I was sitting at a large desk in my law office in an elegantly converted old, Victorian, frame house. Behind me were windows unto the street. A tall, slender black man (probably in his mid 30s) walked in. He was well dressed in a white shirt and tie. He was a lawyer who had come for an appointment to discuss a case in which he was opposing me.
I was representing a debtor, Mr. Thomas, in bankruptcy, and the lawyer was representing a mortgage company. When Thomas had originally filed bankruptcy, he had been in arrears on his mortgage payment. I had formulated a plan for Thomas to repay the arrears over a period of time through the bankruptcy court, as well as maintain his regular mortgage payments while he was in bankruptcy. The mortgage company now claimed Thomas had failed to make his payments, and the lawyer had filed a motion with the bankruptcy court to seek permission to foreclose on Thomas's house.
The lawyer and I had already discussed a possible agreement for Thomas to catch up what he was behind. After sitting down, the lawyer handed the agreement to me. I quickly scanned it and saw that the agreement said Thomas had missed over $10,000 in payments since he had filed the bankruptcy. I balked, thinking that was too much, that Thomas hadn't even been in bankruptcy long enough to have missed that many payments. But when I looked in my file and saw Thomas had been in bankruptcy since 1988. I realized he could indeed have missed that much.
I had dropped the agreement on my desk in a rather haughty way. I picked it back up, realizing it might be necessary to enter it. I spoke again with the lawyer and we agreed to postpone the agreement until I had a chance to review the records. I told him I would like for him to send me a record of all payments received by the mortgage company since the bankruptcy had been filed.
The lawyer handed me his card, which displayed a picture of a building in Longhorn, Texas. I had never heard of Longhorn. I had heard of Longview, Texas, but I didn't know where Longhorn was.
It seemed curious to me that a black man would be representing the mortgage company. That was rare. I wondered if the mortgage company was run by blacks.
The man stood to leave. I pointed to the door to my right, which led to the secretary's office and reception room, and I told him he could leave that way.
Copyright 2005 by luciddreamer2k@gmail.com
