The life of your humble writer: Part XLIV

By: Preston Aucoin

Through an exercise of poor judgment, I strolled into the law lounge after completing my first final exam (in criminal law) I took in law school. I was greeted by that loud-mouthed braggart, big talker, self-trumpeter, blowhard, super-intelligent, brilliant, mental giant, last semester senior, obnoxious, offensive disagreeable, Italian-American, New Orleans brand, mustached Roy Liuzza, who addressed me in his usual condescending, patronizing, over-bearing manner as follows:

“Well, Frog (an uncomplimentary slang word used to describe frenchman), why are you out early, you couldn’t finish the exam, I presume.” I replied, refraining from returning the compliment by calling him Dago, Wep or Spaghetti Bender, the nicknames for Italian folk, and embellished my error of entering that miserable law lounge by telling him, “No, Roy, I completed the exam about half an hour early.” “I guess you couldn’t answer it,” he said.

“On the contrary,” I replied telling him I didn’t find the examination too difficult, and had actually finished about a half an hour early, but had read it over, and was satisfied with my answers before turning it in to the professor. He came out of his chair and said, “What, you didn’t find the exam too difficult. Well Frog, if that’s the case, you can expect an F, and you just as soon forget about taking the next four exams. Don’t waste your time studying for them.”

“Go back to your apartment and start packing right now and call the moving van to come get your furniture and you can move back to Ville Platte, wherever that is.” What I regret not doing is employing the use of my middle finger and giving him the bird, but I simply left the law lounge, and went downstairs to await my buddies.

We had agreed not to do a post mortem on our papers we wrote because we knew aforehand our answers would vary, and didn’t want to spend valuable time defending something that was already done. However, I will confess to the reader of this column what that overbearing Roy Liuzza had told me upstairs did not encourage me, but on the other hand, I refused to let it get the best of me, but I made myself a solemn promise to avoid that New Orleans hot shot leader of the Italian Brigade in the future.

But I did not call anyone to come get my furniture. Under no circumstances would it have been the moving van for at least two good reasons 1) I couldn’t afford it, and 2) I didn’t have enough furniture to fill one-fifth of a moving van. As it turned out, I hired Rene L. Vidrine, better known as “Cheapstore” to come with his open bed truck and assistant, Eual Lafleur to move me back to Ville Platte when the time came. He charged me $35.

Our study group continued reviewing for the next exam. Thank goodness, they were spaced out every other day. We spent sleepless nights. We lost weight. We became irritable. Definitely, the wind was not blowing at our backs. Instead, it was blowing in our faces. Our classmates complained bitterly about the severity of the exams. We cursed the professors, the law school, the upper classmen. Most of us were fit to be tied.

Finally, this cup passed. The exams were over, but an equally bad, if not worse, ordeal came into existence - the long wait for the grades to come out.

Before that happened, we had to register for the next semester (the spring semester), not knowing how we did the fall semester. Well, I assumed I had passed, and accordingly I went ahead and registered. Then, I was notified by the housing authority we had a hut in the vet village on the campus and it was okay for us to move in. So, with the help of my friends, we moved our few sticks of furniture into the hut (which I learned shortly was roach infested). We were neighbors with both Bob McBride and Larry “Bully” Roach, my good friends and classmates.

Finally, the grades began to dribble in. The first I got was the one in criminal law. That was the first exam I had taken and the one I had found not too difficult and finished early, Roy Liuzza telling me that undoubtedly I had flunked it. Well, probably much to Liuzza’s thwarted expectations, I made a B in it. Incidentally, Roy graduated that semester, with honors and was accepted in a prestigious law firm in Monroe, and sadly departed this life a few years afterward. I had long forgiven him for mistreating me.

The rest of the grades came in and everything came out okay, and I moved on to my second semester, no longer a greenhorn. My close buddies, Bob, Bully and Earl Veron all passed also, so our study group had apparently done pretty well - four out of four. But many had failed. The attrition rate was alarming. So, we celebrated. Since none of us had much money (except Earl), especially to spend on booze, we resorted to drinking something called Greenbriar, which passed itself off as distilled spirits and cost about $2 a fifth. We got it at a nearby A&P store. When you drank it, it felt like briars going down your gut. It was well named. And the hangover it left you with the next morning was both indescribable and incurable.

While I was living in the vet village, Sweetie Pie and I became the parents of two children, namely Toni (formally named Ruby Antoinette) and Gilbo (Gilbert Joseph). As Toni began to crawl, she had an eye for the hordes of roaches which we exhausted ourselves attempting to destroy, and would chase after them with her little shoe, trying to kill them. Bully and his wife Dorothy Belle raised five boys in that vet village and Bob and Katie, at least three.

Earl and his wife, Verdi, became Gilbo’s godparents, and my first cousin, Byron Lee Aucoin, and my sister Mary Alice were Toni’s godparents. I became Bob and Katie’s daughter, Peggy’s godfather. She is now married to an attorney from Lafayette named Chuck Mouton who is in the same firm with Ward and Eric LaFleur (now Senator Eric LaFleur), my cousins. I don’t believe Bully was anyone’s godfather. He was too ornery (I say that in jest - he was actually a prince). I cannot repeat in print for the public to read what he called me. I would be censored if I did.

To illustrate what a good guy Bully was I’ll give the kind reader an example. We had found out from other law students that the Lady of the Lake Hospital paid $25 a pint for blood. Accordingly, about a week before Toni was born, Bob and I had gone to the lab of that hospital and each sold a pint of blood.

When Toni was born, incidentally at the same hospital, there were some complications and Sweetie Pie needed a blood transfusion so I was asked to “repay” the blood in kind. I couldn’t because you have to wait six weeks between blood donations (or sales).

Bully, for some unknown reason, had not come with Bob and I to sell his blood, so he volunteered and gave a pint to replenish the blood supply at the hospital. I offered to give him the $25 I had received for mine, and he refused. What a friend! Bully passed about a year ago.

The rest of my time in law school was uneventful. As the reader may suspect, the guys from South Louisiana grouped together, while those North of that Mason-Dixon Line at Lutz Hill aggregated and we exchanged “chics” (i.e., caustic remarks).

In my next column, I will describe for you, dear readers, my departure from the LSU Law School, and my re-entry in Ville Platte society.

I invite you to listen to my radio program on KVPI 92.5 FM or 10.50 AM at 12:30 noon every other Wednesday.