"The Mexican in me came out". That's my standard go-to every time I blow a fuse and lose my temper.  This, depending on who you are, and whether you know how to push my buttons - could either be all the time, or rarely ever.

"Do you think you're hurting me with those tiny little fists of yours?" The non-boyfriend would often ask as I pounded them rapid-fire into his big barrel chest.

"No. But I WANT to," was my standard response.  Then we would both break out in hysterics, and go back to our usual business.  And that's how a typical day would go for us.

Sometimes I just like to pick a fight. Depending on just how bored I am.  Other times, it's because you really did f@#king piss me off, and I'm so effing mad at you, I could shoot you! But it's only because I care.  Otherwise, I just wouldn't. So, think about it, HP (honey pie)... which one would you rather have? ... What? You're buying me diamonds? To make me feel better? Oh, um...okay. Thank you. You're so sweet!

I get PAID to argue - dammit!!! It's what I was trained to do... It's what I KNOW...It's in my Blood!!!

I couldn't very well deal with opposing counsel in that same way. For one, he would NEVER have been invited into my bed.  For another, he probably couldn't afford to make me laugh and keep me in good, FORGIVING, humor.  So, I had to think fast about how I was going to win this case before it got to trial.  Trials were expensive, and they ate away at the bottom line faster than a fat bitch at a buffet!

At the last settlement meeting, it was my turn to grab my briefcase and run. We didn't end up taking it outside, even though opposing counsel responded to my invitation to do so with a resounding, "Let's go!"

I had lost my composure in front of my clients. That was a big misstep in the legal world, and I was a bit embarrassed.  However, it turned out that my clients were quite impressed with my "negotiating" prowess, and went on and told their friends about it, earning me an even greater reputation as a hardnosed lawyer - opening up my practice to a new type of clientele - the young, reckless, and accident prone.

Preparing for war was no easy task.  Co-counsel and I had to think deep, organize, strategize, come up with a battle plan, align the troops, and get ready to strike!  This wasn't going to be any kind of ordinary war.  We had to outmaneuver this man, and hit him where he least expected!

So, we did what any other savvy street lawyers would do... we went on Craigslist, and engaged the services of a Cuban Voodoo High Priestess as a "litigation consultant" for the remainder of our negotiations. 

At first, she seemed a bit sketchy.  She showed up at near midnight to the little cottage I was renting, smelling of patchouli and nag champa incense, and wearing full ritual regalia - a long flowing skirt reaching to her ankles, a breezy purple, black and gold high priestess blouse, a turban wrapped around her head, many layers of necklaces, bracelets, anklets, big hoop earrings and a nose piercing. From underneath her turban poked out the ends of her dreadlocks here and there.  She LOOKED legitimate enough. She SMELLED like she knew what she was doing. So, sure...why not? We hired her on the spot!

On our first night, we got straight down to business. We went over the Wiccan Rede, and the Law of Three... why? I'm not really sure...she was supposed to be doing Voodoo on this dude, not the goody-goody Good Witch Wiccan stuff. We could have done that all by ourselves - if that's what we had wanted to do. But we went along with it anyway. No strangers to Wiccan witchery here.

After she nearly smoked us out of the place with her burning sage and a million tea-lights, the Priestess went for the biggest soup pot I had in the kitchen.  She boiled us up a sinister ritual wash made of dried herbs, scented oils, some sugar, honey and bad little puppy dog tails.

Next came some tantric moves practiced to the sound of her chanting along to the rhythm of beating drums emanating from her iTunes hooked up to the Bose - (we did the best with what we had, don't judge).

I'll leave out the part here dealing with the few droplets of menstrual blood, and fast forward to how I was able to obtain an energy sample - the Voodoo equivalent of an FBI DNA sample - from opposing counsel. It was easy enough.  I just asked to borrow his pen at one of our meetings, praised him on what a lovely pen it was, and then asked him (in front of everyone) if I could have it.  It was a lot of "ah, um, well... sure, why not?"... before he gave it up.  I was a bit discomfited having to ask for it (as if I couldn't afford my own fancy pen), but it was all for a greater cause. Worth it!

With pen in hand, we got down to some serious work. The Voodoo Queen would schedule her meetings with us always late at night - "when sexual energies were at their peak" - and worked until one or two in the morning transferring those energies back and forth until she could almost guarantee our sweet success.

By the time we ended our nightly rituals, we were fully empowered and ready to take on this twerp!  He had another thing coming!

The next settlement meeting turned out to be our last.  It started out with a much more pleasant exchange of courtesies, was highlighted by the flirtatious exchange of risque text messages as we sat across one another at the negotiating table, and ended with a nice settlement offer where all parties involved were more than satisfied.  This was followed by an invitation to a gourmet pancake breakfast the next morning at his "favorite romantic little restaurant" tucked away in a "quaint little town" nearby "where he sometimes likes to take his wife."  Wha...?

My co-counsel, the now accepted for who she is, non-lesbian (just looks like one, anyone could have easily made that same mistake - surely you can understand that, right?) was not invited.  And, I politely declined his pathetic (and not so subtle) little attempt at buttering my biscuit at breakfast. Uh... no, thanks. Here's your pen back.

Lawyers make money off of their clients. Plain and simple. Just how much money is out there to be made, no one teaches you in law school.  At least not the one I went to.  There are no classes to sign up for on how to get your hustle on when you're just starting out.

Maybe in the Ivy leagues they don't need to teach young lawyers on how to make their first millions, because they were born with their investment bankers at their side counting their money for them.  For the rest of us corporate and lowly street lawyers from B-schools, and without trust funds, we have to learn and earn as we go.

My daddy wasn't a lawyer. Neither was my granddaddy. Nor my Uncle Mike.  As a matter of fact, except for my aunt Gloria who graduated community college, I was the first to step foot at university.  I had to figure things out for myself every step of the way.  Which was okay.  I'm Latina. On one hand, I had my mother teaching me how to coordinate my handbags, shoes and underwear so that I could land me a husband. And on the other, I had my dad teaching me the virtues of hard work, entrepreneurship, and honesty. I never much cared for the husband part of that equation.

Almost all law students and practicing attorneys become familiar with the "Lodestar Method" of calculating legal fees.  It basically states that the more experience you have, and the more expertise you've developed, the more money you can bill your clients per hour.  So, in essence, a 30-year veteran should be able to bill more per hour than a young attorney with only 10-years of experience under his or her belt.  That's the way it works in theory.  Except for wrongful death and personal injury cases where any idiot can bill at a standard 33 1/3% of recovery (plus fees and expenses), if no suit is filed, and 40% the instant a lawsuit is commenced.  In most cases, "commencing a lawsuit" means filing a one-page document with the courts called a "Notice of Action," and Viola! You've just increased your fee by over 6%!

What I figured out very early on, is that some of the male attorneys practicing in the same ranks as I was, were sexist, lazy alcoholics that all belonged to the same good ole boys club as their daddies and granddaddies before them.  I had to work extra long hours to overcome the fact that I was a Latina woman with no previous professional ties to the community.  It was not long before I was jumping hurdles and running way ahead of them.  Maybe it wasn't because I was any smarter than they were, but because I took great pleasure in working night and day to crush them in the courtroom. That was my modus operandi as I worked to make a name for myself - Kill or be Killed!  But, of course, with a sweet smile and a smartly coordinated briefcase. It worked like a charm - most times.

Except for this one relentless slimy creep of an insurance defense attorney who wouldn't let up on his company's purse strings.  We negotiated for weeks that turned into months.  He wouldn't budge. I wouldn't budge.  We were spending thousands of dollars wrangling with this clown who protected the insurance company's money as if it was his own. Granted, he was probably being paid a handsome bonus dependent on how much money he saved the company.  But, dammit! I wanted to max out every bit of my 40%, with a sizable amount left to my client after fees and expenses.

I tried everything in my arsenal, but nothing worked against this squeaky little man. So, I enlisted the help of co-counsel.  Someone with much more experience than I had.  Surely she could wrest a large settlement off of this guy's insurance company.  But, no...he started taking pot-shots at her from day one - just shy of calling her a lesbian with an ugly hat, as he slapped her hat right off of her head sending it flying across the room.  He quickly grabbed his stuff and stormed out.

At our next settlement meeting, my co-counsel and I rode up to the 20th floor fuming mad, plotting our every move and preparing for war! He appeared out of nowhere opening the conference room doors for us and said...

"Ladies first." A thick sarcasm hanging onto each of his words.

"I'm not a lady. I'm a lawyer!" I said, glaring past him.

He broke down and laughed, easing the tension for a brief moment.  The negotiations went south very fast soon after. 

"You want to take this outside?" I asked, sizing him up.

Mentally taking in the location of either the nearest baseball bat or my gun.  I was ready to beat the crap out of this little f*#@er!  I was tired of his snide remarks and sideways glances at my friend and co-counsel.  He was being so politically incorrect, and she's not even gay!  But nonetheless, this meant war - and it was on!!!

Getting to the Dominican Republic was an adventure all in itself.  On our way to the airport, I realized my passport was 10 days expired!

Shit! Now what? Did I even NEED a passport to get into the D.R.?  Or just on the way out?

One quick Google search confirmed it was a definite need both on the way in and on the way out.  We had just a few hours before having to meet the UPS flight to claim the corpse.  Without a passport, that would be nearly impossible!  Without a doubt, I needed to be there when the cargo flight landed. Now it was just a matter of how I was gonna get there.

I had already promised the dead guy's family that I was coming.  Because I "cared" - unlike all those other shyster lawyers vying to land this case. (wink-wink) If I didn't keep my word, what would they be left thinking - especially with all the other empty promises yet to come?

Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!  What was I gonna do?

I looked over at the undertaker.  She looked back at me.  Both of us panic stricken.  (Leaders don't panic. They get concerned.)  The thought kept circling in my head.  Who the F#@K came up with that anyway?!?! Carnegie, Warren Bennis, Donald Trump? I'm REALLY effing concerned here!

"Okay. We got this," I said.  "We can catch a flight to Puerto Rico.  How long will it take to get us to the D.R. from there?"

"By plane?" asked the undertaker.

"By boat," I said. "How far is it between the two?  Do you think we can smuggle me in that way?"

"I don't know. Let me check."  She called her funeral director to ask him to do a bit of quick research for us.

"It will take a couple of days. But it's very dangerous. Trip Advisor doesn't advise," he replied a few minutes later.

"How dangerous?" I asked.

"A lot dangerous," he said.

"Ugh! Okay. Thanks." I disconnected and kept driving.  Shit! Now what?

"Don't worry. I got a plan." The undertaker got on the phone to our friend at the D.C. passport office.

"We've got an emergency," she said. "We need a passport renewal for A.C. - ASAP!  Like right now!"

"Okay.  No problem. Give me the number," said D.C.

"Got it," Undertaker said into the phone.  "Head South, A.C. We're going to Miami, trick."

"Woohoo!" We both screamed out, fists pumping through the now open sunroof of the Hummer.

Seven hours later, we boarded our flight to the D.R.  Fresh passport in hand. No illegal entry necessitated.  There was a faint skid mark across my smiling face from where the photo got run over as I dropped it in the street in front of the passport office.  But, eh... no one noticed much.

The SDQ airport was a roaring madhouse!  There was a loud cacophony of merengue music, laughter and chickens clucking.  We quickly made our way out to our waiting taxi that took us to the cargo shipping area.  An old, beat up hearse was stationed outside the morgue, awaiting us all - the body, the family, the undertaker, and the lawyer.  We had made it! Wooohooo!

The trip from the airport to the family village/ghetto of Christo Rey took approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes of driving through winding rural roads, hilly terrain, one pit stop at a convenience store so that the men in the hearse could stop and eat some fried chicken, another stop a few minutes later for some refreshments at a roadside stand where slain goats hung by their hind legs, and finally an unexpected stop when the hearse broke down in the middle of a small village.

The guys in the hears came over to our taxi, said something to the driver, and then they all left together.  They left us behind to fend for ourselves as another small gang of Haitians - kids, this time - swarmed both vehicles from all sides. By "small", I mean probably a million!

"Cierren los cristales y atranquen las puertas!" The taxi driver yelled out behind him.

"Wha...?" I tried to ask, unable to articulate.

And, just like that, they were gone - leaving behind that gem of advice to close all the windows and lock the doors.

Shit! Double Shit!! Shit! Well, on the bright side, we didn't have to pay the cab fare for that long ride to our certain death.

The decedent's brother was trailing behind in his rusty jalopy.  It was only a few short minutes before he pulled up behind us shooing the little kids away from the taxi, then from the hearse.  He said something to them that I couldn't understand, and the kids backed away with hands clasped in front of them, bowing slightly as they retreated.  They had big toothed grins spread across their little faces...awwww... they're so cute! Uh, yeah... not really... get us the eff out of here!!! What just happened?!?

It turns out that the hearse driver and his team of imbeciles thought that they had been cursed by the spirit of the dead guy for having left his body sitting in the sweltering heat while they enjoyed their lunch.  So, they couldn't think of anything more reasonable to do than to run away when the hearse gave out.  They may have grumbled something about the devil-woman with the yellow hair riding in the taxi - but, I'm not too sure about that.

It's funny how the mind erases entire time periods of our lives.  Dates, entire events, people, places and things.  And then, when we least expect it -  a sound, a smell, a simple conversation opens up a floodgate of regressed memories surfacing from somewhere deep within the body, mind and soul.

Sometimes, these memories reach way back into childhood - a most idyllic one it was.  Others, they go back to a time of young adulthood when first discovering the power of a bright mind coupled with youthful beauty.  But hardly ever to the near present.  Almost as if all these memories were recalled from another lifetime.  From somewhere deep within a long forgotten past.  Some of these are the memories which cause the greatest pain.  Those that would often rather be forgotten, since one can't go back in time to right certain wrongs.

And then the red bird sings...and flutters away past me. Momentarily breaking the reflective spell I had fallen under.  Still sitting there...on the concrete bench in the meditation garden.  Trying to make sense of my life.  Memories opening up old wounds.  Those that I no longer try and hide.  A heart teeming with both hatred and shame.  Neither one quite able to take much of a stronghold, but still competing.  Only, I don't quite recall this particular memory being all that real.  Just in my mind's eye, I see it very clearly.  Bach's Prelude providing the somber sound score to the film screening over and over inside my own head.  Maybe it's that I still don't allow myself to fully admit to it.

The first time that I realized that I hated myself for what I had become, was when I found myself standing next to the frozen cadaver whose cardboard casket was being ransacked by a small gang of Haitian men inside the makeshift morgue within the cargo hold area of the Santo Domingo airport in the Dominican Republic. SDQ.  I remember the unusual airport city-code well from my days working for the airlines. Now, forever etched into my memory.  An entirely new image conjured in lieu of the sandy beaches and balmy weather touted in the travel brochures.

Never would I have imagined myself years later trailing a dead body there - hovering over it with a proprietal smugness - while silently praying to God that the men desecrating it wouldn't turn their savage attentions toward me or my friend, the undertaker.  I could do nothing to stop it.  I did nothing to try to. So, I just stood there and watched.  Not feeling either particularly helpless, nor of wanting to.

Sometimes, in life, we wish we could get a do over.  This is one of those times for me. This particular wrongful death case I chased here to the Dominican Republic, would ultimately be one of those defining moments of my legal career before my eventual disbarment.  One having nothing to do with the other.  However, it's how I came to earn the reputation of being a shrewd lawyer, thus earning me a most appropriate moniker. One I would never be able to shake off.

While I was away, my staff took it upon themselves to reprint my legal stationery, business cards, and accolades hanging on the walls with "Ruth B. Costa, Esq. - Attorney and Counselor at Law."

"Who's Ruth B.?" I would ask, days later, walking into the office to the sound of sniggers all around.

"Uh. That's you, Bosslady," said the handsomest and bravest young attorney of the bunch, albeit a bit nervously.

"Ruth B.?" I asked, raising an eyebrow, intrigued.

"Yes, Boss. You're the baddest!" He blushed a bit.

"It means Ruthless Bitch!" Said the New Yorker paralegal, speaking out of turn and straight to the heart of the matter. 
"They says yous one bad bitch, following a dead body to the D.R. Uh-huh.  Not yous ordinaries ambulance chase-ah. Bitch'll chase a hearse to make a doll-ah."

"Ahhh...I see." I said.  "But, please, just call me Ruth." 

I turned and walked away into the privacy of my office to dictate the contractual terms for the wrongful death case I just landed while I was away.

There is a price to pay for everything we do in life... if you can believe that. I don't ever recall seeing things in terms of good or bad - just right and wrong.

Coming to SDQ chasing this lead was more wrong than anything I've ever done in my life.  The price I continue to pay is the guilt that has never left me for doing the wrong thing, while convincing myself of doing what was right.

In life, I have learned, we see only what we want to see.  And we perceive things how we want to perceive them.  Justifying our actions (or inactions, in some instances) by how we mold certain truths inside our own heads.  Do overs are not always possible - no matter how badly we wish for one.  Doing the right thing, the first time, is also not always possible.  Learning from our past mistakes builds character, as long as we don't keep making the same mistakes over and over again.  It's called growing.  And it's a part of life.