IT'S NO SECRET THAT THERE ARE TOO MANY lawyers in Memphis. They told us this when we started law school, said the profession was terribly overcrowded not just here but everywhere, that some of us would kill ourselves for three years, fight to pass the bar and still not be able to find employment. So, as a favor, they told us at first-year orientation that they would flunk out at least a third of our class. This, they did.

I can name at least ten people who'll graduate with me next month and after graduation they'll have plenty of time to study for the bar because they have yet to find work. Seven years of college, and unemployed. I can also think of several dozen of my classmates who will go to work as assistant public defenders and assistant city prosecutors and low-paid clerks for underpaid judges, the jobs they didn't tell us about when we started law school.

So, in many ways, I've been quite proud of my position with Brodnax and Speer, a real law firm. Yes, I've been rather smug at times around lesser talents, some of whom are still scrambling around and begging for interviews.

That arrogance, however, has suddenly vanished. There is a knot in my stomach as I drive toward downtown. There's no place for me in a firm such as Trent & Brent. The Toyota sputters and spits, as usual, but at least it's moving.

I try to analyze the merger. A couple of years ago Trent & Brent swallowed a thirty-man firm, and it was big news around town. But J can't remember if jobs were lost in the process. Why would they want a fifteen-man firm like Brodnax and Speer? I'm suddenly aware of precisely how little I know about my future employer. Old man Brodnax died years ago, and his beefy face has been immortalized in a hideous bronze bust sitting by the front door of the offices. Speer is his son-in-law, though long since divorced from his daughter. I met Speer briefly, and he was nice enough. They told me during the second or third interview that their biggest clients were a couple of insurance companies, and that eighty percent of their practice was defending car wrecks.

Perhaps Trent & Brent needed a little muscle in their car wreck defense division. Who knows.

Traffic is thick on Poplar, but most of it is running the other way. I can see the tall buildings downtown. Surely Loyd Beck and Carson Bell and the rest of those fellas at Brodnax and Speer would not agree to hire me, make all sorts of commitments and plans, then cut my throat for the sake of money. They wouldn't merge with Trent & Brent and not protect their own people, would they?

For the past year, those of my classmates who will graduate with me next month have scoured this city looking for work. There cannot possibly be another job available. Not even the slightest morsel of employment could have slipped through the cracks.

Though the parking lots are emptying and there are plenty of spaces, I park illegally across the street from the eight-story building where Brodnax and Speer operates. Two blocks away is a bank building, the tallest downtown, and of course Trent & Brent leases the top half. From their lofty perch, they are able to gaze down with disdain upon the rest of the city. I hate them.

I dash across the street and enter the dirty lobby of the Powers Building. Two elevators are to the left, but to the right I notice a familiar face. It's Richard Spain, an associate with Brodnax and Speer, a really nice guy who took me to lunch during my first visit here. He's sitting on a narrow marble bench, staring blankly at the floor.

"Richard," I say as I walk over. "It's me, Rudy Baylor."

He doesn't move, just keeps staring. I sit beside him. The elevators are directly in front of us, thirty feet away.

"What's the matter, Richard?" I ask. He's in a daze. "Richard, are you all right?" The small lobby is empty for the moment, and things are quiet.

Slowly, he turns his head to me and his mouth drops slightly open. "They fired me," he says quietly. His eyes are red, and he's either been crying or drinking.

I take a deep breath. "Who?" I ask in a low-pitched voice, certain of the answer.

"They fired me," he says again.

"Richard, please talk to me. What's happening here? Who's been fired?"

"They fired all of us associates," he says slowly. "Beck called us into the conference room, said the partners had agreed to sell out to Tinley Britt, and that there was no room for the associates. Just like that. Gave us an hour to clean out our desks and leave the building." His head nods oddly from shoulder to shoulder when he says this, and he stares at the elevator doors.

"Just like that," I say.

"I guess you're wondering about your job," Richard says, still staring across the lobby.

"It has crossed my mind."

"These bastards don't care about you."

I, of course, had already determined this. "Why would they fire you guys?" I ask, my voice barely audible. Honestly, I don't care why they fired the associates. But I try to sound sincere.

"Trent & Brent wanted our clients," he says. "To get the clients, they had to buy the partners. We, the associates, just got in the way."

"I'm sorry," I say.

"Me too. Your name came up during the meeting. Somebody asked about you because you're the only incoming associate. Beck said he was trying to call you with the bad news. You got the ax too, Rudy. I'm sorry."

My head drops a few inches as I study the floor. My hands are sweaty.

"Do you know how much money I made last year?" he asks.

"How much?"

"Eighty thousand. I've slaved here for six years, worked seventy hours a week, ignored my family, shed blood for good old Brodnax and Speer, you know, and then these bastards tell me I've got an hour to clean out my desk and leave my office. They even had a security guard watch me pack my stuff. Eighty thousand bucks they paid me, and I billed twenty-five hundred hours at a hundred and fifty, so that's three hundred and seventy-five thousand I grossed for them last year. They reward me with eighty, give me a gold watch, tell me how great I am, maybe I'll make partner in a couple of years, you know, one big happy family. Then along comes Trent & Brent with their millions, and I'm out of work. And you're out of work too, pal. Do you know that? Do you realize you've just lost your first job before you even started?"

I can think of no response to this.

He gently lays his head on his left shoulder, and ignores me. "Eighty thousand. Pretty good money, don't you think, Rudy?"

"Yeah." Sounds like a small fortune to me.

"No way to find another job making that much money, you know? Impossible in this city. Nobody's hiring. Too many damned lawyers."

No kidding.

He wipes his eyes with his fingers, then slowly rises to his feet. "I gotta tell my wife," he mumbles to himself as he walks hunchbacked across the lobby, out of the building and disappears down the sidewalk.

I take the elevator to the fourth floor, and exit into a small foyer. Through a set of double glass doors I see a large, uniformed security guard standing near the front reception desk. He sneers at me as I enter the Brodnax and Speer suite.

"Can I help you?" he growls.

"I'm looking for Loyd Beck," I say, trying to peek around him for a glance down the hallway. He moves slightly to block my view.

"And who are you?"

"Rudy Baylor."

He leans over and picks up an envelope from the desk. "This is for you," he says. My name is handwritten in red ink. I unfold a short letter. My hands shake as I read it.

A voice squawks on his radio, and he backs away slowly. "Read the letter and leave," he says, then disappears down the hall.

The letter is a single paragraph, Loyd Beck to me, breaking the news gently and wishing me well. The merger was "sudden and unexpected."

I toss the letter on the floor and look for something else to throw. All's quiet in the back. I'm sure they're hunkered down behind locked doors, just waiting for me and the other misfits to clear out. There's a bust on a concrete pedestal by the door, a bad work of sculpture in bronze of old man Brodnax's fat face, and I spit on it as I walk by. It doesn't flinch. So I sort of shove it as I open the door. The pedestal rocks and the head falls off.

"Hey!" a voice booms from behind, and just as the bust crashes into the plate glass wall, I see the guard rushing toward me.

For a microsecond I give thought to stopping and apologizing, but then I dash through the foyer and yank open the door to the stairs. He yells at me again. I race downward, my feet pumping furiously. He's too old and too bulky to catch me.

The lobby is empty as I enter it from a door near the elevators. I calmly walk through the door, onto the sidewalk.

IT'S ALMOST SEVEN, and almost dark when I stop at a convenience store six blocks away. A hand-painted sign advertises a six-pack of cheap lite beer for three bucks. I need a six-pack of cheap lite beer.

Loyd Beck hired me two months ago, said my grades were good enough, my writing was sound, my interviews went well, that the guys around the office were unanimous in their opinion that I would fit in. Everything was lovely. Bright future with good old Brodnax and Speer.

Then Trent & Brent waves a few bucks, and the partners hit the back door. These greedy bastards make three hundred thousand a year, and want more.

I step inside and buy the beer. After taxes, I have four dollars and some change in my pocket. My bank account is not much healthier.

I sit in my car next to the phone booth and drain the first can. I have eaten nothing since my delicious lunch a few hours ago with Dot and Buddy and Bosco and Miss

Birdie. Maybe I should've eaten extra Jell-O, like Bosco. The cold beer hits my empty stomach, and there is an immediate buzz.

The cans are emptied quickly. The hours pass as I drive the streets of Memphis.