"Cards" on the Table

One thing you figure out pretty quickly in practicing law is that most of your encounters, your conversations, your motions, your entire persona become largely scripted. At first, it's a bit of a shock because Law School is a pretty laid back atmosphere from an etiquette standpoint, so your first year in practice you have the potential to make a few gaffes.

Most lawyers I've met are pretty decent folks. Contrary to popular belief, most of us are not complete douchebags. There are definitely some, but fewer than you'd probably think.

Anyway, by about your second year, you pretty well have the script down. You've been to a few motions, you've written dozens of dry letters, responded to discovery, taken thousands of phone calls, and otherwise immersed yourself in a world faker than a beauty pageant. Some may look down upon this characterization of practicing law, and they're certainly entitled to that opinion. However, try talking to a lawyer in 'real life.' Do they sound like a lawyer? Probably not, at least not most of them. They're playing a role. They have to. Fortunately or unfortunately, the law is replete with custom and tradition and variation from either is looked down upon by the powers that be.

So when you see something that isn't in keeping with custom and tradition, it tends to really stick out, assuming you know what to look for. One of those instances still haunts me to this day.

I was working on a very large case, involving hundreds of attorneys. At a certain point in time, there was another case ongoing that might have impacted the case I was currently working on. Several of the same attorneys were involved in both cases, so I tried to keep an eye on what was going on in the other case. A good friend of mine was involved in both, so we would talk about it. We were at a deposition and one of the attorneys who was also in the other case was about to depose a witness in the case I was involved in.

I mentally referred to this particular attorney as ‘Fish Lips.’

Depositions are fairly formal events. If I go to a deposition, I will wear a suit. No, it's not as formal event as a Court Appearance, but the witness is under oath and it does have certain rules and customs that you are typically expected to follow.

Fish Lips was huge. I'm not talking 'oh, you mean she's not as rail-thin as a model huge.' At my heaviest, I ran about 240 lbs and I'm 6'2". Fish Lips had me by about 50 lbs. Remember that chick that won American Idol? Not the one with no neck, the other one. She was in that Eddie Murphy movie. Fuck it, I can't remember her name.

Except Fish Lips wasn't remotely cute. We've all seen this chick. She had completely given up on any attempt at putting herself together. I get it, I’ve battled weight issues, and it takes a lot of work and a lot of time if you’re inclined to lose it. That being said, I see thousands of overweight women and most of them still try to put themselves together in a way that is pleasing to the eye. Combing their hair. A little make-up. A low cut blouse, you know, a little something for the audience. Or bathing.

Not Fish Lips. She would show up to depositions in stretchy pants. I don't mean those slacks infused with that rubber stuff - not to be confused with Spandex (which I believe has been outlawed) - I'm talking full on 'I had fourteen kids, I vacuum, do laundry all day, run the kids around and eat at McDonalds six times a week' stretchy pants. The type of stretchy pants that are the de facto uniform of every girlfriend on ‘Cops.’ I can only imagine that the fabric of these particular stretchy pants had been woven from the very soul of Hitler because I can't imagine a worse fate than being Fish Lips’ stretchy pants.

For a top, Fish Lips would have a dark long-sleeved t-shirt thing with a sweater that looked like it was straight out of the Bea Arthur catalogue for women who were waiting to die with 15 cats and an outstanding balance of $54,982.13 at QVC.

But like any horror movie, it's not what you directly see that scares you, it's what lies beneath that keeps you up at night.

I like boobs (just check my profile). I LOVE boobs. Frankly, if I had a pair of my own, I probably would be homeless because I would feel no need to be gainfully employed. Ok, ok, you get the point. But those boobs? I now understand the phrase 'too much of a good thing.' These things were huge. Massive. Not in a 'wow, I'm a bit aroused but feel guilty about it' sort of way, more of a 'my penis would commit suicide right now if it had an opposable thumb' sort of a way. If these were the only boobs in the world, I'd be full on Clay Aiken gay.

Think back to when you were a kid. You and your friends were hanging out at the local swimming hole. Think hard. You remember? There's a dock out there in the middle of the lake? Ok, now imagine you're goofing around with your friends and you look back and there's suddenly a Blue Whale on the dock. You're positive it wasn't there just a second ago. You'd swear to it. It is so out of your expectation of reality, your brain can't handle it. At first, you deny to yourself that there's a huge-ass Blue Whale on the dock of your pond. Your eyes refuse to believe your brain. You move to 'maybe it fell on the dock out of the heavens' as an explanation. Nope, no splash. Feverishly your brain seeks to come up with an explanation that allows you to keep your illusion of reality intact. You probably settle on 'oh, it's Ted the Big Fucking Blue Whale and he's always there.' You know it's a lie, but it's a useful lie. Your reality takes a bit of a bruising, but a few drinks will set you right.

Unfortunately, I had none of the above excuses to keep my own reality after what I was about to see.

Fish Lips subtly moves a shoulder. Waves of fat ripple from the strain of the motion. Time and space seem to bend. Reality tears just a bit. Somewhere, you can hear the distant scream of a child. Through the deft use of fat-physics and redirection by hand, it happens.

Fish Lip's right breast is now sitting on the table in front of her. If you’ve ever seen the movie Snatch there’s a scene towards the end when Turkish, Tommy and Mickey walk out of the unlicensed boxing match, fully expecting to get shot. Turkish says something along the lines of ‘you think your life will flash before your eyes, but you just end up with a stupid ass look on your face.’ (Oh, by the way, spoiler alert for the preceding sentence if you haven’t seen the movie.) I had that look. Except possibly more frightened. Frankly, I would have rather been shot. Because, for whatever reason, I continued to watch. I couldn’t look away, like rubbernecking on the Turnpike. You know you might see something that you can’t handle, but you can’t stop yourself. In fascination, horror, and praying to all that is holy that I'm struck blind immediately, I watch as the she repeats the motion, reality tears a bit more, and the left breast joins its partner on the table.

And there it is. There's my Ted the Big Fucking Blue Whale on the dock. The only problem is I witnessed him jump out of the water onto that dock. No amount of negotiating with myself will ever make that go away. No, my reality was forever changed.

I looked around the room. There were 30 attorneys, at least, in this room and it did not appear to me that one of them had actually witnessed this catastrophic event. No one is that good of an actor. You can't witness that and be the same.

When I went to law school, we learned phrases like res ipsa loquiter, nunc pro tunc, supra, and respondeat superior. We learned to be pompous, to be proper, to be lawyers. The Cool Hand Lukes of this society. Women used to bitch that they’d have to wear skirts to court, and how sexist that was. No where, at no time, in no way, did anything prepare me for a fat chick tossing her jubblies on the table like she was the shooter at a craps table screaming ‘Fish Lips needs a new pair of shooeeeeessss…’

The veneer peels away just a little bit. You start to see the man behind the curtain, and his very existence isn’t something you’re prepared for.

So why was I the only one that saw it?

Because of my jackass of a friend. As I said earlier, my friend and I discussed the other case he was involved in, and he told me the following tidbit that happened at another deposition that Fish Lips took:

"Dude, she flopped those puppies right on the table in front of her."

And I doubted him. Some may say the moral to the story is 'believe your friends.' I disagree. The moral to the story is 'don't ever fucking tell me something like that because I might think it's necessary to watch to confirm the story.' Or 'Lie to me, motherfucker, lie to me.'

That's why I was looking. And maybe that's why I was the only one that caught it.

And I'm scarred because of it. Thanks a lot, jackass friend.

Thanks a lot.