The Common Lawyer (6 page)

"I revised my ad," Dave said.

"No hits?"

"
Nada
. So now I'm six-two, a Democrat, and a vegan."

"You're five-nine, a Republican, and you eat meat like a freakin' T-Rex."

Curtis: "This girl's ad says 'absolutely no Christians or Republicans.' "

"See?" Dave said. "Easier to find a virgin than a Republican in Austin. You tell a girl you voted for Bush, you're history."

"But you're lying."

"Everyone lies in those ads, Andy. It's like a résumé, a way to get your foot in the door. Doesn't have to be true."

Dave was in real estate.

Curtis said, "This one says, 'I'm cute, smart, funny and all that other shit I tell myself as part of my daily self-affirmation routine.' "

"She's in therapy," Dave said. "Next."

" 'I'm romantic and at times emotional. I get teary-eyed from sad commercials—those animal shelter commercials are soooo sad.' She has a frown-face emoticon."

"Needy. Next."

"This girl says the four people in history she'd invite to dinner are Jesus, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, and Paris Hilton."

"Dumb and dumber. Next."

"Okay, listen to this one. She's twenty-six, a kindergarten teacher, and lives in SoCo. She's five-five, one-ten, athletic build, drug and disease free, drama free, and maintenance free. Reads the
Chronicle
, shops at Whole Foods, works out at the Y, and gets her coffee at Jo's. Says her idea of a perfect date is shrimp
fajitas
at Güero's and Mexican Vanilla ice cream at Amy's. She drinks socially but doesn't smoke. Her favorite activity is—get this, Andy—biking the greenbelt followed by swimming at the Barton Springs Pool."

Andy sat up. "Wow, she's perfect."

"Except there's one catch."

"What's that?"

"She's seeking a 'man
or woman
' for dating."

"She's bi?"

"Apparently."

"Now there's a girl you could take home to your mother," Dave said. "Or to your sister."

"I wish I had a sister," Curtis said.

"Maybe I can take her home to my new sister."

Andy Prescott leaned back and turned up his beer. He was twenty-nine years old and the last girl he had taken home to meet his mother was Mary Margaret McDermott. He was on a twenty-year losing streak with women. He considered that sad record a moment, then sighed and waved his empty Corona bottle in the air until Ronda spotted him.

"
Uno más, señorita.
"

He had read that beer was not only a natural anesthetic, but also an herbal remedy for depression.

THREE

At exactly seven-thirty the next morning, loud rock music woke Andy Prescott from his coma-like state of sleep with all the subtlety of a SWAT raid. He reached over and smacked the radio across the room, but it was just a symbolic gesture. He was awake. He tried to sit up, but the movement sent a sharp pain ricocheting around his skull like a pinball.

A dozen Coronas sure packed a wallop.

His head ached from the beers and his body from the fall down the ravine, and he was as stiff as a two-by-four from sleeping in one position all night. His right arm was numb. He must have slept on it—or he had suffered permanent nerve damage in the fall.

Heck of a start to a new week.

He rolled out of bed and realized he was still wearing the same clothes from the night before. There was a sizable
salsa
stain splashed across the front of his T-shirt; Willie looked as if he had been blasted in the face with a double-barreled shotgun. Andy tried to recall the last hours of the evening, but all his mind could retrieve was a vague image of falling over a table … and not his table.

He dropped his clothes on the floor and limped to the bathroom. The anesthetic properties of the Coronas had worn off; his left knee burned with each step. He turned on the hot water in the shower then relieved himself of the beer and brushed his teeth. He stared at his reflection in the mirror.

He looked every bit as bad as he felt.

He walked into the living room and found Max stretched out on the couch. The Keeshond bolted to the front door and barked an
I need to pee!
Andy opened the door and recoiled from another bright, sunny day. His front porch looked out onto the Texas School for the Deaf campus across the street, which made for a quiet neighborhood. His neighbor was walking her little white Lhasa Apso past the house; while the dogs sniffed each other's butts, Liz called over to him.

"Nice look you've got going there, Andy."

He had forgotten he was naked.

He waved lamely to Liz and returned to the bathroom. The hot shower brought most of his brain cells back to life, but there would be no quick fix for his body. The red scratch marks across his face made him look like Geronimo with his war paint on. Nasty scabs had already begun to form on his elbows and knees. His left knee was swollen. The feeling had returned to his right arm, but he couldn't raise that arm above his shoulder. He would hurt for a week, but all in all, it wasn't that bad. If you can't take the pain, don't go extreme. Stay at home and play pretend bowling on your Wii.

His home was a one-bedroom, one-bath rent house on Newton Street just across the river from downtown in the part of Austin known as "SoCo" because it straddled South Congress Avenue. Newton paralleled Congress two blocks west. The other houses on the street had been renovated by urban frontiersmen and women like Liz and her husband, young professionals who drove Vespas and Mini-Coopers and had braved the neighborhood back when SoCo's leading citizens were hookers and addicts.

Now SoCo was a hip and happening place to be, a highly-desired and highly-priced in-town location. The houses on either side, nothing more than cottages, were valued on the tax rolls at over $300,000, and the one a few doors down was on the market for $600,000; his place was still awaiting renovation and so was valued at only $87,500. Andy's landlord had been transferred to California six years ago by his high-tech employer; he hoped to return to Austin one day. Andy hoped he wouldn't because he was charging only $600 in monthly rent, way below market for SoCo.

Andy dug through clothes piled on furniture until he found a pair of jeans and a clean shirt with a collar. He tried to shake the wrinkles out of the shirt—he didn't own an iron—then got dressed, grabbed his electric razor, and went outside. The remains of his trail bike lay on the front porch like the aftermath of a tornado. Andy Prescott felt like a man without a reason to live: he had no mountain bike.

He was a gutter bunny—he commuted to work by bike—but he had always commuted on a mountain bike. His only mode of transportation that day was an old Huffy BMX that Tres had lent him until he could replace the Schwinn—but who knew when that would happen. He sat on the Huffy and sank; it had a flat tire.

Figured.

He went back inside and found a pump. He inflated the tire then climbed aboard again. He strapped on the helmet, inserted his sunglasses, and rode down the porch steps and the front sidewalk to the street. He stopped and looked both ways. He could turn south and take James Street, which was more direct, or he could turn north and take Nellie Street, which held the promise of an early morning adrenaline rush.

He turned north.

No doubt he looked like a dork riding a boy's candy-apple-red twenty-inch Huffy, but it was that or walk to work. He clicked the razor on and ran the rotating blades over his face. He whistled to Max, who bounded after him. Two houses down, he saw Liz out front tending her Xeriscape landscaping; he gave her a sheepish "Sorry about that." She just smiled. Of course, it wasn't the first time she had seen him naked.

He rode on and gazed upon the downtown skyline.

Austin sat at the edge of the Texas Hill Country where the flat prairie land first began to rise and wrinkle up like Andy's shirt, so the town's topography was full of ups and downs and twists and turns; the roadways followed the lay of the land. Newton Street was a narrow residential lane that ran north-south on one of the "ups." From that vantage point, Andy could see the skyscrapers of downtown rising in sharp relief against the blue sky and the construction cranes towering over new condos and hotels going up, all of which now blocked the view of the state capitol unless you were standing in the middle of Congress Avenue—a crime committed by developers and sanctioned by the city. Austin was a hot market, and there was money to be made, so city hall and developers, once lethal adversaries in Austin, had joined forces to pillage the place for profit.

His mother often said, "Money makes good men do bad things."

Newton followed the perimeter fence line of the School for the Deaf then made a sharp turn to the east—which turn Andy now made—and became Nellie Street. Nellie abruptly pitched downward at a sharp angle on its short journey to Congress Avenue, which ran north-south in one of the "downs."

Andy picked up speed.

By the time you hit Congress, you could build up a pretty good head of steam flying down Nellie. Andy had once hit Congress at full speed only to have his brakes fail; he flew right through the intersection and crashed into the patio at Doc's Motorworks Bar & Grill. He tapped the Huffy's coaster brakes; they were in working order.

He pushed the razor into his pants pocket. He sat up, adjusted his helmet and sunglasses, and watched the traffic light at the bottom of the hill where Nellie intersected Congress to form a T. The white pedestrian WALK signal to cross Congress changed to a flashing red DON'T WALK; he had exactly twenty-four seconds.

Congress was a broad five-lane avenue that served as a major north-south commuting route. It was morning rush hour, and traffic was backed up at the light. Impatient drivers revved their SUV's big engines, in no mood to wait for pedestrians to cross Congress or share the crowded lanes with cyclists. Austin was officially a bicycle-friendly town, but the memo had never gotten to motorists; you get in their way and they'll run you down like a vindictive mother-in-law. Add in the fact that they were probably hung over and late for work, and a cyclist cutting in front of them made for a volatile mix on a Monday morning. Consequently, any gutter bunny foolish enough to challenge automobile traffic on Congress Avenue during rush hour was well-advised to have his last will and testament up to date.

On the other hand, if Andy timed it perfectly, he could hit the intersection just as the north-south light changed from red to green and beat the cars heading south on Congress; he'd be leading the pack instead of merging into the pack. Of course, less-than-perfect timing and he'd broadside a southbound car, be ejected from the bike, and hurtle through the air until his body collided with a northbound car, resulting in death or serious bodily injury.

He hadn't had a shot of caffeine yet, so it seemed like a reasonable risk. Max, though, wasn't so sure; he was keeping pace from a safe distance on the sidewalk.

Andy steered to the far left of the road. He picked up speed fast now; he tapped the brakes to time the light.

Forty yards from the intersection, he had ten seconds.

Thirty yards and seven seconds.

Twenty yards and five seconds.

Ten yards and three seconds … two … one …

He hit Congress just as the north-south light turned green, leaned hard to the right, and swerved into the southbound lanes in a wide arc. Angry horns honked behind him, and Andy heard the roar of massive engines as drivers put their pedals to the metal, but he was a block out front before the SUVs cleared the intersection. They were just losers eating his dust. He straightened his course, sat up, and tried to raise both arms into the air like Lance Armstrong crossing the finish line at the Tour de France—but he winced with pain. His right arm still wouldn't go past half-mast, so he settled for one raised fist.

"Yee-hah!"

He had won that morning, for what it was worth. He glided past the 1200 block of funky SoCo shops—Vivid and Blackmail and Pink Hair Salon & Gallery—and the Austin Motel, a favorite stop of Julia Roberts and your other celebrity types, then skidded to a stop at Jo's Hot Coffee. He leaned the Huffy against the newspaper racks lined up along the curb and removed his helmet. He passed on the Texas papers and the
New York Times
and grabbed a free
Austin Chronicle,
the bible of SoCo. Just then one of the SUVers blew past, yelled "Asshole!" and gave Andy the finger.

"Drink decaf!" Andy yelled back.

Okay, that was lame, but it was the best retort he could come up with before his morning coffee. Max barked to show his solidarity—or he wanted a muffin. Smart dog that he was, Max had stayed on the sidewalk all the way to Jo's.

"You want a muffin, big boy?"

Max bounced up and down and barked a
Yes! Yes, I do!

A Great Dane the size of a small horse stood at the sidewalk tables next to its guardian—in dog-friendly Austin, you were not a "dog owner"; you were a "dog guardian." The Dane gave Max a guttural growl. Max ducked behind Andy's legs.