Table of Contents
WHAT THEY TOLD ME AFTER HE DIED
WHAT THEY TOLD ME AFTER HE DIED
WHAT THEY TOLD ME AFTER HE DIED
WHAT THEY TOLD ME AFTER HE DIED
WHAT THEY TOLD ME AFTER HE DIED
WHAT THEY TOLD ME AFTER HE DIED
Etruscan Press Is Proud of Support Received From
For my father
S’agapo
Shyster (U.S. slang.)
1. A lawyer who practices in an unprofessional or tricky manner; especially, one who haunts the prisons and lower courts to prey on petty criminals.
—Oxford English Dictionary
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my gratitude to Philip Brady, Robert Lunday, Starr Troup, Julianne Popovec, and Jim Cihlar at Etruscan Press. For their friendship, wit, and humor, I would like to thank Annica Jin-Hendel, Mary Ann Brown, Michelle Seward, Naoko Kato, and Betty Pires. Special thanks goes to my teaching colleague Jackie Rhodes. With much love, I would like to thank my family—my mother, sister, and brother Nick who lived many of these stories with me along with my stepsons. This show of thanks also includes my niece and my sister-in-law Jennifer Priamos. And lastly, with deep appreciation to my husband Jim Brown for his affection and unyielding support at all the right times.
An excerpt of The Shyster’s Daughter has appeared in ZYZZYVA and in the Los Angeles Times Magazine in different form.
PROLOGUE:
A LESSON IN MORAL TURPITUDE
The last time my father calls is shortly before the anniversary of his disbarment to tell me he’s just cheated death. On his end, there’s background noise—a restaurant, a bar or somewhere far sleazier. Since the divorce he licks his wounds at a topless strip club in Garden Grove called the Kat Nip.
“This malaka in a ski mask tried to carjack me. He had a gun to the window and told me to get out of my own goddamn car.” My father slows down, hanging on to the moment as if speaking to a jury. “But I gave him the finger and backed the hell out of there.”
Considering my father’s Greek temper, it doesn’t surprise me that he flipped off a gunman before thinking of the possible consequences. Carjacking a middle-aged man for his old diesel Mercedes seems beyond desperate, more like a junkie looking for an easy mark. The days when my father tipped big from a money clip of C-notes in his pocket are gone, along with his law license.
Now he carries ones and fives to slip under the g-strings of his favorite girls at the Kat Nip.
“You’re lucky he didn’t kill you,” I say. If death didn’t get him in the form of an actual bullet, it could’ve gotten him from shock. Priamos men are known for strong minds and weak hearts. My grandfather
