The Farther We Go, the Rounder We Get - Part I - June 25, 2008

Harry: How far have we gone?
Lloyd: According to this map, about an inch and a half.

- Dumb and Dumber (1994)

"Can I ask why?" Jeffrey stopped in his tracks the minute we met eyes. The fish was in my hand, in the air, dangling above my lips. Thankfully I couldn't answer. My mouth was already full, stuffed like a chipmunk's with acorns.

You can always ask why, but that doesn't mean I have an answer. We stood there for a moment, not saying a word, each of us taking in the scene. There was Jeffrey, a partner from my group, standing, staring, open cell phone in his hand. And there was me, behind the deli, next to a dumpster, peeling slabs of lox from a wax-paper package and shoveling them in my mouth. It wasn't an ugly moment. He hadn't caught me getting high with the bicycle couriers who openly smoked dope behind the buildings or stepping out of a massage parlor. This was just strange. It's not everyday a person turns the corner on his way back from a client luncheon and runs into one of his employees in a suit, cufflinks and tie, gorging himself in a filthy alleyway like some vulture gnawing carrion. To all the common passers by, I might as well have been eating rancid meat from the trash, an overdressed wino, white collar crack-head or escapee from a local psyche ward... One of those wretches who stumbled around the blocks bleating about conspiracies and begging for change. But Jeffrey knew better. He knew I was sane - too sane, really, and this was something else... something odd, seditious and bizarre.

He was right. Sort of...

I hadn't walked out for lox. I'd walked out to leave. It was a Monday and I'd snapped. You know those Mondays. Everyone knows them. Those mornings where a ten minute flurry of phone calls, faxes and emails turns a perfectly calm week to a shit rain of idiot paperwork... Those moments where you can actually feel your face turning purple as some Napoleon threatens you over the phone... I'd gone in hoping for Nothing - a boring, dead week, the best thing you can hope for in a law firm. By eleven I'd been peppered with five calls, four letters and a half a dozen emails. All annoyances - the usual pile of grating, niggling demands. "When can you get me this?" "When can you get me that?" "When can I expect this other thing?" From the incoherent threat letters of grammatically retarded plaintiffs' lawyers to the tyranny of emails from management about the ten days of time sheets I still owed, every communication held that same selfish refrain... "Gimme, gimme, gimme... I want to take something from you to make my situation better. I'm going to sap your energy, drag your mind to a task the benefits me, my wallet, my bottom line. I want things, and I'm going to burn you and everything else around me like fuel to get them. I have car payments to make, tuitions, golf course minimums... My wife just ordered granite for all the bathrooms."

I'd walked out the door to catch a cab, go home, put on a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and flip-flops, jump in my car and drive. No destination in mind; just step on the gas and run. Bolt from the box, from that crushing claustrophobia... Take off on the highway, through the cornfields and mountains and the desert. Never stop moving. Float around the country like a salty drifter in one of those old beer commercials - the grizzled sort stalking into dusty bars with "Big Log" or "Midnight Rider" playing in the background. Get space, air, breathe. Live like a fucking American, like goddamned human.

I stepped out the front door and looked up the street for a cab. The firm was on a slow corner, so I decided to walk a few blocks, closer to City Hall. Then I saw the sign in window of the deli. "Nova Lox, $22.00 pound." Hmmm. Few foods on Earth beat quality kosher lox. Salt and raw, smoked salmon... Poor man's sushi. I could easily eat a half pound alone - no bagels or onions or tomatoes, and none of that disgusting cream cheese heathens smear on the stuff. It was almost lunch, and there was no resisting hunger... or my chronic ADD. The decision came like instinct. A moment later I found myself in the deli, in line, waiting to order. Fuck it. My "escape" could wait a moment. I'd grab a quarter pound, appetizer size - something to eat on the run...

And really, let's face it - Where was I going? I wasn't going to get in the car and drive off for the Left Coast. I'd do what I did every time I lost my mind at the office - get a cab home and sit in the living room, taking my pulse, catching my breath and reasoning with myself. You have to go back. Everyone hates it. That's why they call it work. The problem isn't the job - it's you. The rest of the world suffers through this shit and you're going to have to as well.

Serenity now... Serenity now...

I'd tell myself the same thing every time, something I knew all too well, from so many doomed "escapes" - all those frenzied midnight runs and frantic, pointless road trips that had gone horribly, hideously wrong. All the times I'd thought the answer was in distance, speed and movement - a simple matter of placement, stumbling on a magic "elsewhere." And all the times I'd learned... Running just to run is running in circles. Or running in place, maybe, depending on how look at it. Either way, you wind up at the same finish line.

* * *

The first "escape" fiasco I remember was in college, sophomore year. A bunch of us were sitting in a room in the fraternity house, bored and restless, facing another dead Thursday night. Same beer, dope and people - another keg party in the basement, repeating the tired drunken ritual we followed every night. Looking back now, that seems like Nirvana, a moment most of us would give a finger to have again. But then, there, as crazy as it sounds, the scene could get routine, like you were living in an endless loop of reruns. There was the same music - that constant hum of "Jessica" or "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" pouring out of the basement stereo.¹ The same beer - $30 kegs of Milwaukee's Best, frequently warm or skunked. And all the same women - the ones you'd already tried and failed to hook up with, hooked up with and didn't want to hook up with again or knew would never, ever, under any circumstances hook up with you. We needed something different, a totally new scene. That or a distraction, something to occupy the mind - a quest, challenge or competition of some kind.

"I know this chick named Amy. She goes to ________________." My friend Chris yanked a cigarette out of his mouth, sat up from the couch and pressed the mute button on the television. "I sort of hooked up with her over Thanksgiving break at home. We should road trip there."

"_____________ University?"

"No, the _______________ meat packing plant. I hear it's a got a great tour. What other _________________ would I mean but the college?"

"That's like two hours away."

"No it's not." Chris reminded me I hadn't majored in Geography. "It's an hour, maybe an hour and quarter."

"She have any friends?" My buddy Martin lifted his eyes from a magazine.

"She's cute and she lives with a bunch of friends. They're probably cute." Chris picked up the cordless phone. "I'll give her a call."

Twenty minutes later eight of us were in the hallway, prepping for the trip. We had Chris driving half of us in his rickety old Volvo and another brother, Randal, taking the other half in his rusted, mid-80s Honda Accord.

"We need liquor for this." Martin got straight to the important business. Most of us had been casually drinking beers. Stopping dead for any period of time would crater whatever thin buzzes we had. As any drinker can tell you - there's no restarting a drunk. Break the steady flow of fuel - give the brain and liver a moment to regroup, build up a tolerance - and your buzz is shot for the night.

"Jagermeister." Chris snapped.

"Not in my car." Randal laughed. "We'll have Beam."

"I don't give a fuck what you drink, but I'm not drinking that shit."

"Jaegy? Your pussy hurt?" And so the battle was joined... There were two types in the fraternity - people who drank bourbon and the people who didn't. Chris' liver had the proof of a bar towel, but he never drank bourbon, and that was a sore spot with some. The house worshiped bourbon, viewed it like a sacrament. Jagermeister was a novelty item, the sort of thing you kept around for visitors, sorority girls or someone's silly younger brother visiting from Villanova... A sugary, seventy proof buzz for people who couldn't handle real whiskey. Randal was a purist. He wasn't drinking fortified cough syrup on a road trip.

"Fuck you. I don't have to justify my choice of sauce. I can go round for round with you anytime."

"Okay." Randal laughed. "Let's make a bet..."

Fifteen minutes later we were parked outside the liquor store, waiting for an older fraternity brother to bring out bottles of Jagermeister and Beam. "So here's how it works." Chris spread a map across the hood of his car and showed Randal the route to _____________. "First car there - with the bottle finished - wins a handle of whatever they want."²

"Wins a sack!" Stuart, a member of the house's "Baking Contingent" screamed from the back of Chris's car.

"Don't start that shit." I had to cut off that debate before it gained any traction. Every fraternity has a "Baking Contingent," that group of members who smokes twice as much dope as everybody else and reduces every transaction, conversation or house meeting to a discussion of how they might procure cheap or free weed.³ It was bad enough I found myself in the Jagermeister car. The last thing I needed was to suffer through an argument over first prize.

"You have a shot glass, right?" Chris handed me the bottle and jumped in the driver's seat.

"You sure this is cold? I'm not drinking this shit warm."

"Freezing to the core." He backed out of the parking space and put the car in gear. "We called ahead and had them put the bottles in the champagne chiller."

"The champagne chiller?"

"You know. That whirlpool thing filled with cold water that-- What the fuck are you doing?"

"I'm pouring a shot."

"We're on fucking Main Street." Chris shoved my hand down and pointed across the road. "The police station is right over there."

"I thought we were in a hurry."

"You notice the windows in this car? You can't hold the fucking bottle in the air like that, like you're working in a lab or mixing shit in chemistry class. Pour that shit down low."

"Fine, but you don't have to knock the bottle out of my hand. This stuff's black. It stains."

"Hey. Hey." Stuart leaned in between the front seats, holding a lit bowl in Chris's face. "You guys want to hit this?"

"Shit, man." Chris waved off the smoke. "Wait till we're out of the center of fucking town."

"I think that's the post office right there, Chris." Martin coughed from the back seat. "The police station's on the other side of the street."

"Thank you. Thanks for that clarification."

"We should have made it so the winner gets a sack." Stu whined to Martin. "Think about it. A sack's worth fifty bucks. What's a handle cost? Twenty bucks? How's that worth the effort?"

"It's not about the prize." Chris adjusted the rear view mirror. "It's the principle of the thing."

"Look. I have to be honest." We hadn't even made the bridge out of town when I realized we had serious problems. "I have issues here. I don't think I can do this."

"Too late now..." Chris laughed and crushed a cigarette butt in the ashtray. "You're in."

"There's no way I can pour shots like this. The potholes alone are killing me."

"You sure you don't want to hit this?" Stu's bowl re-appeared in my face, this time from the from the window side of my seat, as though that little added distance - the two and half foot difference between him handing it to me from that angle and passing it up the middle - would somehow hide the transfer from Chris's gaze.

"With what?" I had the bottle in one hand and a half full shot glass in the other. "My foot?"

"The car doesn't have cup-holders?'

"For liquor bottles? Square liquor bottles?"

"So you don't want to hit it?"

To be continued...

----------
¹ Low Spark and Brothers and Sisters being the last remaining tapes that hadn't been stolen or destroyed.
² "Handle" - 1.75 liter bottle, named for the glass handle usually affixed to its side.
³ Officials in the house routinely won the Contingent's vote on governance issues by earmarking initiatives with promises of free sacks for them.

Posted by PhilaLawyer at 7:26 PM

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Comments

Holy shit, are you great at building a scene or what? Your book is so mine, even if I have to drink a whole bottle of Jager to get it.

Posted by: Vincent at June 25, 2008 10:31 PM

This is going to be awesome. Great start, I read all your stories.

Posted by: Eugene at June 25, 2008 10:33 PM

Fuck the book (although I will be getting it as soon as it comes out.) You need to be working on a screenplay.

PL: Thanks. That's a high compliment.

Posted by: Sean at June 26, 2008 01:53 AM

I'm with Sean above...after the book, it's time for a movie. Actually, fuck that...an entire series. If Friends can last eleventy billion years, a PL show would be epic.

Posted by: Luke at June 26, 2008 03:01 PM

I love it when you write about getting fucked up and partying. I'm not sure what exactly that says about me.

Posted by: Jon at June 26, 2008 03:14 PM

Holy shit I like the start of this one. Reminds me of all my stoney friends that can't understand when someones says no to a hit.

Thanks for this post!

Posted by: Guy at June 26, 2008 03:17 PM

Your writing is amazing, can't wait for the book. I must also say that you have an incredible taste in music. You've turned me on to some great stuff (Little Feat, Traffic, Hot Tuna, etc.) Any other recommendations?

PL: Gomez, 22-20s, Black Angels, Cactus, And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Bad Brains, The Black Keys, BRMC, Moe, Gram Parsons, Burning Brides, Flying Burrito Brothers, Dick Dale, The Datsuns, Abba, Eagles of Death Metal, Interpol, Faces, Govt Mule, Hives, Stooges, James Gang, MC5, Jeff Beck, Keith and the Xpensive Winos, Libertines, Masters of Reality, Rod Stewart, Hank Williams III, Ween, Kings of Leon, Widespread Panic, Talking Heads, Sublime, T. Rex, Slayer, Beck, Ryan Adams, Secret Machines, The Redwalls, NWA, Melvins, Judas Priest, Queens of the Stones Age, Country Joe and the Fish, Arlo Guthrie, Janes Addiction, David Gilmour, Syd Barrett, Yardbirds, Vines, Paul Butterfiield Blues Band, Jay Z, Presidents of the United States of America, The Mother Hips, Eazy E, Black Flag, Johnny Winter, Bloomfield/Kooper/Stills, John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, Dr. Dre, My Morning Jacket, Sex Pistols, Fear, Weezer, Pixies, Radiohead, Rush, Santana, Slade, Lou Reed, ZZ Top (only really, really old ZZ Top), Simon & Garfunkel, Humble Pie, Black Crowes, Mooney Suzuki, Kyuss, INXS, Pearl Jam, Porno for Pyros, Prince, Byrds, Stevie Ray Vaughan, White Stripes, Strokes, Roger Waters, Wilco, Public Enemy, Blind Melon, Leadbelly, Screaming Trees, Son Volt, Motorhead, The Band, Drive By Truckers, Duran Duran, Jamming With Edward

And of course, Dead, Who, AC/DC, Neil Young, Velvets, Allmans, Stones, Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, Dylan, Hendrix, Sinatra, Doors, Zeppelin, Ravel, Wagner, Clash, Bowie, Metallica, Cream, Clapton, Skynrd, Johnny Cash, Black Sabbath and all the usual suspects.

I'm sure I'm missing a bunch here.

Posted by: Andy at June 26, 2008 03:53 PM

This is some of your best dialogue. I'm eagerly awaiting to see how the shit hits the fan.

Posted by: Ben at June 26, 2008 04:12 PM

This better not be some cheap subterfuge solely built to bait me into an argument about the merits of drinking Jaeger... You know I have a life philosophy constructed around it. It's how I've lived as long as I have and how I'll live forever. Doctor Hoffman didn't live to be 102 on LSD alone! PIZZA! PIZZA!

PL: Hoffman was an evil prick. If he'd any decency he'd have kept his mouth shut. We could all be naked right now...

Jager... poor man's Rumpleminze (the most Teutonic of liquors).

Posted by: Rosie Palmer at June 26, 2008 04:24 PM

This (choosing to ride in the Jager car instead of the bourbon car) explains a great deal about you. Jesus.

PL: It was Beam. If it were Maker's things would have been different.

Posted by: Bob at June 26, 2008 09:08 PM

Cufflinks ? Really ?

PL: Really. If you're going to do a thing, go the whole way.

Posted by: Olivier at June 26, 2008 11:42 PM

C'mon with the book already you magnificent bastard.

PL: Click "Ten Percenter" in the archives.

Posted by: Kevin at June 27, 2008 09:08 AM

Does the book have a title yet?

That's an impressive looking music list. Care to distill it into top 5 artists or albums?

PL: Click on "Ten Percenter."

Make it ten. I'll do that in a post next week.

Posted by: Mike at June 27, 2008 11:20 AM

I don't want to be a D-bag with this question but how many people don't know what a handle is? Thats like someone asking "What's a packie?" (people have asked me that so it might be a bad example)

Anyways, I appreciate the opportunity to read stuff this good for free while at work trying not to do any.

PL: You never know, and there's no loss in educating, even that small sliver of the audience.

Posted by: Grasshopper at June 27, 2008 12:31 PM

Entertainment lawyer. Thats what you should be. The contracts are incredibly sloppy by design, everybody is overpaid, and you can live in the sun. I work for a talent agency with about 10 JD's who gave the finger to firms after law school and came here. Each day closer to the book release is one day closer to Hollywood anyway.

PL: Hollywood would be fine with me, but I'd rather do something besides lawyering there.

Posted by: Sam at June 27, 2008 05:40 PM

I sure as fuck didn't know what a handle was, my first thought was PL was talking about a texas mickey, now that drastically changed my perspective on the story. I've only referred to a 1.75L bottle as a 60.

Posted by: Curtis at June 27, 2008 06:24 PM

I've heard the term "handle", but where I'm from we usually refer to it as a "party handler". I would also like to see a ten band post, Phila.

Posted by: Jon at June 28, 2008 02:28 PM

Curtis: do they have Mickeys down in texas? Are they glass bottles in the curved shape, similar to a flask, but larger? I ask because in Canada we have mickeys but nobody in the USA that I've run into (both coasts, some mid-west) knows what the f they are. Curious if Texass has mickeys?

Posted by: Canadian Whiskey at June 28, 2008 07:42 PM

Beam, while on the bottom rung of drinkable bourbon, is still a hell of a lot better than jaeger. It doesn't have many particular redeeming qualities, aside from the fact that it smells, tastes, and gives the drunk of bourbon-- but that should be enough. It goes down pretty easily and has produced many nights of drowning sorrows ("She's a week late...") and great celebrations ("I am not a daddy!") for me, and I'll always have a warm place for it in my liver.

PL: True, but for that price point, Turkey beats the shit out of it.

Jager's an odd buzz. I can't slop down Jager shots just fine, but I'd never intentionally drink the stuff.

Posted by: Julian at June 30, 2008 08:26 AM

Fear... You didn't include Fear on your list, although I think that by adding Black Flag, you implicity are telling people to enjoy Fear... Hell, can you think of a more appropriate band for the social climate of 2008? "Everything is so dangerous that nothing is really very frightening." I've been locked in a lover's embrace with Fear (the band and the idealogy) going on nine years now...

My mind boggles everytime I try to understand why people (meaning the general population of this prison that we call Modern Society) have such a hang up about Jaegermeister... Coupled with Red Bull, Jaegermeister becomes a drink of the gods... Something Thor might have for breakfast. But it is so widley and completely reviled in upper middle class America... I don't get it.

A good friend of mine once said "Rosie, people do blow so that for 20 minutes they can feel like you do all day, every day..." I'll let ya'll in on a little secret, (wispering now) Red-bull and jaegermeister for breakfast. See you on the rainbow bridge! PIZZA! PIZZA!

PL: Licorice and lemonade... two great tastes that work like Epicac together. By the way, do some reading on the history of Jager. Hermann Goring's favorite cocktail? Developed as a "digestif" (anti-constipation syrup). It must be true... I read it on Wekipedia (more sources than Wikipedia, less vetting). Sort of like "Malk, Now with Vitamin R."

I put Fear on the list. How couldn't I? Has there been a better movie than "Neighbors"? Maybe "1941"?

Posted by: Rosie Palmer at June 30, 2008 04:32 PM

Excellent read. My only critique would be that you got the Dumb and Dumber quote wrong.

PL: Pulled straight from the script.

Posted by: Ant at July 2, 2008 11:48 AM

I resent all the complaining about Plaintiff's attorneys. I'm one myself (for most part0 and can say that I have similar complaints about defense attorneys. Other than that great piece. Glad my firm isn't blocking your site, yet.

PL: Go through the rest of the site. If anything, I've been exceedingly harsh on the defense side, with very little criticism of plaintiffs' lawyers. I try to be fair in that regard. Both sides have many decent people on them. Both sides are also chock full of assholes.

Is this site really blocked that much? I've heard it was blocked at some larger firms, but I figured it was just a general "Nat Nanny" type of thing. It's not being specifically blocked because of it's content, is it? I mean, for God's sake. It's not like I'm not writing something revelatory here.

Posted by: rogi at July 2, 2008 03:46 PM

The scripts I found online listed the quote the way you have it at the top, but the actual line in the movie is different.

I couldn't find the clip on youtube, but the site in my url has a sound file of what he actually says.

PL: There's another quote in here opening another story where the written words don't match the actual words of the speaker. I guess I could put an asterisk next to it, but then... why?

Posted by: Ant at July 3, 2008 03:06 AM

OK, OK I used to resemble the Plaintiff's lawyer crack. Now, as a Divorce Lawyer, the hacks that practice domestic relations only part-time are worse. (nothing like carving families up into their constituent parts...)

At one point I was sure you went to Hopkins undergrad b/c you come off similar to someone I knew there, maybe not.

Any thoughts on a top 5 (relatively cheap) Bourbon/Whiskey List?

PL: Informally... 1. Woodford Reserve 2. Basil Haydens 3. Blanton's 4. Turkey 101 5. Bakers

2 and 3 can switch spaces depending on my mood.

Posted by: FrattyLite at July 3, 2008 01:09 PM

C'mon, where's our music post? It's fucking hot out and I want some new music with my Anchor Steam

PL: Soon. This week or early next.

Posted by: Andy at July 7, 2008 11:46 AM

A couple of good bourbons that I haven't seen you mention are Eagle Rare 10 Year and Elijah Craig. Both are reasonably priced, as well.

I haven't tried Woodford, yet. That one will be next.

PL: I like Eagle, but Elijah Craig has never been a favorite. It does, however, have a cult following. I have known many people who swore by it.

Posted by: Jon at July 11, 2008 05:55 PM

;Canadian Whiskey:
I am in fact Canadian and I have no clue to whether Texas has mickey's. To explain what I meant by a texas mickey; well urbandictionary.com does it best.
"Canadian term for mythical - to outsiders anyway - 3 litre (101 oz) glass liquor bottle available at liquor stores in Canada. Contains vodka, rum, or best of all, Canadian rye whiskey. The comically oversized nature of a texas mickey makes it a perfect party showpiece, which is more or less the main reason such bottles exist. for an equal amount of money, more alcohol could be had by buying two 60 oz bottles, but that wouldn't be half as awesome, would it? Pouring from a texas mickey is not very practical so the bottle is usually supplied with a small pump to go on top. Nobody throws out a texas mickey after they're done with it - it goes on display for at least a little while so that when you hold your next party, you can point at it and say "last week we drained that thing in a night, eh?" Also, there are no texas mickeys in Texas...despite the name, the origin of the term is 100% Canadian."

Posted by: Curtis at July 16, 2008 12:42 AM