Some days we just end up in the void...

My dear friend, Kermit King, and me.

…And it’s often an arduous task to climb out of the damn thing.

I’ve recently had a series of events that have cast a pall over me and those events came to be just after a big success.

About a month and a half ago I finished the third volume in the Adventures of Lawyer Eddie Terrell Trilogy. Its title is SLIM AND NONE. It’s long and it’s good. It’s with the editors now. I admit to being proud of the work, the effort and the product. I began to think about the next book, one with a very different plot structure. It’s time to let Eddie rest. I’m not inclined to do a Jack Reacher deal every time out.

But as I have been thinking about my next writings, it was as though the earth just suddenly opened up and there was a great big, empty hole staring at me.

After six halting and driving years, I had done something, accomplished something that I could not have even vaguely imagined back in 2016. And it was completed. And I was depressed. It was over. There was nothing more to do. (Which is nonsense. There’s plenty more to do. Have to review the edited copy, get it to our Advance Readers, get it to the formatter, get it ready to go out into the public domain, read it in studio to make an audio book, get out on the road to pitch it here and there. Get to work on the next book. And more.)

And yet, there is a void and I’m working on getting that filled in. It may be transient but it’s real too.

And then there was an unpleasant and pretty wild and wooly flashing reminder of my potential mortality.

Primary Helpful Hint: Athletic socks and Sisal Rugs are NOT a good combination!

About the same time I got the book completed and handed off, I was in an almost euphoric state of happiness. It was a mild, beautiful, sunny early spring day. It was late afternoon and the sun beams were dappling my little house. I had gotten so much done. My work table, usually a morass of mess, was tightened up and neat and poised for more productivity. I had talked to friends on the phone; the calls were more like visits. I made myself a good stiff celebratory belt. I was wandering around the house, happily restless. I decided that I would get some more work done and went upstairs to my study to gather up some more paper to further facilitate the ongoing and pending success.

As I came back down the (wait for it-here it comes) sisal rug covered stairs, about ten steps from the bottom, my rushing and inattention got the best of me and I slipped.

My feet led the way as I went airborne a la that crazy Brit Olympic ski jumper from long ago, Eddie the Eagle. Gravity already had me in its clutches and as I, shall we say, rapidly descended, I was flying fast supine. My bannister, which by the way I seized mightily in a futile attempt the stop or at least slow this slow motion train wreck was twisted yanked from its moorings. Beneath the bannister were sharp, rectangular spindles that got hold of my right shin and gashed me but good and then I, thank God, head up knowing what was coming, slammed on my back with a definite bounce.

Ducked the Traumatic Brain Injury, whew!

After clearing my head with a good shake or two, I tended to my wound, initially with dish towels and duct tape and  of course a bit later went to the doc who told me I was a three-plus month heal it up project. That was six weeks ago and I am completely healed up and discharged from further medical service so now it’s just another nutty, funny story in my quiver of tales.

But it’s the first time that I can recall that when folks have said, “Oh man, you could have been killed!”, I haven’t waved it off, laughed it off. I just nod and say, “Yeah, you’re right.” And know I surely could have had my big finish right then and there. And it has shaken me and now, I am more conscious of being careful. It’s a dismaying feeling. It’s in my head.

And of course, don’t they all say ‘things’, especially bad things come in threes. And they surely have for me.

Three weeks ago, my dear friend and mentor, the great and amazing Kermit King leapt off this mortal coil.

He was going to sign off on his tax returns and stumbled and fell on a sidewalk. He never regained consciousness. His brain was massively and globally injured. There was to be no surgical solution. There was to be only the end which came 36 hours later at 2 in the morning. He was gone.

Of course, one could easily say “Well, he was 92 and had a fine and wonderful long run. He didn’t get cheated.”

Well, that’s true but so very incomplete. He was a giant of the South Carolina trial bar. He was the smartest and most perceptive man I have ever known. I got to be his friend for 35 years. We worked and tried many cases together. He was tough as nails and as kind as a child. He was a superb raconteur and mesmerized juries. His intellect was towering and his use of words magnificent. He was a genius of his craft. He knew the law inside and out and to boot, took all his notes in Spencerian Short Hand Script. A Justice on the South Carolina Supreme Court once noted with brimming respect, “Kermit just knows where all the bodies are buried.”

A mutual friend remarked that Kermit was born for the law just as Mozart was born for music.
And he was the consummate gentleman. We will not see one like him again.

In writing SLIM AND NONE, I spent a good portion of the work towards the end of the book writing about a very significant case, involving the death of a child, an identical twin, that Kermit and I worked on for years and in spite of a universe of nay-sayers and doubters, we finally emerged fully and enormously successful. And he was the absolute star of the show.

And as is so often the case, a trial like that which took almost three gut-wrenching weeks, not to mention all the work that came before and after, is the genesis of so many stories and vignettes, war stories if you will.

And I wanted to write about it in tribute to Kermit, to be able to hand it to him and show it to him but the clock suddenly struck midnight and the time has run out and I cannot now do such things.

And I grieve for these many reasons and miss him terribly.

And must now move on. Kermit would expect nothing less.