I like ABBA. Yes, I enjoy Scandanavian disco. No, I'm not a closet queen. ABBA reminds me of sorority formals in college. I went to a small school, packed like any college with cute young women - women jogging in spandex shorts with baseball hats pulled down to the bridge of their noses... women with dirty blonde hair falling over their sunglasses and across their cheeks, catching curls of Camel Light smoke around their faces... women who looked better without makeup and drank, swore and fucked like whores, knowing nothing of houses, biological clocks, the social stigma of spinsterhood or the tyranny of crows feet and the terminal creep of cottage cheese thighs... women who didn't care about your skills, what you did, or what you intended to do except as it related to their pussy and your tongue. ABBA reminds me of sorority formals where those girls got ripped on Boones Farm and Banker's Club lemon drops. It reminds me of mornings after those formals, trudging out of those girls' apartments and walking back to the fraternity house, anesthetized from a sledgehammer hangover by the a combination of the crisp Fall air and the endorphin high that endlessly trails an intense morning orgasm. "Dancing Queen" reminds me of that feeling of invincibility that only existed while standing in the midst of the dance floor, after you'd just snorted a rail, and looking around to see a kaleidoscope of drunken bobbing blondes and brunettes, with round asses and high, tight sets of tits jammed into a cocktail dresses, bouncing and spinning around the room like life-sized wind-up Barbies.

The world was perfect.

So now, over a decade later, when I hear ABBA, I still flash back to those scenes, and for a moment, I remember what it was like to have your life laid out before you like an oncoming thunderhead. I get a hint of that bulletproof certainty - that belief you've got life by the short hairs - that lack of care, common sense or fear that only comes from being 21 and twisted with no bills or appointments other than staying awake through 12 hours of seminars per week. So while I guess most lawyers probably play Metallica, Stones or some overwrought Springsteen anthem to wind up before a trial or argument, I listen to ABBA. If the drive to Court is long enough, I go through almost the whole "Gold" disc - "Fernando," "The Winner Takes it All," "Take a Chance on Me" and at least three plays of "Dancing Queen."

In one semi-rural county where I practiced a fair amount, the Court holds motion arguments on Fridays. One Friday, just like any of the others I was there during this stretch of my life, I pulled into the Court's parking lot in my silver Audi, wearing my boldest, best tailored Zegna suit. My teeth had just been bleached and my hair was matted into a perfect part, slicked near helmet-like to ensure it wouldn't move a millimeter on the walk across the street to court. I lurched the car into the lot, scattering stones and throwing dust up in a dirt patch at the entrance, just in case opposing counsel happened to be parking his car there at the same time. Personally, I'm non-confrontational. I'd just as soon settle any issue as try it. But like most litigators, and all young ones, I played a part. Perception's three quarters of reality, and I gave the people with the checkbooks what they expected - a shark, pit bull, assassin, hired gun... a crusader, but smooth - John Peter Zenger with a twist of Jackie Chiles and American Gigolo swagger - a true "Philadelphia Lawyer" for the 21st Century. Or at least that was the bullshit image I was selling...

It didn't matter to me that I was pitching fluff - whatever separated the client from his wallet was fine. Some Englishman said "He who goes to court takes a wolf by the ears," and if you were rotten enough to wind up with me, you deserved whatever he gave you. At this point in my career, based on what I can only conclude was my terminal lack of interest and the weary glaze of functional alcoholism manifesting themselves as quiet maturity and a genetic calm in the eye of constant white knuckle stress, I became the firm's "Garbage Man." If you'd done something rotten, wrong, immoral, ugly and indefensible - from serially groping your Summer intern until she needed therapy, to spending your investors' money on Italian cars and declaring bankruptcy, to tearing up a partner's employment agreement to increase your own take in a lean year - I was put on your near hopeless case. I didn't feel bad clawhammering through you or your company's bank account. Any unwarranted premium we squeezed out of you based on the inflated image I sold was a pittance compared to Karmic shitrain you were due.

There's a whole bunch of stuff and behaviors that go along with the Philadelphia "shark" image. At that time, I was driving a used Audi. I wore power suits, with the bold striped tie and the shiny, perfectly coifed Nazi Commandant haircut. I had a Cartier Panther I bought half price online, which I wore loosely, so that it fell to my wrist for maximum exposure when I relaxed my arms. My white collar and cuffs could cut glass, and they created the perfect contrast with the royal navy torso of the shirt. If it were the 80s, I'd have had my shirts monogrammed. I carried a leather briefcase I never used and wore wire rimmed reading glasses I don't need during client meetings. I ate at Southeast Asian themed restaurants profiled in Philadelphia Magazine and lived in hip, but not bohemian hip, neighborhoods where people with great hair marched about in suits or gym gear. I drank Macallan when I wasn't ordering wines I couldn't pronounce and ordered tuna tartare or cevice with every meal. If they made raw or lemon-curdled fish flavored sorbet, I'd have ordered it for dessert. I demanded fresh lemon with my Diet Coke, ordered my crumbled blue cheese and balsamic vinaigrette "on the side" and quizzed the waitress about which sparkling water was least carbonated. I wore Ferragamo loafers with a suit, even though it was a fashion foul, because nobody can tell whether the average wing tip is John Lobb or some piece of shit Bostonian. The metal Ferragamo clasp is unmistakable - these shoes right here... these... they cost $430.

When I eventually got sick of the City, I'd move to a tony suburb, snuggled between some golf courses, colleges and a couple Land Rover dealerships. If I had kids, they'd attend the local private school with the most stone buildings and peaked archways you see in the background of movies set at Ivy League universities. Mexicans would run around the yard and do things to the plants. I'd drop the kids at day care and dream about the nipples on the gym rat MILFs dumping their tow headed issue out of Benz minivans. I'd go grey and stately, call myself a specialist, describe my practice as "boutique" and double my rates. I'd switch to Gucci loafers.

The Friday morning at issue, the parking lot contained the usual collection of odds and sods. There were the sloppy, fat ambulance chasers waddling about with their ties sideways and shirt tails hanging out of the front of their pants, barking about their clients' slip and fall cases into their cellphones. There were two young business litigators who looked like young George Wills, pretending to be engrossed in some negotiation while checking out whose Z3 convertible was newer over each other's shoulders. There were the walking dead "Lifers" in their threadbare Jos. A. Banks suits with vests underneath to shield their brittle bones, trudging to the Courthouse to argue an inconsequential motion they'd argued 300 times before - taking the ride, billing the time, collecting the fee from the insurance company.

I squealed the tires as I pulled into the parking lot so everyone would turn to see the new detailing job I'd had done on the car. I had my cell to my ear and a scowl on my face. My Tiffany links were on display, one hanging from my white French cuff which was draped over the steering wheel. The sun's reflection on the newly waxed hood was so intense it nearly blinded me.

Look at me - I'm fucking important.

Most of the spaces in the lot were taken. To reach an empty one, I had to drive about 100 yards between rows of lawyers getting out of their cars. I did this slowly, all the while drumming along on the steering wheel to "Dancing Queen." "...You can dance; You can dance, having the time of your life..." My appearance, as usual, had maximum effect. Everybody stopped to glance as I rolled by.

I pulled right next to my opponent, Meyer, who was just exiting his SUV. Meyer was a friendly middle aged gentleman, average in almost every respect - 5'9, grey-haired, no doubt living in the suburbs with 2 kids and fat arsed housefrau. I waved as I pulled in, tapping my finger along the dash to the final notes of the song. I turned the car off and opened the door, my ears still ringing with echoes of the blaring four part harmonies and thumping disco backbeat. "Watch that girl, see that scene, digging the dancing queen..."

"Hello, Meyer," I chimed, removing my sunglasses and extending my hand.

"Hello," he strained queerly.

"Any chance we can settle this... I think I'm going to win this one. You sure you don't want to take my client's offer?"

Meyer smirked slightly, turned away and looked into the sky. I figured it a sign of resignation - that I'd bluffed him into a cheap settlement.

"Is that a yes?"

"No, I'm just..."

"I don't have any more to offer," I snapped back, pulling on my jacket and adjusting my cuffs in the reflection of one Meyer's truck's windows to ensure they were peek out of my jacket by exactly an inch.

"It's, uh, it's, it's... not the offer..." Meyer turned back, half stuttering and smiling.

"What then, what is it? The offer's more than generous. We're filing a counterclaim. Your client could wind up losing her ass..."

"I'm sorry... It's just... I mean, uh... ABBA?'"

I turned to look at the Audi, and to my horror, realized the moonroof was open. I'd driven the length of the Court parking lot, past dozens of lawyers, clients and witnesses who'd soon be the audience for my hearing that morning, blasting and singing and drumming along to "Dancing Queen."

"That's a few years old, right? I like the older body styles," Meyer pointed at my car. "You have to hold the button on the moonroof for a while to get it to close the whole way on its own. My wife used to leave it open overnight all the time. I'd find squirrel shit in it in the morning."

I don't even remember what the judge said when he granted Meyer's motion. I only recall walking the length of the packed courtroom, back from the defendant's table, seeing everyone from the parking lot in the audience grinning, singing in their heads, a few humming aloud, "Hmmm, hmmm, hmmmm, hmmm, hmm, hm, hm, hm... you can dance... you can dance..."

Posted by PhilaLawyer at 11:14 AM

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