After the Absolute by David Gold & Bart Marshall

Author:David Gold & Bart Marshall [Gold, David & Marshall, Bart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781795850988
Publisher: Realface Press
Published: 2019-03-12T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Citizen Rose

A few months after moving in with Rose I received a letter welcoming me to the West Virginia Bar Association. I had decided to open my office in Moundsville, the county seat of Marshall County, where Rose lived, rather than the bigger town of Wheeling, a little further up river. I rented a small storefront a few doors down from the courthouse and started making the rounds, trying to get my name around town.

My first formal contact with the local bar was an ethical interview required of all new members. The lawyers I had met while taking the bar exam told me this was mere formality, and that their own interviews had consisted of nothing more than a handshake and a warm welcome. My interview was of a different sort. I was ushered into the office of an ambitious, fair-haired Moundsville attorney whose first question dealt with a name that appeared on my bar application.

“I see you’ve used Richard Rose as a reference,” he said, thumbing through my paperwork like it was a criminal’s rap sheet.

“Yes. Do you know him?” I smiled, glad to see we had something in common.

“Everyone knows Richard Rose,” he said with a withering glance over his half-frame reading glasses. “Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Gold. I have a few questions about your application.”

That evening I related to Rose how I’d been grilled for over an hour after my interviewer had seen Rose’s name as a reference. Rose asked who the attorney was.

“Oh, that guy,” Rose said. “He’s still mad at me over the golf course deal.”

Rose explained that several years before, the County Commissioners had voted to condemn a thousand acres of rural property, including Rose’s farm, to develop into a golf course. Rose immediately organized the neighboring farmers to fight the condemnation, and they successfully defeated it. The lawyer who interviewed me had represented the County Commission in the case.

“I remember I was speaking at a public hearing,” Rose grinned, “and I’d gotten people pretty stirred up. Things weren’t going the way the Commission wanted. The farmers started shouting that they’d get lawyers and fight this thing to the top. Then that fathead you talked to today yells back at ‘em, ‘You don’t need lawyers. You’ve already got Richard Rose doing your talking for you!’ He looks at me like I was a bug that should be squashed.”

It wasn’t the best way to kick off a career, but I couldn’t expect everyone to like me. Rod, the attorney I was renting my office from, had promised to introduce me around town the next day, and I assured myself that tomorrow would be better.

On the walk over to the courthouse the next morning, Rod explained that Marshall County had two judges who disliked each other so much that each refused to mention the other’s name, referring to each other instead as “Part One” and “Part Two.”

“Part One and I don’t get along very well,” Rod confessed, “but the one you’re meeting first, Part Two, we’re really close.

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