THE LAST TRIAL: In McAllen, A Lawyer Who Fell From Grace With His Profession...Allen Odum Dead...

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was initially published last May. Allen Barry Odum, the subject of the story, died on Monday. His funeral was held today. We recall him as a good friend and fellow coffee shop hangabout. He was 62. The cause of death was cancer...]

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor-In-Chief

McALLEN, TX - Several weeks ago, at my favorite coffee shop here, one of my friends sat up and pointed to the man in the photo above, saying something about how we might be interested in inviting him to our little gang. His manner was calm, like that of someone who'd been someplace awful and was now back. In his free hand, he always carried either a popular novel or a notebook, his laptop strung across a shoulder in its bag, his other hand occupied by his cup of coffee. You see all kinds at this particular coffee shop, from Chief of Police Victor Rodriguez to County Judge Rene Ramirez to overly-dressed businessmen to bums. I had taken to saying everyone in the shop likely had a good story to tell.

This slim, gray-haired man did.

His name is Allen Odum. And if you were in this town back in November, 2008, you likely read in The McAllen Monitor about he had been arrested at the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint near Falfurrias. The charge would be transporting of marijuana, some 60 lbs. for which he was being paid $2,400 for the trip from McAllen to Corpus Christi. It was a fall from grace for the well-known attorney.

Odum, shown in photo above, is waging a losing battle against cancer, but he has one more task to accomplish: he is writing a memoir, one whose beginning is a heart-tugger. And he'll tell you openly, never once painting his problems with any sort of self-pity. The anecdote that serves as send-off for his book is this one: His daughter had tired of seeing him lose interest in his profession, as had his employees, so much so that one day she took her red lipstick to a sliding glass door mirror in the family home and wrote about how Odum had once been a good father, a respected attorney and someone to be proud of. "Now," wrote the kid, "...you're just a crackhead."

Odum says it in a matter-of-fact tone, yet acknowledges that it hurt to see that scribbled in big, red lettering.

The arrest took him to a jail in Rockport, north of Corpus Christi, where he awaited his trial. Odum recalls he had no illusions about skirting a stay in prison. He just knew he didn't feel well as the days moved onward. The cancer diagnosis, he feels, led to the judge handing in a three-year probation, which was optimistic in that his doctors have given him little to make him think he'll see 2011. And so, Allen Odum writes. And he sends me his chapters. I look them over and note my review in a subsequent Email reply. In the mornings, he pops into the coffee shop during the early hours when I am there and we talk about his story, his writing, his memoir.

"At least, it'll be something to leave behind," he says, only his eyes and voice tell me there is more than just a desire to jot down his back pages. His fall from grace is rarely discussed. He knows he blew it and he knows there isn't much that he can do about it now. It is, however, a good story, especially when he recounts the details of his involvement in the drug trafficking, the bitching he got from clients he neglected, the shame he found when facing friends in the local legal profession.

"Duardo," he tells me when I get up to leave. "...thanks, man. You don't know how much I appreciate your help and your way of motivating me to finish this book."

I never tell him it's a bear to complete. I never tell him the first and last 50 pages are the easiest to write in any book. I never tell him about the publishing clock, which is slow. I never tell him anything negative. A book, even a non-fiction effort, is a monumental climb up an unforgiving mountain. Allen Odum will likely tire of it and greet me with words of failure. I know it. But I'll smile and say this: "You're not even writing that book; it's writing itself."

And he'll stop and think about that a few seconds before nodding, run his hand through his hair as he often does, and want to shake my hand. He'll keep writing. He'll finish his book. You can't beat Life. And you can't beat writing. You just can't...

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