White Man's Problems Read Online Free PDF Page B

his victory, which Murphy confirms in a tired voice, reading a slipstream of language to the court reporter, which will be repeated into the boilerplate appellate clerks use to burn the case into law.
    Klezak gets in the car and inserts his earpiece. He calls the assistant vice president for claims at State Farm to report the beating, but she is out just now, so he leaves word. Klezak already knows he is not going back to the office. He has worked sixteen days straight and twenty-seven days total this month, answering interrogatories, propounding document requests, conducting document review, Bates-stamping evidence, reading deposition transcripts, writing motions to compel, opposition briefs, jury instructions, and orders to show cause. As he drives, another case dead in the water, he feels it coming.
    At Wilshire and La Brea, he goes left, then left again on Cabezilla to his house. The grass is the color of hay, like Wyeth grass. Inside it is dark, as it always is, because he thinks darkness keeps the house cool in the long, flat, dry afternoons. He removes his glasses at the bathroom sink and looks at his face. It keeps on coming. He decides he will take the day. He goes to the garage, stuffed with horded junk so voluminous he can’t fit the car, and next to the hot-water heater finds the cardboard box. The flap says Service 9-01; repair Inlet Gauge, monitor regulator . The box contains black pants and a white button-up shirt, both layered with filmy grime like that of a restaurant floor.
    Beside the box is a grease pan he keeps for these occasions. He dabs a finger in it and begins to smear his neck, taking care not to mar the skin too badly while still filling the pores with jet-black. He rubs the thick, oozy emollient through his hair until it gets stringy. He begins changing into the clothes. He shuts his eyes when he breathes in the body odor of the shirt. He feels the blood in his temple as he gets ready to go. His mind begins to loosen when he starts the car.
    â€œKlezak, you fuck,” he says. It is a mutter, and it becomes steady as he backs the car out the driveway. “Murphy, fuck you. Jack-off. Never been a good judge. Fat, lazy fuck. Depends on the clerks, anyway. It’s hourly, anyway. Will send the fucking bill, anyway. Let them move the file. Let someone else deal with that Stetson.” He speaks in a loud voice now. “You’re dealing with a rich plaintiff, Holly. Ms. State Farm. Fuck you. A fucking plaintiff who can pay a big fancy lawyer, Holly. When the rich man is plaintiff, you’re fucked in the ass.” At the light, he pulls at his hair and holds his dirty palms to his cheeks. “Fucked in the ass, Holly.” He drives on. He squeezes the wheel. “Klezak, you fuck. You do the discovery and then you get removed. Klezak fuck. Klezak fuck.”
    La Brea is crowded, but when he gets on the I-10, he sails. He gets off at Fourth Street in Santa Monica, where he drives into the Sears lot. The Sears is old, like a throwback, like the sixties or the fifties, a timeless place with women in girdles and those white sunglasses with the points, the Flannery O’Connor kind. He goes down the escalator to the Home and Garden section. The green hoses smell like rubbery-flavored water, the kind you get when you put your lips up to the brass end. “Breach of contract for the jury,” he says. He is spitting his words. “Fuck you. I lick that metal when I drink from a hose. Stick my tongue inside and roll it all around.”
    He hears a voice: “Welcome to Sears. Let me know if I can help you find anything.” It’s a black girl with a weight problem. She wears braces, the kind with double rubber bands connecting the molars.
    â€œI’m fine,” he snaps. “I don’t need any help. I’m fine.”
    She smiles at him. “The hoses are on sale.”
    â€œI don’t want any help,” he says.
    â€œOk, sir. Let me know if you