Page 50 of Bless This Hot Mess

Rebekkah pulled her glasses out of her purse and plopping them on her nose, squinted at the billboard, reading aloud, “McMaster… weekend warrior jock… works with orphans… Wow. Don’t judge a book by its cover, Rebekkah! Yeash.” She cleared her throat before continuing to read, “Have you been injured in a slip-and-fall incident? Taking on new clients now… Call Micah. 1-888-AXI-DENT.”

“It’s a sign,” Japheth said, looking skyward, his hands dramatically outstretched.

“From our Big Guy in the Sky!” Ronald added, his voice equally reverent.

Japheth nodded sagely, “Micah Weinus, Weinus, or Ware… we’re ready to sign on the dotted line.”

Ronald took a deep breath, his thumb and pinky making an imaginary phone in the air, “Ready to call our new lawyer?”

Japheth’s eyes lit up, “Ready! Wait, me? You want me to call?”

“You’re the only one with a cell phone, dude,” Ronald shrugged.

“Oh, right,” Japheth acknowledged, pulling his phone out, his fingers trembling slightly. He started punching in the numbers with the kind of deliberate focus usually reserved for bomb squad deactivation or in this case, divine intervention. “1 8-8-8…A-X-I… D-E-N-T,” he muttered, matching each beep with his corresponding finger press, as he looked from the billboard to his dial pad, finding the corresponding letter/number combination. “It’s ringing!”

“Weinus, Weinus, and Ware,” came a voice on the other end, deep and professional.

“Esquire Micah?” Japheth squeaked, excitement barely contained.

“Yes,” the voice rumbled, then cleared his throat, lowering into an even deeper tone. “Ahem, yes. Hello. How can I be of service?”

“Sir, Esquire, Sir Micah!” Japheth started again, fumblingfor the right words and unsure which honorific should be prefixed to the lamentations he laid out for their lusted-for lawyer. “This is… my name is Japheth, and first, let me say I was very taken with… uh, I mean, very impressed with your billboard. You looked adore… adorned with, like, credentials and you fit so many attractive… um, so many appealing qualities on my, I mean, our checklist. So much magnanimous manliness… er, magnanimous manifestations of your experience and aptitude for the job. In print. Up there. On the billboard… You managed to fit a lot of appealing items into that rectangular square footage…” Japheth trailed off to everyone’s relief. After all, this lawyer did charge by the minute as noted in the fine print which was still quite legible blown up on the billboard.

The voice on the other end of the line warmed, “Fourteen feet high by forty-eight feet long. Thank you. It was hard. To fit everything. But I’m also a graphic designer. I couldn’t fit that on the billboard, but now you know.”

Japheth’s jaw dropped. “Wow,” he whispered to Ronald and Rebekkah, his hand covering the receiver. “He’s a grapher designer, too!”

Back on the line, the man who was now clearly the most fascinating lawyer on Earth asked, “How can I help? Have you been in a slip-and-fall accident? Are you seriously hurt?”

“Uh, no,” Japheth replied, his excitement undeterred. “But, well, I’m standing in front of your billboard right now. Do you have an office close by?”

“In Manhattan?” Micah inquired smoothly.

Japheth gasped, then turned to Ronald with wide eyes, and whispered, “He has an office inManhattan!”

“Hello?” Micah’s voice cut in, confused by the silence.

“Oh, yes, sorry Sir Micah,” Japheth recovered. “But,uh, I’m in Greater Napanee?”

“Ah, yes, the Canadian chambers,” Micah said, his voice tinged with mild regret. “Pity we can’t meet in person.”

“Pity…” Japheth repeated, nodding as though it were the worst fate imaginable.

“I’m travelling indeterminably and indefinitely with no set return to the Canadian chambers. Most of my clients and fans understand that I’m a Dial-Up Drifter because I’ve found I truly can work efficiently and effectively from anywhere. But I assure you that just because I’m an AWOL and AOL Adventurer, that doesn’t hinder my services. I’m a Floppy-Disk Freelancer, so I’ll always have a copy of your records stored safely in my briefcase or mountaineering backpack.”

“So, I’ll never actually meet you? In person?” Japheth flatly phrased, flummoxed by this new type of remote working.

“I’m here to serve and protect you. My specialty is slips and falls, but I’m sure you know that. My reputation preceding me and so forth?”

“Yes, Sir. Yes, Esquire,” Japheth tripped over his words, his mind a mush of sandcastle daydreams he hadn’t quite known he was building, suddenly eroded by reality’s tidal wave.

“Micah is fine,” Micah replied, a note of amusement in his tone. “Really, call me Micah.”

“Okay… Micah!” Japheth said, his confidence growing with the thrill of hearing himself use the man’s first name so informally and with growing familiarity. He imagined Micah might one day invite him to call him Mic and maybe Mic would one day call him Jap in return. And suddenly, Japheth was again busy building sandcastles in the sky.

Micah broke the spell of Japheth’s romantic rumination and continued, “I do have to make this quick, though. I have orphans to feed at four and then a good sweat on the ice atfive. Hockey really helps me work out the kinks from all the legitimizing. I mean litigizing…”

“Litigating?” Japheth offered, his inner word nerd poking through.