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Goliath
Goliath
Goliath
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Goliath

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Flora Lichtman had it all – the dream job with the storied law firm of Bart, Grabek & Morse, the dream boyfriend and a bright future. But when economic realities hard times threaten the long-term health of the firm, everything turns upside-down.

Salvation comes in the form Jack Jarvis, the notorious schmoozer and rainmaker, who promises to turn it all right-side-up. But Jarvis is also a prima donna not meant for polite society and when Flora finds herself assigned to ‘mind’ him, she alone knows whether hiring him was a fool’s errand or a stroke of genius.

Goliath is the off-color, surreal, laugh-out-loud funny story of one woman’s battle-of-wills with a giant of her industry. It is the perfect comic novel for our economic times.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 14, 2013
ISBN9781301158522
Goliath
Author

J.L. Hohler III

Mr. Hohler is a writer, living in Michigan with his wife and two children. A devoted soccer fan, Mr. Hohler's favorite clubs are the Manchester United and L.A. Galaxy, though he'll watch just about any game he can. In his spare time, he practices family law. You can read his blog at www.TheLastBlogNameOnEarth.com.

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    Goliath - J.L. Hohler III

    Goliath

    By J.L. Hohler III

    © 2012

    Smashwords Edition

    This is a work of fiction.  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

    Goliath

    © 2012 by J.L. Hohler III.  All Rights Reserved.

    Part I

    One

    When they hired a management consultant, it didn’t take a genius to know exactly what that meant.  It didn’t matter Peter Bart – he’s the one who put the Bart in Bart, Grabek & Morse, Attorneys-at-Law LLC – said there was nothing to worry about.

    He’ll only be here to help us streamline operations, he said.  "I promise you all – there is absolutely nothing any of you have to worry about."

    He could say that, but when he used the word ‘streamline’ we knew what he was really saying: very soon, most of you will be fired.

    At that moment, panic began.

    Well, that’s it, Flora, my office-mate, James, said when the consultant arrived, trundling in to set up shop in the conference room.  It was fun while it lasted, sweetie, but this party is over.  Would the last one out please turn off the lights?

    Oh, you’re just overreacting, I said.  "You heard what Mr. Bart said – he’s a consultant.  That’s it."

    "Don’t be naïve – he’s a butcher."

    But he said everything was fine.

    "He said it, but he didn’t mean it, James said.  And it doesn’t change he hired a hatchet-man."

    "A what?"

    Hatchet-man, James said.  You don’t know the slang these days?

    First he was a butcher, now he’s a hatchet man? I said.  Sounds like some little drama queen needs to get his metaphors straight.

    Don’t say ‘queen’, he said.  It’s insulting when you call me a ‘queen’.

    "You know I don’t mean it that way."

    Doesn’t matter what way you mean it, darling, he said.  I’m still offended.

    Well, I didn’t…

    "And anyway, I’m not being dramatic.  That’s what the man is – that’s what they hired him for, James said.  And if I’m honest, he looks like he might actually know how to wield a hatchet.  And the last thing I want is him confusing which hatchet he’s supposed to wield – or where it’s supposed to land."

    If that’s a joke, I don’t get it.

    I’m serious, he said.  See for yourself, if you don’t believe me.

    I didn’t want to see for myself, because it would just be giving James what he wanted, but James wouldn’t relax until I did see and so down the hallway I went, to peek through the glass divider around the conference room door.  Inside, the4 consultant, Mr. Page, lingered over an impressive stack of financial documents.  Red pens were everywhere.

    Well? James said, when I returned.  When you eat you crow, how do you like it prepared?

    "I’m still not convinced."

    You can deny it if you want, Flora, but when they drop the axe on this place…

    "Now he’s an axe man?"

    …we’ll be the first to go – you can count on it, James said.  So I hope you remember how to tend bar, because unless Max is going to start paying your student loans for you, that’s what you’ll be doing.

    They’re not going to fire us.

    They won’t?

    No, I said.

    And what makes you so certain?

    "Because they just won’t, I said.  But even assuming they’ll fire anybody – which I doubt – they’ll fire the new guys first."

    "You’d think it would be that way, but it won’t, he said.  Because in this equation, darling, we’re worse than the new guys."

    That doesn’t make sense.

    It’s simple economics, he said.  When it comes time to separate the wheat and chaff it’s guys like Peter Bart that’ll do the dirty work. Right?  And do you think Peter Bart’s going to fire himself?  Not in this lifetime.  So him, and everybody at the top with him, are safe.

    If you say so.

    Which leaves two groups to get the axe – middles, like us, and the news, he said.  And when guys like Peter Bart start looking around and see what you and I make, and what the new ones make, he’s going to ask himself who’s likely to work harder for their money?  Who will work cheaper?  Us or them?

    What about efficiency?

    Irrelevant, he said.  The only thing that counts is the top stays and the bottom stays.  Everybody else is living on borrowed time.

    * * * * *

    The afternoon the consultant turned up, everybody in the building avoided him, scared to get close.  The second day, though, after having a chance to sleep on it, the man suddenly had a hundred best friends.  All day he endured a steady stream of people ignoring their work and doing whatever they could to drop around the conference room – all very casual, of course – to try and drag him off to lunch, or drinks, where he’d surely be forec-fed pictures of snotty children while enduring sob-stories about exorbitant mortgages and decrepit grandmothers.  But aside from Marjorie, the receptionist detailed to bring Mr. Page coffee and sandwiches and anything else he might want, short of the pleasures of the flesh, nobody got to him.  And the only reason she got to him was she was mother-in-law to Peter Bart’s oldest son, which meant she was protected from on high.

    Mr. Page gave very strict instructions he’s not to be disturbed, she explained, when another body turned up, demanding an introduction.  Mr. Bart ordered the same.

    When they couldn’t get through the front door they tried to go around it, trying to corner the man in the parking garage at the end of the day, or in the conference room first thing in the morning, just as he arrived.  Some even approached him in the bathroom, in the midst of his business.  But those he did find themselves face-to-face with the man were not greeted with friendliness, understand, or even a kind word.  Instead they met Mr. Page and his resolute silence.

    He’s impenetrable, James said, after his own advances were rebuffed.  It’s really kind of impressive how solid he is, when you think about it.

    Maybe he’s deaf, I said.

    I didn’t think of that, he said.  Then, How long do you think it takes to learn sign language, Flora?

    The pestering of Mr. Page came to an abrupt end after two weeks when, deciding he’d seen enough, he disappeared, leaving behind a slender, black binder: his report.

    Well, here it is, James said, when he managed to get his hands on a well-thumbed Xerox and poured over it.  Want to know what it says about you?

    Not really.

    "You’re not even a little curious?"

    Whatever’s going to happen will happen, I said.  No need to get worked up about it.

    James thought I’d lost my mind – "There’s plenty of reasons to get worked up, Pollyanna," he said – but wasted little time trying to convince me.  Instead he set to studying the report himself reading each word as if it were gospel, until finally he found something he didn’t like and summarily tossed it into the trash.

    That good? I said, unable to help myself.

    What do you think? he said and stormed out without another word

    * * * * *

    I tried to ignore the report, but after the production James made of it, I just had to fish it out of the garbage, eventually finding that not only was James tabbed for the dustbin, I was too.

    In the morning, stumbling in hung-over, I found James at his desk, in full-on denial, telling himself the report was only a recommendation and wouldn’t necessarily be acted on.  It was quite a reversal.

    Until someone does something, it’s just paper, he kept repeating.  Just paper.

    Paranoia returned, though, short of noon, when Bill Morse packed his office, removed his name from the firm masthead – he didn’t physically remove it, because until new signs could be installed, and new letterhead printed, and new LLC papers filed, his name would remain – and took his talents across town to Brock & Thornburg, who henceforth became Brock, Thornburg & Morse.

    When he left, everybody realized if one of the names in the masthead could be expendable, then everybody was, and those who hadn’t already done so clamored back to their offices and eschewed anything that looked like work until they’d updated their CV’s and worked the phones to find any openings there might be in any other firms in the tri-county area.

    I told you so, James said, when he realized what this meant for his future and started combing through his alumni newsletter for law school acquaintances.  "Didn’t I tell you this would happen?  Didn’t I?"

    Didn’t your mother ever teach you it’s not polite to gloat?

    The age of politeness is gone, James said.  Welcome to the new world order.

    * * * * *

    Even though everybody expected the cull to begin immediately – because there seemed no point in delaying the inevitable – Peter Bart, the last living man with his name on the letterhead, and the one person who held our fates in his hand, did nothing.  He didn’t hand out pink slips, he didn’t go through the Kübler-Ross stages of grief, he didn’t crack under the pressure of impending failure and go running naked for the hills.  Instead, he did nothing.  He just sat there in his office, behind the locked door from sunup to sundown, not saying a word to anybody, about anything.

    In a dark mood, James joked the reason Bart hid was he hoped enough people would get scared off by his silence and quit and save him the trouble of firing them, but though a few obliged, it was nowhere near what was needed.  So finally, when Bart emerged from a week of hiding and gathered everybody into the library on the third floor, around the majestic oak table Old Man Grabek had built to impress clients, way back when the firm was merely Grabek Law Offices, LLC., we all thought this was the end.

    I’m sure you can guess why we’re here today, Bart said, when we were shoehorned into the room.  Rumors are hard to keep hold of and I’m pretty sure everybody’s heard them, so I’m not going to bother explaining.

    He looked around, waiting for somebody to disagree, but not one did.  I never understood why he thought we might.

    The bottom line is this, folks: revenues have pretty well plummeted, thanks to the Downsmith Industries implosion, and you all know by now what that means for us – 40% of your bottom-line going away is not the kind of thing that goes unnoticed, he said.  "But Downsmith isn’t the only problem we’ve got, because they’re everywhere and that’s just fact.  Now, just because this might eventually mean the death knell for Bart, Grabek & Morse – excuse me, Bart & Grabek – it doesn’t mean I think we should just lay down quietly and wait for death to wash over us.  Rolling over is not how I do things – it’s not the way we do things.  We’re fighters here, we’ve always been fighters and we’ll always be fighters."

    He paused then, to pour himself a glass of water from the pitcher in the middle of the table, and in the moment of silence I could hear phones ringing in unattended offices up and down the hall, and could also hear the buzzing of more than one cell phone down in somebody’s trouser pocket.

    Now, I’m not going to try to pretend you haven’t read this report form Mr. Page – not exactly the feel-good read of the year, is it? Bart said, with a caustic snort.  He held his copy up for all to see.  "And because I know you’ve all read it, you know there’s basically two ways we can go about this thing.  First, we try to weather the storm, jettison cargo and crew members until this place gets on an even keel again.  We’ll be leaner and meaner and fighting as a lightweight – the best of the lightweights.  But I’m no lightweight – I’m a heavyweight – and when this firm has trouble we don’t run, we turn right into the storm and face it head-on.  Sure, we might wind up sinking the ship, with all of us on it, but who said there isn’t honor in going down with the vessel?"

    I’d love to play poker against him, James whispered in my ear.  I’d make a fortune.

    Well, crew, the storm is coming and unless we’re prepared to scuttle this ship, I suggest we batten the hatches and steer right into the eye of the storm, Bart went on.  Now, when I first proposed this idea, Bill Morse resisted.  He wanted to be the iceberg, sinking our Titanic.  ‘We don’t have enough lifeboats for everybody,’ he said.  ‘Sacrifice the few to save the many,’ he said.  But I don’t see why we can’t save the many – and the sacrifices, too.  Bill disagreed and so took his leave – god rest him.  Now that the naysayers have taken their dissent elsewhere, I think it’s time we follow Ahab’s lead and go harpoon us a whale.

    Talk about mixed metaphors, James whispered.

    In that vein, I’ve reached out to a real fighter, a great glorious heavyweight, the kind of man who can come in here and take the helm and whip us into shape, Bart said.  "And I guarantee you, if Jack Jarvis can’t bring this ship home, then nobody can.  And if we all wind up perishing with the ship, well, at least we know we tried, and we can take solace in knowing we left a beautiful corpse."

    * * * * *

    Bart’s oratorical skills left something to be desired – that probably explained why he was the managing partner and not an active practitioner of the law.  But, just because I didn’t find his speech all that moving didn’t mean there weren’t those who were inspired – James included – a feeling I attributed to the euphoria of not having lost their jobs.

    James? I said, breaking his hysteria once back in our office.  Who’s Jack Jarvis?

    Jack Jarvis is an attorney, he said.

    "An attorney?"

    Yep.

    Wait – you’re telling me Peter Bart’s master plan for salvation is to hire another attorney?

    "Well, I wouldn’t say it that way, he said.  Jack Jarvis is hardly another attorney."

    Okay.  Then what is he?

    "He’s more than an attorney."

    You mean he’s got superpowers?

    Very funny, James said and laughed, but when he realized I didn’t join him, he stopped.  "Wait, Flora – do you really not know who Jack Jarvis is?"

    Should I?

    "Of course you should, James said.  He’s Jack Jarvis."

    So?

    "So everybody’s knows him."

    Obviously not everybody, I said.  "And even if I should, please explain how the reasonable solution to our problem is hiring another attorney.  Didn’t the consultant already say there were too many of us around here as it is?"

    Not as many as their used to be.

    That’s basically my point.

    Look, Flora, James said, didn’t I already say Jack Jarvis isn’t just another attorney?

    You did.

    And doesn’t that mean anything to you?

    "Does he have a law license?’

    Probably.

    And does he practice law?

    I think so, but I don’t know, he said.  I’ve never seen him in court.

    Well, then I don’t know why it doesn’t sound like it to you, I said, "but he sounds exactly like an attorney to me."

    Okay, fine, he’s an attorney, James said.  "So what?  We’re all attorneys."

    I looked at him.

    "If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you like the idea."

    It’s not the worst one I’ve ever heard, he said.  I mean, if I’m losing my job anyway, it’s kind of fun to think I’ll at least lose it with style.  And you never know, he might actually be the answer.

    "Another attorney?"

    Why are you so hung up on that?

    "Because unless he’s bringing a box of gold coins with him, or a bag of magic beans, he’ll only ever be just another attorney, I said.  And when it’s time to let us go, that’s one more of us that has to go to make way for him."

    "Actually, James said, with more than a little irony, knowing what they’ll probably have to pay to get him, that might be five of us."

    When he said it, it sounded as though a joke but I didn’t laugh.  And obviously I wasn’t the only one who thought Mr. Bart had finally come unmoored from reality because by the end of the afternoon two other offices turned up empty, vacated by their prior owners, who had no further use for Peter Bart’s incoherent leadership.  When I heard about the resignations I thought a whole rash of them might follow and I’d magically be spared, but instead it just started a feeding frenzy amongst the junior associates, all with visions of a world in which they no longer shared offices, but had one of their own – including James.

    Don’t take it personal, Flora, he said, when he announced his intentions of vacating the space we’d shared for the entire three years I’d been an attorney and set off to jockey for one of his own.  Didn’t you ever want your own office?

    Two

    I couldn’t imagine the promises James made to get it, but first thing the next morning I arrived to find his desk empty and a cardboard box on his chair, both of which he eventually wheeled off to the corner office Betty Steele, the sour old lummox of a woman, who tendered her resignation and vacated the premises the moment Peter Bart finished explaining his grand vision.

    Good riddance to that old bitch, James said of her, when he appeared to collect his effects.  It was a notion I shared, even if I was less-than-thrilled James would be moving on.

    "You’re not really going, are you? I said.  You’re not really taking her office?"

    Hell yes, I am, he said.

    But what am I supposed to do? I said.  I see you more than Max – it’s like you’re breaking up with me.

    Oh, sweetie – we’ll always have Paris, he said.  And I’ll still write.

    I’m serious, I said.

    I know you are, he said.  That’s why this feels a little weird.

    He laughed and wheeled his things off and it really did feel like the end of an era – since I started working at the firm, I truly did spend more time with David than Max – and when I turned back to the office, I contemplated a cry, just a little weep, but was drawn up short when my phone buzzed.  It was Peter Bart, summoning me upstairs.

    "Lichtman,

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