Werner and Row

 Short Story #2

Werner tried pressing call but his phone had a strong distaste for the blood that was being smeared across its screen, exiting the call app and turning on the camera instead. “Damn it,” he mumbled, wiping bloody fingertips on his jeans. He looked around at the inside of his Silverado for something to clean the screen with and located an Arby’s wrapper. He cleaned his phone of blood, but now the problem was barbecue sauce. Maybe this was a sign he wasn’t supposed to make the call after all. Maybe there was an alternative.

“And maybe you’re letting the concussion do the thinking for you,” he muttered. He sighed heavily and began punching in the number—a number impossible to forget because it was plastered in four-foot lettering across the side of every other bus in town. More accurately, it was plastered on every bus in town, but only one side of those buses.

 

In a Wreck? I’ll Write a Check! Call Row Law Today 777-777-7777

 

Werner’s own number was on the other side of those Sun Tan buses, which served the dusty, heat-stroked town of Deming, New Mexico, and its ever dwindling population of 15,000. It seemed like every time Werner drove down Maple Avenue another grocery store or auto body shop was celebrating its 40th year of service by closing its doors for good, to be replaced, respectively, with a Dollar General and a meth den.

Deming was founded as a railroad junction in the 1880’s, reached its peak in the early 20th century, and had been dying a slow death ever since. The interstate, with its steady infusion of gas station and Big Mac revenue, had kept Deming on life support, but the signs of decay were everywhere now: trash in the street, stick-like trees in desperate need of irrigation, broken glass littering the potholed pavement below smashed-out street lights. 

There was only one thing more prominent than the empty storefronts and crooked Commercial Space For Lease signs, and that was the graffiti. A trucker passing through from Los Alamos likely wouldn’t have noticed it, even if his or her route took them through Deming twice a month. Not so for Werner. He closed his eyes as his fingers hovered above the number seven on his phone—he’d gotten to five sevens and stopped—and the bus bench ad (the one near the corner of 7th and Prospector) flashed in his mind. He was dressed in a black suit and dark blue tie. The photo was cut off at the waist by a banner reading:

 Wronged? Call Werner for a Windfall 666-666-6666

His arms were folded and his tan face was grim, with deep-cut lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth as if he’d grown up wrangling cattle south of town out past Hacienda, not playing Super Mario Bros. in the dark basement of his parents’ 3,500-square-foot house in the “rich” neighborhood that overlooked the east side of town. The lines on his face in that photo had not been Werner’s idea. 

“You want to exude confidence,” the photographer had argued. “No one has confidence in a 31-year-old lawyer out on his own. Especially when it’s their one and only shot at a big payday.” So Werner had given the go-ahead and the lines had been photoshopped in, creased forehead and all.

The Hitler mustache, however, had not been photoshopped. That had been the crude work of one of the skatepark teens, who had almost certainly been paid in six packs. The mustache had been replicated two dozen times on other benches, the sides of buses themselves, and even on one of the three-story billboards gracing I-10. Speech balloons had been added to some of these:

I take 90 percent commission. You take it up the ass!

I got disbarred in Janueary! (January was misspelled).

Werner’s got a wittle weiner was another popular hit. 

I gobble my mother’s fat veiny cock must have been the artist’s favorite line, for it had been reproduced the most often. Werner’s ads were adorned with other illustrations, including hastily drawn hair cock and balls, pirate eye patches, and blacked-out teeth. And while Werner would have gladly taken the teen out into the desert and held his .45 to the little shit’s head as the scrawny fuck pissed his jeans, the responsible party was an adult. Wasn’t that always the case? Wasn’t a parent or an uncle or society at large actually at fault when an adolescent shoplifted or borrowed a neighbor’s car for a joyride? This had more or less been the line taken by many defense lawyers whom Werner had gone up against as a young prosecutor in Albuquerque, and it had often proved successful. Besides, there was someone else Werner wanted to use his .45 on much more than the skatepark teen.

He looked down at the glowing blue screen with the five sevens. Before he was able to add another, a stabbing pain in the center of his skull jerked his hand and the phone dropped between his seat and the center console, where the .45 was conveniently located should any would-be-carjacking-teen make the mistake of blaming society for his misbehavior. Werner reached his hand down in there to grab the phone, momentarily forgetting about his mangled fingers and knuckles. He yelped as the raw skin, covered in a bulky bandage, pressed against the hard plastic of the console.

“Fuck you!” He wasn’t sure who the curse was directed at: his phone, the console, or his knuckles. The cab fell oddly silent after the yell dissipated. Aside from the hot engine of his Silverado ticking on in the darkness, there was nothing. It was still over 100 degrees at nine-something at night and sweat was forming at his brow.

“Fuck it, and fuck him,” Werner said, breaking the silence. He pressed the ignition button and cool relief began pumping out of the vents. He threw the car into reverse and backed out of his driveway. “Fuck it, and fuck him,” he repeated. 

Five minutes later he was at the yellow front door with the obnoxious, oversized horseshoe door knocker. He pulled the knocker back, hesitated, lowered it slowly, and rang the doorbell instead. He felt sick. His pits and crotch were slick with sweat. There was time to turn back. He didn’t have to go through with this. But what other option was there? It had to be this, didn’t it?

“The fucking bastard,” he said, under his breath. “The fucking bastard!”

Werner may have started the smear campaign, but he’d been drunk off his ass at the time. He could barely remember taking the sharpie to one of Row’s bus stop ads and scrawling Row’s social security number across the image of his former law partner’s forehead, along with a message reading, I diddle young children! Yes, that had been a bad decision—one that had prompted swift escalation—but Row was the one who’d cast the first stone. Row had been paying homeless “eye witnesses” to come forward in otherwise unwinnable cases. Nine months ago, when Werner had confronted him about it, Row had claimed that Werner must have known all along.

“How on earth did you think I was finding all those winnable high asset cases?” Row said in defense. “Besides, it’s none of your business. You handle your cases and I’ll handle mine, and I’ll continue paying 70 percent of the overhead while I’m at it. You’re welcome.” 

“You’re going to get us sued, for Christ’s sake!” Werner protested. “Disbarred. Hell, thrown in jail!”

The argument had continued for weeks until the two men eventually parted ways. Werner had convinced (blackmail would have been too strong of a word) to let him keep the original phone number with all the 6’s, but Row had gotten back in his own way: he’d slept with Werner’s younger sister. Simple as that. 

There were thudding footsteps of a heavy, barefooted man on hardwood and the deadbolt on the door ca-chunked. The door opened and Row’s bulk took up the entire doorway. The 45-year old man, adorned with real wrinkle lines, seemed unfazed, as if he’d been expecting his former partner and current adversary at this late hour.

“Bryan,” Row said.

“Hello, Renny.” Werner said flatly. 

“Look,” Row sighed. “I’m glad you’re here. We’ve had some. . . rough months, but it needs to end. We’re in agreement on that, right?”

“That fucking bus,” Row said through clenched jaws. “Why didn’t you pull me off the street when—”

“There was no time! Believe me, there was no time.”

The two men had been arguing in the crosswalk, each holding a fistful of the other’s collared shirt, yelling at the top of their lungs, when it happened. Row had lunged backward and stepped up onto the sidewalk just in time. Werner dove. Not in time.

“I swear to God, Bryan. I wouldn’t have just stood there and let you get creamed.”

Werner visualized pulling the gun out from his waistband and pointing it at Row’s forehead. But that wasn’t going to happen. For starters, the gun was still in his car. More importantly, he needed a favor. There were just two law firms in town—Werner Law and Row Law, and representing himself was out of the question. Every attorney knew this. Besides, it was a losing case. They’d practically jumped in front of the bus. The driver had already given his account to the police, and the official accident report would be written in stone in a day or two.

“I think I know what you’re here for,” Row said, almost sympathetically.

“I’m still in debt from law school.”

“Our education system is broken.”

“I won’t be able to work for the next month,” Werner said.

“I know. The concussion.”

“And my hand. It’s practically chewed down to the bone at the knuckle.”

“A miracle the tire didn’t crush it or tear it off completely.”

“Renny, I. . .”

“Don’t worry, Bryan. “Let me do you this favor and we can call things even.”

“How?”

“As it happens, I might know a guy who saw the whooole thing unfold.”

“Let me guess. The bus driver was speeding.”

“Yes. And come to think of it, this guy, this witness, saw the bus driver change lanes last second. Swerve is the word he’d use.”