The founder of clips.com owed my grandfather six dollars. It was written in pencil, in a green ledger, dated March 2005. Clips.com was suing him in federal court in nine days.
I am Gina Deluca. I am thirty-three, a first-year lawyer, and the granddaughter of Salvatore Deluca. He has run a barbershop called Clips since 1979.
I had found a page that could end the case in an afternoon. I spent most of that night deciding whether to use it.
Rafi wanted to post it. Of course he did.
"Think about it," he said on Monday, leaning on his broom. "Clips.com founder named his site after a barbershop. Then sued it. That's the biggest video of the year. They'd drop the case in an hour."
"You're probably right," I said.
That was the problem. He was probably right.
I had already drafted the letter. I am not proud of this. It was addressed to Desmond Achterberg at clips.com, and it was very polite.
It said we had found "materials of public interest regarding Mr. Thackery's history in the area." It said we would "prefer to resolve the matter privately."
I did not have to say the rest. Lawyers never say the rest. That is what the rest is for.
I brought it to the shop at lunch. I read it to Sal while he gave a retired dentist the Number Four.
He listened all the way through. Then he put down the scissors.
"No," he said.
"Grandpa, it's leverage. It's the strongest thing we have."
"He was a customer."
"He's suing you."
"His company is suing me. He sat in that chair." Sal pointed at it with the comb. "What's written in the Book stays in the Book."
"Then why did you write it down?"
"So I remember." He picked up the scissors again. "Not so I can use it."
Benny was in the emergency chair. It was Monday. Benny does not come on Mondays. He lowered the newspaper.
"Gina," he said. "In forty-seven years, he's never told anybody what anybody said in that chair. Not one time. That's why we come back."
I looked at the letter. Then I folded it in thirds and put it in my bag. Later, at the firm, I put it through the shredder. Harriet watched me do it from her doorway and ate a seed in approval.
"Good," she said. "Now win it the boring way."
The boring way took nine days.
We submitted all forty-seven ledgers as evidence. Every page was scanned and numbered. We did not mark any page as special. Volume Twenty-Six went in with all the rest, page 212 included, between a plumber named Dale and a man described only as Big Hat.
Clips.com had hired outside lawyers for the hearing. Their lead partner was a man named Preston Vail. He was fifty-eight, with silver hair and a voice that sounded expensive. Desmond sat beside him with his messenger bag at his feet, reading.
The courthouse was in the city, forty minutes away. We brought the ledgers in four cardboard boxes on a hand truck. Rafi pushed it. He had been told there were no phones allowed past security, and he looked like a man going through a breakup.
The judge was the Honorable Abigail Marchetti. She was sixty-one, with short gray hair and a reputation for asking one question no one had prepared for.
Harriet sat in the front row. Sal and Benny sat behind her. Sal wore a suit I had seen once before, at my grandmother's funeral.
Preston Vail spoke first. He was good. I had expected him to be good. It is still unpleasant to watch someone be good at arguing that your grandfather does not exist.
"My client has no wish to harm a local business," he said. "But trademark rights belong to those who can prove them."
He turned a page of his notes. "Mr. Deluca has no advertising, no listings, no website. No phone." He let that last word land.
"With respect, he has a sign and a story."
Then it was my turn.
I had been a lawyer for fourteen weeks. I had never argued anything in front of a judge.
I had once conducted forty-two seventh-graders through a winter concert with a broken baton. I told myself this would be easier. Nobody here was going to play the recorder.
"Your Honor," I said, "my client doesn't have a website. He has something older."
I asked Rafi to bring the first box forward. He set Volume One on the table in front of the bench. I opened it to April 3, 1979.
"First entry," I said. "Benny S. The Number Four. Three dollars and fifty cents."
"And who is Benny S.?" Judge Marchetti asked.
Benny stood up in the third row before anyone could stop him.
"Not me," he said. Then he stopped. "Sorry, wrong one. It's me."
The courtroom laughed. Even the judge's clerk laughed. Judge Marchetti did not laugh, but she wrote something down, and I have always suspected it was the word Benny.
I walked her through it. Forty-seven years, week after week, with the price going up four times. The pencil getting darker and lighter. The 1987 blizzard and its nine Bennys.
Then I showed her March 2011. Three weeks of round blue handwriting.
"The Number Four, Rosa's version," I read. "That's my grandmother, Your Honor. My grandfather had surgery. She kept the shop open, under the same name, in the same month clips.com registered its trademark."
I did not look back at Sal. I could not have finished if I had.
Preston Vail stood. "Your Honor, these are handwritten notes. They could have been written at any time."
"All forty-seven volumes?" I said. "In pencil? With the prices going up?"
"People have done stranger things."
"Then they'd have given themselves a better haircut," I said. "There's only one in there, sir. Forty-seven years of the Number Four."
He paused. Behind me, someone in the gallery said, "It's true." It was the retired dentist. I had not known he was coming.
Judge Marchetti held up her hand. Then she asked her one question. It was not for me.
"Mr. Deluca," she said, looking past me. "Why did you write everyone down?"
Sal stood up. He buttoned the suit jacket.
"So I remember," he said.
She looked at him for a long moment. Then she looked at the four boxes.
"Counsel," she said to Preston Vail, "I have read a great many fabricated documents. Fabricated documents do not usually include three weeks of somebody's wife."
She denied the injunction from the bench. Clips could keep its name while the case went forward.
In the hallway, Harriet shook my hand. She said, "Is it in writing?" and I said, "Forty-seven volumes," and she said, "Good answer." It was the closest thing to a hug she had ever offered anyone.
Desmond found me by the elevators.
He was holding a copy of Volume Twenty-Six. He had a sticky note on one page. I did not have to ask which one.
"I read all the exhibits," he said. "I always read all the exhibits."
"I know," I said. "So do I."
"You didn't flag it."
"My grandfather said no."
Desmond looked down the hallway. Sal was standing by the window with Benny, adjusting his tie, which had not needed adjusting since 1979.
"He could have ended this in a day," Desmond said.
"He doesn't do that to customers."
Desmond was quiet. I watched him decide something. It took about four seconds, which is fast for a lawyer.
"Owen doesn't know about any of this," he said. "The letter, the lawsuit, the takedown."
"How is that possible?"
"He doesn't read legal updates. He reads three sentences a day, and they're all about video." He tapped the sticky note. "But I think he'd want to read this one."
"Are you going to show him?"
"I already sent it. Twenty minutes ago." He adjusted the strap of his messenger bag. "I'm just the messenger."
His phone buzzed. He read the screen. He read it again, the way he had read the sign in Sal's window.
Then he turned the screen toward me.
Landing in the morning. Tell Sal I have his six dollars. Do I need an appointment?
Up next: Paid in Full
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