It's 2:00am Saturday morning Eastern Standard Time. Somebody

Once I was holding a pair of scissors and a guy ran into them stabbing himself. In confusion he backed up and stumbled on my scissors again. He walked away and said thank you.

Hello from the PNW. Its 11:15PM. Help me I'm bored..

good morning 9:16

>>78219711

I interned in a law office. If you wanna try cases in front of a judge in America, you usually cut your teeth in traffic court while you're in law school. Basically, they make baby lawyers take public interest cases in legal aid clinics because you can't justify 500 bucks spent helping some dork deal with a traffic violation or a reckless driving charge or w/e.

We had a man come in wondering how much trouble he was in. His name was Art and he was a Norweigan immigrant in his 50s.

Art's real name was something like Audruille; at least that's what he said. No idea how to spell it, or even pronounce it. He'd lived many years in the states. Had himself a pretty burger wife and two kids.

Anyway. Art had a bit of an issue: A few months prior to walking into my office, he'd been diagnosed with cancer,

Shall I continue, or are you already asleep?

>>78220110
Continue please.

>>78220125

Well, Art had done well for himself here, he was pretty successful. I'm still not even sure why he walked in... You see, legal aid is for poor people. People dealing with shitty landlords or bosses who don't have the money to fight it, chicks with abusive boyfriends who can't get out from under a lease with them, inheritence or contract disputes with an employer, and so on.

Our man Art was sitting on top of a fucking fortune. Massive piles of money. Normally, I'd have told that dude to go hire someone experienced, but he'd started telling his tale and I was sort of invested.

I mean, I told him to go pay a good lawyer was something he should do. I told him I was still learning, cutting my teeth. But he laughed and said he was where he needed to be.

I got him a coffee.

>>78220274

He started talking about all sorts of shit. Chemotherapy, hair falling out, the fact that the radiation killed the pulp and nerves inside his teeth and they had to pull every tooth. The teeth themselves are a living thing; hit them with radiation and they die, turn black, and rot.

So if you get chemo, at least the kind Art had, the teeth gotta go. Everyone knows about the hair, thinks about it, but the teeth?

Old Art said his weren't actually pulled one by one or anything so horrific. It wasn't even a dentist that did it. His chemo doc did it. They numbed him up completely, and run a scalpel between the gums and the bone, top and bottom.

He said it was over in 20 seconds. It didn't hurt at all but he was aware of it; sort of disgusted and sad all at once.

So his teeth had gone. but he had dentures like an old man. You wouldn't have been able to tell but he made a point of pulling them out and having a laugh about it.

>>78220496

He talked about his wife, Mary. How they met at a seafood restrurant, His little girl, Annette. She was 12, towheaded and blue eyed, and will probably grow into a pretty lady. The type /pol/ puts on a pedestal until she dates a perfectly decent black kid in her class. Annette, Art told me, was the clever one. Athletic, too. He was bummed about not being around for her to grow up.

Then there was Philip, who was seven. Looked like his old man. Art said Phil was so excited for Christmas the previous year that he kept going to sleep at like 7 pm all December so Santa would get there sooner.

Art took out his wallet. showed me his kids. They were cute, and I told him that. Mortality is a hell of a thing, and sometimes people facing it do crazy shit.

But we'll get to that in due time.

>>78220739

I'm gonna go get a drink. Is anyone reading this or am I boring people to death?

>>78220784
I'm reading.

I am too

File: father-son-reading1.jpg (56KB, 1048x770px) Image search: [Google]

56KB, 1048x770px

>>78220784
tell us more about Art

>>78220784
Im here

>>78220812

Cool. If at lest one person is still down for stories I'll go on...

So, when Art found out he was sick, he went on a sort of sabbatical to Norway, got in touch with family and old friends, started writing a will and doing all the shit a person does when they're facing the end. Me, I meet people in the throes if one terrible situation or another everyday. It's hard to act surprised, or shocked, or compassionate like a normal person would when they meet somebody like Art,

But you gotta do that. Act unsurprised and people think you don't give a shit. Don't nat an eye when somebody says they got raped or mugged or witnessed a shooting and they think that you don't believe them.

Anyway, one of the things Art did in his hard times was draw up a bucket list. Good on that movie for making that shit cool for dying people (or really anybody) to do.

One item in particular on that list got him sent to me.

Goddamnit Art,

>>78221085

He was a man with a dream. I mean, clearly he wanted to provide for his wife and kids, you know? We do that, as people. We want the people we care about to not have to struggle when we're gone. And he had a relatively young family too. I've tried to put myself in other people's shoes, but it his case it was hard. It's tough on the outside looking in, too. You give a damn, and so do I. But a man in Art's position doesn't have time to waste. How do we convey that? How do we make sure he knows?

All I can do is shake his hand, nudge a box of tissues across the desk when the man tears up, and try to fix whatever legal problem he's in.

But people trust you for some reason. They open their lives to you, show you pictures of their kids and ask you what to do. What happens if my wife gets fired? What if the bank takes the house? How will my kids make it to university? And so on. Sometimes you have an answer and sometimes you don't. Depending if they want to do something legal, like set up a will or file divorce papers, the answer can be easy. Sometimes, what they're asking doesn't involve law at all; my wife hates me b/c I lost a shit ton of money gambling, wtf am I supposed to do?

Well, I said before that Art had scads of money. He was a welder and metalworker and had a made a fat living off it. The man was an artist. Custom wrought iron gates, fences, cookware, lanterns, you name it. Beautiful things, all of them.

So there was money for Mary, and Phil, and Annette. At some point, he must've realized he couldn't take it with him. So he thought: well, how about spending some of it on himself?

There was plenty, after all. So, what was the one thing he'd always wanted?

>>78221445

He loved his family, and Norway. He loved America, horses, welding, music, cooking, and beer.

He liked sports.

He liked cars.

He liked sportscars.

So, after setting aside money for his family, he spent what he'd saved up for retirement on a lotus. An Evora, specifically. That thing alone could've paid off most of my student loans, and I went to a good goddamn law school.

But that thing was sweet as all hell, he had to have dropped more than six figures on it. He popped the hood; the engine was incredible. I'm not one of these guys who's a motorhead. I can change my tires and oil; I can paralell park. But that's about it. Art was a connaiseur. The man knew awesome fucking cars. So, he had a suit cut to fit him, and wrote a check for the car he'd always wanted with 8-10 months to live.

>>78221689

brb--- cigarette break. stay tuned kids, you're gonna love the ending.

>>78221743

He loved that lotus, bragged on it a little. So I said, well shit Art, show me the damn thing. I mean, he was already wearing the suit, and it fit him like a glove. I couldn't afford one like that personally, and besides if you dress too well juries think you're some sleazeball big city (((attorney))) who doesn't understand what it means to have to miss work because he makes 5 grand an hour.

Yeah, I make nowhere near that. But I was still glad for Art, a man doing all the things he wanted to get done. He had good taste in suits, had the rest of his hair shaved, and bought some cool sunglasses. He looked a bit like a plainer version of the dude from the Hitman games. Agent 47 with dadbod.

He showed me his sweet new whip, ran his hand over the curves of the hood the way you touch a nude woman. The smallest sort of half-smile on his lips.

Damn! was all I could think of to say. If real life was Hollywood someone would've written me better dialogue. It was at this point that it first occurred to me to ask what this man was doing in the law office of a fledgeling city attorney.

Art took a deep breath.

>>78222228

He walked me around to the other side of the Lotus. There was a big gouge down one side of it, from behind the headlight to the rear wheelwell, like deep gouges where the paint was gone, and dents up and down the side panel.

The day before, Art had stopped at a red light. The man had cancer and his hands on the wheel of a 100 thousand dollar car. The light was red. But you know what? YOLO, motherfucker. When was he going to be here again? He goosed the gas, felt the engine roar to life. He goosed it again, and I can only imagine his adrenaline must've spiked.

Fuck that light. he smashed the gas pedal flat, and left a good bit of his tires' trad at the intersection. He opened the engine up, he was hugging turns and cutting in and out of oncoming traffic. Like I said earlier, people do crazy shit when they think they're gonna die. He was going to have this moment. Everyone was going see Art put that ride through its paces. He flew down a city street at 150mph plus (which for the rest of /int/ is 250kph). When he blasted through the second light, the cop saw him. Art said he locked eyes with the officer as he was coming in the opposite direction. The cop fired up his siren, pulled what Art said was a "flawless" u-turn, and shit was officially jumping off.

>>78222572

Art was faster, because in America, cops don't drive Evora 400s. They DO however drive pretty beefy Crown Victorias, loaded with shit civilians aren't allowed to buy. And there are more cops than temporarily insane cancer-stricken norweigan dads.

Soon enough Art had two chasing him, and they were proving difficult to shake. He wove through a neighborhood, drove down an alley, plowed through a chain-link fence, and then some kind of hedge or something (which is what he thought had fucked the door up on the other side). Eventually he somehow went under an underpass and up into a parking lot. He said he could hear sirens, and close. He parked, opened the door, and fucking ran for it

>>78222801

The man had just undergone several rounds of chemo. He hopped a fence, crossed somebody's backyard, hopped another fence. He said he was pouring sweat, that his lungs and legs felt like they were on fire. he crossed another yard. He heard the crackle of a police radio somewhere behind him, and it gave him a second wind. He hadn't gone much more than a city block but he told me he felt like he was about to fall over. All he could see in front of him was a wall of bushes and trees, planted for privacy. He got a running start, arms spread in front of him like a diver preparing to jump, and he barrelled through that green wall of foliage.

Cops. Everwhere. Wearing their dress uniforms. Cops on stage, cops in the audience. Cops fiddling with sound equipment, cops passing out handbills.

You see, Art had just accidentally charged into a graduation ceremony for the police academy. Even high-ranking cops were there, handing out diplomas or whatever. They all stopped what they were doing. They all turned to stare, wondering what the hell was going on.

And here Art is, about to pass out, pouring sweat, wearing a rumpled suit, and panting like a dog.

What happened next is why I'll always remember this guy, and why I'm telling this story now. If for no other reason than the sheer self-possession it took, the presence of mind the man had: as a lawyer, Art is the type of dude under pressure that I hope I can be.

Because, when he barged in and all the cops were staring at him, this dying father of two threw up his hands, and said "JESUS CHRIST! SOMEONE HELP! Somebody just stole my fucking car!"

~fin~

Though I can answer some questions if anybody's still up.

>>78223352

Also I've got a ton of crazy stories, but I'm kinda tapped out. Somebody else tell one.