Wow. Just...Wow

I've been working at a personal injury law firm for the past year. We have clients all over the state. I have been doing a little bit of everything at the office: I carry cases as an attorney,  I help with organization and operations, and I sign up clients and bring them their checks at the end of their cases.

I was making a run of checks out to clients today and my last one was outside of Pinewood, South Carolina.  I was running earlier than our scheduled appointment, but most people don't mind if you show up early with money.

I pulled up to the trailer and a young black man was standing on the porch. In a thick country accent, he said, "You here for Lorenzo?

"Yup. Sure am," I replied.

"Lorenzo ain't here yet. Come on in the house."

So I followed him into the trailer. Inside, a grandmother was sitting in a comfortable chair watching a large screen TV. One of those judge TV shows was on. There were framed pictures of Martin Luther King and a black angel with white wings and there was a cross on the wall.

The unnamed young man, the brother(?), silently led me into the kitchen and sat me down at the kitchen table. He sat down in the chair next to me. The mother(?) was frying up something in the kitchen. An aunt emerged from the back bedroom and they all started chatting.

"I wan go fishin'," she said. 

"Go fishin' then."

"I ain't got no pole."

"Why you ain't got no pole?"

"I can't have it stinking up the car."

"How the pole gone stink up the car?!"

"Get you a fix pole that stick out the winda."

"Oh no. I can't do that!"

"Why not?"

"Then urrbody gone know where I going!!"

The aunt left. Lorenzo still hadn't shown up.

We settled down and started watching the judge TV show. It was a crazy episode. I commented as such every few minutes. 

I had shown up 20 minutes early, so, at the appointment time, when he still wasn't there, I stepped outside to go to my car to get my phone and I tried to call both of the numbers I had for Lorenzo. No one answered either of them and neither had voicemail set up. 

I sat there and waited the full 30 minutes after the appointment time, to the end of the episode. He still hadn't made it. 

I said, "Well, I've given it 30 minutes. I'll have to set up another time tomorrow for someone to come out here."

The brother looked at me incredulously.

"Why does anybody gotta come back out here?"

"So we can bring Lorenzo his money," I patiently explained.

"Lorenzo? I'm Lorenzo!!" He exclaimed.

"I thought you said Lorenzo wasn't here!??!" I exclaimed right back.

"That's Lorenzo right there," the grandmother said. "Who'd you think he was?" 

"I figured his brother," I yelped, turning beet red from embarrassment.  "I really apologize. I used to be in the army. I used to play with cannons. My hearing ain't great.  Usually I do alright, but clearly I heard wrong. I am so embarrassed."

They laughed. I gave Lorenzo his check.

And that's the story of how a white city lawyer couldn't understand poor country black folk, so he sat at their house and watched TV with them quietly for nearly an hour and then threaten to leave without giving them their money. 

And they all lived happily ever after.

The End.