Wednesday, 6/23/99

We went to see the lawyer last night after work. His office is in a strip mall on the south side, between a tanning place and a Chinese carryout. I sat in the truck for five minutes before I could go in. Pam waited. She didn't say anything. She just waited.

Mr. Lindley is younger than I expected, maybe thirty-five, with a mustache and a tie loosened at the neck. The first meeting is free. He had us bring every bill, and we brought them in a grocery sack, and he went through the whole sack with a calculator while we sat there like two kids in the principal's office.

Here is what he told us, as best I understood it. There are two kinds for people like us. Chapter 13 is where you pay back part of it over three to five years on a plan. Chapter 7 is where they wipe out the unsecured debts, the cards and the medical bills, and you start over. With what we owe and what I make, he said, Chapter 13 would mean years of paying most of it anyway, and he doesn't think we'd make it.

The house: we're current on the mortgage, and what we have in it after what we owe the bank is small enough that the law lets us keep it, as long as we keep paying the bank. Same with the truck. The cards and the hospital go away.

His fee is $750, plus the court's filing fee. It has to be paid before he files. We can pay it in three parts.

He said, "Mr. Lutz, you didn't do anything wrong. Your wife got sick." I think he says that to everybody. I think it's true for everybody who sits in that chair with a grocery sack.

We said we'd think about it. I'm thinking about it. It's two in the morning.

Thursday, 6/10/99

A letter came from a law firm in Ohio that collects for one of the card companies. It said they're "evaluating the account for further action," which Pam says means suing us. The calls are up to five and six a day now. Pam unplugged the phone in the bedroom.

Tonight after Luke went to bed I got out the Yellow Pages and looked under Attorneys. Two whole pages for bankruptcy. Big ads with eagles and flags. "Stop Creditor Harassment Now!" "Free Consultation!" I picked a small one with no eagle. I'll call tomorrow from the break room.

I haven't told anybody but Pam. Now I've told you, whoever you are.

Sunday, 5/16/99

Something happened after church today.

Stan Meyer, who has been an usher with me for about ten years and is the most respectable man I know, pulled me aside in the parking lot. He said Lois had heard from Pam that things were tight for us. Then he told me something I never knew. In 1986, when his trucking business went under, he and Lois went bankrupt. Lost the business, kept the house. Nobody at church knew then and nobody knows now but the pastor.

He said, "Gary, I'm going to tell you what nobody told me. Nobody died. The sun came up. You keep going."

Then he got in his Buick and drove off like he'd told me the score of the Pacers game.

I sat in the truck a long time. Pam said, "What did Stan want?" I said, "To tell me the sun came up."

Sunday, 4/25/99

We prayed at church this morning for the families in Littleton, Colorado. There's not much else to say about that. Pastor didn't try to.

Pam's two-year checkup was Tuesday. Still clean. Dr. Mahajan says now it's every six months.

That night, after the good news, Pam sat down across from me at the kitchen table and said, "Gary, we need to talk to a lawyer."

I said no. I said it pretty loud. I said Lutzes pay what they owe. My dad paid cash for every car he ever owned and he paid for his own funeral in advance, in 1981, and was proud of it till the day he used it.

Pam said, "Your dad's wife never had lymphoma."

I went out to the garage. I didn't do anything out there. I just stood.

Sunday, 3/28/99

I've been an usher at our church for eleven years. Second service. You walk the plate down the aisle and hand it in at the end of each pew and wait for it at the other end.

We haven't given anything since Christmas. Not a dollar. We used to tithe, not the whole ten percent but close. So this morning I walked that plate up and down the aisle past all those envelopes, and I felt like the biggest fraud in Marion County. Every envelope going in was somebody who could.

After the service Pastor Dietrich shook my hand at the door and held on for a second longer than usual. I don't know what he knows. Probably everything. Pastors usually do.

Sunday, 3/7/99

A collector called the shop Friday.

Cindy at the front desk took the message and brought it out to the pressroom on a pink slip. She didn't read it out loud, she folded it, but the name of the company was on it and anybody could figure it out. I put it in my shirt pocket and ran the rest of the job and I don't remember one sheet of it.

Ron came by at the end of the shift and said, "You okay, Gary?" Twenty-six years I've worked for that family. His dad hired me when I was twenty-two. I said, "I'm fine, Ron."

That's the first lie I've told on this page. I'm fixing it now. I'm not fine.

Tuesday, 2/9/99

The calls.

They start about eight in the morning, while I'm at work, so Pam gets most of them. They go till nine at night. They like suppertime. Some of them are polite and some of them are not. One man told Pam, "You made a commitment, ma'am," in a voice like a gym teacher. One young woman asked Pam how she'd feel if somebody owed her money, and Pam said, "Honey, the hospital owes me a left lymph node," and hung up. I laughed for the first time in a week.

I can't do it the way some people do. The check's in the mail. We'll have it Friday. I tried once and my face got hot and I told the man the truth, that we don't have it, and he said, "Well, when will you?" and I didn't know.

We have caller ID now. It's the best four dollars a month we spend.

Sunday, 1/17/99

We missed a payment.

Twenty-two years married, and we have never been late on anything, not the house, not the car, not the phone. This month there wasn't enough for all the minimums, so Pam and I sat down and decided which ones not to pay. We picked two cards. It felt like choosing which kid to leave at the gas station.

Then the late fees came. Twenty-nine dollars each. And the interest on those two went up to the penalty rate, which I didn't even know was in the fine print.

The plates are coming down. I can hear them.