Balling the Jack

“Not with a customer.” She smiles, only not so shy this time, and glides into the crowd.

“Jesus, Dave. How ’bout that accent? She could tell me to go fuck myself and it would sound like a come-on.”

“I think she just did. Anyway, you don’t want to be messing with her. She’s Kennedy’s cousin. Trust me, the ring would have to go on before the shirt came off. She’s Catholic.”

I’m convinced if I picked a girl off the street Dave could tell me her name and the chances of landing her.

“What’s wrong with Catholic? We’re Catholic.”

“Nothing, if you want to get hitched. But if you don’t …” Dave shudders. “Tom, I swore off Catholic girls this morning, and this time I mean it.”

I laugh.

“I’m serious, Tom. From now on it’s the first question I ask.” Dave shakes his head, looks pensive. “You know, it’s always the same story. You knock yourself out for them, take them to a great place, and they’re a lot of fun. They love to drink, to dance, and the way they dance you can’t wait to get ’em in the sack. Everything’s perfect until you shoot the dead bolt, and then it all falls apart. The kissing’s fine, but you reach for the shirt and the wrestling match starts.” Dave takes a swig of his pint. “Even when they want it they manage to ruin it, Tom. They can never admit they’re actually going through with it, so foreplay is out. Right up until you get it in they’re telling themselves they’re just fooling around, that nothing’s really happening. Once it’s in, they warm to it, of course, and you get your ten good minutes, but then the party’s over. Next morning the beer’s worn off and you can tell straight away there won’t be any encore. She’s clammed up, grabbing her clothes, won’t hardly look at you. You leave feeling like you shot the Pope.”

Dave’s made this speech before, and every time he winds up back here at Finn’s with ten pints in him, standing in a sea of Irish girls. Something has to give, and it’s usually Dave.

The band’s done tuning up and we turn our attention to the stage. I love the moment just before a band plays the first note. Anything is possible. I’m on my toes, leaning forward.

“One last thing, Tom. Are we going to kick some Irish ass Tuesday night, or what?”

“Damn straight.”

The singer steps to the mike. “A one-two-three-four.”

The songs begin.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_cbad5866-86b3-5216-a929-ac53543d5e6e)

ANYONE contemplating law school should have to work as a paralegal and file motions at the State Supreme Court on Center Street. These guys make Kafka’s bureaucrats look like a dance troupe. They have one clerk working the counter here, who I get every time. A real giant, with so much hair on him you can’t see his arms or neck. Ask him to stamp the motion and he grunts. Ask him a question and he glares. You could swap him for a gorilla at the Bronx Zoo and it would be a week before either place knew the difference.

I’m in line here Monday morning, filing another motion for my boss, Carter McGrath. Boy, do I feel like hell. Just once I should try starting the week without a hangover. Carter is an associate at Farrell, Hawthorne, and Donaldson, the firm I work for. Or Fatigue, Heartworm, and Dysentery, as we paralegals call it, which about captures the spirit of the place. The firm’s one of the old guard. Been on the corner of Wall and Water for fifty years. Small by New York standards—six partners, thirty associates—but a real money-maker.

I don’t believe it. Five clerks working the desk and guess who gets Magilla.

“Hi, I’d like to file—”

Wham! I jump back as the stamp comes down like an anvil, barely missing my dart hand.

“Hey. Watch—”

“Next!”

He stares at me with such pure hatred I hurry out the door.

Out on the sidewalk I shake my head. I must have seen too many movies as a kid. Somewhere I got the notion this legal stuff would be a lot of fun. At seventeen, just as it was hitting me that I wasn’t going to play centerfield for the Mets, an alum with his own practice came in and talked to our senior class. He explained the legal process to us. Spoke about discovery, a little on the rules of evidence. Told us how the whole system was designed for the sole aim of arriving at the truth. It sounded beautiful.

Well, I’m twenty-three now and the jig is about up. Fun? Forget it. Serving papers, tracking down cites, summarizing depositions. In a year the only fun I’ve had at the firm was balling one of the secretaries in the conference room. That was a whopper, I’ll grant you, but it was after the Christmas party, and she’s made it clear it won’t happen again.

As I walk back to work from court, the boys in my skull start up the jackhammer again. The better the weekend, the tougher the Monday, they say. I’ll need a lot of coffee to get through this one. I stop in at a bodega for some aspirin. Back outside, I find that by squinting my eyes almost shut I can narrow my vision to a few yards in front of me, and as my feet drag me toward the office I go back in my head to the weekend.

Aisling Chara turned out to be as good as the hype. I still can’t pronounce it, but by the time they slid into a cover of “Deacon Blues” at three in the morning, I was a believer. I’m not ready to call them another Coffin Ships just yet, but I’ll be back next Friday.

From Finn’s, Dave and I hit an after-hours’ joint on Tenth Street that I couldn’t find again if I had to. The last thing I remember is Dave trying to clear my head with a shot of Absolut, sounding urgent.

“Okay, Tom, sit up. This is important. See the babe at the bar?”

I saw two babes, dressed exactly alike. The same hairstyles even, and moving in perfect unison, like synchronized swimmers. Leave it to Dave.

“Which one’s yours?”

“Tom, there’s only one. Now listen. Dinner at her place tomorrow, and Basic Instinct on cable, if I can recite the words to ‘Mandy.’”

“‘Mandy’?”

“Yeah, start to finish. She gave me five minutes. Here, I got a napkin and pen. Let’s go.”

“‘Mandy’? Dave, you should decline on principle.”

“Tom, look at her.”

The twins crossed their legs, smiled and waved. I hit the floor.

On his own Dave couldn’t even come up with the chorus, which at least left him free to throw me into a cab. After eight hours’ sleep we met up again in box seats at Shea. Then it was to The Palm for the best T-bone in Manhattan, a few darts at Adam’s Curse, a tequila tour of the Upper East Side, some more sleep, back to Shea, poker with the guys at Jimmy’s, and finally a nightcap at the Polo Grounds for SportsCenter. I’m down to a hundred bucks, but I had me a weekend.

Now I’m looking at five days before the next furlough. At the steps of the office I take a good breath, shake my head hard and straighten up. Walking through the oak doors the weekend slips away and the lights inside me dim. I’m a suit again.

CARTER CALLS ME into his office straight away to prep me on a new case. This part of the job isn’t so bad. Every case sounds good the first time you hear it, and I can tell by looking at him that he likes this one.

“How was your weekend, Reasons? Did you get laid?”

“No, sir.”

I call all the lawyers sir or ma’am. They like it, think it’s my military upbringing. Actually it just gives me a kick.

“Young guy like you, good build, what’s the problem?”

“I don’t know, sir. Maybe once I’m a lawyer they’ll come around.”

Carter starts to laugh, stops and squints hard. “Reasons, I can never tell when you’re dicking with me. This wouldn’t be one of those times, would it?”

“No, sir.”

Carter’s not a bad guy. It’s just that he was born with a stick up his ass and nothing’s happened in thirty years to dislodge it. His one goal in life is to make partner, and he thinks the way to do it is to spend a hundred hours a week in the office. He’s probably right. Every case for Carter is a war of attrition—whoever files the most motions wins. That means a lot of shit work for his staff, so he’s not too popular among the paralegals. I get farmed out to him a lot because he doesn’t like working with the girls. He says he likes to swear too much and was raised better than to do it around them. The real reason is he’s afraid he’ll try to fuck one of them. Nobody who wants to make partner in this firm starts down that path. All in all, he’s not so bad. He’ll order in beer if it’s going to be a late night, and wrapping up a big case can mean a long lunch at a titty bar.

“Reasons, we pulled a good one. What does the name Garrett mean to you?”

“Garrett. Wayne. Played third base for the Mets in the seventies. Had a high of sixteen homers in seventy-three.”