Deeper Water (5 page)

The impact of a legal education on my economic future struck me like never before. If the law firm paid this much to a summer clerk, the compensation for first-year associates would be even more. I quickly calculated a likely annual salary in my head.

The rest of the memo was related to dates of employment, a prohibition against working anywhere else while employed by Braddock, Appleby, and Carpenter, an agreement that all my work product would belong to the firm as well as receipts from billings, and a confidentiality clause as to both terms of the offer and any proprietary information obtained during my employment. I wondered what in the world I might learn that would be valuable enough to sell. When I glanced up, Mr. Callahan was peering over his glasses at me.

"How does it look?" he asked.

I started to hand the fax to him, then stopped.

"I'd like your opinion, but I can't show it to you," I said. "It has a confidentiality clause."

The older lawyer laughed. "Consider me your personal attorney for a few minutes. A confidentiality clause doesn't prohibit consultation with a lawyer. I'll review it pro bono."

I sheepishly handed the offer sheet to him. He read it in a few seconds.

"The price of raw legal talent is going up," he said. "That beats hugging dead chickens, doesn't it?"

"Yes sir."

"And they're going to toss in a name change for free."

I didn't answer.

"Oh, don't worry about it," the lawyer said with a chuckle. "Everybody knows your mother as Lu; no one calls her Luella."

"Except my grandmother and Aunt Jane." I paused. "Mama and Daddy think the different spelling of my name was a mistake by the law firm."

"Do you want to confess your sins to me?"

I remembered my comment about telling Mr. Callahan to repent.

"I can use it for the summer, then go back to the correct spelling."

"Don't worry about it. T-a-m-i has a nice look to it. I've never been fond of Oscar but couldn't come up with an alternative."

"You'll always be Mr. Callahan to me."

The lawyer laughed. "I'm sure I will."

"What else do you know about the firm?" I asked.

Mr. Callahan handed the fax back to me. "As you can see from the letterhead, the Braddock firm has been around for a hundred years. Samuel Braddock is a descendant of the founder. I don't know Nelson Appleby and told you about Joe Carpenter. How many lawyers are there? Sixteen or seventeen?"

I glanced down at the letterhead and counted. "Fifteen."

"I did a little research for you," Mr. Callahan said. "According to the firm website, less than half are partners. The rest are associates hoping they get invited to join. The firm's representative clients include a couple of shipping companies, several banks, blue-chip corporations, large foundations-the cream of the crop." Mr. Callahan smiled. "I doubt any of their lawyers would be interested in representing a man who rips the rotator cuff in his right shoulder while unloading a trailer in one-hundred-degree heat."

My face fell. "Do you think it would be a bad place to work?"

The lawyer held up his hand. "No, no. Don't let my bias on behalf of working folks taint you. I shouldn't have said that. There are many honorable places to land in the law. One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was to dabble in a number of areas, find what brings the most personal satisfaction, and become an expert in it."

Listening to Mr. Callahan's practical wisdom made me wish he would offer me a summer job. Even if he paid me chicken-plant wages it would be plenty of money for me, especially since I could live at home.

"It's a long way from Powell Station," I said, hoping my wistful comment might lead the conversation in that direction.

"You've gone a long way from here already. And I bet you've taken the best your family has to offer along with you. If you take the job in Savannah, folks are going to meet the kind of person who made this country great in the first place."

"What do you mean?"

Mr. Callahan looked past my right shoulder. He stared so long that I turned and followed his gaze to an old photograph of his grandfather on the wall. Preacher Callahan didn't look like he knew how to smile.

"You know exactly what I mean," the lawyer continued, his eyes returning to mine. "You're different, and it won't take long for anyone to find it out. Most people focus on the externals: the way you dress, the fact that you don't go to movies, the obedience to parents, the way you honor the Lord's Day by not doing anything on Sunday except go to church meetings. They don't realize that what makes you special is on the inside-your integrity and strength of character. That's rare, especially when joined with your intelligence."

Mr. Callahan's words made me uneasy. It sounded like an invitation to pride. I kept silent.

"Is it all right for me to share my opinion?" he asked.

"Yes sir. That's why I'm here."

The lawyer tapped his fingers on his desk. "Just the answer I expected, and although my ideas don't always line up with your beliefs, hear me out. When I look at you, I appreciate what my grandfather and those like him stood for. The strict ways don't work for everyone, but in your case they do. And I'm open-minded enough to acknowledge the good done by God's grace when I see it."

"Yes sir."

"So, what are you going to do about the job?" the lawyer continued.

"Could I work for you?" I blurted out.

Mr. Callahan smiled. "That's not the bait in the water. But to be honest, I thought about it after Joe Carpenter called me. I even prayed about it."

My eyes opened wider.

"Does that surprise you?" he asked.

"No sir. I mean, I guess it does a little bit."

"I believe in prayer," the lawyer said. "What does the Bible say? God blesses the children of the righteous to how many generations?"

"A thousand generations."

"Did they teach you that in law school along with the rule against perpetuities?"

"No sir. It's in Deuteronomy."

Mr. Callahan nodded and spoke thoughtfully. "Well, I'm only two generations removed from a very righteous man, and all my life I've felt the stirring of his influence in my soul. When I prayed about offering you a job, the Lord told me to `ask for a continuance.' When does a lawyer request a continuance?"

"When he's not ready to try a case."

"Or when the case isn't ready for the lawyer to try."

I mulled over his words for a moment before responding. "Do you think I have to learn more before I'm ready to make a decision about coming back to Powell Station?"

"Maybe, but don't treat my opinion like someone standing up at the church and saying, `Thus saith the Lord.' I don't claim infallibility or divine imprimatur. And it's not just about you. I need time to decide what I'm going to do over the next few years. Someday, I want to spend more time feeding my cattle than fighting with insurance companies. Unless I simply close the doors when I retire, I need to bring in a younger lawyer or two who can develop rapport with my clientele in preparation for taking over my practice."

I knew the meaning of patience. Instant gratification wasn't part of my upbringing.

"Yes sir. Can I share what you've told me with my parents?"

He leaned forward and clasped his hands together. "I'd expect you to. And if you need Internet access or use of the fax machine while you're home, come here."

"Thank you."

I stood up. Mr. Callahan spoke. "Don't let go of the good planted in you."

"Yes sir."

As I drove home, I couldn't shake a deep longing that, in spite of his comments, Mr. Callahan might offer me a job. It would be a gracious next step along the path to independence. As I rounded a familiar curve, I appealed the lawyer's decision to a higher judge.

"Lord, could you tell him a continuance isn't necessary?"

AFTER SUPPER THAT NIGHT, Daddy, Mama, and I returned to the front porch. After making sure neither of the twins was eavesdropping, I told them about my meeting in town. I left out the part about praying that Mr. Callahan might change his mind. Mama started to interrupt a few times, but Daddy put his hand on her arm.

"That's it," I said when I finished.

"So, the Spirit still moves on his heart," Daddy said. "Why would he wander from the fold?"

"His mother didn't like our ways," Mama replied. "And a family that isn't of one mind is a house divided. It will fall."

"But he's aware of his heritage," Daddy answered. "Do you think Pastor Vick and some of the elders should visit him?"

Mama was silent for a moment as they rocked back and forth. "It would be a glorious homecoming."

I stared across the darkening yard, not sure what my parents' interest in Oscar Callahan's spiritual pilgrimage meant to me. I needed them to make a decision. The Braddock, Appleby, and Carpenter job offer wouldn't remain outstanding indefinitely. If I didn't accept it, and Mr. Callahan didn't change his mind, my summer would be spent with thousands of dead chickens. I cleared my throat.

"What about Savannah?" I asked.

"We'll seek the Lord about it tonight," Daddy said. "And tell you in the morning."

Daddy's comment wasn't a religious put-off. He and Mama believed in praying until they received a definite answer. I'd seen the light shining beneath their bedroom door in the middle of the night when an issue of importance to the family required guidance from the Lord. People at our church would tarry at the altar as long as it took to find peace.

"I'll pray too," I answered.

"It's right that you should," Mama replied. "A cord of three strands isn't easily broken."

MOSES JONES LIVED IN A WATERFRONT SHACK ON AN UNNAMED tributary of the Little Ogeechee River. Years before he'd selected a place so marshy and uninhabitable that no one would have an interest in disturbing his privacy. No mobs of angry white men looking for a scapegoat threatened him.

It took several months to build his single-room dwelling with scrap lumber and plywood. When he finished, it rested on stilts four feet above the ground. Twice hurricanes damaged the house, but each time Moses scavenged enough lumber to rebuild.

It was a ten-minute walk through the woods to the lean-to where he kept his bicycle beside a narrow road. Every Monday morning, he pedaled into Savannah where he spent the day collecting aluminum cans to sell at the recycling center. He didn't pick up cans alongside the road. Moses had an arrangement with several bars and pubs that allowed him to haul away their beer and soft drink cans in return for cleaning around the back of their buildings. Included in his wages at one of the pubs was a free meal. The high point of Moses' week was sitting on a delivery dock savoring a plate piled high with spicy chicken wings.

After he sold the cans, Moses would buy a few fishhooks and fill up a plastic bag with free food from the community food pantry. Clothes and shoes were castoffs that couldn't be sold at a local thrift store. He washed his clothes once a month at a Laundromat. People mistakenly considered him homeless. They didn't know about his shack in the woods. He never begged or panhandled.

The old man's most expensive regular purchase was the kerosene that powered his stove, heater, and lantern. He'd strap a five-gallon plastic container onto his bike rack and fill it with fuel at a hardware store. Five gallons of kerosene would last a long time in the warm summer months when he only used it for cooking, but in the winter he had to buy more. Winter was hard on animals and hard on Moses.

Fish and an occasional squirrel he caught in a metal trap were his sources of fresh protein. Moses liked fish coated in cornmeal and quick-fried; a gray squirrel grown fat on acorns from live oaks provided a different taste in meat. He drank water boiled in a large pot and poured into milk jugs. Alcohol hadn't passed his lips since he'd worked years before as a bolita runner for Tommy Lee Barnes.

Moses slept on eight pillows wrapped in an old sheet and laid on the floor. It was a lumpy mattress, but it was a lot easier hauling pillows through the woods than trying to carry a mattress. He had a folding table and two aluminum chairs, but he never had guests. It had been five years since his last visitor, a duck hunter who surprised him one morning. The hunter stopped for a brief chat then moved on. There weren't any ducks in the area, and the hunter didn't come back.

In good weather Moses cooked outside, which kept his shack from getting smoky or burning down. He kept the kerosene lantern for emergency use and rarely lit it. Except when he went night fishing, he lay down to sleep at dark and woke at dawn.

The old man kept his most prized possession, his johnboat, locked and chained to a tree. The key to the rusty lock hung on a leather strap around his neck. In winter Moses slept in the shack, but the rest of the year he liked to spend several nights a week on his boat. When he finished fishing, he'd tie up at a dock of one of the many houses that lined the waterway in every direction. He preferred the docks as moorings. Too many times, he'd tied up to a tree only to have a snake, spider, or an army of ants invade the boat in the middle of the night.

After he found a spot for the night, he'd remove one of the seats in the johnboat and roll out two rubber mats that he placed on top of each other in the bottom of the boat. He'd stretch out on the mats, drape mosquito netting over the edge of the boat, and watch the stars overhead while the boat gently rocked in the river. The faces in the water couldn't see over the edge of the boat, and after so many years, the memory of innocent blood running off his hands into the river rarely played across his mind. He felt at peace.