, because Abdul knows that in 95% of the cases, the $1,000 he pays for the right to buy the debt is a foregone conclusion, he gets the customer’s credit history and knows full well that there is no way that they will get out of foreclosure.  His selling point is that the 1k will help them ‘get back on their feet again.’  Sadly they usually don’t.