Divorce and deception

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Let me tell you about the Bobby — oh, God, there’s so many wonderful stories I have after all these years. Not near as good as the ones, of course, you have. But I enjoy mine better probably than I do yours mainly because I know my stories and I don’t know yours.

Bobby Johnson was a high school classmate of mine, but he dropped out of school. He went to the Navy and had a career, as some of the folks around her have been in the Navy. Then he became a deep sea diver, soldier of fortune. He did all these things. And I hadn’t been out of law school very long. He had married a Greenville girl. They separated. She came back home, filed a divorce case. He came to see me with his divorce papers. And being a conscientious, if not experienced, lawyer I took a great deal of time — actually a lot more time than it takes to tell this story — and I explained to him the community property law of this state, separate property law of this state, the probabilities of who would get custody, how child support was set. And I went on and on and on and told him all his options about how he could do whatever his choices were as he faced this divorce case and what the cost would be and the probable outcome. I said, “Bobby, what is it that you want me to do? Do you understand my explanation?” He said, “I sure do, Paul.” I said, “Well, what is it you want me to do?” He looked at me and thought a minute. He said, “Well, Paul, you know more about this sort of thing than I do. You just use your own deception.”