Ben Reach

The Prenup

July 4, 2020 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben learned from Sam that Buck Branch had left Minnie, his wife of thirty years, for a younger woman, how much younger was a matter of speculation by the curmudgeons as they cast popping bugs for bream on the pond at Mossy Swamp Plantation. It was March 1 and the smell of smoke from controlled burns filled the soft spring air. “She says she signed an agreement that says she gets nothing before they were married.I told her she should consult you,” Sam said. At these words, Ben’s temper flared. “You mean nothing, no alimony or share of marital property?” Ben asked. Read more

The Trip

March 5, 2020 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben Reach was breakfasting alone in Millie’s Diner when his old friend Fred Eanes entered and accepted Ben’s waived invitation to join him. Fred farmed near Camilla in partnership with his son. Like Ben, he had been a life-long lover of big going bird dogs, trial and hunting. He and Ben had often judged together, but not for the last decade. Read more

A Solution — Sort Of

January 6, 2020 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben Reach had a Monday morning appointment he dreaded. After breakfast at Millie’s with Sam he trudged to his office to “face the music,” as his father said whenever his mother insisted he join her at a symphony performance (quarterly). He had spent most of a sleepless night working out what his advice would be this morning to Gilbert Spain. Read more

Debit Man ~ A Story for Christmas and 2020

January 2, 2020 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben Reach and Sam Nixon MD had long enjoyed a secret Christmas season ritual. It required the conspiratorial help of The Debit Man, a man even shorter than Ben Reach but the only Caucasian who had the information Ben and Sam required to fulfill their annual ritual. What is a Debit Man? If you must ask that question you did not grow up among Poor People in the South in Ben and Sam’s era. Read more

An Easy Fix

November 19, 2019 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

“What is on the book this week?” Ben Reach asked Joanne when he arrived at the office Monday morning. “You have new clients at ten this morning, Sally and Sam Collins, about their mother Mary’s estate. She died two weeks ago. I put her will and trust agreement on your desk along with a summary of her assets. Her accountant, Ron Cease, will be with them — he is a co-executor and co-trustee with them. I’ll bring you a cup of coffee.” Read more

Just For Fun

October 23, 2019 | Ben Reach | Comments

Ben Reach found himself in a new role at the Deep South Quail Championship being run at Knotty Pine Plantation. He had gone expecting just to ride in the gallery, but discovered on arrival that the dog truck driver had failed to show, so Ben volunteered for the job. Read more

Two Farmers, the Buck and the Boy

September 10, 2019 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Jake Todd and Buck Read had been adjoining farmers all their adult lives. Each was now approaching eighty. Blood enemies as well, most of those years. Why, you ask, and the question tells me you have no experience with their situation. To adjoin is to irritate, irk, agitate, infuriate. No myth is so untrue as that of rural tranquility. It exists only in the imagination of delusional city dwellers. Rural inhabitants know better. Read more

Advice to a Young Lawyer (continued)

June 5, 2019 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

It had been two years since Ben and Sam met with Rob Smith to discuss his next career move following his second judicial clerkship. Rob had decided to join a big Atlanta-based firm and become a litigator. Now he had asked to meet again with the curmudgeons. He had not told Joanne for what, and the curmudgeons as they waited for Rob to arrive we’re speculating. Read more

Advice to a Young Lawyer

May 16, 2019 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben Reach had followed with interest the career of Rob Smith since his days as a high school student in Albany where he had been valedictorian and captain of the baseball team. He had gone on to Ben’s Alma Mater, University of Georgia, and from there to Harvard Law where he had done well. He’d landed a clerkship with a Federal District Judge and was finishing that year when he called Ben and asked to see him for advice on his next career move. Read more

Pet Peeve

April 23, 2019 | Ben Reach, Short Stories | Comments

Ben Reach and Sam Nixon MD shared several pet peeves. First on Ben’s list was the practice of prosecutors, especially federal prosecutors, in pressuring minor offenders to testify against target alleged serious offenders in exchange for leniency. What Ben disliked was the temptation for the prosecutor to suggest what the testimony should be, and the inevitable willingness of the witness to testify as suggested (or demanded) whether true or not. The practice had become widespread, fueled by long mandatory sentences for drug-related offenses, even relatively minor ones involving marijuana, a drug legalized under state law in many states and in Canada. Read more