Blazing Addles

The court reporter was already in the conference room, bent over to set up her stenotype, when Alan arrived. She was blonde and very female in that professional, cork-driven-in-too tight way that always caught Alan's eye—among other fluid filled organs of his. His favorite part was when the tight ones popped, he thought as he admired her skirt stretched taut against her rump. Then they sort fizzed out the neck, over the top, running down your hands and wrists for you to lap up in intoxicated delight.

Alan didn't think that his corkscrew had yet had the pleasure of penetrating her cork, though seeing her face might help. Or it might not. Any other day he would have undertaken the preliminaries towards rectifying that deplorable oversight, but today he had bigger concerns.

"Denny Crane." Barely limping, which must have cost him the grit of a few teeth Alan presumed, Denny blew in the conference room door.

Alan turned from the rump, taking care that his jacket covered the worst of his corkscrew. "Denny, perhaps you've noticed: no one's here yet."

"I know. Just getting into the mood."

Alan pulled out the chair at the lead counsel's position at the table. Fortunately, he looked before he sat.

"Denny, your bottom cushie is in my seat."

Indeed, there it sat smack dab center in the "captain's chair" looking much like a big, fat, fluffy, pink tribble.

With a hole in the middle.

"My seat. You asked for Denny Crane. Denny Crane doesn't do second chair. When you get him, you get the whole enchilada, not just a few taco chips."

Alan smoothed his hand over his breast. "Let's say we let the office furnishings battle out any inherent hierarchical structure amongst themselves. I have no strong feelings as to specifics of seating arrangements for their own sake—unless we are speaking of sexual positions with an inamorato, in which case the standard gentlemen's agreement in these parts is that the one better blessed below the navel provides the lap."

The courted reporter choked and did a double-take. Alan eyeballed her back, calculating whether that remark had improved or deteriorated his chances. He'd bet on the former. The more tightly corked, the less easily they could be shaken. He unbuttoned his jacket and casually arranged himself in second chair.

"But just as a favor, let's say you let me ask the questions. I've had disturbing past day or so. A dear friend had a close call, and I could use the distraction from my woes. And I wouldn't mind the chance to impress around here either. You never know when—" Alan turned to face the hallway windows. "Big Brother might be watching." Alan leaned forward and gave a hammy wave and grin as Paul walked by the outside glass.

Paul returned a tentative half-wave with a certain full glower.

"Name's on the door. My way or the bi way," Denny mumbled.

Time was growing short, so Alan decided to let that one pass. He swallowed and began a new tack. "Denny, I asked you here. I want you here. I need you here. Your insight is invaluable and I am in fact depending upon it to win the day. But considering that this deposition is costing our client $1000/hour and that my contribution to this case is untangling the facts of the matter while yours has been primarily—" He paused.

"The big enchilada."

"—I am going to insist that I guide the course of our questioning."

"Bah." Denny grumbled and batted the back of the chair with his palm. "You younger generation: you still don't get it. Practicing litigation may be about facts and laws, but winning litigation has precious little to do with either. When you're done practicing and all you need is the win, you don't need to know anything about either. Believe me! Why do you think I'm head of the division?"

Alan scratched his left ear.

Unmindful, Denny continued. "To win, what you need is to know the people involved. You don't need to know what kind of case your opposition has— or your client has; but you do have to know is what kind of opposition—and client your case has."

Alan's removed his finger. He was suddenly much less itchy, and besides, he needed the ear to hear.

Denny rocked the back of the chair between his palms. "Tell you what," he relented. "I'll go first, but if and after the parties are sworn, you can take over from there."

"From there." Alan cocked his head. "An interesting compromise as conventionally, in Massachusetts state proceedings, the swearing of the parties would be considered the beginning."

"Ah." Denny raised a hand and swept a flourish around the room. "But here we're not in Massachusetts, my friend. In these hallowed halls, we're in the province of Denny Crane.

"Dick!" Denny stepped away from the table and turned to toward the door, arms held out in greeting.

"Denny." A silver-haired lawyer shook Denny's hand while the young lady beside him squirmed on her brand new candy-apple red heels.

Denny ushered the two to seats on the plaintiff's side of the table. "Alan, this is Dick Plankston. Dick and I go way back together."

"A pleasure, I'm sure. Any old buddy of Denny's is fodder for one more night of cigars and tall tales." Alan held the door for an expensively dressed couple who hurried in. "And I think you should know our client, Franya Holman, and her husband, Robert."

"Frannie." Denny held out his arms again, and she kissed him on both cheeks. He oogled her. "Frannie and I have gone way… down together."

Frannie chortled as Denny held a chair out for her. "Pay no attention to him, dear." She addressed her husband as they took their seats and sat up straight.

"Ah." Alan rubbed his hands in Frannie's direction. "I see you have already picked up on the local carrier wave. Paul must be broadcasting rather loudly today."

"Denny, Alan: this is Haleigh Jane." Dick introduced his client with a nod.

"Like the comet." Denny leered down her top as he stood over her. "I hear that you have a very impressive tail."

"Maybe you also heard that your chance at it only comes around every 75 years. Catch you in 2061." Haleigh recrossed her legs.

Denny furrowed his brow. "2061. I'm saving that for Katie Holmes. She'll be legal then. I think."

"Shall we get started?" Plankston fired up his computer.

"Actually, Dick, I thought we might get a few preliminaries out of the way first—you know to avoid dragging so much...unpleasantness into the official transcript." Denny spoke in that mild tone that only those who still paid attention to him knew meant he was either badly constipated or moving in for the kill.

Alan smiled. He knew Denny wasn't constipated.

"Such as?" Distracted, Plankston fiddled with the batteries in his mini mouse as his monitor came on with a familiar chime.

"Such as, how long have you two been having a sex affair...and more importantly," Denny stammered the silent beginning of a second question. "How could you prefer him over me?" Denny waved a backhand toward the doctor who sat with his mouth agape and his wife agape at him.

"On second thought," Denny turned to the reporter and leaned against the table, "go ahead and swear them in. I want that last answer for the record."

Through mascara laden not-quite tears, Frannie jabbed her husband hard in the ribs. "You momzer! Shteyner af deyne beyner! Over a million women in this city and you couldn't manage to find one Jewish one?" Frannie drew her elbow back farther and drove it into him again.

This time, Robert cringed.

"You can go." Denny dismissed the court reporter. He an Alan followed her cute little butt out of the conference room and down the hall.


***

Shirley glanced up to Paul's knock on her door casement. At the sight of his expression, she didn't just peer over her reading glasses; she pulled them off and folded them into her hands.

"What is it now? The Holman case?" Mentally, she ran down the decision tree for potentially salvaging options. "Maybe we can get a note from his doctor."

"No. Not that." Paul lowered himself onto her sofa that backed against the glass wall. "Apparently, that one's settled. Remarkably, to the satisfaction of almost everyone involved.

"The case is dropped. The plaintiff will pay all legal fees accrued to date. I believe Alan Shore is presently closeted in his office discovering numerous billables that he carelessly omitted in his original accounting —at least I hope so. Of all the activities in which Mr. Shore might be engaging that would impel even him behind a locked door, that is the amongst the least objectionable."

Shirley chuckled.

Paul continued, "In consideration for not pursuing tortious interference, fraud, malicious prosecution and a bevy of other ostensibly sustainable charges, the wife gets six months in Aruba while the husband gets—" Paul looked uncomfortable.

Shirley waited.

"As it was explained to me, six months in the former plaintiff."

"Ah. Charming." Elbows on the desk, Shirley clasped her hands into a steeple. "Not exactly a candidate for the Hallmark Movie of the Week, I agree, but so far, I fail to see a problem."

Out in the hallway, Denny and Alan strolled by the glass. Denny twirled his butt cushie in the air around his wrist. Through the panes, Alan made a funny face and rabbit ears over the back of Paul's head.

Shirley looked down at her desk in plenty of time to swallow the incipient laugh.

Paul's monotone droned on. "The problem is that Denny has fired his home health nurse. No, strike that; that happenstance was contributory but not causative. Our problem is that it led to the subsequent action of home health firing Denny in response."

"That's not so bad. There're plenty of agencies—" Shirley reached for the phone. She'd been through a number with her father.

Paul interrupted. "You misunderstand me. It's not the agency that fired him; it was home health as an entire institution; he's been blackballed. Apparently this morning, he made an indecent suggestion to his assigned aide. As I had just eaten lunch, I did not ask the specifics, however the young lady did decline."

Shirley leaned forward. "So far, classic Denny." But more than words would present more than just a P.R. problem. She'd been through some of this with her father as well. "He didn't try to—"

"No. There was no battery of any kind. Reportedly, it was all a very polished sort of repulsive, degrading, sordidness."

"Denny's signature style." Her tone remained sardonic, but Shirley relaxed again.

"In fact, at one point he allegedly offered to 'sweeten the deal' with a new convertible: an offer which I am told the young lady was willing to take in good humor. However upon her continued refusal, Denny contacted the agency, had her taken off of his case and—and here is where our problems ensue—told them exactly why and what he would require in his series of aides, with emphasis on the 11P to 7A shift."

"Dear God." Shirley bowed her head.

"They discharged him summarily, had him placed in the National Nurse Offender's Registry—"

"There's such a thing?"

"—and now no licensed agency will enroll him. Although the agency director did send me a list of several 900 numbers she had reason to believe might also provide services along the lines of Denny's specifications." Paul tossed a folded print-out onto Shirley's desk.

Shirley re-ordered her thoughts. "This 'offender's registry': is it a public database?"

Paul shook his head. "No. Internal use only—discretionary with no objective criteria. That can't hurt us even if it did leak out. But this does leave Denny without a keeper."

"To be fair, do we know that he needs home health? He looked pretty... robust in the conference room."

"The last time he was alone in the dark, he shot himself." Paul paused for emphasis. "And his hospital discharge instructions include some extensive wound care. Not complicated, but hardly the easiest place to inspect, reach or treat one's self. No matter how many years of specialization and identification with that area it one might have."

Paul looked to Shirley. "I don't suppose that you—?"

Shirley's face shot down that proposal before it even left the chute.

"—have another suggestion?"

"There is the obvious one."

"Mm. My thought as well. But the request will have to come from you. He won't talk to me."

Shirley shrugged her face. "From where I sit, it seems more the other way around."

Paul startled "Pardon me?"

"Nothing. I'll take care of it." Shirley reached for the phone again.

"You meant that." Paul sounded hurt. It didn't happen often. There weren't many people he respected enough that their opinions mattered.

Shirley stood up and walked around her desk. "Paul, you are repeatedly voted managing partner because you do an insuperable job of it, which is largely because of your personality construct. No one who profits from the success of Crane, Poole and Schmidt would argue to change that persona. Likewise, we wouldn't want to change anyone else who is making a considerable contribution to our combined strength. And from your desk as managing partner—with an eye to the bottom line—I doubt that you do either."

Shirley exhaled and sat beside him on the sofa. She planted a friendly hand upon his leg and left it there. "Paul, I know you to be too fine an individual to put personal tastes or considerations ahead of the good of the firm. I have seen nothing to make me doubt that. But, for so long you have given so much of yourself so consistently as business manager, that sometimes it surprises me when Paul Lewiston— the private man, with his own opinions—makes an occasional understudy appearance.

"I won't ask you to give any more of your life—of yourself —than you already have to acting as manager for us. As a partner and as a person, I am grateful for every bit of it of your time. But as a friend, I am alerting you that yes, your slip is showing around Alan. It's not a big thing, not ordinarily one worth mentioning, but knowing that you take pride in a meticulous appearance, I wonder if you might want to hitch it up a bit."

Paul sighed and rubbed his chin.

Alan walked by again, this time making rabbit ears over the back of both of their heads.


***

This time there was no knock. Shirley looked up only as Alan crossed into her peripheral vision. "Alan, come in." She gestured to the seat that Alan was already folding himself into.

"Shirley. You rang. I assume that you want something. On the off chance it is sexual favors, I will tell you that I had plenty of protein and am quite refreshed."

"Thoughtful, but I'll let you save your protein for, preferably, another time and most categorically, another partner.

"We have a problem with Denny."

"Meaning, I presume, you—singular or plural, please choose the applicable form and put the other back— have problem with Denny, as I can assure you that I do not."

"Home health will no longer be providing him services."

"Ah, yes. Denny filled me in on the particulars during the car ride over. Something to do with a blow-up doll, two dozen silk ties, a recording of Bolero on continuous loop and a can of Cheez Whiz. Or maybe it was just the can. There was a good bit of street noise at that time, and I missed some interesting bits of the proposed scenario. I was hoping he would retell it to me over scotch tonight."

"Which provides a convenient segue into the reason I did ask you here. Denny needs some...personal assistance for the next several days, as well as an assessment of whatever the conditions that lead up to the instigating event. And perhaps some...guidance in preventing any similar events. You're the only person he actually hears and listens to. We—and, yes, you may translate that as 'I' if it affects your response—were hoping that you would provide the help he needs."

Alan rearranged his arms across the sofa back. "You believe the terms of my employment contract to include assigning me to play the role of orderly? Not that I am adverse to doing so under certain conditions, but typically that is as part of sex games including very naughty nurses and/or very dirty doctors." He batted her an enquiring eyebrow. "Or are you saying that my recent protein consumption might not have been entirely in vain?"

"I believe that as you earn over one third of a million dollars per annum from this law firm, it would behoove you to consider a request that puts you out very little from your daily rut and is in the interest of the well-being of a major constituent of said firm. Not to mention a man you call your best friend. And that cannot be an easy commodity to come by much less replace."

Alan was unshaken. "You believe that Denny who, need I remind you, only minutes ago resolved a multimillion dollar case involving computer warfare in less than a day is incapable of taking care of himself, deciding if he needs help or of requesting it if he does? You said that I am the only one he really hears. Have you considered that may be as I am the only one who really hears him?"

The point hurt, but Shirley collected herself for another run. "I believe that Denny is a proud man—and rightly so—as are we all. As a friend, I would not want to put him in the position of being obliged to ask for help—especially from those friends who are, or should be, most painfully aware of his situation.

"But, I do concede your point, and I will rephrase my request: will you instigate a discussion with Denny that includes the possibility of your staying with him during his recuperation?"

"No."

Shirley sat nonplussed. She had learned to expect almost anything from Alan, but never that.

"I did so over an hour ago. Even as we speak, my hotel is having a few of my things packed and delivered to Denny's house. To save more jostling about in the back seat of the car. Not an activity I would normally opt to minimize, you understand, but sadly for me, the sensitivity of his post-operative posterior presents extenuating circumstances." Alan rested in smug summation.

Shirley pursed her lips. "You might have told me this at the beginning."

"But then I wouldn't have had the pleasure of seeing your repressed, angry countenance, veritably simmering over with urges unspent. It is so similar to that transcendent expression of a woman extant in that ineffable space and time when she feels the first stirrings of prospective orgasm, yet presses them down, intent upon magnifying the intensity of the final release.

"Yes, that's it." Alan pointed. "That face right there. Mmm." He closed his eyes and exhaled in a frankly indecent manner.

Shirley rocked back in her chair. "Then, I suggest that you take a picture, as I promise you, this is as close to seeing that face on me as you are ever going to get."

Alan whipped out his phone and, arm outstretched, held it open in her direction.

"What's that?" Shirley peered across the gap to the tiny screen.

Alan turned the phone around to look at the last picture. "Yes, that. That would be Denny's...reassurance to you, that he wished sent."

Shirley slipped her reading glasses back on and took the phone from his hand. She examined the image up and down. "Not much of a reassurance, is it?"

Alan shrugged. "He was having a bad day. And it's chilly in those hospital gowns."

Shirley took one last look before she closed the phone. "I see that Fenway Park's not the only thing that's changed since the seventies." She passed the phone back and nodded Alan out her door. "Go on. It must be almost his nap time. Take him home before you two really do make me feel old."