Clownfish Blues

Chapter 2

Sopchoppy

Serge nervously glanced over his shoulder as the sports car swerved away from the gymnasium and raced west out of town. Coleman twisted the end of a joint in his mouth. “What happened back there?”

“A close call. I had sex.”

“But that’s a good thing.”

“It’s a split decision this time,” said Serge. “In most episodes of Route 66, besides getting a job in a new town, at least one of the guys bangs a local gal. It was required, whether they wanted to or not. Of course with TV standards back in the black-and-white days, they could only allude to it, but if you were paying attention, it was always there: a wholesome independent woman who isn’t leery of the newcomers like other folk. And if she was a widow, then you definitely knew it was going down.”

“You made me watch all your DVDs,” said Coleman. “I never picked up on that.”

“Because they were having sex during the commercials,” said Serge. “If you’ve got a work ethic, that’s more than enough time.”

“You said it was a split decision?”

“That’s right,” said Serge. “Having sex with her was my obligation to the fidelity of the TV series. On the other hand, we’re out to revolutionize worm-grunting, and intercourse always blunts your edge in a drive to the championship. Remember in Raging Bull how Robert De Niro shunned sex and put ice in his underpants before a prizefight? A few orgasms probably won’t cost me many pails of worms, but why roll the dice?”

“So when you told her about all the serial killers running around?”

“Trying to let her down easy,” said Serge. “During a breakup, you can hem and haw about ‘No, it’s not you; it’s me,’ but that can drag on for weeks. Jump right to ‘serial killers’ and it’s a clean break.”

“I admire you,” said Coleman. “I could never ditch a woman that hot.”

“The breakup was best for everyone,” said Serge. “Otherwise, instead of becoming worm-grunting kings, you end up in a Pottery Barn picking out boysenberry candles.”

“What a nightmare.”

“Those places give me the willies,” said Serge. “They exclusively sell shit that I didn’t even know was happening. Decorative boxes and bowls and baskets full of fragrant twigs and painted wood shavings, and about half the stuff is used to hide the tissues, which is why a runny nose is sheer panic in a woman’s pad. ‘Dear Jesus, in which one of these fucking things is the Kleenex? Maybe inside this seashell-encrusted octagon. No, that’s the monogrammed note cards. What about this faux-driftwood container? No, that’s like a thousand Q-tips, which is a separate mystery. Wait, it’s obvious, the antique shabby-chic metal tissue box. Crap, just jewelry’ . . . Until she finally catches you hiding behind a wicker birdcage full of natural sponges, which triggers another of her trick questions: ‘Are you back there blowing your nose in one of my monogrammed note cards?’”

“Why not just blow your nose with toilet paper?” asked Coleman.

“Why not just drink out of the toilet,” said Serge. “See, you have to understand how they think: Everything a man does in a bathroom is wrong, so putting toilet paper on your face probably doesn’t top their Internet-profile list of turn-ons. I’ll take my chances with note cards.”

“That’s why they’re always knocking on bathroom doors and asking, ‘What are you doing in there?’”

“In your case, it’s a valid question,” said Serge. “You chart whole new realms of forbidden territory that can piss a woman off.”

“I’m just doing my thing in there, like when I was at your apartment when you were married,” said Coleman. “Suddenly all this screaming.”

“Coleman, even I’m dumbfounded by the unfettered spectrum of forensic fluid that you bring into play.”

“It is what it is.”

“You existentialist, you.”

Coleman pointed toward the side of the road. “Weren’t you looking for a hardware store?”

“Hardware stores are the opposite of Pottery Barns. If the two ever collided in deep space, they would explode like matter and anti-matter.” He pulled into a dirt parking lot and chugged the rest of his coffee. “You always know where you stand in a Home Depot.”

“They should call it the No-Bullshit Depot,” said Coleman.

“You just might be onto something.”

The pair went inside the cramped quarters of a family business that hadn’t been inventoried since Eisenhower. Iron chains of various link sizes hung behind the counter. A skeletal man rested against a galvanized bin of roofing nails. “Can I help you fellas?”

“You already have,” said Serge.

“No bullshit,” said Coleman.

“A rope is a rope,” said Serge. “Not something you glue in circles to make a magazine organizer. That’s why I had to ditch her after the sex. No time for candles. Do you see where I’m going?”

“Not really.”

“Worm-grunting! We need the works.”

Ten minutes later, the old man rang them up. “Here are your stakes and irons and a dozen pails. Anything else?”

“Yes,” said Serge. “My underpants. Do they sell ice nearby?”

An hour later, a silver Corvette sat on an anonymous shoulder of an unimproved road winding through the Apalachicola National Forest.

One of Florida’s most diverse landscapes: hardwood hammocks, sandhills, bogs, prairies, savannahs and swamps. Bears, bats, box turtles, indigo snakes, red woodpeckers. The green, moisture-rich canopies of the lowlands seem almost luminescent, and the yellow fields of carnivorous pitcher plants digest insects and snails. In the dry season, freaky formations of cypress rise atop exposed bases of wooden legs like the walking trees in Lord of the Rings.

A long pole rested across Serge’s shoulders, several shiny new pails on each end. He trudged on through layers of muck, decaying leaves and water beetles.

Some distance behind, labored breathing. “How many miles have we walked now?”

“Two hundred yards. Catch up!”

Pails crashed to the ground. Then a human thud. “I can’t go any farther.”

“Dammit.” Serge dropped his own gear and helped Coleman to his feet. “This is our first day. You can’t quit now! Have some ice.”

“I’m not quitting,” said Coleman. “I just want to try for worms here.”

“But the mother lode is deep in no-man’s-land!” Serge pointed onward like a conquistador. “There’s no way we’ll succeed unless we outlast the competition with a days-long death march into untapped terrain. We must fight the exhaustion and cramping of extremities, never giving in, drawing upon reserves of mental steel!”

“You go on,” said Coleman. “I’ll wait here.”

“Fine, but I’m not splitting the fortune.”

Coleman watched his buddy fiercely charge into the wildness. Fifty yards later, Serge set his pails down again. “That’s enough marching for today.” He hammered a piece of wood into the ground.

A strange vibrating sound greeted Coleman as he moseyed over. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Sliding the rooping iron over the top of my stake.” Serge handed him a hammer. “Pound your own in. But not too close to mine, or we’ll duplicate effort and cut into the vast quantities of worms that will soon leap into the air. I just hope the prices don’t plummet when we flood the market.”

After several rest breaks, Coleman finished getting a stob in place and rubbed his iron strip across the top. “How long is this supposed to take?”

Serge wickedly worked his stake like a fiddle player. “From what I’ve read, the results should be instantaneous and devastating.”

Coleman rubbed at a less robust pace. “Serge, why does this forest look so weird?”

Rub, rub, rub. “Because you’re used to dense forests, but the trees are spread out in this one, making room for a naturally occurring compost heap that harbors all the other cool stuff like newts and scorpions.”

“Scorpions!”

“It’s a big forest . . . You’ve stopped rooping.”

“Sorry.” Rub, rub, rub.

An hour later, they both stopped.

“Where are all the worms?” asked Coleman. “I just see ants.”

Serge scratched his head with the iron. “Something’s definitely wrong. Did I skip a step?”

Coleman began crawling. “What’s that thing?”

“Where?” Serge turned. “Sweet victory! It’s an earthworm!”

Coleman crawled faster. “It’s mine!”

“It’s mine!” Serge scrambled on his knees. “It was closer to my stake!”

“It was closer to mine!”

They both dove face-first in the dirt.

“Give him to me!”

“You give him!”

“Let go of my hair!”

“Let go of my finger!”

Then a period of non-verbal yelping and growling.

It stopped. Serge stared solemnly at his hand before looking up. “You broke him.”

Coleman stared, too. “Fuck it. I’m putting my half in my bucket.”

They sneered at each other and resumed rubbing their respective stakes with the silence of smoldering animosity.

Afternoon passed. The sun drew down, sending long shadows across the forest floor.

A rustling sound. Coleman perked up in alarm. “What was that?”

From behind a cluster of cabbage palms, two other men appeared with overflowing pails that drooped their shoulders. Rubber boots, Levi’s, bare chests with a sheen of perspiration and stuck-on dirt. Both had untrimmed beards, but only one wore a baseball cap for transmission parts.

They were personable types. “Ya fellas gruntin’?”

“Yes we are!” Serge beamed.

“Sure got a lotta pails.” The one with the ball cap looked inside to see half a worm.

Serge rubbed with all his might. “They call me Clapton of the Rooping Iron.”

“Well, ya fellas have a good one.” They trudged off.

Coleman stared at the worm piece in the bottom of his bucket. “How the heck did those guys fill all their pails?”

“I’ve got an idea.” Serge gathered up his implements. “Come on!”

South Florida

Phones rang, copies spit out of the copy machine, people waited in a waiting room. Some had small dogs or sandwiches in their laps.

A receptionist looked up as another customer came in from the street. “She’s waiting for you. Last door.”

At the end of the short hall was a tight office with two things on the wall: a photo of a little girl with a firefighter, and a diploma. The diploma featured eagles that didn’t take any shit.

In the middle of the room was a secondhand desk from a repossessed furniture outlet. Behind it sat a young woman in a frugal pantsuit. She looked at her watch: 12:04.

The door flew open. A livid man in a tennis shirt unleashed the dogs of profanity. The B- and C-words were the apparent theme. Then he flung a certified check at the desk. It skimmed off the edge and fell to the floor. “You’re all alike!”

She picked it up casually, like she had dropped her keys. “Oh, one more thing.” She reached in the top drawer. “I have something for you . . .”

When people think of a law firm, they often imagine a tall building with coveted corner offices, dozens of young attorneys dreaming of “making partner,” and a big imposing name like Shapiro, Heathcoate-Mendacious and Blatt.

But much more common are the modest, elbow-grease firms like this one.

The Miami Women’s Legal Aid Clinic.

Yes, many of their clients were women, but more pertinent, all the attorneys were. It wasn’t about women’s lib, although the office definitely had a liberating current of women solely working together without all the BS frat-boy behavior. When the front doors were locked at the end of the day and the staff worked deep into the night on legal drafts and motions to quash, it was all family talk and laughter, popcorn and yogurt, T-shirts and sweatpants, almost like a sorority dorm, but without all the BS sorority-girl behavior. Everyone immediately made partner upon joining the firm.

For example, take the woman who just picked a certified check up off the floor. Brook Campanella. She founded the clinic a year back with another young lawyer named Lopez, who had gotten her degree at night school while working in a battered-women’s shelter.

At the time, Brook was front-page news. She first made headlines as a rookie lawyer for taking on a too-big-to-fail bank in a no-win case . . . and winning. So she was promptly scooped up by one of the most prestigious firms in Fort Lauderdale and immediately assigned second chair in a high-profile class-action mortgage case—mainly because the jury consultant said her cute, freckled face and unassuming petiteness would play well in court. She didn’t need glasses but was required to wear ones with plain glass after the consultant put her before focus groups.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to the verdict. Circumstances elevated her to lead attorney in the case, and she won again. What’s more, in doing so, she uncovered massive collusion at her own firm. It was an extremely complicated legal matter that would take an entire book to explain, but one well worth buying and reading. Bottom line: A lot of people with silk handkerchiefs in their suit pockets went to prison, and television crews filmed the firm’s name being taken down from the building. Brook was in demand again.

But by now, she’d had it with the kind of gilded-edge legal work handed down from skyscrapers.

She met Jacklyn Lopez at a self-defense class. Lopez was the instructor, holding up a pair of bright red training pads that Brook punched with unbridled ferocity and lean results. They got to talking. Turned out Lopez also had a law degree. Then they got to driving.

“What about that place?” asked Brook. “There’s a rent sign.”

Jacklyn shook her head. “Attached to a gyro shop. Once the smell gets in your clothes . . .”

They turned the corner and wandered into Little Haiti. Block after block of available office space. “Is that guy carrying a chicken?” The pair navigated back to Biscayne and headed north.

More discussion as they drove slow, and honking traffic whipped around them. At each red light, people on curbs peddled roses, bottled water, redemption. “Pull over,” said Brook.

They ended up in the part of town called Aventura. A dubious area with a transitional economy. It could go either way. But the neighborhood possessed the one bellwether sign that financial analysts always respect.

They just opened a Chipotle.

Brook and Jacklyn stood in the parking lot of an older two-story building. It wasn’t originally designed as a strip mall, but guess what? On the bottom floor resided a nail salon and a beauty salon with just enough overlapping service on the menu that it had become the source of brooding tension between a group of Koreans and another group of Koreans.

Between the two businesses was a narrow door with a glass window leading to a warped wooden staircase. The two women looked up at a leaf-clogged rain gutter. Then they looked down again at the door—the cliché entrance of a law office. Only the gold lettering was missing. Brook grabbed the rental sign off the mailbox, and they fist-bumped . . .

. . . That was then, this was now. The new women’s law firm accepted the kind of cases that were less lucrative and more fulfilling. Like the one that began on a recent Wednesday morning.

Just after nine o’clock, the receptionist looked up. “You may go in now. Last door.”

An elderly Hispanic woman was helped into Brook’s office by her granddaughter. The attorney rushed around her desk to pull over an additional chair. The old woman didn’t speak a word of English. Her granddaughter spoke better than most Americans, because she was one, although certain other Americans with mangled grammar weren’t entirely convinced.

Brook opened a folder on her desk. “You mentioned on the phone a landlord dispute. Something about the security deposit and last month’s rent?”

“That’s right,” said the granddaughter, named Danielle. But she answered to Danny. “They kept it all, citing cleaning and repair costs from excessive wear and tear.”

“May I see what documentation they provided?”

“They didn’t give my grandmother anything,” said Danny. “It was all verbal. When I called to request an itemized expense statement, they just laughed and asked if I was joking.”

Brook sat back. “No paperwork?”

“This is common in our area,” said Danny. “They expect people who are scraping by to just move on and not challenge it because they have to make ends meet. And an eight-hundred-dollar dispute isn’t worth it to most lawyers. But my grandmother cleans houses for the kind of people who are screwing her, and that money means the world. Which is why I know her apartment was immaculate when she left.”

“I wish we had photos,” said Brook.

Danny handed over her cell phone.

“What’s this?” asked the lawyer.

“Photos,” said Danny. “I took them when she moved out, just in case.”

“Prudent.” Brook closed the folder. “You already signed the needed paperwork, so I won’t take up any more of your time.” She stood. “This is straightforward. I’ll be back in touch tomorrow.”

They thanked her profusely and left.

Near the end of the day, Brook opened the folder again and dialed a number.

“Yeah?” Someone chewing on the other end.

“My name is Brook Campanella, and I’m an attorney representing one of your former tenants.”

“Who?” A loud TV sound in the background from a sports program.

“Brook Campanella. Mrs. Dominguez retained me—”

“You a lawyer?” Chomp, chomp, chomp.

“Yes, and I think we can quickly clear this up. You kept her security deposit and last month’s rent.”

“Probably for cleaning and repairs.” Chomp, chomp. “That’s standard.”

“Actually we can’t be sure,” said Brook. “We have no receipts for any work done.”

“Christ, do you have any idea the condition these people leave their apartments in?”

“These people?” asked Brook.

From the other end of the line, a second voice: “Who is it?”

The first man’s voice turned away from the phone. “Some ambulance chaser for one of our tenants.”

“Tell him to eat shit and die.”

“It’s a chick.”

“Hand me the nachos.”

The sports sounds from the television became aggressively violent.

“Excuse me,” said Brook. “I have photographs of the condition of the apartment. If we could just talk—”

“Listen, sweetie, since you sound kind of young, I’ll be polite. I got Ultimate Fighting on pay-per-view and you’re costing me money, so if you don’t mind . . .”

“Actually I do mind,” said Brook. “I always try to avoid escalating legal action. If you could either provide me with a detailed expense sheet . . .”

The man spoke away from the phone again. “She wants an expense sheet. Can you believe this broad?” Derisive laughter.

“Or a refund in full,” said Brook. “In that case, I’d be willing to waive my legal fee. It’s really not worth it for you to—”

Click.