TEARS OF A CLOWN WHEN THERE’S NO ONE AROUND

March 24, 2014 //
2

“TEARS OF A CLOWN WHEN THERE’S NO ONE AROUND”

Can that phrase apply to a place? If so, I believe I’ve been there, a city surprisingly festive in appearance, yet deeply tragic underneath. Phnom Penh, Cambodia is not on the beaten path for most travelers. That is understandable, considering how remote it is, and how awful its recent history. In fact, Cambodia was once a rollicking success, possibly the world’s leading civilization. But that was a thousand years ago, and not much good has happened since.
I found myself in Phnom Penh on the fourth and final leg of an educational consulting trip taken by my wife, Katie, that included stops in Hong Kong, Borneo, Vietnam and Cambodia. Initially only contracted to speak at a conference in Borneo, I suggested, semi-facetiously, that she correspond with international schools in some other Asian countries. “After all, you’ll be in the neighborhood.” Faster than I could say “there’s no way I can sit on an airplane for eighteen hours,” she filled our three-week itinerary, and informed me my attendance was mandatory.
Not being an enthusiastic world traveler, I didn’t conduct research into our destinations. Admittedly, such ignorance prevented me from developing a sense of positive excitement and anticipation. But it also preserved the element of surprise. While our first three stops largely confirmed my uninformed pre-conceptions, namely: Hong Kong is BUSY; Borneo is TROPICAL; and Hanoi is GRIM; Phnom Penh was a shocker.
First, I thought Hanoi and Phnom Penh would have similar weather. After five days of grey drizzle in Hanoi, which I learned is the norm in November, I was delighted to land in brilliant sunshine and warmth in Cambodia. It turns out Phnom Penh is 660 miles south of Hanoi, roughly as far apart as Chapel Hill is from Chicago. So, yes, the weather can be much better.
Next, in further contrast with Hanoi, riding in a hotel van from the airport, I saw that Phnom Penh is a city of wide boulevards, tree-filled medians, and stunning, golden temples. Flashy flower gardens and statues surround public buildings like some cross between Caesars Palace and the Getty Museum. If you never drove more than a block off the main roads you would think you were in a highly prosperous country.
Our hotel was a gracious, French-run oasis with tropical plants around a courtyard swimming pool. Just outside its gate was an entrance to a Buddhist Temple, the golden spires of which soared into sight from the poolside tiki bar. Where was the Cambodia of Pol Pot, of war, of genocide?
Katie’s consulting took place on the day after our arrival. Since I was nursing the inevitable souvenir of Hanoi, a sinus infection, I chose not to venture out alone but to stay poolside. There, at the breakfast buffet, my UNC tee-shirt garnered attention. Not equating the initials with basketball, as would most Americans, an older gentleman with a European accent asked: “What agency are you with?”
“I’m just visiting with my wife,” I said.
“Oh, you’re not with the U.N. for Cambodia?” he said, indicating my shirt.
“No, no, that’s University of North Carolina,” I said.
He looked surprised. “In the States?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Don’t see many of you folks over here,” he said. “I’m from Denmark. My colleagues are from Sweden, Germany, Holland and Austria,” he added, indicating a table full of earnestly chatting men and women.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“The genocide tribunal,” he said, as though it were common knowledge that one existed.
After I gathered a plate of fruit and toast, my friend invited me to sit at the end of their long table. “This gent’s an American,” he said, by way of introduction.
The people all looked at me with interest. Anticipating their curiosity, he explained: “He’s not with the U.N. He’s touring with his wife, from North Carolina, the basketball place.”
Thus introduced, I learned from the group that the European Union had funded a tribunal to examine the Cambodian genocide that took place in the 1970’s. Lawyers and judges had been rotating through Phnom Penh for several years, sifting evidence and, finally, bringing to trial several old colleagues of Pol Pot. His murderous regime had swept to power at the end of the Vietnam War, taking advantage of the chaos created partially by our bombing, and he had killed three to four million people, a quarter of the population, before being driven off, ironically, by the sworn enemy of Cambodians, the Vietnamese. They installed a puppet government in the early 1980’s that continues to rule to this day as a dictatorship, though Cambodia is, nominally, a democracy. (The foregoing is a VAST over-simplification; the subject commands volumes of books and treatises for those interested in learning more. Opponents of the regime have recently earned publicity, though Syria, Ukraine, winter weather and a disappearing airplane have kept coverage to a minimum).
“You must all be so depressed, studying such an awful subject,” I said to the assembly.
“Oh, no,” said a woman. “This is a wonderful posting.”
“It’s got the best cuisine,” said a man.
“Much better than Rwanda,” said another.
“I’ll say,” agreed the woman. “That place was brutal.”
It occurred to me that she did not mean “brutal” in the sense of murderous, but “brutal” in the sense that there was nowhere decent to eat.
Further discussion revealed that genocide study and “bringing to justice” is a growth industry, and a wonderful way to top off a career, with various tribunals having been established by the United Nations, the European Union, and the Hague for recent history’s worst depredations. In addition to Cambodia, these include Bosnia, Darfur, Rwanda and Kurdistan. Doubtless, European lawyers and judges will be packing for Syria in several years. I am NOT suggesting these horrors should be ignored or efforts to hold perpetrators accountable are not worthwhile; however, some participants clearly view the assignments as plum career opportunities and speak as expertly on the hospitality prospects of the various holocausts as on the legal responsibilities involved.
Back to sightseeing: We had an additional day to spend in Phnom Penh before traveling to see the ancient temples at Angkor Wat. “What are the best things in town to visit?” I asked the concierge.
“The most popular tourist site is the ‘killing fields,’” said the young Frenchman. “You can see thousands of skulls and skeletons.”
Not sure how to respond to that, I asked: “How long a trip is that?”
“Just in the suburbs, about an hour by tuk-tuk,” he said, referring to the local transportation mode, a sort of taxi with two seats attached to the rear of a soot and noise-belching motorbike.
I knew the “killing fields” were a critical part of Cambodian history, and I didn’t want to be disrespectful, but we had just spent several days in Hanoi, where we dutifully visited the POW prison and several war museums, and I was hoping for something less horrifying. “Is there anything else?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “You can take a tuk-tuk tour around the royal section of town and the museums.”
“That sounds great,” I said, relieved to have a non-genocidal option.
The next morning, we hopped on one of the many tuk-tuks waiting outside the hotel. For the equivalent of $10, we could travel for the whole day with a driver who would double as a guide, language-skills allowing. Once we adjusted or, more accurately, capitulated to the quirks of tuk-tuk travel, we were struck again by the beauty of Phnom Penh’s avenues. Green and beautiful, and relatively free of traffic, the city is built alongside the massive Mekong River. The strikingly broad (picture the width of the Hudson times three) artery rolls along languidly, supporting colorful boats and several optimistically low-slung bridges. The river is doubtless a hazard during storms but posed no threat during our visit.
“There, palace,” said our driver, in halting English, pointing towards a complex of massive buildings looming ahead. “There silver pagoda.”
Indeed, around 1906, with French assistance, Cambodia’s king constructed a palace covered in jewels and an adjoining pagoda covered in solid silver, including the floor! Both the palace and pagoda have survived the various wars; even the most depraved of Cambodia’s despots have deemed it useful to keep the king in place, usually as a puppet, though sometimes as a prisoner.
Our driver dropped us off at the entrance. We strolled the beautiful gardens and hallways of the palace and were allowed to look into the pagoda, though walking on the silver floor is forbidden. I urge readers to google the stunning palace complex; it would take infinite verbiage to describe, whereas pictures are instantaneous for your benefit and mine. Though the sky was sparkling, there were few other visitors and virtually no locals.
When we emerged, it was lunchtime. Several vendors offered roasted snacks that consisted of something between “you don’t want to know” and “you wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”
“Those aren’t birds, are they?” I asked one vendor sitting behind a pyramid of bite-sized morsels that appeared to have beaks.
“Sparrows very good,” he said.
Noting another vender turning a large rotisserie over a flame, I whispered to Katie: “That looks like a dog.”
“That is a dog,” she confirmed.
Though we had managed to try street food in Hong Kong and even Borneo, this was beyond our level of ambition. We chose to eat the nuts and crackers we had in our pockets and wait for a real meal at dinner at a French restaurant near our hotel.
After our snack, we asked the driver what else we might see. I noted that he, like most Cambodians, was extremely short of stature. At six-feet, I could have been a candidate for center of the national basketball team, if there were one. Nutrition or genetics, or a combination, have made for a diminutive population. I censored a speculation about the food.
“What about a neighborhood, where people live?” I asked. “We haven’t seen anything but the main streets.”
He shook his head slowly. “Not nice to see.”
“We won’t mind,” said Katie. “We’d like to see something interesting.”
Our driver shrugged. “I will drive you through apartment streets on the way to Central School. That will be interesting for you.”
“That sounds good,” I said, thinking we would see the local high school.
The driver was correct about the residential areas. The several blocks we saw were not “nice” but they were “interesting.” Within one block of the main boulevard we encountered rows of four-five story, deteriorating tenements, moldy and laundry-covered. A riot of wires hung between buildings. Sewage and garbage filled the gutters and there was a cacophony of screaming babies, squealing generators and shouting adults. Riding in our tuk-tuk like colonial pashas, we received mostly blank stares and some hostile ones. It was as though we were looking at animals caged in a zoo. Our driver sped up. “Not safe here,” he said. “Let’s go to the school.”
Katie and I nodded immediate agreement, and we found ourselves back to clean, leafy peace after just a few hundred yards. Not too far from the palace area we arrived at the Central School. What our driver had not made clear was that the Central High School of Phnom Penh had become the central PRISON during Pol Pot’s regime, and was now a tourist site. (“attraction” seems an inappropriate word to describe it). Behind walls and a high, green fence was a two-story plaster building central to the recent history of Phnom Penh — basically, the local version of the “killing fields.” In fact, as we learned during our tour of the building, the Central Prison was, for thousands of victims, a final, miserable stop on the way to the killing fields.
Information boards at the school explained that during Pol Pot’s reign of terror from 1975-1979, educated people were killed, people who wore glasses were killed, and even merely literate people were killed as being, presumably, able to read. People who spoke back to Pol Pot’s troops, the Khmer Rouge, were killed and people who even established eye contact were killed. Not to favorably compare Hitler to anyone, but he definitely had a plan — Pol Pot and his followers never articulated any purpose or rationale for their indiscriminate slaughter.
Our guide at the school/prison was an older woman who spoke excellent English. She explained that Pol Pot, like Hitler, recognized that such bare essentials as clothing were necessary for his soldiers. Therefore, people with sewing and related skills were able to delay their slaughter for weeks or months at the former school facility. They spent their days working as slaves amidst terror and murder where even uttering a word was the basis for torture or death.
There is no furniture at the school, just classrooms filled with black and white, numbered photographs of those who were imprisoned there, taped to the walls from floor to ceiling. Again, in eerie similarity to Nazi practices, the Khmer Rouge kept close count of their victims. When the Vietnamese liberated the facility, a stunning total of seven survivors were present from 25,000 who had come through the gates. One of those survivors was still alive when we visited in 2011 and came to the school each day to lead tours.
We were speechless during our sun-splashed ride back to the hotel. Dinner was at an elegant restaurant a block from our hotel, professionally served amidst French-inspired opulence. We were still numb from the afternoon sights, I recall. But we were able to look forward to the next day’s journey out-of-town to the temples at Angkor Wat, at least until our waiter told us to make certain we returned to our hotel before ten.
“What happens at ten?” I asked.
“That’s when the shooting begins,” he said.
“What shooting?” skeptical of this new twist.
“Gangs, government thugs, criminals, all sorts of stuff happens here after ten. Tourists should not be out,” he said.
“You’re serious?” I said.
“Yes, unfortunately. Phnom Penh may look quiet,” he said, “but all is not as it seems.”
That, I think, is a tremendous understatement.

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Categories Uncategorized

MARATHON MAN

March 17, 2014 //
0

MARATHON MAN

I ran the Philadelphia Marathon in 1983. In honesty, that stark statement is somewhat sanitized. There was some running involved, but also jogging, walking and some trudging. A lot of trudging.
How did this misadventure come about? Sex. I was motivated by sex. Why else does a young man do anything?
I was reminded of my marathon by a call this morning from my daughter, Kelly. She had just completed a half-marathon in New York, one of several she has participated in in recent years, along with assorted triathlons, 5k runs, walkathons, and other races “for” such causes as “human rights,” “hunger,” and “literacy.” It seems a whole industry has developed to sponsor and organize such runs throughout the country. Well-intentioned persons such as she sign up to participate and enlist friends and relatives to contribute money in support of their efforts. After costs are taken out to support the event and, doubtless, support the organizers of the event, remaining funds are contributed to the designated cause.
In 1983, things were simpler. The well-known marathons consisted of Boston, New York and the Olympics. Other cities were just beginning to recognize the tourism and publicity potential of such events, and so the schedule of marathons proliferated, pushed along by a tsunami of interest in “fitness” activities. Athletic gear companies such as New Balance and Nike, naturally, sponsored these events, as did the emerging industries of sports drinks and energy bars. I do not recall there being “half” marathons in those days. A marathon meant an unforgiving 26.2 miles.
Before the summer of 1983, I’d never considered running a marathon. In fact, I would have found the idea laughable if someone had proposed it to me. But my circumstances were the following: a twenty-six-year-old male, recently arrived to live and work in a small suburban town where I had not grown up, and where I knew no one close to my own age. As an almost non-drinker and a fervent non-smoker, I could not “do” the local bar scene. Internet dating (or the internet) had not yet been invented. I saw my only source of social life as “The Big Apple,” geographically close, but an awful train-subway schlepp away. And, considering my levels of experience and competence in striking up relationships (both very low) I perceived my chances of finding a girlfriend in New York like finding a needle in a haystack, if the searcher were blind. Thus, the surprise appearance of a trim, fresh-faced young woman one morning sitting at the desk just outside my law office seemed almost providential.
“Hi,” I said, trying to act casual, as though a female not describable as married, middle-aged and/or frumpy appeared there every day.
“Hello,” said a girl who identified herself as Kathleen. She looked up from her desk and smiled warmly.
“Do you work here?” I asked, aware the desk had been empty during my first two weeks at the firm.
“Yes, I’m working until the fall as Tom’s typist,” she said, indicating my boss’s brother.
I felt my face redden as I took in her green eyes, perfect teeth and cute freckles that evoked an Irish Spring soap commercial. If a jig had played in the background, I would hardly have been surprised.
“Um, that’s great, um, see you around, sometime,” I said, nonsensically, before retreating into my office. After all, I could not emerge without seeing her and being seen by her.
Over the next several days, I tried to concentrate on my new job representing home buyers and sellers, but my thoughts were constantly distracted by Kathleen. I acknowledge that Kathleen did not have “movie-star” looks, nor was she built like a beauty pageant winner, but for me, she was definitely the “only game in town.” Perhaps, I hoped, she felt the same about me. Gradually, I was able to converse with her without blushing and, one day, we arranged to share lunch.
Our conversation went as follows:
I: “Where did you go to college?”
She: “St. Mary’s.”
I: “Where’s that?”
She: “It’s the girls’ part of Notre Dame.”
I: “Oh, I didn’t know there was a girls’ part. I only knew about the football team.”
She: “I love football. Where did you go?”
I: “Dickinson.”
She: “Fairleigh Dickinson?”
I: “No, the real Dickinson, in Pennsylvania.”
She: “Oh, I never heard of it. Do they have a football team?”
I: “Barely.”
She: “Did you play football?”
I: (recoiling) “I played soccer.”
She: “I don’t really like soccer. It’s so boring. What did you study?”
I: “English literature. And you?”
She: “Business. My dad would never let me study something like literature, that wasn’t useful. He’s career FBI.”
I: “Haha. My dad’s career socialist. Your dad might have a file on my dad.”
She: “Hunh? What do you mean?”

I learned Kathleen had returned to her parents’ home only temporarily to await the anticipated start of a job late in the fall. I could see I mystified her when I described how I lived alone in a tiny bungalow surrounded by elderly neighbors. As I listened to her describe with too much enthusiasm the beer bashes she’d enjoyed on football (and most other) weekends at Notre Dame, I recognized we clearly had little in common besides the celibacy-inducing isolation of suburbia. Though I thought she was adorable, I couldn’t imagine how our relationship could progress beyond the office, until I heard her say:
“I really want to use this summer to train for a marathon.”
“Why in the world?” I said incredulously before recovering to say, respectfully, “that’s really ambitious.”
“But I don’t know if I can do it alone,” she said. “It’s so much work.”
“Really?” I said, my mouth moved ahead by a force stronger than rationality. “I might be interested.”
Kathleen’s face lit up. “It’d be a dream-come-true! According to the article I saw, you have to run six days a week, for four months, to get ready,” she said. “It’s like a ladder. You do one mile one day, two the next, one the third, three the next, then two, then four. After two months, you can run fifteen miles without being out-of-breath and then you just practice extending on up to 26.2.”
The concept of all that running sounded positively horrendous to me, but Kathleen was almost leaping out of her seat with excitement.
“So, like you do all that running together?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, smiling graciously at me as though I were holding the key to her happiness. “We would go for a run each day after work, then stretch, then grab something to eat. It would be so much fun! Maybe we could use your house as the base, since it’s so close to work.”
My mind was formulating how this would work. Since it was mid-July, there would be a lot of sweating, so a lot of showering, and a lot of physical exertion, huffing and puffing, and mutual encouragement, and all that. Eventually, this could only lead to one thing….
“I’ll do it,” I said.
“Really?” she said, delighted.

Training with Kathleen proceeded just as she had described and, in some ways, better than I had pictured. We actually enjoyed each other’s company, so long as we didn’t discuss politics, religion, books, the news, or basically, anything except sports, running and the weather. The hoped-for benefits of all the physicality indeed accrued; for a couple of months, I enjoyed the sort of mindless, meaningless relationship that had eluded me throughout college and law school. In addition, by September, I really could run fifteen miles without being winded, though I experienced occasional protests from such body parts as the ankles, knees and back.
During September, we sent entry forms to the newly established Philadelphia Marathon which was scheduled for the weekend before Thanksgiving. Our goal was to finish in less than four hours, an excellent result for first-time runners. And, since we were nearly below nine-minute miles in our training, the goal appeared reachable. Around this time, Kathleen finished working for Tom and departed for three weeks of training for her new job in Washington, though she was still not expected to start it full-time until months later. Curiously vague about the exact nature of the job, Kathleen assured me she would not have to transfer.
Kathleen promised to continue her training while she was away, and I pledged to do the same though, frankly, I looked forward to a break from the punishing, everyday pace of both the relationship and training. Without her there to prod me, however, it was exceedingly difficult to come home from work, lace up the running shoes, and pound the pavement alone for ten or twelve or sixteen miles. One day off became two, then three, then four. A weekend effort resulted in blisters as my tissues had relaxed, apparently, and then several more days off were necessary.
Our relationship (it had never quite been a “love affair”) also lost its momentum. Kathleen called once after several days, but we didn’t have much to say.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
“Okay,” she said.
“What kind of job are you training for again?” I asked.
“You know I can’t answer that,” she said.
Awkward silence.
“How’s running?” she asked.
“I skipped today,” I said. “It’s hard without you.”
“I can’t get out of activities here,” she said. “We’re scheduled every minute, so I’m losing my edge, too.”
She only called twice more over the remaining weeks. When Kathleen returned in early October, we were unable to reestablish our regular routine. We took several long runs together, but they were labored, as was our communication. Physically, we reverted to “just friends” status without even discussing it. I could still run fifteen or eighteen miles at a time, but it was tedious — early training sessions had taken less than an hour followed by fun activities with my new friend. Now, workouts required three-four hours followed by exhaustion with an increasingly distant and distracted acquaintance.
More blows arrived with November. The end of daylight savings time combined with chillier temperatures to make training runs positively torturous. We met two or three times each week but rarely completed the proscribed fifteen or twenty mile distance. Our pace was back over ten-minutes per mile.
We drove to Philadelphia the day before the race. Luckily, the weather was sparkly and clear, and not too cold. We enjoyed a pasta dinner sponsored downtown by race organizers and, when we arrived the next morning at the starting line, optimism prevailed.
“Good luck,” we wished each other, clasping hands.
We set off with a thousand others from a spot in Germantown. We proceeded towards Chestnut Hill, feeling strong and accompanied both by a crowd of runners and cheering crowds on the sidewalks. A steep hill stripped away some of our initial adrenaline and peeled us from the pack. Along with some other stragglers, we barely kept the main group in sight. After eight or ten miles, we were running largely alone along scenic Wissahickon Creek when Kathleen slowed to a walk with a stomach cramp. I stopped running also, and we fell farther behind the pack.
“Do you want to stop?” I asked.
“No, it’ll go away,” she said, looking agonized.
An arm appeared from a group of on-lookers and thrust a Coca-Cola into her hand. Kathleen sipped it slowly and the sugar or carbonation or both relieved her distress and we resumed running, but slowly.
Several miles later, with only a few other runners still in our vicinity, we reached Kelly Drive along the Schuylkill River. The sun-splashed scenery salved the pain we were both feeling. If the day were not so spectacular, I’m not sure we would have found the necessary determination to continue. We passed sculpture gardens and monuments along the road, the Victorian-era boathouses and, finally, the Art Museum. Thinking of Rocky, I noted the top of the steps would be a perfectly appropriate place to end the race. But, alas, the finish line was still five miles away at Independence Hall.
Police had held traffic throughout the course of the race but, as we entered Philadelphia’s flag-festooned Parkway, designed to match Paris’ Champs-Elysees, I could tell they were preparing to re-open the streets for traffic.
“We’d better speed it up,” I said, not wanting to be surrounded by cars.
“I can’t,” said Kathleen, as we raggedly walked and jogged. “You can go ahead.”
“I can’t either,” I admitted. “We’ll finish together.”
We saw just a few other marathoners, and I babbled cheerfully to Kathleen:
“We are like participants in a depression-era dance marathon.”
“What are you talking about?” she said, near tears. “Are you crazy?”
I realized it would be better to just plod on silently, to get it finished. When we finally stumbled into Independence Square, the organizers were disassembling their tables. Cars were already crossing the course. The clock at the finish line read 5:05. It should have been a moment of triumph and satisfaction, but I felt only a combination of relief and embarrassment as we finished ahead of only several significantly older participants. Our race, and our relationship, were over.
In the ensuing decades, though I have become an avid walker, I have never run more than a half-mile at one time. The marathon, and memories of the next day’s achy hamstrings, ankles, feet, knees and back, definitely cured me of that itch, an itch I’d never actually had. ONLY with the benefit of decades of hindsight, can I suggest the following pearls of wisdom:
1. Do not sign up for a daily, four-month activity with someone you barely know;
2. Do not join someone else’s dream with less than the purest of motives;
3. Recognize when you might be biting off more than you can chew;
4. When running a marathon, pack plenty of snacks, band-aids, and Advil; and
5. Train sufficiently to allow you to finish the race BEFORE the police remove the traffic barricades.

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Categories Sports

RELATED BY DIVORCE

March 7, 2014 //
0

RELATED BY DIVORCE
“You can’t do that,” said my boss, angry, looking up from his desk upon my return to the office. I was shocked, so excited I was with my first, improbable triumph in my two-week-old career as a divorce lawyer. Somehow, he viewed my victory as a failure.
I’d commenced working for Ralph DiPierro when he rescued me, solely on the basis of one telephone conversation, from a tedious position as a junior attorney at a classy, old money law firm. The fundamental problem was the firm’s disinclination to transfer a livable amount of that money to me in exchange for my time-consuming efforts. Also, the opportunity for client contact, which young lawyers crave, until they actually experience it, was non-existent from my permanent position in the firm’s law library.
Ralph, in contrast, offered client contact in abundance. He foisted my totally inexperienced self upon an unsuspecting client the first morning on the job, the likelihood of malpractice be damned.
“Here, take this file,” he said, in his direct, unadorned way. “Nina Brown’s husband left her. They don’t have any money, so you can handle it.”
“Well, um,” I stammered, accepting a thin, manila folder from gaunt, salt-and-pepper-haired Ralph, a possible winner of an Abraham Lincoln lookalike contest.
“Just show up at calendar call next Monday. They may not start the trial; it depends if there’s a judge available.” He added. “If they do, just settle it. Frankie Terranova’s the husband’s lawyer. He’ll go easy on you. I’ve known him a long time.”
“But what should I do to prepare?” I asked.
Ralph appeared stumped, as though the concept of preparation were totally foreign to him.
“Well, you know,” he finally said, “read through the file, give Nina a call so she knows you’re handling her case, and guide her through the process. She’s very young. I talked to her a couple months ago; I got stuck with her ‘cause she’s a waitress at MacMurphy’s.”
I must have looked surprised at Ralph’s explanation, since I knew clients to be almost sacred at my former firm; no one spoke disparagingly of them.
Ralph continued, in a tone suggesting wisdom gleaned from thirty years as a suburban divorce attorney: “You never want to represent a wife. Generally, the money is with the husband. But, sometimes, you don’t have a choice. Anyway, in this case, the husband’s broke, too.”
Ralph told me MacMurphy’s was the bar where he usually ate lunch and played in weekend poker games. The owner was his best buddy. Still, I felt uneasy as I sat down with the file in my office, formerly the storage closet, adjacent to Ralph’s office. I’d spent much of the morning fussing over hanging my diplomas on the wall. Now, I actually had a client to worry about. What if the case did come to trial? What if Frankie wasn’t “easy on me” as Ralph had promised? What did I actually know about divorce law or trials or clients or anything?
Law school had prepared me to read voluminous amounts of material relevant only to someone intent upon being a Federal Appellate judge. For readers who are unfamiliar, law school is largely an exercise in reading judge’s opinions. These dry writings are selected in order to illustrate important concepts, I assume, but they rarely resonated with me. And my year at Yardley, Grinnell & Berman only taught me to hide in the corner of the law library and appear intensely busy, no matter what.
I took a deep breath and opened Nina’s thin file. Notes on her intake sheet indicated she was twenty-seven, a year older than I, she lived in a one-bedroom apartment her husband had “deserted,” and she had a three-year-old son who may or may not have been the child of her husband, if I was properly interpreting the question mark Ralph had scribbled. A 3” X 5” card stapled to the folder indicated the trial date.
I wasn’t sure what I would say to Nina when I called, but I decided to “take the plunge.” A tiny voice, childlike and vulnerable, said “Hello?”
My stomach fluttered as I realized this person’s future was somehow tied to my minimal professional abilities. “Hello, I’m Stuart at Ralph DiPierro’s office,” I said.
“Who?” she said.
“Your lawyer’s office. Ralph is your lawyer and I’m his associate,” I said, trying to deepen my voice a level of experience or two. I felt “associate” conveyed gravity beyond that of a mere “assistant.”
“Oh, oh yeah,” said Nina. “I was wondering when I might hear something.”
“The trial is scheduled for next Monday,” I said. “There may be a delay, but we have to be ready, just in case.”
I wasn’t sure what constituted “ready,” but I felt it was a mature thing to say and I hoped Ralph would fill me in as the date approached. I didn’t know what else to say, and an awkward silence ensued, until Nina said: “Should we get together and talk or something? Maybe I can tell you what I’m hoping to get?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” I said, relieved. Her suggestion totally made sense.
“Can you meet me this evening at the Empire Diner?” she asked. I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to meet a client for the first time at a restaurant.
“Can’t you come to the office?” I asked.
“No, I have to work at MacMurphy’s ‘til four and then take care of my son. But I can leave him with a friend from seven to eight this evening. So, is 7:15 okay?”
“Um, sure, I guess,” I said. “See you there.”
Now what? Ralph had already left for court, so I called an acquaintance who I knew had “put through” several uncontested divorces at another firm. I explained my predicament.
“It won’t be hard,” said Joe. “Complete the CIS with your client. Then, when you get to court, review the husband’s CIS, see where they disagree, and try to narrow the disagreements.”
“What’s a CIS?” I asked.
Joe laughed. “I forgot you’ve spent an entire year in the library. A CIS is the ‘case information statement.’ You fill in your client’s budget, and how much she is asking for in support. The husband will have filled in how much he’s prepared to pay. When you get to the courtroom, either the judge or his clerk will bring you and the opposing lawyer into the judge’s office, adjust a couple of the numbers, and make you settle without a trial.
“What if we can’t settle?” I asked.
“Settle,” said Joe. “Don’t rock the boat. Judges hate to waste time on trials.”
“Thanks,” I said, relieved to understand the likely order of events. It all sounded manageable. “I’m meeting my client tonight at a diner.”
“You’re meeting her outside the office?” said Joe, surprised.
“It’s the only time she’s available,” I said.
“Whoa, be careful,” said Joe. “There’s nothing more ‘available’ than a young divorce client.”
“Very funny,” I said, though the ramifications of Joe’s remark refilled my slightly diminished well of anxiety.
I arrived at the diner several minutes early and took a seat in a booth near the entrance. Right at the appointed moment, a woman who looked no older than a college student, but who could only be Nina, strode in wearing jeans and a notably tight tee shirt. She was thin, with big brown eyes, freckles and curly, permed hair in the style of the mid-1980’s. She virtually flounced into the booth across from me and offered a smile. I noticed she chewed gum with the avidity of a lion consuming a zebra.
“Nina?” I said, feeling self-conscious in my three-piece suit.
“Yes,” she said, taking me in with a smile that made me feel like I was eight-years-old and playing lawyer.
We ordered coffee and Nina explained her situation: “Robert left me almost a year ago. It really hurt. He doesn’t even bother to see our son, Charley. He’s living with a receptionist from the factory where he works. I hate him.”
“That’s terrible,” I said.
“Can we really nail him?” she asked. “He left us alone. I can hardly pay the bills.”
I felt a tug of sympathy for this lithe young woman across from me. Who could leave her like that? After she explained what Robert earned, however, I was certain I could do little for her; Robert earned less than she did.
We filled out a blank CIS I’d found in the office. Nina’s rent and car payments consumed nearly all her income. Charley’s baby-sitting and nursery school used up the rest, and Robert could not be counted upon for alimony. The only hope was to obtain reasonable child support.
“He offered fifty bucks a week,” said Nina. “I’ve gotta get at least a hundred. If I got that, I could get by.”
I nodded sympathetically, as though I were familiar with the costs of child rearing. The numbers sounded small, even to my uninformed mind.
“There’s one awkward question I have to ask,” I said. “Robert is Charley’s father, right?”
“Of course he is,” she replied, then added: “I’m nearly certain.”
“Okay,” I said. “I guess that’s good enough.”
I actually had no idea if it would be. When we finished our coffees and reached the bottom of the form, Nina stood and flashed me a luminous smile.
“Can I have your home number?” she asked, “just in case something comes up?”
I didn’t know if this was appropriate or not, but how could I refuse? I scribbled my number on a napkin and stood to say “good-bye.” Nina put the napkin into her large, leather bag and shocked me by leaning forward to kiss my cheek.
“You’re sweet,” she said, as though she were twice my age. “I know you’re gonna take care of me and Charley.”
I was enveloped by perfume as she turned and strode out. The shape of her rear left an impression I knew was inappropriate. “This is your first client,” I reminded myself.
The week flew by as my first, possible trial approached. At his suggestion, I studied some of Ralph’s complex files, and he offered occasional tidbits of advice, though they rarely concerned our clients or law. From Ralph, I learned which casinos in Atlantic City had the best buffets, which local bars had happy hours on which days, and which health club had the best racquetball courts. I felt totally unprepared. I went to bed early on Friday evening, and drifted into an unsettled sleep. I dreamed numerous scenarios at court, all disastrous.
What if Nina were ordered to pay alimony to Robert? What if the judge declared I was incompetent?” What if Nina shouted: “He promised to help me and he didn’t!” My dreams were so dire I was almost relieved to be awakened at two a.m. by the telephone.
“Hello,” I said, groggily. I heard crying on the other end of the line.
“It’s Nina,” said a high-pitched voice, sniffling. “The bastard. He’s ruined my life.”
“What?” I said, coming to attention. I immediately thought the worst, wondering if Charley had been kidnapped or the apartment set on fire. “What happened?”
“He, he,” she started, almost unable to speak. “He took the pots and pans.”
“Hunh?” I said. “What else?”
“They were really nice,” said Nina, distressed. “I bought them with my birthday money last year.”
“You’ve called me in the middle of the night because he took your pots and pans?” I said, amazed to have been called for something that struck me as so trivial, but also relieved the situation was not worse. I began to laugh.
“I was afraid it was something really bad.”
Silence from the other end of the line was deafening. I knew I’d made a mistake. What is considered important to a client, I realized, especially a divorce client, is not something for the lawyer to judge. That was the first self-learned nugget of knowledge I would remember for the rest of my career.
“I’m sorry,” I added. “I just thought… it might be something worse.”
Gradually, Nina composed herself. and we agreed I would bring up the matter with Robert’s attorney on Monday. I assured her I would call from the courthouse if we were able to settle, or in the unlikely event we were actually going to trial. Nina finally hung up after saying somewhat half-heartedly: “Sorry I called so late. I just didn’t have anyone else to call. I’m so lonely.”
It took me several hours to fall asleep again. I tried not to obsess about it, but anxiety over my courthouse debut ruined the entire weekend. Calendar call in northern New Jersey was a social phenomenon. About fifty men and a handful of women sat in a cavernous courtroom in Hackensack. Every other lawyer seemed to be named Ralph or Frankie or Dominic and the few women all seemed to be Teresa or Annemarie; it was not unlike a barbershop.
The assignment judge, a triple-chinned mountain of a man named Anthony Polito, stood at a lectern on a raised platform in front of the room and called pending cases in a mysterious order that I didn’t understand, then “assigned” them to particular judges and courtrooms. As he worked his way down his list, the room gradually emptied, and I found myself one of the few stragglers.
“Hey, Frankie,” said the judge, peering down from his perch and addressing a short, bald man in a plaid, three-piece suit that resembled curtain material. “Where’s DiPierro?”
My heart fluttered as I realized Frankie Terranova, my “adversary,” was speaking: “Ralphie said he was sending his associate.”
“Wow,” said Judge Polito. “Ralphie’s got an associate now. Impressive.”
I slowly raised my arm. “I’m, I’m Ralph DiPierro’s associate, um, Sanders is my name, um Stuart.”
Judge Polito gazed down at me. I felt even younger than I’d felt when I’d met Nina. Frankie Terranova took me in with a barely-concealed smirk.
“So, counselor,” he said, “you ready to rock-and-roll?”
“Easy, Frankie,” said Judge Polito. “What have you guys got?”
“Just a simple uncontested,” said Frankie.
“Alright, I’ve got some time to settle that myself,” said the judge, glancing at his watch.
“Come into my chambers.” Frankie and I followed the judge through a doorway at the front of the courtroom and into his office, a dark-paneled cave decorated with photographs showing Judge Polito with various local politicians.
“Were you at Knights of Columbus Sunday?” the judge asked Frankie.
“Couldn’t make it. Had Angie’s christening,” said Frankie.
“Congratulations,” said the judge.
“Thanks, Tony,” said Frankie. For just a second, my mind drifted to the specter of being known around the courthouse as “Stuie.”
The two bantered like brothers while I stood awkwardly to the side. Judge Polito hung his black robe on a rack behind his desk, sat down in a massive leather chair, and indicated that Frankie and I should sit down on two wooden chairs facing him. “So,” the judge said. “All settled?”
“Sure thing,” said Frankie.
“Um, I need to see his CIS, don’t I?” I asked, my voice rising involuntarily from my intended assertion into a question.
“Sure, George,” said Frankie, reaching for his briefcase.
“Stuart,” I corrected him.
“Yeah, whatever,” said Frankie. “Here’s the CIS. My client’s got no money. Plus, he thinks the kid might not be his, so we gotta go easy on the support.”
Judge Polito addressed Frankie: “Does he wanna do a paternity test?”
“No, Judge,” said Frankie. “He doesn’t think it that much.”
Both men laughed.
Judge Polito awaited my response as I skimmed the CIS. As Nina had indicated, Robert proposed to pay $50 a week in child support. Much of the rest of his income went towards his rent and car. But one item jumped out at me; Robert budgeted $100 a week for “alcohol and tobacco.”
Trying my best to sound like Gregory Peck in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” I declared: “Your honor, this man is suggesting that he pay $100 a week for drinking and smoking, and only $50 for his child.”
Both men looked at me as if to say: “So, what’s the point?”
I added, with indignation: “That doesn’t seem right.”
Judge Polito turned to Frankie. “What do you say to that?” he asked.
“It’s, it’s,” Frankie sputtered. “You know, a guy’s gotta live.”
“I don’t know,” said the judge, a smile seeping slowly through his substantial jowls. “But that’s a hard thing to justify, you know, a hundred for booze and fifty for the kid.”
I felt a burning look of hatred directed at me by Frankie, but I kept my gaze fixed firmly on the judge.
“I think,” continued Judge Polito, “you should modify the CIS and then we can call this ‘settled.’”
Frankie crossed out $50 at “child support” and wrote in $100.
“You’re breakin’ my balls,” he said to me.
Judge Polito laughed. He took the modified CIS and signed it. “Here, kid,” he said to me, like I was his employee. “Take this out to the court clerk and enter it as settled. Me and Frankie are gonna chat a little longer.”

After almost floating with elation to the bank of telephones in the hallway, I called Nina with the news. I’d won her what she wanted. I’d rescued a damsel in distress. I allowed myself to picture a celebratory hug, perhaps another kiss. Perhaps, we would be friends. After all, she was lonely and I was new in town.
“Oh, that’s good,” she said, when I reached her.
“Me and my boyfriend can go away for the weekend to celebrate.”
“Boyfriend?” I thought, disappointed, recalling her saying: “I’m so lonely.”
But then I thought about it a few minutes longer. I was naïve. Upon reflection, at least, I realized someone like Nina could not be expected to live like a nun for a year after her husband left. Back at the office, at least, I would receive acclaim.
When I arrived, however, that’s when Ralph glared up from his desk and declared: “You can’t do that. Frankie called and he was really pissed.”
When I appeared totally crestfallen, he explained: “A satisfied client is good for one divorce, maybe two over a thirty year career. A friendly adversary like Frankie is good for easy settlements in five or ten cases every year. You gotta just go along. This is real life, not a television show.”
My career as a divorce lawyer only lasted two more months. As soon as an experienced former judge’s clerk became available, Ralph suggested I work for his brother, Alan, who did real estate closings.
“Excellent,” I thought to myself, “a relatively non-emotional area of the law, without judges, lying clients, flirtations or moral compromises. It’s all black-and-white; we’re only dealing with money. My priorities will be clear.”
Not only did I eventually prove to be wrong about whether emotions and lying were part of real estate transactions, but Alan had apparently been tipped off about my zeal for representing clients’ interests.
“Listen,” he said on my first day, “in real estate law, a happy client is worth a deal every five or ten years. A happy real estate agent is good for five or ten deals a year. And a happy mortgage broker is even more important. Don’t ever forget that.”

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Categories Coming of Age, Law career, mentors, realtors

IT’S IN THE JEANS

February 23, 2014 //
2

IT’S IN THE JEANS

“Blue jeans are for farmers,” said my father.
I heard that pronouncement throughout childhood, first directed to my older brothers and, eventually, to me.
Lou Sanders’ Menswear in Philadelphia stocked Wranglers and Levi’s for customers but never for home consumption. There were few things my father, who had been born to a poor family in Ukraine, felt so strongly. He had no objection to selling work clothes to laborers, but his children were not to appear like proletarians. This belief was ironic, given that my father was far more sympathetic to the politics of the Red Army than to the White Army when the two alternately over-ran his childhood neighborhood.
I never managed to understand my father’s fickle political philosophy. I recall him reading the Socialist Workers’ newspaper when I was little. He was so sympathetic to Communist ideals I wondered, sometimes, why he ever left Russia in the first place. I understood, on some level, that it was a matter of economic opportunity and freedom from religious persecution, but he would not express distaste for the Soviet Union even in the face of Stalin’s obvious depredations. Perhaps, he held an idealized memory of his childhood there. But considering his family chose to flee the country, how ideal could it have been?
On the domestic front, my father disliked Johnson and despised Nixon, but he complained bitterly about those who demonstrated against them, too. He was equally dismissive of politicians on the liberal side, such as Humphrey or McGovern.
The picture painted above is more negative than I mean to depict. When my father skewered someone or something, it was, fortunately, usually leavened with wit and insight. A listener might wince at first, but a nod or smile often followed.
In race relations, he appeared colorblind in his dealings with customers. He found something negative to say about whites, blacks and hispanics, without discrimination. He derided members of all the world’s religions, including his own, without distinction. In fact, the more devout a person, the more harshly they would be criticized for their presumed hypocrisy. Somewhere, in his rarely-discussed formative years, my father developed deep skepticism of human motivations.
None of my father’s commentary prevented him from being an effective salesman, however. Anyone who shopped at his store was treated like a prince, at least until they were out of ear-shot. Thus, it was difficult to know exactly where he was coming from. His positions were strongly-held, even if they were completely contradictory. “Consistency? Ech, who needs it?” he would say, if confronted.
The subject of blue jeans bridged the gap between my father’s two realms, the store and home. Of course, he supplied his sons’ clothes. When he was young, my oldest brother, Barry, was indifferent to his wardrobe. Whatever my father brought home was okay with him. But David, two years younger, fashioned himself a rebel, relatively-speaking. In most families, he probably would have been “normal.” If my father would not bring home jeans, David earned his own money to buy them. This teenage flashpoint presaged subsequent battles over car choices (my father preferred a staid Buick; David a red Camaro), facial hair (David grew a full beard during a college-era camping trip which my father made him shave as a condition to re-entering our home), and girls. My father conveyed his disapproval wordlessly in that area, with just a withering stare. But that’s a different story.
I observed the fashion and other disputes from the advantageous position of being ten years younger. Some suspected and others declared my conception had been a “mistake.” Nowadays, the euphemism is “unplanned.” According to family lore, my father, who was fifty at the time, fretted during my mother’s pregnancy that I would be born with grey hair. Once I was born, however, he was dutifully positive and loving towards me, if rarely home. He worked, after all, seven days-a-week.
I grew up lacking rebellious impulses. I figured if my father worked everyday to feed, educate and clothe me, why should I aggravate him? Thus, my warm-weather pants were khaki and my cold-weather pants were corduroy. This wardrobe never struck me odd as a child but, as I reached my teen years and, especially during college, I realized I was unique. This fact appealed to me — initially self-conscious about my “squareness,” it gradually occurred to me I was the true non-conformist among my classmates, thanks to my over-arching conformity. (If the reader is confused, I understand. Any psychologists out there are welcome to weigh in).
In my twenties, several female friends took note of my lack of “style.” They bought me “designer jeans,” as gifts, with elaborate stitching and buttons. Depending on what I judged my prospects with a particular girl, these were either returned immediately to the store or placed in an obscure corner of my closet, just in case a desire for continued romance in the future made my stubbornness expendable. But the necessity of wearing jeans never became clear and, by the time I reached thirty, it appeared I would lead a jean-less life.
My father sold the store a few years before he died. Many things had bothered him, including: politicians; stale rye bread; cold coffee; and, rock-and-roll. Several things about me had also bothered him, such as: my lack of interest in the store; my lack of enthusiasm about practicing law; my choice to attend a college other than Penn, which he called “The Greatest University in the World.” But my wearing blue jeans was never one of them.

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Categories family relationships, Parenting

BULLY

February 16, 2014 //
1

BULLY

My high school was the farthest thing from “The Hood.” A Quaker-sponsored bastion of liberal sensitivity and pre-Ivy-league curriculum, it tailored its philosophy to a student body presumed unified in the pursuit of excellence, knowledge and tradition. Most of the fifty students in my graduating class of 1974 attended Friends’ Academy from kindergarten. My addition at the beginning of seventh grade, as a rare public elementary school product who lived “in the city,” was a nod towards diversity. Nearly everyone else lived in some degree of splendor on “the Main Line,” Philadelphia’s western suburbs of legendary opulence and distinction.
Our class was divided into three “sections.” Pre-selected before my arrival, the top group were kids most likely to gain scholarships to the likes of Yale, Princeton or Swarthmore, Not all of these students could walk and chew gum at the same time, but they were perfectly capable of memorizing Shakespearean sonnets or the Big Bang Theory or the time table of Munich, Germany’s subway system. I was placed in the middle group, the capable students who had not tested at Einsteinian levels, and were destined to end up at Muhlenberg, F & M or Dickinson. The third group contained the economic scholarship students on either the low end (Friends’ Academy was doing a good deed) or the high end (some really rich kids are not very bright). These students would eventually be inserted by the school’s high-powered placement office into state universities or other institutions known more for Heisman winners than Nobel winners.
The top group contained some personality or behavioral outliers, what might have been called “weird kids” by the politically insensitive, but I never questioned why they were there. Their out-sized intellects smoothed the way. The second and third groups also had students who did not fit in with the Friends’ Academy zeitgeist of earnest learning and social consciousness. Several students had prickly personalities; several others had gone “hippie” in a big way, to the extent that attending school in sandals had to be specifically forbidden by an otherwise tolerant administration. One out-of-the-mainstream student may even have come from a family of Republicans. But the oddest member of the Class of 1974 was its bully.
Donald Worley was known as “The Donald” before the tabloid media was blessed with Trump. Physically impressive, an unnaturally solid 170 pounds or so, he towered over my average 120. A mop of brown hair topped a broad, freckled face, broad shoulders, massive hands and thick thighs. If only we’d had a football team, our two-way lineman was already in place.
The Donald snarled with a deep, raspy voice, enhanced by the cigarettes he smoked at every opportunity from the first day he intruded into my consciousness. He flaunted the school’s prohibition on smoking by keeping his pack, with half-an-inch protruding, ostentatiously displayed in his shirt pocket. He treated every classmate with equal contempt. He called soccer players “sissies,” basketball players “dorks,” the artistically-minded “A-holes,” and punctuated every sentence with the “F” word and the “S” word when those words were still not generally spoken aloud (unlike today, when movies strive to include them).
The Donald kicked seats, farted aloud, talked back to teachers and entered classes late. Basically, he checked off every requirement of anti-social behavior and made me wonder, to myself and to others, “Why is he here?”
I never received a satisfactory answer to my question. To the students who’d been classmates of The Donald since they were five, he was simply part of their lives. He was a one-man catalogue of unacceptable behavior. He represented the prized category of “variety,” yet displayed not a single positive characteristic. Repulsed by him from my first awareness, I think he was able to sense my discomfort like a dog.
I managed to make it to the spring semester before I had my first one-on-one encounter with The Donald. All the members of my science class had to maintain small garden plots on the opposite side of the playing fields, about three hundred yards from the classroom buildings. We each planted whatever we chose and then charted its progress. I recall my plant was a gardenia bush. The class usually tended to the gardens as a group with the teacher but, one day, like a young wildebeest separated from the herd, I found myself walking back across the open field trailed only by The Donald.
“Hey, faggot,” he called from behind, using the all-purpose epithet of the 1970’s.
My heart raced with adrenaline as I considered my options. I could ignore The Donald and possibly infuriate him; after all, unless I was deaf, there was no way I did not hear him. I could turn towards The Donald and respond pleasantly, hoping to ingratiate myself in spite of the distaste that would have emanated from my expression. I could turn and confront The Donald, with as much likelihood of success as the average lamb has against the average lion.
“Hey, pussy,” he added, while I remained paralyzed in indecision. I heard his footsteps closing behind me at a jogging pace.
“You like your little garden?” he said, as he fell in beside me. Somehow, his tone alone conveyed a “garden” to be some combination of perverted, effeminate and useless. At the irresistible recognition that The Donald could insinuate so much with just one word, I imagined for just a moment that he could be a great actor. I smiled.
“You should be in the spring play,” I blurted, my tendency to sarcasm disastrously overruling my caution.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, warily.
“You are able to say a lot with just a little,” I said. “You have a way with words.”
The Donald regarded me for a moment, probably trying to decide if I were making fun of him or sincerely offering a compliment. Apparently, he decided, even if I meant a compliment, suggesting that he be in the spring play was not a desirable outcome.
“You think you’re pretty smart,” he said, finally. “But I think you’re an ass-hole.”
By now, I knew not to respond. I tried to quicken my pace, but we were still a hundred yards from a building. Everyone else had disappeared, alone as though we were in a remote desert.
“I hear you like baseball,” he said.
“Yes, I do,” I said, not certain about this turn of the conversation.
“You probably couldn’t play with a broken hand, could you?” he asked.
I tried to keep walking but felt him grab my right just below the elbow. I tried to run but The Donald held tight to my wrist. He started to squeeze my fingers.
“What do you want!?” I shouted.
He continued to twist until I went down to my knees and, essentially, wordlessly begged him to stop. We looked into each other’s eyes. He certainly saw fear and helplessness. I saw triumph and evil. He let go of my hand.
“Keep your fucking mouth shut,” he said, and departed, leaving me to get up, wipe some dirt off my pants, and flex my fingers, sore but still intact.

I managed to survive the next five years without again being one-on-one with The Donald, not an easy feat in a school so small. He tallied up a predictable set of depredations during his high school career. He was suspended for fighting several times; he was caught drinking in class; he ostentatiously drove a beaten-up truck onto campus as a sophomore, when only seniors were allowed to drive to school; his favorite smoking bathroom was referred to as “Donald’s house” by students and faculty alike; and, he was caught in several cheating incidents.
As the years went by, I was amazed to find my classmates idolizing The Donald for his nonconformity, his boldness. They thought he was “cool.” When our yearbook was intended to capture the essence of our class, no one appeared more prominently than The Donald. His grinning face adorned a two-page centerfold in the middle of the book, a cigarette jaunting from his lips as he sat, James Dean-style, on the hood of his truck, wearing a leather jacket. By that time, I was no longer surprised, just resigned. The messy, violent Donald had become a folk hero to kids otherwise disposed to sensitivity and order.

Nearly twenty years after graduation, I received an “In Memoriam” card from Friends’ Academy. The Donald had died in a car crash on his way home from work. The only member of our class who had not attended college, the notice described him as a prized member of the staff at the local A & P where he was assistant produce manager. It invited me to a “Celebration of Donald Worley,” and asked, if I could not attend, if I would send a written “remembrance,” to capture the “beauty” of Donald’s life.
I was ambivalent about The Donald’s demise. Though I’d wished some sort of misfortune upon him for a quarter century, death seemed out of proportion to what he had done to me. I pondered for a moment what had made The Donald the way he was. Were his parents abusive? Was his economic or social background difficult? Did he suffer from a mental deficit that caused a lack of impulse control or compassion? I concluded all those things were possible, but even if he was afflicted with any or all of them, they were rationales, not excuses. The nicest thing I could do for The Donald was to NOT express my remembrance of him. I threw the card away.

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Categories Coming of Age, Reflections

KNOW WHEN TO FOLD THEM

February 6, 2014 //
2

KNOW WHEN TO FOLD THEM

It is not politically correct to say: “When at first you don’t succeed, quit,” and I certainly experienced approbation whenever I suggested such a thing to my children. However, I intend to tell a story illustrating how valuable, even enjoyable, such an act can be.
In March of 1982, my first job as a lawyer was everything I feared it would be. I was hired as an “associate” at a small, but exclusive law firm in a wealthy New Jersey town where the term “old money” might have been invented. All nine of the lawyers at the firm boasted Ivy League degrees. Notwithstanding the carefully crafted gloss I showed on my resume, it was clear to the discerning eye my law school career was undistinguished. The closest I came to the honored Law Review at George Washington University was when I played shortstop, as a ringer, on their softball team. But for reasons he never articulated –-perhaps he felt a kinship as the only other non-WASP — Josh Berman was a senior partner who championed me through the interview process and, after convincing his skeptical partners to hire me, served as my mentor.
Josh was a bushy-bearded former member of the counter-culture who, by 1982, was fully signed on to the life of the bourgeoisie – except for that beard, of course. He had a big house, a big mortgage, a wife who enjoyed expensive furnishings and the expertise to advise the firm’s largest client, Apex Bank. Though an institution of utmost conservatism in our prosperous town, the powers-that-be at Apex accepted Josh’s subversive appearance in exchange for his keen insights. It was unusual, apparently, for a “big-city” lawyer like Josh to have forsaken the bright lights and stunning salaries of Manhattan to labor in suburbia.
My job was to conduct legal research and write memos. My days passed in the library where I prospected for nuggets of legal gold from the veins of dusty tomes. From movies and a Broadway show I knew the low man on a nine-man totem pole had to arrive at the office first everyday and stay until everyone else departed. If nothing else, if it is true that nine-tenths of life is “being there,” I fulfilled the vast majority of my requirements.
Any of the five senior lawyers at Yardley, Grinnell & Berman could assign me a research topic, but only if I was available. Josh dominated my time to the exclusion of everyone else and, considering how unapproachable the other lawyers seemed to me, I considered this to be a good thing.
“What have you got for me?” Josh would ask on a typical morning, when I poked my head into his wood-paneled office.
“I’ve nearly finished the Glass-Steagall memo,” I might have said, referring to a prominent banking regulation that held near-sacred importance in the field.
“And?” Josh would persist.
“I think Apex can market the product,” I might have ventured.
“You think, or you know?” Josh would prod, peering through his horn-rimmed glasses.
Scrunching my face and with my voice rising involuntarily, I might have said: “I think I know?”
Josh would then patiently explain how I needed to nail down the definite answer. Essentially, he was rewarding my dogged, if uninspired, persistence with compassion. This sort of relationship had an unspoken quid-pro-quo; if I kept myself almost exclusively available for Josh’s research needs, he would save me from what he hinted were the merciless projects and mercurial critiques of the other partners.
The catch at a small-town firm was the starting salary, only $20,000. The senior secretaries made more than I did, and none of them had student loans to re-pay.
“Don’t worry about the money,” Josh said, on numerous occasions. “We’ll make it up to you with the year-end bonus.”
The “BONUS” sustained me throughout the spring and summer as I dressed dutifully in three-piece suits and spent eight to ten “billable hours” each day reading and writing on subjects with the intellectual nutritional value of sawdust.
“How does the bonus get calculated?” I asked once.
“It all depends on how valuable you make yourself,” said Josh. “We bill your time out at fifty dollars an hour and we pay you around ten, so it’s a good deal for us. At the end of the year, you will be rewarded.”
“More like eight dollars an hour, so far,” I thought to myself.
“Given your persistence, which I will make abundantly clear to the other partners,” continued Josh, “you stand to make a bundle.”
Work proceeded apace throughout the fall. I learned from Josh how to write a point-by-point letter with all creative impulses scrubbed. I learned to proofread the products of my secretary, Cyndi Buffuno, whose spelling creativity made her name seem appropriate. I learned to laugh at certain partners’ jokes and not to speak in front of others. Basically, Josh was my guide in a world I did not really choose, but agreed to inhabit, so long as the pot of bonus gold was waiting at the end of the year.
As the holiday party at the Beacon Ridge Club loomed, where the checks were distributed, bonus anticipation began to build. I pictured opening an envelope like a star at the Oscar’s: “And the winner is, Stuart, with a check in the amount of $3,000.” Once, when I calculated I’d worked over sixty hours in a particular week, I allowed myself to imagine a check for $5,000.
“Almost at the finish line,” said Josh, a week before the party. “I think you’ll be pleased.”
I smiled and hunkered down at my desk with even greater determination to parse the fine print for a new Apex checking account promotion. The work almost seemed meaningful to me. I was part of the world economy, soon to be a bigger part.
Finally, the day of the event arrived, the Friday before Christmas. Yes, it was nice to share holiday cheer with co-workers, and nice to be a guest at another wood-paneled establishment with deep green carpet and pictures of hunting scenes on the walls. One of the partners who rarely spoke to me offered a slap on the back and a handshake: “Excellent start, young man,” he said. Another, who never seemed certain of my name, interrupted a conversation to speak to me like a family member: “Son, Josh tells me you are invaluable. Good work.”
Could it be $7,000?” I asked myself. I was almost giddy amidst the mistletoe and holly wreaths, eggnog and punch, when Josh emerged from a crowd brandishing an envelope.
“Congratulations!” he said, handing it to me. Always my teacher, he added, in a whisper, before walking away: “Open it in private.”
The thin envelope was finally in hand. Nearly a year of mind-numbing labor was to be rewarded. After a few more minutes of meaningless banter with co-workers, I stole into a vestibule. Surrounded only by an over-laden coat rack and several wreaths, I carefully revealed the check. I could not believe my eyes: “$250.” I looked again. Perhaps, I thought, the written number was a typo and the written part of the check read “Two thousand five hundred.” No, it did not.
I was crestfallen; I was crushed. The holiday week was ruined. Too ashamed to tell my family, I confided only in a law school classmate who also happened to work in North Jersey.
“What should I do?” I asked Gina on the telephone.
“I know someone who might help,” she said.
“Who?” I asked.
“My uncle was just saying at Christmas dinner he’s overwhelmed and could use an associate in his divorce practice in Fort Lee. It’s not classy like Yardley, Grinnell & Berman, but it’s not boring, either,” she said.
“Divorce law?” I said, frowning.
“Well, he calls it ‘family law,’” she said.
“Oh, that’s MUCH better,” I said.
“The money’s still green,” she said.
“Good point,” I said. “I’ll call him.”

Ralph DiPierro answered the phone himself. When I explained who I was and why I was calling, he said: “Can you start next week?”
“Don’t you want to interview me?” I asked.
“Nah, if you’re a friend of Gina’s you’re probably okay. It’s not rocket science, you know,” said Ralph.
“Can I get back to you after I talk to my boss?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. “Oh, and I can pay you $30,000 to start. Is that enough?” Ralph asked.
I was stunned. Without even an interview, I had a job offer with a fifty percent raise. I thanked Ralph and prepared to talk to Josh.
On the first workday following the holiday, I hovered outside Josh’s office as though preparing an ambush. While he was still taking off his coat, I entered and asked: “Do you have a moment?”
“Sure,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Did you have a chance to speak to the other partners about me before the party last week?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, sitting down behind his desk. “They know you’ve been doing good work.”
“Is there any chance I will, maybe, be getting a raise?” I asked, trembling inside, but trying to sound composed.
“Absolutely,” said Josh. “I think that by the end of this coming year we should be able to move you up several thousand dollars.”
I paused for a moment while his words reverberated in my head: “at the END of this coming year… the END…SEVERAL…COMING…END.” I felt a surprising surge of relief, not anger. My way forward was clear. No doubt.
“Please consider this my two weeks notice,” I said, as measured as possible. “I have a more favorable job offer.”
Josh looked shocked. He stared at me, unspeaking, and appeared to shake his head involuntarily, like he was doing a double take. His beard appeared to twitch. “You’re quitting?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, feeling more control of my life than I’d felt in months.
I expected Josh to ask me about my new position and try to convince me family law was undignified. I thought he would, at least, ask me where I was going. Instead, he said: “Okay, then. Finish up whatever you were working on and then you can go. Two weeks won’t be necessary.” He looked down at his desk, indicating our discussion was over.
Walking out of Yardley, Grinnell & Berman several days later was a joyous event for me. Two secretaries took me out for lunch on the last day and one of the younger attorneys wished me well. Divorce law proved to be a short and bizarre detour in my career (probably worth a story or two in the future) but working for Ralph opened up other opportunities that proved even more valuable.
I called Josh several times over the next couple of years, thinking he might be interested in how I was doing. But he asked no questions and he never reciprocated. Finally, I quit doing that, too.

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Categories Coming of Age, Law career, mentors

FEAR OF FLYING, THE G-RATED VERSION

January 27, 2014 //
1

FEAR OF FLYING – G-RATED VERSION

“My parents are taking me out to dinner. You wanna join us?” asked Chris.
“Sure,” I said.
Since I considered Chris barely more than an acquaintance, his invitation surprised me. Still, to a hungry college freshman, a treat to a restaurant was preferable under almost any circumstances to another cafeteria meal.
Chris Bettiker (not his real name) was a fellow freshman at Dickinson College. He was of medium height and build and wore glasses below a startlingly shorter-than-average-for-the-1970’s light-brown haircut. He worked as an assistant trainer in the athletics department. In other words, he was skilled in the arts of taping ankles and handing out and retrieving towels. Doubtless, I assumed, his position was work/study, whereby the College subsidized his tuition in exchange for menial employment, like the kids who ladled breakfast. Though my family was not extraordinarily wealthy, my parents were willing and able to pay all my college expenses and, for that, I was deeply thankful.
I met Chris in my capacity as goalie for the soccer team; at practices, I idled significant chunks of time standing in front of the goal nearest the locker room. Though my inactivity was occasionally interrupted by a shot, I had ample time to chat with the folks who hung out on the bleachers behind the goal, namely: the Spanish professor who volunteered advice to the team that merited credence solely due to his accent; the ten-year-old neighborhood boy who I was sure worshipped me, until the day he declared “If you really were any good at sports, you’d play football;” and, Chris.
Chris and I never discussed anything substantial. I didn’t even know where he was from or what he studied. We just prattled away without making a personal connection, I suppose, like only males, stereotypically, can do.
“Be outside your dorm at six,” said Chris, when I handed him my towel that day.

I expected his parents to arrive, so I was surprised when a bright yellow Mustang roared to a stop with Chris in the driver’s seat.
“Hop in,” he said.
I glanced to see if his parents were following behind, but there were no other cars on the street.
“Wow,” I said. “Is this yours?”
“Yep,” said Chris.
I was surprised he had a car. Few of my friends had cars and those who did tended to have vehicles nearly as old as themselves. As for me, I’d turned down my uncle’s gracious offer of a twelve-year-old Pinto; our campus was small and I saw no need.
Chris, who I knew only as the mild-mannered guy at the locker room, shocked me by being outfitted in driving gloves, a soft brown leather jacket and dark glasses even though it was already dusk. As soon as I wedged my body into the tiny front seat, and before I could locate a seatbelt, he floored the gas.
“Here we go!” he said, his expression like a madman’s.
“Where?” I said, alarmed. “Are your parents meeting us?”
“Sort of,” he said.
I didn’t focus on his vague reply. I was too busy cringing as we careened with screeching tires through the quiet streets of Carlisle, PA with little regard for posted speed limits.
“Um,” I ventured with relief, once we reached a straightaway just outside town. “What restaurant are we going to?”
“Our club,” said Chris. “It’s good.”
“Nice,” I said, hoping my clothes were adequate.

Chris barely braked before jerking the car into a side road with a final squeal of the tires. A sign flashed through my peripheral vision: “Cumberland County Airport.”
“Is there a club at the airport?” I asked.
“No,” said Chris. “We’re FLYING to dinner.”
“We are?” I essentially gasped.
“Yes,” said Chris. “I keep my plane here. It’s a pretty short flight, only 160 miles.”
“We’re flying?” I said, still processing that basic fact before concerning myself with the duration of the flight.
“Um, I’m not so good at flying,” I said. “I’ve never been in a small plane.”
“Don’t worry,” said Chris. “I’ll make it as smooth as driving.”
I was not comforted in the least.
Chris parked adjacent to the terminal that consisted of a single-story cinderblock building, about thirty feet long. He led me through the small building and nodded to an older man seated at a card table with a newspaper.
“All gassed up and ready to go, Mr. Bettiker,” he said to Chris.
“Thanks, Bob,” said Chris.
“Where are you headed this evening?” Bob asked.
“We’re going to dinner,” I volunteered, anxious to gauge the reaction of another human being.
“Oh, out to Latrobe,” said the man, as though this happened all the time.
“Yeah,” said Chris.
“Little windy out to the west,” said the man, before he added, looking at me: “but nothing Mr. Bettiker can’t handle.”
Latrobe, I knew, was near Pittsburgh, several hundred miles away.
We passed through a door and stepped onto the tarmac. Six or seven small planes were present. I followed Chris as he strode purposefully to the nearest one. I was still trying to comprehend what was happening.
“You sure get a lot of respect here,” I said, thinking of Bob calling him “Mr. Bettiker.”
“Yes,” Chris said, “my plane’s the best they’ve ever seen here.”
He went on to explain with enthusiasm some of the plane’s characteristics. I comprehended the parts about speed and altitude but once he moved on to lift and thrust I only recognized he was speaking English; the content was totally Greek to me.
Chris helped to install me in the passenger-side seat in a tiny cabin. I had a little steering wheel of my own like in a child’s toy car, but I definitely had no more desire to operate it than to use the flotation device that served as my seat.
Among my dissonant collection of thoughts were that I did not appreciate having this “experience” foisted upon me as a surprise. But I also realized if it were not a surprise I would surely have begged off, and then missed what I correctly recognized as a likely life-long memory.
An instrument panel spread before us with gauges and knobs worthy of a spaceship, I imagined. “I hope you aren’t expecting any help,” I said.
“No problem,” said Chris. “The route via Johnstown and Altoona is pretty dark, but I’ve handled it plenty of times. You can just sit back and relax.”
“Haha.” I veritably tittered. “I’ll be as relaxed as a goalie facing a penalty kick at the World Cup.”
“You’re funny,” said Chris.
Of course, I did not think I was being funny at all. In my mind, I recall wondering: “How high can human blood pressure go?”

Chris pressed several buttons and flipped several switches while I squeezed my tiny armrests. A propeller sprung to life in front of us, and Chris steered the plane slowly towards the lone runway. For a moment, I was comforted with the thought that he piloted the plane more cautiously than his car. But then he thrust a shifter forward and we lurched ahead with a roar. Before I fully comprehended we were aloft, I saw treetops, houses and twinkling lights receding like props in a toy train set.
“Wow,” I said, shouting to be heard. “This is amazing!”
“Glad you like it,” shouted Chris, pleased. “Hold tight!”
With a renewed maniacal glint in his eye, he shifted his steering column from side to side causing the plane to shutter.
“That’s okay, Chris. You can just, kind of, like, go straight,” I said, alarmed.
“Oh, you’re no fun,” he said, but he mercifully straightened us out.
“So,” I asked, relieved, “do you do this often?”
I was hoping the posing of inane questions would take my mind off of what I feared was a precarious hold on life.
“I go home most weekends,” said Chris. “But you’re the first friend I’ve brought.”
This information shocked me since I’d assumed Chris had friends closer than I. In fact, I’d never thought of us as “friends” before that day, or even thought of Chris at all when outside his presence. It occurred to me all at once I’d never seen Chris on campus except at the soccer field and once or twice at a classroom building. In what dorm did he live? At what table did he eat at the College’s single cafeteria? As if reading my mind, Chris shouted:
“I get pizza most nights, or I just boil something in my kitchen.”
“You have a kitchen?” I asked, not having known anyone but seniors who lived off-campus.
“Yep,” he said. “I don’t like dorms, and I don’t like cafeteria food, so I rented an apartment.”
I wondered how this apparent extravagance – car, plane, apartment, squared with Chris’s laundry-related duties at the locker room. Perhaps, I supposed, he is not “work/study.” But why would anyone voluntarily handle smelly feet and sweaty towels?
We’re at cruising altitude,” said Chris, after a moment. He pointed to a dial indicating 6,000 feet. At that moment, excruciating pain afflicted my right eye. It was like my eyeball was being squeezed in a vice.
“My eye!” I shouted in anguish.
“Oh, that’s just ‘cause of the pressure. Most people are okay up to 8,000 feet,” said Chris, apparently unconcerned.
“It feels like it’s breaking,” I said, trying not to sound pathetic but also hoping to convey that corrective action needed to be taken, if any were possible. I was sure I was being blinded.
“Hang in there,” he said. “Your sinuses will most likely adjust.”
After several additional minutes of agony the grip on my eyeball relaxed. It continued to grab intermittently, to a lesser extent, for the remainder of our fifty-minute journey. When we landed at Latrobe, an airport only slightly more elaborate than Carlisle’s, I craved escape from the plane forever. Of course, I was painfully aware we would be flying back several hours later. I tried to forget, at least for the duration of dinner.
Perhaps taking pity on me because of my eye, Chris landed and parked without any further hijinks. We entered the terminal and were greeted first by Chris’s handsome, silver-haired father, who shook my hand and hugged me like a dear friend. His mother, dressed in a full-length fur coat, looked like Sophia Loren.
“We’re so glad to meet Chris’s best friend,” she said.
“Yes, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” added Mr. Bettiker “Chris has told us so much about you.”
I glanced at Chris, who averted his eyes.
“We’ve been telling him to bring his friends to dinner,” he continued, “but he says there’s too many to choose from. So you must be really special.”
Mr. Bettiker drove us in a Bentley to the local country club that was festooned as a virtual shrine to Latrobe’s most famous citizen, Arnold Palmer.
“Do you golf?” he asked me when we were seated.
“Not really,” I said, as true then as now. “I play soccer. That’s how I met Chris.”
“Chris plays soccer?” asked his mother.
“No, he works…”
Chris interrupted me: “I met Stuart in economics class. Um, what are the specials tonight?” he asked, turning the conversation to food.
I realized his parents did not know about his job. Perhaps he was ashamed for some reason.
Mr. and Mrs. Bettiker treated me like a visiting dignitary. I recall dinner was delicious. During the course of it, I learned Mr. Bettiker owned a steel company in Pittsburgh, and several other businesses. Besides the plane, they had homes in Florida and at the Jersey Shore and had multiple boats in both places.
“You’ll have to come to the beach with us next summer,” said Mrs. Bettiker at one point.
After dinner, we drove back to the airport with a short stop at the Bettiker’s home. It was a mansion. Mr. Bettiker proudly showed me one particular room, a wood-paneled library, which contained more equestrian trophies than books.
“Chris’s sister is a candidate for the Olympic team,” he explained. “We tried to interest Chris in riding, too, but he prefers faster transport.”
“I’ll say,” I agreed.

The return flight to Carlisle was, happily, not as memorable as the first. Apparently, my sinuses had cleared. My mind was adrift with the entire evening, from Chris’s driving, to the flight, to the Bentley, to the luxurious dinner, to Chris’s lie. I didn’t even take economics. I momentarily considered asking Chris about it, but reverted to my habitual reluctance to discuss anything meaningful. Chris certainly agreed, except to volunteer, at one point, by way of explanation: “My parents don’t know much about me, and that’s how I like to keep it.”
“Just one question,” I ventured. “Since it doesn’t appear you ‘re short of money, why do you work at the trainer’s?”
“Well,” began Chris, looking stricken, “I spend a lot of time all by myself and volunteering there makes me leave the apartment and do something each day. It sort of keeps me connected.”
“Amazing,” I thought to myself, “If I’m his best friend in the world, Chris is the most isolated person I’ve ever met.” All I said to him, however, was: “That makes sense. Anyway, your parents were really nice.”
“They can be,” he said, hinting of another side, but not sharing additional information.
I was shocked by Chris’s situation. How could a person with so much material wealth appear so unhappy? My assumptions about what full-time fun it might be to have extreme wealth were not always correct. Certainly, I’d encountered characters in books and movies that were miserable or lonely despite every advantage. But I hadn’t personally met someone who embodied that contradiction so starkly as Chris.
After the soccer season ended, several weeks later, I never spoke to Chris again, though I saw him striding across campus once or twice from a distance. While I was no whale in the world of social life, I had plenty of other minnows with whom to share a meal or a ballgame or a walk to classes. In the rush of college life, I didn’t give additional thought to Chris’s situation. It was not until the following fall, when soccer resumed, and the trainer told me Chris had transferred, that I realized he was gone.
My recognition that money and happiness are not always equated was neither profound nor unique. Most people come to understand that obvious truth, on some level, and many encounter it before the age of eighteen when Chris served as my catalyst. But I do maintain my understanding was derived more dramatically than most. And certainly, it was on a higher plane. (Pun intended).

EPILOGUE

Out of curiosity, I recently searched Chris’s (real) name. An unadorned page, posted by the Florida Civil Air Patrol, described a retired commercial pilot, single, living in a fly-in, fly-out community. His time was spent, said the posting, in restoring his collection of vintage airplanes. He’d recently received an award from the Civil Air Patrol for “Volunteering his time on a daily basis.”

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Categories Coming of Age, perspective

A FRIENDLY FLIGHT TO NORTH VIETNAM

January 19, 2014 //
2

A FRIENDLY FLIGHT TO NORTH VIETNAM

A number of recent stories have been based in, or inspired by, our visits to Central America. Several readers have requested a bit of variety and suggested such tried and true locales as Canada or England or even a primitive society like South Carolina. To provide a bit of diversity, below is a report from a visit to North Vietnam, a place not always at the top of the list when people ponder the garden spots of the world. I was apprehensive traveling to a place traditionally known here for napalm and mayhem, but I was surprised in several respects. So, if you have not already traveled to southeast Asia, I aim to accomplish one of the following: whet your appetite to do so, or spare you several extremely long plane flights.

This trip came about in 2011 when my wife, Katie, was asked by the State Department to “present” at a five-day conference of International Educators in Borneo, Malaysia. (Itself a long story.) When she told me about this “opportunity” and explained the complex travel arrangements, I said, with a large dollop of facetiousness, “Why don’t you just go to Cambodia and Laos and Vietnam while you’re at it? They’re in the neighborhood.”
I am married to someone who does not recognize, or chooses to ignore, facetiousness, and is excellent at “making things happen.” Within a week, she had scheduled consulting appearances at schools in Hong Kong, Hanoi and Phnom Penh and informed me that I was coming along for a three-week odyssey in the role of “schlepper.”
Never fond of long distance travel, I launched protests on several fronts, hoping that one would stick: “What good will I do there? I can’t sit on an airplane for twenty hours. Someone needs to stay home to collect the mail and newspapers.” She looked at me as only a wife can and shot down my arguments with a response that somehow combined the endearing with the totally unfair: “If you love me, you will go.”
After the Hong Kong and Malaysian legs of the journey, we arrived in Hanoi late one evening via Vietnam Airlines. Too exhausted to register many initial impressions, I awoke the next morning to discover us installed in an elegant, marble-filled boutique hotel in the city’s French District (for a mere $66/night, I might add). Following a gourmet made-to-order breakfast of crepes, served by notably kind and attentive staff, whatever preconceived apprehensions I had of North Vietnam were melting. A taxi arrived to deliver Katie to the school where she was consulting. Alone for the day, I consulted a ten-year-old guidebook I’d borrowed from the library at home which indicated we were in the middle of a neighborhood of architectural wonders. I looked forward to a walk.
Unfortunately, exiting the hotel was like opening the gates of hell: from splendor to filth; from tranquility to clamor. Reputedly, Chinese drivers ignore traffic signals; Costa Ricans use both sides of the road; and Germany’s autobahn lacks speed limits. In my experience, only in Hanoi do they combine all these elements so terrifyingly. To pause to look up at the French-inflected architectural elements is nearly suicidal, as roaring motor-bikes race to and fro, even on the sidewalks, within inches of each other.
I retreated wide-eyed back inside the lobby.
“Is this normal?” I asked the impeccably-dressed clerk, dwarfed behind a vast, imposing counter made of mahogany atop a marble base.
“Oh, yes,” he explained, smiling. “People very busy.”
“What’s with the motor-bikes?” I asked. Brandishing my guidebook, I said: “This has pictures of people on bicycles.”
“Yes, they used to ride bicycles. Now everyone wants motor,” he said. “China makes them very cheap. I will show you how to walk.”
In his pin-striped charcoal suit, he emerged from behind his desk. I felt embarrassed to be dressed in a sweatshirt and sneakers amidst such elegance. He put his arm through mine and led me out the door again.
“Like this,” he said, wading into the street while drivers went around us like we were stones in a river. “Never stop. Never look up.
“But what if they are headed right at me?” I said.
“They usually make necessary change,” he said, unconcerned.
He walked me back and forth across the street several times until I thought I nearly had the hang of it. Still, it is not natural to step off a curb into traffic and assume the drivers will adjust. When I thanked him for his assistance and set off on my own, I wondered for a moment if I would ever see him or Katie again.
At ground level, the French quarter of Hanoi mixed more smells and sounds than I could reasonably enjoy. Besides the traffic, I was especially dismayed by old women frying dumplings over open flames in the middle of sidewalks. After thirty minutes of sneaking glances at French-inflected facades, I decided I’d had enough of the French district and took a taxi to the government section of town where there are broad avenues (good for military parades) and huge bureaucratic buildings surrounded by high walls. A particular “highlight” is Ho Chi Min’s mausoleum. At all of these buildings, it is notable that unsmiling armed guards patrol on foot and no photographs are allowed. Merely taking the camera out of my pocket caused a soldier to run over shaking his arms and head “no, no, no!” The words that came to mind were “austere” and “humorless,” in marked contrast to the pleasantness at the hotel.
The next day, Katie and I went together to see the prison where American POW’s were held, commonly referred to as “The Hanoi Hilton” and the lake in the center of town from which John McCain’s plane was retrieved. A chilly drizzle accompanied us and fit the mood of the sights. The prison was appropriately primitive and filled with low-tech exhibits. For instance, there were photographs of prisoners looking contrite and photographs of guards looking virtuous. Typed 3 x 5 cards, yellow with age, explained what we were seeing. The most interesting aspect was that the prison was in the middle of a busy neighborhood and almost indistinguishable from its surroundings. The prisoners would doubtless have heard the sounds of daily life all around them, for better or worse. A particularly touching collection of photos showed gaunt prisoners surrounding a tiny Christmas tree. It was intended to show humanity; to me, the awful prison for brave men who were shot down while bombing the country where we were guests created cognitive dissonance too great to process. We were speechless when we left.
After the prison, we thought the botanical gardens would be a relief. Instead, while they did allow for a quiet stroll, the gardens were most notable for having no flowers. Yes, it was late October, not springtime, but still, there were no mums, no colors of any sort. The only pizzazz and relief from the dour green of a dreary day were several brides being photographed. They wore white or red gowns. We shivered with empathy to see their exposed shoulders in the autumnal chill.
After a day highlighted by a prison and a flowerless garden, we looked forward to traveling to Halong Bay the next day where we’d scheduled a 36-hour boat trip. On the map, it looked close, but actually required a four-hour ride in a tourist van. At first, we crawled through rush-hour; it is ironic how aggressively capitalist the residents of Hanoi appear decades after fighting so tenaciously to protect their Communist way of life. Little old ladies fanned out amidst bumper-to-bumper traffic moving dust around with brooms.  Others hawked loaves of bread or bottles of water. At first, there was no escaping either the dust or the traffic.  Eventually, on the outskirts of Hanoi, rice paddies appeared beside the road being worked by hand or with the assistance of water buffaloes. It was striking how quickly modernity gave way to a slice-of-life that looks unchanged from centuries earlier. The vivid green of the paddies would have been pretty if there were sunshine, which apparently there is not in Hanoi between mid-October and late April.
After the city was fully left behind, the road proceeded through smaller towns and villages, where the most notable and curious elements were piles of rubble.  It appeared the area was bombed and never repaired. America did destroy much of Hanoi in the early 1970’s, but can we still be to blame?
 It was as though the government piled an allotment of bricks on each property twenty years ago and, in the interim, the piles have begun to fall over.  Very mysterious.  When I asked the driver if he knew what the bricks were for, he just shrugged. The bricks were interrupted occasionally by piles of mud or trash.  In short, it was a very discouraging landscape. To my surprise, ostentatious mansions appeared amidst the shanties and hovels that predominated. When asked, the bus driver shook his head and said: “politicians.”
 In any event, when we finally arrived at Halong Bay, we were somewhat pessimistic about our boat trip.  After all, when the van driver pointed to a beaten-up pier and said “That is where you board your junk” it was not a phrase that inspired confidence. Our concern was further stoked when we overheard the Australian tourist in front of us say to his companions: “Did you hear about the junk that sank last month? Eight blokes were killed.”
   Considering the foregoing, the reader will be nearly as relieved as we were that Halong Bay turned out to be a wonder of the world! Google it to see an inkling of what we saw.  The scenery was out-of-this-world fantastic and memorable.
 A cynic might suggest that some entrepreneur will promote rock-climbing expeditions in a few years and ruin it but, so far, Nature’s original is still pristine. 1,969 separate limestone islands stand like sentinels in the mist. Again, sunshine might have made them even more visible but the mist/gloom enhanced the eerie quality.  Waking up early in our tiny cabin on the second day, we gazed out the port-hole as dawn slowly lit the mini-mountains through which we were sailing. Spectral is the word that came to mind.
Our “junk,” though not to be mistaken for the QE II, was immaculate and the crew strikingly friendly in a subservient sort of way; I will expect to be called “sir” by everyone from this time forth.  They fed us three ample meals each day though the source-animal was sometimes questionable. In fact, as a result of seeing some of the animals available as street food in Southeast Asia, I now focus on fish as a larger percent of my diet than that of most residents of Tahiti.
   We returned in the afternoon to our Hanoi hotel and went out for one final dinner before packing for Cambodia.  The next morning, when our plane topped the clouds, it occurred to us we had not seen blue sky and un-hazy sunshine since North Carolina two weeks earlier.  This lack was cured during our stopover in Laos, of all places. After all, what would be a trip without an hour in Vientienne? Anyway, the air was hot and bright, and the airport was colorful and flowery. Even Stalin’s statue appeared to have a smile.  As I learned at Halong Bay, traveling holds many surprises.

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Categories Uncategorized

WALK-THROUGH SURPRISE

January 4, 2014 //
7

WALK-THROUGH SURPRISE

“Jeff Sherman’s calling from the walk-through,” said my assistant, transferring the call into my office.
“Great,” I said, rolling my eyes, “that’s just what I needed this morning.”
During my career as a real estate closing attorney, receiving calls from clients at their final inspections was among my least favorite tasks. No one ever called to say: “The house is beautiful; the seller did a wonderful job cleaning up.” Rather, I expected a recitation of some or all of the following common complaints:
1. The seller is not finished moving;
2. There’s a carpet/floor/wall stain we never saw before;
3. The seller took the washer/dryer/chandelier that was supposed to be included;
4. The leaves have not been cleared;
5. The toilet doesn’t flush/sink doesn’t drain.
I could continue the list of humdrum defects for several pages but no one would keep reading. The meaning to me of each such item was that I would spend time and bile arguing with the seller’s lawyer at the closing for no additional pay. Sometimes, the problems were resolved relatively amicably and sometimes not. In either case, I had to rouse a degree of righteous indignation on behalf of my clients, regardless of my personal feelings.
Jeff Sherman and his wife, Wendy, were first-time buyers of a modest home in Waldwick, NJ. They were moving to the suburbs from an apartment in the Bronx and presented themselves enigmatically. When I met with them six weeks earlier to review the contract, they made no effort to ingratiate themselves. They offered identical limp handshakes.
“This meeting isn’t adding to our fee, is it?” was Jeff’s first question.
“We only owe seven-fifty, right?” added Wendy. “There won’t be add-ons, will there?”
“Just $750 to me,” I said, feeling like I was holding back a tsunami of suspicion. “I’ll also use your funds to pay the surveyor, title company, county clerk, etc. It’s all detailed in writing.”
I handed each of them a letter I’d prepared for all my clients explaining the procedures and likely costs of a closing.
Jeff, a paunchy red-head of medium height, peered at the paper through thick glasses. Like many a husband in this circumstance, he felt compelled to ask several questions. I answered as cheerily as possible, hoping to put the young couple at ease, but was unable to elicit a smile from the Sherman’s. Nonetheless, after our meeting, the transaction proceeded routinely. Wendy, a freckled-faced blonde, called with occasional inquiries. They obtained their mortgage commitment, and the closing was scheduled without notable hiccups. Thus, although the Sherman’s were not among my favorite clients, neither were they exceptionally difficult. They simply were no “fun,” and I could live with that. From representing several hundred clients a year, if nothing else, I knew “everyone is different.”
“Good morning, Jeff,” I said into the receiver, with as much hearty good cheer as I could muster. I had a pen and notebook ready to jot down what I assumed would be details of defects. First-time home-buyers were particularly picky, in my experience. The slightest thing could make them angry. I was only half-heartedly listening while standing and gazing out my second floor office window.
Without any pleasantries, Jeff said: “There’s a body in the bathtub.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, coming abruptly to full attention.
“The seller, Mr. Brown. He stabbed himself in the main bathtub. I think he’s dead,” said Jeff.
My brain reacted like the finale of a fireworks display. “Is he joking?” I wondered for an instant. “No way, not Jeff Sherman,” I proceeded to: “This is a disaster. Who is there with Jeff? The police? The seller’s wife? Will the Sherman’s cancel the deal? Is this the basis for cancellation? Who can I ask? They need a lawyer. Wait a minute, I’m their lawyer.”
All I could think to say aloud, however, was: “Uhhhhhhhh.”
Thankfully, Jeff filled in several of the blanks: “We arrived ten minutes ago and were walking through the house with Mrs. Brown, but when we got to the main bathroom, she gasped and shut the shower curtain. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me not to look.”
“So, like, this just happened?” I asked.
“Yeah, she said he didn’t want to sell the house,” said Jeff.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “So he killed himself during your walk-through?”
“Appears that way,” said Jeff. “I think the police and an ambulance are on the way.”
“Um, is Mrs. Brown able to function?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Jeff. “She seems sort of okay about it, actually.”
I was trying to process this situation. For sure, I imagined, Jeff and Wendy would want their money back, or a credit for the trauma, or a new bathroom, at a minimum. I considered my schedule and sourly concluded my entire day would be dominated by this one situation. Perhaps my entire week. Also, I thought, even though Mrs. Brown may be calm right now, she’s going to be overcome by shock at some point. Perhaps, she won’t be willing or able to complete the transaction. She’ll be too bereft to function.
“What do you want to do?” I ventured, tentatively. I cringed from the anticipated response.
“We want to close today,” said Jeff.
“You do?” I said, feeling a mixture of bewilderment and relief. “What about the body? What about Mrs. Brown?”
“She said she’d have the body taken away as soon as the police check it out,” said Jeff, sounding as calm as though a lamp or a couch had to be removed.
“And that’s okay with you?” I asked.
“Wendy just wants to make sure there are no stains,” said Jeff.
“That’s certainly reasonable,” I heard myself say, then shook my head in amazement.
Two hours later, Jeff and Wendy arrived at my office to close, as scheduled. In the meantime, the police had arrived at the house, concluded Mr. Brown had, indeed, stabbed himself in the chest with a hunting knife, and committed suicide. The body had been removed by the coroner and the bathroom scrubbed.
“Is everything else okay at the house?” I asked Jeff.
“Yeah,” he shrugged, as though he experienced something like this every day.
“And Mrs. Brown is coming to sign her paperwork?” I asked.
“She said she’d follow in about ten minutes,” said Wendy. “She just had to gather a couple of things.”
“You know, nothing like this has ever happened before,” I said.
“Pretty unusual, I guess,” said Jeff. He turned his attention to the pile of mortgage-related papers in front of us on the conference table and indicated they were ready to sign.
While we were reviewing documents the new widow arrived. She was a thin, athletic-looking woman of about forty. She wore a sweatshirt over jeans, standard moving attire, and acted as though she were under no stress at all.
“Sorry I didn’t dress up,” she said. “It’s been a busy morning, and I have a long ride this afternoon.”
“I’m so sorry about your loss,” I said.
“Thanks,” she said. “It’s for the best.”
I’m not sure what I expected Mrs. Brown to say, but “it’s for the best” was not among the choices. I nodded as though I fully understood what she was thinking, but I was actually completely flummoxed.
She continued: “I told my husband last night I would not live with him anymore, and I wanted a divorce. I’m moving back near my family in Canada. He obviously didn’t take it too well,” she added.
We sat in awkward silence for a moment, taking in the truth of her last comment. She broke into a smile, and added: “But this way, I’ll save a ton of time, not to mention the legal fees and stuff.”
There was nothing to do but nod again in agreement. Before this transaction, I considered myself nearly infallible at predicting human behavior and reactions in the realm of real estate closings. Wow, was I ever wrong!

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Categories Ignorance, stereotyping

MY PERSONAL DEBT CEILING

December 26, 2013 //
4

Several recent stories have featured me as the smug hero or the sympathetic victim. So, in the interest of balance, here is one where I am the dupe! Enjoy.

MY PERSONAL DEBT CEILING

Hamlet’s advisor, Polonius, said: “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.” Polonius was no dummy.
In 1986, a man named Billy Feehan invited me into his weekly tennis foursome. He was an amiable raconteur in the mold of an old-time politician. He slapped backs and shook hands like he was pumping water. He bear-hugged his doubles partners after winning shots and laughed at jokes, particularly his own, with a hearty laugh. His hair was suspiciously dark and thick for a man approaching fifty, but he never admitted to extracurricular efforts in that regard and it would have been awkward to ask. After all, Billy owned the beautiful court where we played; to be a regular in his Saturday morning doubles was a privilege in our northern Jersey community where wait-times at public courts and tennis clubs were substantial and unpredictable.
Billy was proud of his tennis ability. He propelled his barrel-chested torso with surprising agility over chicken-thin legs. After he made a winning shot, he often declared: “Whoa, bet you didn’t think I could get to that! No, you didn’t. I’m da best!”

Though I only knew Billy in the context of suburbia, I had no reason to doubt his youthful tales of stickball dominance in some corner of “da Bronx.” Trash-talk, for Billy, was an integral part of the game.
Ownership of a backyard tennis court might create a misimpression about Billy’s social status. Though surrounded by wealthy communities, his town of Hawthorne was largely working class. The court took up the entire yard. In fact, its perimeter fencing formed the boundary lines. By what means the local zoning board approved such a configuration the local planning board, I couldn’t imagine. Perhaps, Hawthorne had simply never conceived of the possibility of a backyard tennis court, so had no regulations.
In any event, Billy ran an insurance agency he inherited from his father, and professed to do well. Besides Billy and me, our group consisted of Ray and Gary. The four of us didn’t interact outside of Saturday mornings. Typical of such all-male groupings (this may be hard for women to believe) we never discussed anything of substance and knew almost nothing of each other’s personal lives. Though Ray and Gary knew of my real estate law practice, I didn’t even know their last names. Post-tennis discussions over bagels and orange juice, which we took turns providing, proceeded as follows:
“Hey, I really kicked butt today,” said Billy.
“You played tough,” I said.
“I’d whip you guys for another set but I gotta check out some land,” said Billy. “Got some investing to do.”
“Sounds good,” said Gary. “Where is it?”
“Oh, up in Westchester, Rockland, y’know,” said Billy.
“Great,” I said, skeptical in the face of such vagueness.
“I might do some developing,” Billy continued. “Any of you interested in a big payday?”
“I’ll pass,” said Ray.
“I’m happy enough with my little paydays,” I said.
Billy turned to Gary. “You?”
“No, Billy, I don’t have cash,” said Gary.
“What a bunch a’ chickens,” said Billy.
And so on. Our little group was cautious by the standards of the mid 1980’s go-go real estate market, and we were especially cautious by Billy’s standards, apparently.
On occasion, Billy referred clients to me for legal representation in the purchase or sale of a home. I appreciated his efforts and I reciprocated, when appropriate, with insurance referrals. I viewed such a business relationship as normal. I was fortunate to have similar arrangements with other local realtors, bankers, neighbors and existing clients. I also received referrals from other insurance agents.
One day, Billy called to ask if I would have lunch with him. This surprised me since I’d never seen Billy off the tennis court. I’d never seen him in street clothes.
“I’ll take you to my club,” he said.
“I didn’t know you belonged to a club,” I said.
“Yeah,” he laughed, “Gino’s Pizzeria.”
“Listen,” said Billy, when I slipped into the booth across from him a couple days later, with my two slices. “I’ve got a proposition for you…”
In my experience, such a sentence rarely portended good things. I girded myself. Billy continued: “I’m trying to build up my insurance book, and I could really use your help. For every home buyer you refer to me, I’ll give you a friendly envelope, if you know what I mean.”
“Billy,” I said, having anticipated something along these lines: “That’s not necessary. I refer people without strings, without expecting a kickback, not to mention it would be illegal.”
“Okay,” he said. “I understand where you’re coming from, you being a lawyer and all. I just figured everyone could use a little extra cash. I know I could.”
We finished lunch quickly, me feeling as though I’d touched something dirty and Billy devoid of his usual swagger. Our tennis games, however, proceeded as though nothing had happened. Several months later, I had nearly forgotten our awkward lunch when Billy announced, during a water break: “I’m adding mortgage brokering to my business. If any of you guys (he looked straight at me) know someone who needs a mortgage, I sure could use the help.”
“Wow,” said Ray, “you’ve always been focused on insurance.”
“Well,” said Billy, “insurance isn’t what it used to be. My commissions are getting squeezed.”
“That’s surprising,” said Gary, “since real estate is booming and all.” Addressing me, he added: “You must be doing great.”
“Yes, it’s been a good run,” I said, also wondering if there was more to Billy’s story. I renewed my determination to avoid entanglements with him beyond the ordinary.
Soon thereafter, Billy referred a young woman to me. She was buying a condominium in Hawthorne, and Billy said he was arranging her mortgage. Her contract appeared straightforward from my perspective, and she impressed me as a nice person, calmer than the average first-time homebuyer. Whatever concerns I may have felt initially, due to her connection to Billy, were assuaged as the transaction proceeded routinely. The day before closing, however, Billy called sounding frantic:
“There’s a problem with Maria’s deal,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Title is clean, her mortgage commitment looks good.”
“I may have made a little mistake with her paperwork,” said Billy.
“Hunh?” I said, gripping the receiver tighter, tension filling my gut.
“Um, ah,” sputtered Billy. “She had to show some liquid assets to close, but, ah, she doesn’t really have any.”
“How did she get the mortgage commitment?” I asked.
“Well, I ah, sort of, ah created some documentation for her,” said Billy. “I figured she could get the cash from a buddy of mine in Paterson for a second mortgage, but he says he’s tapped out.”
“Are you saying you forged her application?” I asked.
“Hey, ‘forged’ is a pretty harsh word,” said Billy. “I ‘improved’ it.”
I breathed deeply and remained silent for a moment while the ramifications welled up in my mind. I recited them off aloud:
“Maria has already waived the protection of the mortgage contingency since she received a clean commitment. She stands to lose her deposit of $20,000 if she doesn’t close. The seller won’t be able to move and he could lose his deposit on the house he’s planning to buy. His sellers are screwed, too. This is like disaster dominoes. Maria could be on the hook for it all, too, and she’s going to sue you, Billy, for sure.”
“And everybody else in this deal,” said Billy, pointedly.
I felt anger pounding in my temples, anger on behalf of Maria, and anger on behalf of myself. I hated crises, of course, particularly when I’d played no role in their creation. This situation was like a comet falling on my head from clear, blue skies.
“Only you can save the situation,” said Billy.
“How’s that?” I asked curtly.
“If you provide $20,000 for the closing, I’ll get you paid back in a week. I’ll rustle up the dough,” said Billy.
“Are you crazy?” I asked, my heart pounding to match my head. Besides the outrage of his assumption that I would simply write a check for $20,000, I was certain lending money to a client was frowned upon by the rules of ethics.

“Billy, if it’s that simple, why don’t you write the check?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m not liquid,” he said. “My money’s tied up in land.”
“What does Maria say about this? Can her parents help?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “They don’t have money. I told her I’d take care of arranging the down payment. She doesn’t even know about this. She’s just a babe in the woods.”
“That apparently makes two of us,” I said.
“Listen,” Billy said. “It’s simple. You provide the $20,000, Maria gets her condo tomorrow, no one loses anything, and no one gets sued. I’ll pay you back in a week. I’ll even get you an extra thousand bucks, cash. That’s half of my commission.”
“I don’t want your commission,” I said, bitterly. I felt revolted, like I’d tasted something rancid. In a way, I had.
I tossed and turned that night. I didn’t share the dilemma with anyone, at work or at home. Finally, when I weighed the risks and benefits, I decided I’d rather risk the money and decent sleep for one week than consign Maria and her innocent seller to the meat grinder of our legal system. I’d be stuck in it with them, too, with Billy, and it could take years to resolve. I’d have to pay $5,000 for my insurance deductible, at a minimum, and have higher rates moving forward. Anyone familiar with shotgun litigation, where everyone within range gets sprayed, will understand my decision to risk $20,000 was not without some rational basis.
The closing took place as scheduled. Maria appeared delighted and had no idea of the source of her down payment. I gave her a bouquet of flowers as a house gift, as I did to all home buyers. Billy arrived as we were finishing the first mortgage paperwork. I barely acknowledged him, but he made a big splash presenting Maria with a bottle of champagne. He winked at me when we made eye contact.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “It’s all set. One week, and you’ll be fine.”

He had Maria sign a note for her “second mortgage.”
I tried to put the matter out of my mind. Fortunately, I was busy with other closings and Saturday tennis was rained out. When the seven days were up, I drove to my office with dread. I hadn’t heard from Billy all week and wondered if he would show up; I tried not to consider what to do if he didn’t. To my relief, Billy stood on the landing at the top of the steps outside my office door with a broad smile and an envelope.
“What did I tell you?” he asked.
I didn’t respond, but took the envelope.
“Are we still friends?” he asked.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, pointedly failing to accept his handshake.
Billy turned and went down the stairs. Figuratively speaking, I’d dodged a bullet. It was like finding your car’s parking meter expired but you hadn’t gotten a ticket – except the magnitude was a thousand times greater. A reprieve! I felt elated. At my desk, in private, I opened the envelope. Instead of the hundred dollar bills I was expecting, there were tens and twenties. They totaled only $5,000. I felt like my head might explode.
I called Billy’s number and left a message demanding full payment and quitting the tennis group. Sparing the reader tedious details, I called and beeped (an annoying technology of the 80’s and 90’s) Billy’s number several times a day for the next several months, leaving messages on his answering machine ranging in tone from sarcastic to angry to pleading, depending on my mood. Rarely did I receive a response, but he eventually delivered two more $5,000 installments via a messenger, who ran into my office without notice and handed me envelopes.
Billy soon disappeared altogether. I left a message or two on his phone each week, out of habit and passive-aggression, but despaired of receiving full payment. As a relatively prominent local real estate attorney, my hands were tied. It was too embarrassing to report Billy to the police, let alone chase him in court. If I did, I would have to address my own stupidity, the ethical problems involved in my awareness of his forgery, and my lending of money to an unknowing client.
Nearly a year after the closing, by which time Billy’s line was dead, I happened to notice a newspaper headline: “Hawthorne Insurance Agent Charged With Fraud.” The article indicated that Billy had been arrested. Allegedly, he had accepted payments from customers and forged their coverage over a period of years, without forwarding payment to actual insurers. Six months later, I read of Billy’s conviction and sentence to several years in prison. I also read, with satisfaction, that he’d lost all his assets in the real estate bust precipitated by the 1987 stock market crash.
Considering the magnitude of his criminality, I considered myself lucky to have lost only $5,000. I hadn’t exactly been a “lender,” in the classic sense of the word, but the caution counseled by Polonius still made sense. I applied it with increased diligence for the rest of my career.

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Categories tennis
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