Free The Common Lawyer by Mark Gimenez Page B

panhandlers, and binge-drinking college kids puking on the sidewalks. God, those were the days. Sixth Street had seemed sane back when Andy was one of those UT students; at twenty-nine, it seemed insane. At his age, he just wanted to drink Coronas at Güero's.
    He was getting old.
    He rode past the five-star Driskill Hotel and stood on the pedals across Congress Avenue, hoping not to get nailed by a speeder running a red light. Once on the other side, Andy breathed a sigh of relief. Sixth Street sloped down from there, so he coasted through the intersections at Colorado, Lavaca, Guadalupe, San Antonio, Nueces, and Rio Grande—more Texas rivers. Beads of sweat were rolling down his body by the time he turned into the parking lot at the Whole Foods eighty-thousand-square-foot flagship store and corporate headquarters, which occupied an entire city block at Lamar Boulevard.
    Whole Foods gave the slackers of Austin hope: If a twenty-five-year-old college dropout and his twenty-one-year-old girlfriend could open a small organic grocery store in 1978 and build it into an international organic food conglomerate with three hundred stores and $7 billion in revenues in thirty years, couldn't Andy Prescott be successful enough one day to rent a decent place in SoCo and own a top-of-the-line trail bike? Okay, just the bike then.
    Was that asking too much from life?
    Andy parked the Huffy at the Bicycle Pit-Stop, stuffed his coat and tie into the backpack, and hung the pack on the handlebars. He walked past the outdoor patio that featured a man-made stream coursing through the slate surface and entered the food court through sliding glass doors. He proceeded directly to the breakfast taco counter and ordered his usual from Team Member Brad (a fifteen-year member sporting a white chef's coat, a green Whole Foods cap, clear sterile gloves, and a $500,000 net worth from his company stock options): scrambled eggs, bacon, cheese, and refried beans on wheat tortillas with enough salsa to clear out his sinuses.
    " Dos ."
    "You need one for Max?"
    "He's lunching at Güero's today."
    And by now napping on Güero's front porch. Andy took the tacos from Team Member Brad, stepped past the Gelato counter to the day2day juice bar, and ordered a Jumping Grasshopper smoothie from Team Member Charlene: wheat grass, lemon, lime, apple juice, pineapple, banana, and fat-free plain yogurt, his personal added ingredient. Breakfast tacos and a smoothie: his version of a power lunch for under $10. He returned to the Gelato bar and sat on a stool with his back to the counter.
    Whole Foods had been created as an alternative to the corporate grocery stores of America; the original name was "Safer Way" and back then the little store had catered to the hippies of Austin, like Andy's mother, who wanted whole, organic, non-corporate food. Fast forward thirty years and Whole Foods was now much more than an alternative grocery store for hippies. It was an alternative lifestyle. A way of life.
    And its customers lived the life.
    They were young and fit, hip and organic, green and liberal, educated and employed. But mostly fit. Men and women, but Andy didn't come for the men. He came for the women. Young, incredibly fit women. Lean and toned, muscular and tanned, the hard female bodies of Austin worked out at Gold's Gym and hung out at Whole Foods, their awesome anatomies tightly encased in segmented polyurethane, a magnificent long-chain synthetic polymer fiber known as Spandex. Tube tops, tank tops, short-shorts, leggings— God, the Spandex . These girls did not put personal ads in the Chronicle . They came to Whole Foods.
    Whole Foods girls were the finest and fittest females in Austin, Texas.
    Looking at the girls now, Andy Prescott was again moved to offer a silent thanks to Joseph C. Shivers, the DuPont scientist who had invented Spandex in 1959. He had dedicated an entire decade of his life for the betterment of mankind. Or at least man.
    Andy finished off one