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Lance Martin

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Posted Tuesday, Nov. 23, 1999, at 9:00 PM ET

I crawl out of bed at 5 a.m. (Anne is long gone.) I tend to the dogs and then head to Greenville, driving past tranquil cotton fields swathed in fog. From the mists appears a doublewide with hundreds of rusting washers and dryers in its front yard.

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I like to fine-tune my Mr. Salty physique at a local health club before work. I always go in on Mondays to multitask: I can do the Stairmaster and watch NFL highlights on Sportscenter. This morning, somewhere between my 15-minute cramps and 18-minute shortness of breath, Dan Patrick informs me that my beleaguered Saints have lost again. I pray for the repose, I mean depose, of Ditka.

I'm in the office by 8. Everyone else in my section is already there. I like to buy books and eat, so I am truly grateful to have a job, even a job at this firm--I'll call it Stingy & Miser. And I'm not going to sit here and bite the hand that feeds me. OK, maybe just a little nibble. Like Tina Turner, I left a good job in the city. It wasn't employment nirvana--I loathed the billable-hours regime--but it had all the trappings you hope for when you're nap-jerking your way through law school. I had an office on the top floor of the tallest building in New Orleans. When trapped in that office for 60-plus hours a week, I could at least gaze out at the tugs and barges running in the murky horseshoe of the Mississippi River. Here, in our single-story brick boomerang, I stare at the parking lot and, if I crane my neck, a gas station. The mahogany desk that gave me a Pledge fetish has been replaced by a gray, modular, Formica unit that calls to mind the word "kitchenette."

But it's not just the surroundings. I miss the little perks. One of my mentors (can I give a shout-out here?) would send me the Sunday New York Times Magazine and Book Review every Monday morning. Not anymore. Here they reprimanded me for snaking the Reflector from the lobby. The old place had good coffee and free juice and bottled water. S&M has Mountain Dew for 75 cents. There you got cake on your birthday. Here it's Dutch treat at the mall food court. The old firm gave us free stamps, copies, faxes, and long distance. Here we pay for everything, or they turn us over to collections. (Actually, my section handles collections, so I'll have to prosecute myself.) The old place gave a Christmas bonus. S&M gives plastic coffee mugs. Mine came with a suspicious plastic amber growth on the lip. (Anne's having it analyzed by Pathology.) S&M does have Muzak going for it, but hearing The Greatest American Hero theme song doesn't quite rectify the imbalance.

The clincher is that S&M works its lawyers harder than the old firm does. It's the worst of both worlds, Metro-Firm Light: all the billable hours, half the salary, none of the benefits.

Nevertheless, I accept my plight with Christian humility. Today is a good day at the office. I score a personal victory when my supervisor lets me keep the phrase "linguistic legerdemain"--my characterization of our opponent's argument--in a thick bankruptcy brief. I work with one client on some discovery responses and help another with a big closing. I spend the afternoon researching various ways a bank can shake down a farmer who defaulted on his loans. We represent the Man and deal with the unfortunate underside of this roaring economy: farm closings, commercial bankruptcies, and enough consumers with out-of-control credit-card debt to fill a NASCAR stadium.

Since July, a colleague has been pestering me to attend the local Kiwanis Club meetings. I've been ducking him, but today I succumb to the buffet at the Riverside Steak House. I want to report on this bizarre subculture, but I realize the Kiwanis do noble work for needy children, and it would be cruel to tease them for a few cheap laughs. Therefore, I'm not going to share the salty jokes of the wisecracking codger who sat next to me, a dead ringer for Buddy Hackett. And I won 't comment on the charger-plate-size badges these middle-age men wore over their breasts. I won't even tell you what they do with the "Happy Jar." You'll have to join your local Kiwanis Club to find out.

I leave the office at 6, the first in the section to go. I return to Ayden for the Tree Commission meeting, our activist community group dedicated to preserving Ayden's majestic oak trees. We discuss the best way to replace the giant canopy oaks we lost in the hurricanes. Afterward, it's back home for face-time with the dogs.