The Rainmaker (4 page)

“Is there an exclusion for bone marrow transplants?”

“Hell no. Our doctor even looked at the policy and said Great Benefit ought to pay because bone mare transplants are just routine treatment now.”

Booker’s client wipes his face with both hands, stands and excuses himself. He thanks Booker and Booker thanks him. The old man takes a chair near a heated contest of Chinese checkers. Miss Birdie finally frees N. Elizabeth Erickson of Bosco and his problems. Smoot paces behind us.

The next letter is also from Great Benefit, and at first looks like all the rest. It is quick, nasty and to the point. It says: “Dear Mrs. Black: On seven prior occasions this company has denied your claim in writing. We now deny it for the eighth and final time. You must be stupid, stupid, stupid!” It was signed by the Senior Claims Supervisor, and I rub the engraved logo at the top in disbelief. Last fall I took a course called Insurance Law, and I remember being shocked at the egregious behavior of certain companies in bad-faith cases. Our instructor had been a visiting Communist who hated insurance companies, hated all corporations in fact, and had relished the study of wrongful denials of legitimate claims by insurers. It was his belief that tens of thousands of bad-faith cases exist in this country and are never brought to justice. He’d written books about bad-faith litigation, and even had statistics to prove his point that many people simply accept the denial of their claims without serious inquiry.

I read the letter again while touching the fancy Great Benefit Life logo across the top.

“And you never missed a premium?” I ask Dot.

“No sir. Not a single one.”

“I’ll need to see Donny’s medical records.”

“I’ve got most of them at home. He ain’t seen a doctor much lately. We just can’t afford it.”

“Do you know the exact date he was diagnosed with leukemia?”

“No, but it was in August of last year. He was in the hospital for the first round of chemo. Then these crooks informed us they wouldn’t cover any more treatment, so the hospital shut us out. Said they couldn’t afford to give us a transplant. Just cost too damned much. I can’t blame them, really.”

Buddy is inspecting Booker’s next client, a frail little woman who also has a pile of paperwork. Dot fumbles with her pack of Salems and finally sticks another one in her mouth.

If Donny’s illness is in fact leukemia, and he’s had it for only eight months, then there’s no way it could be excluded as a preexisting condition. If there’s no exemption or exclusion for leukemia, Great Benefit must pay. Right? This makes sense to me, seems awfully clear in my mind, and since the law is rarely clear and seldom makes sense, I know there must be something fatal awaiting me deep in the depths of Dot’s pile of rejections.

“I don’t really understand this,” I say, still staring at the Stupid Letter.

Dot blasts a dense cloud of blue fog at her husband, and the smoke boils around his head. I think his eyes are dry, but I’m not certain. She smacks her sticky lips and says, “It’s simple, Rudy. They’re a bunch of crooks. They think we’re just simple, ignorant trash with no money to fight ’em. I worked in a blue jean factory for thirty years, joined the union, you know, and we fought the company every day. Same thing here. Big corporation running roughshod over little people.”

In addition to hating lawyers, my father also frequently spewed forth venom on the subject of labor unions. Naturally, I matured into a fervent defender of the working masses. “This letter is incredible,” I say to her.

“Which one?”

“The one from Mr. Krokit, in which he says you’re stupid, stupid, stupid.”

“That son of a bitch. I wish he’d bring his ass down here and call me stupid to my face. Yankee bastard.”

Buddy waves at the smoke in his face and grunts something. I glance at him in hopes that he may try to speak, but he lets it pass. For the first time I notice the left side of his head is a tad flatter than the right, and the thought of him tiptoeing bare-assed through the airport again flashes before my eyes. I fold the Stupid Letter and place it on top of the pile.

“It will take a few hours to review all this,” I say.

“Well, you need to hurry. Donny Ray ain’t got long. He weighs a hundred and ten pounds now, down from a hundred and sixty. He’s so sick some days he can barely walk. I wish you could see him.”

I have no desire to see Donny Ray. “Yeah, maybe later.” I’ll review the policy and the letters, and Donny’s medicals, then I’ll consult with Smoot and write a nice two-page letter to the Blacks in which I’ll explain with great wisdom that they should have the case reviewed by a real lawyer, and not just any real lawyer, but one who specializes in suing insurance companies for bad faith. And I’ll throw in a few names of such lawyers, along with their phone numbers, then I’ll be finished with this worthless course, and finished with Smoot and his passion for Geezer Law.

Graduation is thirty-eight days away.

“I’ll need to keep all this,” I explain to Dot as I organize
her mess and gather her rubber bands. “I’ll be back here in two weeks with an advisement-letter.”

“Why does it take two weeks?”

“Well, I, uh, I’ll have to do some research, you know, consult with my professors, look up some stuff. Can you send me Donny’s medical records?”

“Sure. But I wish you’d hurry.”

“I’ll do my best, Dot.”

“Do you think we’ve got a case?”

Though a mere student of the law, I’ve already learned a great deal of double-talk. “Can’t say at this point. Looks promising, though. But it’ll take further review and careful research. It’s possible.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Well, uh, it means I think you’ve got a good claim, but I’ll need to review all this stuff before I know for sure.”

“What kind of lawyer are you?”

“I’m a law student.”

This seems to puzzle her. She curls her lips tightly around the white filter and glares at me. Buddy grunts for the second time. Smoot, thankfully, appears from behind, and asks, “How’s it going here?”

Dot glares first at his bow tie, then at his wild hair.

“Just fine,” I say. “We’re finishing up.”

“Very well,” he says, as if time is up and more clients must be tended to. He eases away.

“I’ll see you folks in a couple of weeks,” I say warmly with a fake smile.

Dot stubs her cigarette in an ashtray, and leans closer again. Her lip is suddenly quivering and her eyes are wet. She gently touches my wrist and looks helplessly at me. “Please hurry, Rudy. We need help. My boy is dying.”

We stare at each other forever, and I finally nod and mumble something. These poor people have just entrusted the life of their son to me, a third-year law student
at Memphis State. They honestly believe I can take this pile of rubble they’ve shoved in front of me, pick up the phone, make a few calls, write a few letters, huff and puff, threaten this and that and, Presto!, Great Benefit will fall to its knees and throw money at Donny Ray. And they expect this to happen quickly.

They stand and awkwardly retreat from my table. I am almost certain that somewhere in the policy is a perfect little exclusion, barely readable and certainly indecipherable, but nonetheless placed there by skilled legal craftsmen who’ve been collecting fat retainers and delightfully breeding small print for decades.

With Buddy in tow, Dot zigzags through folding chairs and serious Rook players and stops at the coffeepot, where she fills a paper cup with decaf and lights another cigarette. They huddle there in the rear of the room, sipping coffee and watching me from sixty feet away. I flip through the policy, thirty pages of scarcely readable fine print, and take notes. I try to ignore them.

The crowd has thinned and people are slowly leaving. I’m tired of being a lawyer, had enough for one day, and I hope I get no more customers. My ignorance of the law is shocking, and I shudder to think that in a few short months I will be standing in courtrooms around this city arguing with other lawyers before judges and juries. I’m not ready to be turned loose upon society with the power to sue.

Law school is nothing but three years of wasted stress. We spend countless hours digging for information we’ll never need. We are bombarded with lectures that are instantly forgotten. We memorize cases and statutes which will be reversed and amended tomorrow. If I’d spent fifty hours a week for the past three years training under a good lawyer, then I would be a good lawyer. Instead, I’m
a nervous third-year student afraid of the simplest of legal problems and terrified of my impending bar exam.

There is movement before me, and I glance up in time to see a chubby old fella with a massive hearing aid shuffling in my direction.

Two

A
N HOUR LATER, THE LANGUID BATTLES over Chinese checkers and gin rummy peter out, and the last of the geezers leaves the building. A janitor waits near the door as Smoot gathers us around him for a postgame summary. We take turns briefly summarizing our new clients’ various problems. We’re tired and anxious to leave this place.

Smoot offers a few suggestions, nothing creative or original, and dismisses us with the promise that we will discuss these real legal problems of the elderly in class next week. I can’t wait.

Booker and I leave in his car, an aged Pontiac too large to be stylish but in much better shape than my crumbling Toyota. Booker has two small children and a wife who teaches school part-time, so he’s hovering somewhere just above the poverty line. He studies hard and makes good grades, and because of this he caught the attention of an affluent black firm downtown, a pretty classy outfit known for its expertise in civil rights litigation. His starting salary
is forty thousand a year, which is six more than Brodnax and Speer offered me.

“I hate law school,” I say as we leave the parking lot of the Cypress Gardens Senior Citizens Building.

“You’re normal,” Booker replies. Booker does not hate anything or anybody, and even at times claims to be challenged by the study of law.

“Why do we want to be lawyers?”

“Serve the public, fight injustice, change society, you know, the usual. Don’t you listen to Professor Smoot?”

“Let’s go get a beer.”

“It’s not yet three o’clock, Rudy.” Booker drinks little, and I drink even less because it’s an expensive habit and right now I must save to buy food.

“Just kidding,” I say. He drives in the general direction of the law school. Today is Thursday, which means tomorrow I will be burdened with Sports Law and the Napoleonic Code, two courses equally as worthless as Geezer Law and requiring even less work. But there is a bar exam looming, and when I think about it my hands tremble slightly. If I flunk the bar exam, those nice but stiff and unsmiling fellas at Brodnax and Speer will most certainly ask me to leave, which means I’ll work for about a month then hit the streets. Flunking the bar exam is unthinkable—it would lead me to unemployment, bankruptcy, disgrace, starvation. So why do I think about it every hour of every day? “Just take me the library,” I say. “I think I’ll work on these cases, then hit the bar review.”

“Good idea.”

“I hate the library.”

“Everyone hates the library, Rudy. It’s designed to be hated. Its primary purpose is to be hated by law students. You’re just normal.”

“Thanks.”

“That first old lady, Miss Birdie, she got money?”

“How’d you know?”

“I thought I overheard something.”

“Yeah. She’s loaded. She needs a new will. She’s neglected by her children and grandchildren, so, of course, she wants to cut them out.”

“How much?”

“Twenty million or so.”

Booker glances at me with a great deal of suspicion.

“That’s what she says,” I add.

“So who gets the money?”

“A sexy TV preacher with his own Learjet.”

“No.”

“I swear.”

Booker chews on this for two blocks of heavy traffic. “Look, Rudy, no offense, you’re a great guy and all, good student, bright, but do you feel comfortable drafting a will for an estate worth that much money?”

“No. Do you?”

“Of course not. So what’ll you do?”

“Maybe she’ll die in her sleep.”

“I don’t think so. She’s too feisty. She’ll outlive us.”

“I’ll dump it on Smoot. Maybe get one of the tax professors to help me. Or maybe I’ll just tell Miss Birdie that I can’t help her, that she needs to pay a high-powered tax lawyer five grand to draft it. I really don’t care. I’ve got my own problems.”

“Texaco?”

“Yeah. They’re coming after me. My landlord too.”

“I wish I could help,” Booker says, and I know he means it. If he could spare the money, he’d gladly loan it to me.

“I’ll survive until July 1. Then I’ll be a big-shot mouthpiece for Brodnax and Speer and my days of poverty will be over. How in the world, dear Booker, can I possibly spend thirty-four thousand dollars a year?”

“Sounds impossible. You’ll be rich.”

“I mean, hell, I’ve lived on tips and nickels for seven years. What will I do with all the money?”

“Buy another suit?”

“Why? I already have two.”

“Perhaps some shoes?”

“That’s it. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll buy shoes, Booker. Shoes and ties, and maybe some food that doesn’t come in a can, and perhaps a fresh pack of Jockey shorts.”

At least twice a month for three years now, Booker and his wife have invited me to dinner. Her name is Charlene, a Memphis girl, and she does wonders with food on a lean budget. They’re friends, but I’m sure they feel sorry for me. Booker grins, then looks away. He’s tired of this joking about things that are unpleasant.

He pulls into the parking lot across Central Avenue from the Memphis State Law School. “I have to run some errands,” he says.

“Sure. Thanks for the ride.”

“I’ll be back around six. Let’s study for the bar.”

“Sure. I’ll be downstairs.”

I slam the door and jog across Central.

IN A DARK and private corner in the basement of the library, behind stacks of cracked and ancient law books and hidden from view, I find my favorite study carrel sitting all alone, just waiting for me as it has for many months now. It’s officially reserved in my name. The corner is windowless and at times damp and cold, and for this reason few people venture near here. I’ve spent hours in this, my private little burrow, briefing cases and studying for exams. And for the past weeks, I’ve sat here for many aching hours wondering what happened to her and asking myself at what point I let her get away. I torment myself here. The flat desktop is surrounded on three sides by
panels, and I’ve memorized the contour of the wood grain on each small wall. I can cry without getting caught. I can even curse at a low decibel, and no one will hear.