Best Lawyer I Ever Had

[Lightning Rod]

Richard was the best lawyer I ever had. I chalk it up to him being crazy. He cared more about my interests than about his.

In the late 1960's and early '70's Richard was the hot young criminal defense lawyer in Dallas. He won case after case. Every bookie and dope dealer and petty criminal in Big D wanted him to represent them, because he was good. He worked for his clients and not for the Man. He had a bright future.

Then his success became his failure. He got a guy off of a robbery charge, put him back on the street. A couple of weeks later the guy killed four teenagers down in the Trinity River bottom. It flipped Richard out. He gave up his practice. After that he only did pro bono work for friends like me.

Richard was a classic manic-depressive. They call is bi-polar now, but I think manic-depressive is more descriptive. Richard was one of these manic-depressives that enjoyed not taking his lithium. He dug the roller-coaster ride.

When he quit his law practice, he took advantage of the considerable network of connections that he had made in the underworld and became, as he phrased it, 'an entrepreneur in the delicacies and contrabands of the underground.' In more pedestrian terms he was a bookie, a pimp and a dope dealer. He had seven phone lines coming into his house. No contraband was kept there, only cash.

One evening my friend OP and I were visiting Richard and enjoying a toddy. He was in his manic phase.

He walked over to the refrigerator and opened the freezer and pulled out a stack of bank notes. It was a stack about four inches high with a band on it. Twenties and fifties and hundreds. Probably about ten large.

He went into the bathroom and started running water in the bathtub. Then he took the band off the stack of bills and threw them into the water. He added soap.

OP said, "Richard, what are you doing?"

Richard says, "I'm laundering this money."

Anyway, I miss Richard. I wish I had him for a lawyer today. But one day he was in the valley of his roller coaster ride and put a shotgun in his mouth.

[izeveryboyin]

Simple, LRod... but intense. Very intense. You used short descriptions to your advantage, filling them with tiny, but surprising tidbits that made the end so much more ironic than I thought it would be. Great piece.

--k

[Lightning Rod]

thanks izzy,

these things bubble up from my subconscious from time to time