LAW SCHOOLED – PART I

Believe it or not, I went to law school.

Not all of law school. Just part of it. Most of it, actually. Two years, from 1989 to 1991. Can we just get past this, please?

Anyway, I went to law school. And I really enjoyed it. A lot. But as I have since learned, enjoying law school is the first sign that you’re doing it wrong.

And I did so much of law school wrong. Starting with my first day of law school, when I went to the wrong class, an error I discovered about 10 minutes into the lecture. I spent the next 10 minutes debating whether to leave or wait it out. Being the man of action that I was (translated: wholly unconcerned with what anyone thought), I got up and walked out, bringing the entire lecture to a halt for the duration of what everyone else in the room thought was my First Day Dropout Walk Of Shame.

Continuing, I went to class only when I felt like it. I spent most of my time drinking beer and organizing intramural sports teams. I was especially interested in naming our various intramural sports teams. Our flag football team was called “Go Deep,” a name which I chose because that was our primary play call. I was shocked, shocked I say, to learn there was an alternative – and extremely dirty – interpretation of the name. Our basketball team was called “Second Year Girls Are Easy,” because that’s what everyone said about second year girls. And by “everyone,” I mean “me.”

Okay, here’s what happened.

Early in my first year, I went to a party that was attended by a number of other law students, including some second-year students. I got into a conversation with a second-year student, who was a girl, which quickly devolved into a condescending lecture from her about how there “was no way” I could understand blah blah blah because I was just a “first year” blah blah blah, which was cool, I guess, but then she wouldn’t get off it and kept on with the “first year” this and “first year” that. So I said, “Yeah? Well who fucking cares what you think? Second-year girls are easy.”

She did not think that was amusing. So…I had the phrase printed on our basketball jerseys in her honor.

I don’t remember what name we/I came up with for our softball team, but I do know that by the time softball season rolled around, I had adopted a persona by the name of El Gato.

El Gato was derived from the letters running down each side of a pair of sweatpants I’d purchased from a thrift store. The letters originally spelled “GATORS,” which was, to me, an abomination, so I cut the “R” and the “S” off each leg. The subsequent Spanish word that remained gave rise a character I called “El Gato,” who spontaneously emerged for the first time in a softball game against another grad school team.

To say El Gato was “cocky” would be like saying Bill Clinton “had a thing for the ladies.”

El Gato wore a do-rag on his extremely Caucasian head on the ever-so-slight chance there weren’t enough reasons already for you to hate his guts.

El Gato was a screaming, preening, Latino-impersonating, asshole.

El Gato announced his arrival upon this plane of existence when I was at bat in the first inning. I stroked a solid hit into the right-field gap – a hit which should easily have gone for a double. But rather than cruise into second standing up, I stopped at first base, planted both feet squarely on the bag, and began taunting the pitcher – who had done nothing more than pitch a ball at me, underhanded – in an awful and racist Spanish accent.

“EL GATO LIVES!!! YOU HAVE NOTHING!!”

Or words to that effect.

During my second year, one of my professors read off a list of students who had been dropped from his class for insufficient attendance. Later that day, when I finally made it to campus, my classmates informed me that I was on that list.

The good news is that I was able to talk my way back into his class. The bad news was that my re-admission was granted only after I physically pushed my way into his office – as he was physically blocking my entrance to his office with his actual, law-professor body. True story.

Once, my Civil Procedures professor was having an especially delightful time mowing down unprepared classmates by fast-forwarding through 9 or 10 case discussions, instead of the usual 4 or 5. When he called out the style for what had to be the 10^th case of the day, everyone in the class was scrambling through their casebooks in hopes that, just maybe, a friendly ghost had left some succinct and accurate analyses tucked among the pages.  

Everyone but me, that is.

You see, I had managed to remain just a whisker ahead of his demands, mostly because I can read super-fast and didn’t mind not listening to the actual discussion going on around me. These two skills had allowed me to be sort of prepared to stand and deliver, had he called on me to recite any of the first 9 cases.

But this was just too fucking much.

As everyone was scrambling, hoping for a miracle, I remained still, my eyes locked on the professor. He looked up to continue his interrogation – I mean – his lecture and his eyes met mine with the intent, I’m sure, of calling on me. But as we looked at each other for just a moment, I gave him the slightest head shake, like a pitcher who wants to bring the fastball instead of the curve.

It was no more than a left-right-left. Less than an inch in either direction.

He took a breath, shook his own head a bit, and called on the guy next to me. And totally fucked that guy up.

The next day, I showed up ready to recite for the full class session. And he did call on me, more than once, but not as often – or as cruelly – as I anticipated. I did not fare so well later that semester when I publicly embarrassed my Torts professor just a few weeks later. But you’ll have to wait for the next blog for that story.

© 2014 Lee B. Weaver