"Come in," he hollered in a weak raspy voice, "it isn't locked."
In stepped Shorty Wilcox with a very attractive young Mexican American woman.
"You look like shit!" Shorty observed as he came over to the recliner where Garner lay. "I hope you live long enough to get a settlement."
"Thanks, Shorty," Garner replied, "I'll try to hang on just so you can get your fee."
Shorty giggled a high pitched giggle and went over to the kitchen table where he opened his briefcase and began taking out papers.
Garner looked up at the woman who had come with Shorty. Their glances locked briefly and then they both quickly turned away. Garner cleared his throat.
"Oh, sorry!" Shorty began, looking up from his papers. "This is Maria Theresa Diaz. She just graduated from law school and she's working with me until she has enough clients to start her own practice."
"Why would anybody want to work with you, Shorty?" Garner chided.
"She said that she didn't want to become part of the legal establishment," Shorty explained as though Maria weren't even in the room, "and I'm about as far from the legal establishment as you can get without actually being a criminal."
He chuckled appreciating his own humor.
Garner looked up at Maria from his recliner. There was something familiar about her. Their eyes met again, and for the briefest of moments impossibilities became possibilities in the minds of these two people who had always controlled their passions for the sake of other things. They thought about how things might be if things were other than they were. And as quickly as they succumbed, they drew back and regained their distances . It was the distance between them and the distance between their lives and the things they wanted. They succumbed because it felt good. Like person watching a long football game drifts into slumber, these two wanted to drift into the pleasantness of possibilities. But their minds would not allow it. Instead they pulled back like the person on the couch pulls himself back from the impending slumber. And they felt the residual penalty of thwarting their desires.
Without looking up, Shorty broke their reverie. "The case is going to court in a week. And we still have a few loose ends to tie up."
"Like what?" Garner asked.
"Well, two things actually," Shorty continued. "First, the doctor from Bexar County Hospital cannot give us a clear diagnosis on your back pain. He says that he cannot find anything physically wrong with you. I brought in a specialist from UTSA Medical Center who will say that back pain if often difficult to diagnose. It can result from soft tissue injuries that are almost impossible to detect using standard diagnostic tests."
"So what's the problem?" Garner asked.
"Well, if we had a specific diagnosis, we could say that people with disorder X normally recover after two years or five years or whatever. We could then base our settlement on your expected term of disability. Without a diagnosis, the whole thing isn't concrete enough for the jury and they are liable to just pick an amount of time to base their judgement on. That could work for or against you."
"I guess we'll have to take that chance," said Garner, not wanting to push the idea of pursuing a more well defined diagnosis. "What was the other problem?"
"The other is a little trickier," Shorty began. "The manager of the HEB says that he saw you at the produce counter and that you picked up a bunch of grapes and dropped a couple on the floor. Then he claims that when you came around the produce aisle again later that you slipped on the grapes that you dropped. The attorneys for HEB claim that they cannot be held responsible for your carelessness because there wasn't enough time to clean up the floor before you came around again."
"They had over fifteen minutes," Garner thought, but didn't say anything. This was a crucial moment. His year of preparation and his potential settlement might be hanging on what he said next. He drew in his breath slowly, showing no expression on his face, and thought carefully about what to say. If he pointed out the fifteen minutes, it would reveal the fact that he had planned the slip. If he simply denied it, they would have no counter to the manager's testimony. A pained look crossed his face as he shifted in his chair.
Maria Theresa saw the pained look, misinterpreted it as back pain and came hotly to Garner's defense. "Did you see that little weasel when he gave his statement?" she asked defiantly. "He was so nervous, I thought he was going to pass out. His hands were sweating. His voice was wavering. He couldn't even look us in the eye. I think that HEB told him that if he didn't come up with a story to limit their liability, he might loose his job."
"That may very well be true," Shorty granted. "But how can we prove it."
"Put him on the stand and let me question him," Maria claimed with unshakeable confidence. "I'll have him hyperventilating right there in the witness box!"
Shorty smiled and looked at Maria. His respect for his new apprentice was growing each day. "We just might do that," he offered. "We just might do that."
They finished up their paperwork and got ready to leave.
"Next time we get together will be in court," Shorty observed. "I'll swing by and get you both so we can show up together. Maria, I'll pick you up around 7:30 and Garner, I'll pick you up around a quarter till eight."
As Shorty walked over to the door, Maria turned to Garner and put out her hand. "Nice meeting you. Sorry that it wasn't under more pleasant circumstances."
Garner raised his hand weakly and took hers. When their hands touched there was another moment of possibilities. Garner knew that he was just using this woman and would then disappear from her life. A tinge of regret panged him. Maria saw, in this pale Anglo, possibilities that were not available to her. She was drawn and repelled at once. She also saw the chance to get even for her Uncle Julio and this emboldened her. This was the reason she had gone to law school. With surges of conflicting emotions, she forced a smile.
"See you in court," she said.
Garner just nodded. Shorty and Maria walked out leaving Garner in his recliner soon to be financially free and a prisoner of possibilities .