It was defeat. There was no way to sugarcoat it. Dan didn’t say a word to me as we walked out of the courtroom. As we approached the vending machines, he stopped dead in his tracks.
“You okay, Dan?” I ask.
His briefcase fell to his feet and he began shaking. “I…I…,” he started to stutter.
“Now’s not the time to have a stroke,” I warned.
Then tears began to slowly stream down his face. “I’m sorry I shit the bed in there,” he cried, then buried his head into my shoulder.
I could have belittled him. I could have made him feel like the useless attorney that he now was. His weakness somewhat disgusted me. But Instead I felt something that had never once occurred to me in my entire life.
It was compassion.
I placed my arms around the large Texas lawyer in a calming embrace. “It’s okay Dan,” I told him, “I always knew it would come to this. I’ll hand the money over to Jimmy then go back to my home in the hills, put on my white kimono, and commit ritual seppuku just like in the days of the samurai. It’s a warrior’s death. There’s no shame in it.”
“My father always told me that I shouldn’t be a lawyer,” Dan cried. “He said only Jews and queers practice law and my penis isn’t circumcised so what does that make me?!”. Then he bawled loudly onto my shoulder. “Oh how I curse the day I got my law license!”
“Jesus Christ, Dan,” I said. But his lamenting stirred up my own fears and doubts. I began to question myself; had I known that all my successes and victories led me here, to this cursed hall of justice, would I have chosen a different path? I didn’t have an answer. Like Dan, I began to feel as though my whole life’s mission was meaningless. So we let him weep away and pout himself in vain for things that cannot be undone.
As we stood there motionless in a mournful embrace, a passerby approached us. “Are you two okay?” the fellow asked.
“We’re fine. Thank you,” I responded.
“Is the gentleman crying your client?”
“No. He’s my attorney.”
TO BE CONTINUED…
The Internet Ruined Everything 