Ed Note: This is the first of a trilogy. John Davis Collins says, " In reading all of the trilogy remember that I loathe Christmas because the stories are true."The Inditer Christmas Page
Everday Saints
by John Davis Collins @1997 All Rights Reserved By John F. Clennan, Esq.
The dying autumnal sun was setting in the western horizon when I raced into the open secretarial area of the law office clumsily clutching reams of legal papers under my arm. Dark haired Lillith spryly jumped up from her desk to my left, and held her hands on her hips, accentuating her svelte figure. She roared, "What do you mean waltzing in here with a pile of...at 4:10 p.m. with you head up your ... "
The three older ladies who shared the secretarial area were roused from their late afternoon siesta. I glanced toward the partner's corner office. He looked up and suppressed a chuckle that blossomed at the corners of his long narrow face.
My early days in private practice brought me to many other firms and in contact their "corporate culture."
This firm presented itself as 'Christian' in the icons in the waiting room and the literature it left there. Like much about the firm, this was plastic. There was another portal to the same firm further along the corridor guarded by old Art Chime, and dedicated to a different iconography.
The other women looked up at the clock and muttered, "Possessed of the Devils," at Lillith.
After I endured a blizzard of profanity and cajoled Lillith back to the firm's only computer terminal, the partner beckoned me to door for "a word."
"The Word," Lillith chided me under her breath, "summons." Inside the cherrywood decorated corner office, the tall lean partner told me, "This is a Christian firm. I can't tolerate Lillith's bursts of profanity any longer...There have been complaints...."
"She's your girl..and I'm a hired gun to do a big case...You talk to her,...but you're afraid."
"Afraid of having to let her go." The partner shook his head morosely. "Lillith," I sighed, "is the only one capable of staying awake long enough to do the heavy work the case requires. The rest are medicaid eligible...and nap afternoons away and decline overtime."
The partner paused before he replied, "For the moment I'll move her off the floor --- When we set up the Christmas tree there should be room for Lillith in the utility closet." The utility closet was at the other end of the office, next to the door which led out of one illusion into another to Art Chime's foyer.
On my next visit, the ceiling high plastic Christmas tree had replaced Lillith in the outer office. The dozing secretaries pointed me toward the windowless supply room where Lillith's new desk... a small grey metal one sat on an unfinished floor between sturdy pillars holding up rough shelves laden with the odds and ends that keep an office open. In the corner, short chubby Art Chime was picking through the shelves looking for supplies. "I should have brought my flashlight," he grumbled.
"Like my new surroundings," she said with an evil smile.
"Saved you the boot...Neither of us could afford that...you've got to watch the language."
She shrugged her shoulders indifferently.
Art Chime turned around. His bushy eyebrows suggested he would make a joke out of the situation. Instead he said, "Lillith, these Born Again Christians say the same thing everybody else does, except they say it differently. They come in here and say 'The Lord sent me. (I have no money); 'You bear the mantle of righteousness' (No one else would see me). 'My cause is just.' (I won't settle on any reasonable terms)....
"I've been called a chump and it sounds like a church service. And this is a Christian firm !"
"They're so Holy," Lillith tartly retorted, "To endure them, we have to be everyday saints."
I chuckled and I could see a devilish sparkle of delight in Lillith's eyes reflected off the dangling 40 watt bulb above. "We'll work out our own code... And we can talk undisturbed."
Working out our perverted lexicon was a few minutes of fun. I commented, "Now, I can curse back, whenever you start..."
"Testing your faith," Lillith tartly retorted.
Right before the office's Christmas party the very eve of Christmas eve I came racing in shortly after 4 p.m. with yet another lengthy brief to be typed on the big case.
"Praise be, The Lord must have sent you..." Lillith growled at the top of her lungs in disgust. "I planned to cut the party to go home early to pray with my boy friend..."
"I am about the Lord's business. The blessed judge wants Holy Writ by 9 o'clock. Glory."
"Hallelujah to him. Fill him with the Holy Spirit and get an extension."
"Gloria, Lillith, any halfway decent Sister in the Lord could sanctify the brief in an hour."
"You expect the miracle of leafs and the bi..." She caught herself.
Stopping in mid sentence, Lillith peered at the door. In the doorway stood a man with a plain suit holding a Bible under his right arm. "This is indeed a Christian Firm," he proclaimed.
Lillith and I walked out into Art Chime's waiting room where he was calmly sitting on a couch reading the paper. We laughed hysterically.
"Christians been smoking Holy Dope for Christmas?" he commented.
"No, Art, we're high on the Lord." I replied.
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