Fry Me a Liver by Delia Rosen Page A

message from him asking me to stop by. I had no opinion of the man. Alan was my uncle’s broker and, although we had spoken on the phone, I had only met him in person once, when he came to the house where I was sitting shiva after the funeral. He was a heavyset guy, about five-six, balding, with a lisp. He had a senior partner, Steven Rapp, who was out of town for my uncle’s funeral and whom I did not meet today.
    Alan came out when the receptionist/ secretary/partner’s daughter Hilary told him I was there. He was dressed in a snug-fitting sports jacket. He gave me a warm hug and a sincere smile. He was heavier than he was when I first met him, a little more bald, but otherwise unchanged. I followed him into his office, where he already had my file open on his desktop. He did what it seemed to me a good insurance agent should do: he told me not to worry about anything, that he would take care of getting the property assessed quickly and would see that recompense was made. He was evasive when I asked for a ballpark figure. I would have been too, but I had to ask. Then he asked about injuries and it hit me that he wasn’t enquiring out of concern for the staff.
    â€œThey’re going to sue me, aren’t they?” I said with awful realization. It was as if I’d walked into a pie that someone was just holding, waiting for me.
    â€œIt is likely they will sue you for physical injuries and psychological trauma,” Alan said. “So, I suspect, will every patron who was in the dining room and more than a few passersby.”
    I wasn’t naïve but I was still shocked.
    â€œIf it was an accident, they will charge you with negligence,” he went on.
    â€œIt wasn’t,” I said.
    That surprised him. “Then they will say you neglected to have reasonable security measures in place, that hostile acts by disgruntled employees or customers or enemies of customers is the new normal.”
    â€œBut you can’t foresee everything, and even if you could the cost of attempting to prevent it—”
    â€œDon’t tell me about the absurdity of it all,” he said. “When your uncle took out this policy he was concerned about hot grease splattering on a cook or a busboy slipping on chicken fat. He had me write those very concerns into the policy, as I’m sure you know. The last thing he added was blue ice falling from an aircraft through the ceiling.”
    Blue ice was frozen toilet water ejected on occasion by aircraft. Typically, it vaporizes in the atmosphere. Sometimes it does not.
    â€œYou know, I understand the stuff that constitutes traditional workplace hazards,” I said. “But this is idiotic.” What was even more idiotic was that I was angry at my staff and customers and no one had even done anything yet.
    â€œBe glad you’re covered,” he said with rabbinical finality.
    â€œI am, but it’s like I just told someone from the city buildings department, I don’t like the way things work.”
    â€œIt’s the swinging pendulum,” he said, still playing the part of the cleric. “A hundred years ago, people died in workplace accidents and the employers sent a wreath to the funeral—if that. It will come to center again.”
    â€œHow? How do you get away from this fachadick mess?”
    He snickered.
    â€œWhat?” I asked.
    â€œYour uncle used to say things like that. Hebrew words.”
    â€œIt’s Yiddish,” I told him, sounding snippier than I had intended. I wasn’t angry at him but at the system of which he was a part.
    â€œI see,” he said, though clearly he didn’t.
    â€œHebrew is a Semitic language. Yiddish is from the German.”
    â€œI did not know there was a difference,” he said. “Good to know. To answer your question, we all get away from binds like these when states put a cap on damages.”
    â€œHow likely is that?”
    â€œAs likely as a