The Court

by William J. Coughlin

  He was always amused at the name of the school. Michigan State University had a veterinary school and two other medical institutions; one for osteopathic medicine, the other for regular medicine. They always referred to the M.D. school as the School for Human Medicine. He wondered if logic didn’t demand that the vet school should have then been named the school for inhuman medicine. However, no one in the medical school seemed to see the humor. Dick Mease was an assistant dean.

  “Put him on.”

  There was a click. “Roy.”

  “Yes, Dick. How have you been?”

  “Fine, Roy, just fine.” He coughed to clear his throat, as if embarrassed. “Say, Roy, I have something of a problem, and I think I just might need a bit of legal advice.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Well, it’s really not the sort of thing I think I should discuss over the telephone.”

  Pentecost glanced at his watch. “I have a seminar in an hour. If you can hurry over, we can talk for a few minutes.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Roy Pentecost replaced the telephone receiver. The medical school was more than a half mile away. On campus most faculty people walked or rode bikes. It was easier than trying to find a parking space. It would be a while before Mease arrived. He returned to the papers before him.

  He was gifted with an unusual power of concentration. He forgot everything except what he was reading until the telephone rang again.

  “Dr. Mease is here.”

  “Send him in.”

  Dick Mease was young. He had gone through medical school, internship, and a long residency without discovering complete satisfaction. He found the academic world much more pleasant and stimulating. Now he served as an instructor and as an administrator. He even looked more like a bland schoolteacher than someone who could menace an entire hospital staff.

  “Hi, Roy,” he said, carefully closing the door behind him.

  Pentecost stood up and shook his hand. “What’s the problem? I hate to rush you, Dick, but I do have that seminar in a few minutes.”

  Mease sat down on a straight-backed chair. “Do you know Dr. George Simons?”

  “No, I can’t say that I do.”

  “He’s Lansing ear-nose-and-throat man. And he’s one of the adjunct professors, both for us and for the osteopathic school.”

  “So?”

  “He’s a young man; thirty-five, give or take. Good credentials.”

  “That’s nice. What’s the problem?”

  “He’s been laying one of the students.”

  Pentecost sat back. “Female, I presume. You know the old joke about the English lieutenant and the elephant—nothing queer about old Archie?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “I’ll tell it to you sometime. I assume this wouldn’t be a problem unless someone complained. The young lady?”

  Mease shook his head. “No, the young lady’s boyfriend; another medical student. He’s mad as hell.”

  Pentecost sat forward. “Did you talk to the girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what does she have to say about all this?”

  Mease lifted his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. “Christ, she admits it. This Simons is a good-looking guy. I think she’s rather proud of herself.”

  “Is Simons married?”

  “Yes, and he has a couple of kids.”

  “Is she in any of his classes?”

  “She used to be.”

  Pentecost nodded. “Did he start banging her before or after she was a student of his?”

  “After.”

  “Well, at least that’s something. Is she going to cause any trouble?”

  “No.”

  “Just the boyfriend then?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you come to me as the dean of the law school hoping for a magic answer, right?”

  “I hoped you wouldn’t mind.”

  Pentecost shook his head. “I don’t. The only difficulty is that I really don’t have an answer.”

  “Oh?”

  “Dr. Simons has broken no specific university rules, right?”

  “Well, there’s the Code of Conduct.”

  “But it doesn’t specifically say medical school professors shall not screw their students after the students have studied with them, right?”

  “No.”

  “All right. Then there’s nothing the jealous young man can do against the good doctor, at least through official university channels?”

  “Well, I suppose not.”

  “So the only thing he can do is go to Dr. Simons’ wife and make things hot at home, correct?”

  “That may happen. He’s threatened it.”

  “Threatened?”

  “He came into my office. He was almost hysterical. He made a lot of wild statements.”

  Pentecost nodded slowly. “That’s good.”

  “Good?”

  “You came to this ancient oracle for an answer. Here it is. Have the campus police talk to the young man. Tell the police what he said. They are very professional about these things. Have them make a bit of noise about extortion. But mainly they can drop a hint that if this goes any farther, the young man may see some very low marks. In other words, if he raises a stink, he may be flunked out. Don’t have them say that exactly, but I’m sure he’ll catch on. As I say, the campus police are very experienced.”

  “I don’t know.…”

  “And discontinue Dr. Simons’ services after this semester. Let the boyfriend know that. It’ll help take some of the sting out.”

  “But suppose Simons raises a howl?”

  “Under these circumstances?”

  Mease shook his head in admiration and smiled. “You know, I certainly came to the right man. No wonder there’s talk of putting you on the Supreme Court. Damn it, Roy, that’s a brilliant solution.”

  “Well, it’s a solution, brilliant or not.”

  “I read about this fellow Howell. From the sounds of it, it’s my medical opinion that he won’t make it. I hope you get the appointment, Roy. You would do a splendid job.”

  Pentecost stood up. “I hate to usher out someone who talks so nicely, but I do have to go, Dick. I hope you’re wrong about Justice Howell. He’s a good man.”

  “Still, if he…”

  “Goodbye, Dick.” Pentecost guided him to the door. “If my brilliant solution doesn’t work, let me know.”

  He closed the door and returned to his notes.

  It was all a matter of tactics now. He chose not to go after the job, at least not while Howell was alive. But he knew others would be pressing his case. It would look good, this reluctance of his. It would look judicial.

  And he damned well did want that job.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The airplane circled as it approached the landing in Detroit. It was a bright and cloudless day, although the pilot had announced that snow showers were expected later in the Detroit area. Jerry Green looked out the window. The pilot had come in over the western tip of Lake Erie. They passed the shoreline and glided above the almost geometric pattern of the suburbs and farmlands below.

  He tried to identify some familiar landmarks. He always did that when he was up in a plane, although he could never really tell one river from another, and all interstates looked alike.

  If it wasn’t for the stadium he wouldn’t have recognized the town. They were passing just south of Ann Arbor. The University of Michigan stadium, a huge bowl with a seating capacity of over one hundred thousand, looked like a child’s teacup below them.

  The aircraft began its descent and soon they were flying above the roofs of row upon row of suburban tract houses. They all looked alike from the air. Cars moved on the busy streets, completely heedless of the big jet above them. It was as if they were invisible.

  He felt the clutch of his usual apprehension as they came down. He knew it was foolish, but it was as if he suspected that the pilot had made a mistake. All he could see wa
s fields and distant houses as they came near to ground level. Only the pilot could see the airfield. Then, just as it seemed to Green that they might crash, the runway came into view and its ritualistic markers streaked past as the big jet touched down. Jerry Green felt his usual sense of relief as the pilot used his engines and wing flaps to slow the airplane.

  People began to stir as the jet slowed to taxiing speed. He continued to look out the window. Detroit Metropolitan Airport had nothing to distinguish it from any other major airport. With few exceptions, they all seemed to look alike.

  He moved out of the aircraft in the press of his fellow passengers. For once there was no hassle with the luggage. He had made prior arrangements for a rental car, and that too was ready. When things seemed to be going too well, he had to resist a foreboding of impending disaster. A typical Jewish attitude, he reflected as he eased the car out of the airport and into the fast-moving interstate traffic. He always felt it would be a dead heat between the Irish and the Jewish for first place in any superstition sweepstakes. He smiled at the thought. He hadn’t been on Michigan’s soil for a full half hour and already he was beginning to think ethnically.

  He passed a semitrailer then settled back. It was an hour and a half drive to Lansing, and he had no reason to hurry. He turned the car radio dial until he found a classical music station. The lilting strains of Mahler filled the speeding car.

  Green looked about at the autumn landscape. Michigan never really changed. The populations shifted a bit, the old core cities decayed, and manufacturing plants moved, but it essentially remained the same. Shaped like a mitten, the bottom half, the southern part of the state, offered miles of flat farmlands broken by clusters of factory-fostered cities. The northern part of the state, including the Upper Peninsula, was sandy, covered by pine and birch, and unsuitable for profitable farming. The north was another country, another lifestyle. Wild and rugged, it moved at nature’s own slow pace, while the southern part of the state obeyed the round-the-clock demanding timetable of commerce.

  Michigan was home, but Jerry Green found no solace in being back in his home state or in the knowledge that he was moving swiftly toward his native city.

  It had been an early autumn and now only a few leaves were left on the trees along the route of the interstate. Despite the sunshine there was a desolate starkness about the stripped trees. The brilliant colors of fall had gone and now only dark browns and grays remained.

  They wanted to know about Dean Roy Pentecost and whether he possessed the integrity to honor a commitment.

  It was difficult, almost impossible, to find the ultimate truth about anyone. You could know someone for twenty years and still not perceive his true character. Life was an everlasting and changing charade, a dance of many masks.

  He swung the car up the ramp into the adjoining interstate and took the quickest route toward Lansing. He hadn’t been back since the funeral, and he had planned never to return. Those memories were disturbing, so he forced himself to think again of the task ahead and how to approach it.

  People were always reluctant to talk to strangers about neighbors and acquaintances, even if they disliked them. It was a human trait, this suspicion of the curious intruder. So if you came head-on at people, you learned nothing. But with a little tact and patience, the stranger tag could be overcome. And then they opened up with everything, the stories, good and bad, and the gossip. And it was always much easier in a large university town. Over forty thousand young people thronged into Michigan State University during the school year. And there was a constant turnover as old classes were graduated, and new ones began. Over ten thousand new faces presented themselves every September. In such an environment a stranger was not likely to draw attention, since, in a very real way, most of the population were strangers. Much could be learned in such fertile ground.

  And he still might know a few people. He had gone to grade school and high school there. The nucleus of workers who served the giant university would still be there. The sons and daughters of the men and women who used to make the college complex run probably remained, at least some of them, to continue their inherited roles.

  He wondered what have become of his old high school chums, although “chum” was really not the precise word to describe the past relationships. Still, it might be interesting. Where are they now? Like one of those newspaper features about faded celebrities, it would be fascinating to know.

  Most of the members of his high school class would be forty-six years old, like himself. The realization that Regina Kelso, four years younger, would now be forty-two shocked him a bit. He always pictured her as she had been; young, soft, and with a prettiness that bordered on true beauty. He had held that memory for years, never considering that she would age. It would be crushing if Regina had changed too much.

  Green suddenly faced the reality that most probably he would see many of them again. He would be like a ghost returning, a spirit sent to observe their fates. And these would not be the polished people of Washington or New York. They would be men and women quite different from those he customarily encountered in corporation boardrooms or in the marbled halls of federal government.

  He was not particularly fond of any of them, with the exception of Regina. That they would have little in common seemed the thought of an intellectual snob. But, he reflected somberly, it was probably true enough.

  None of them, he recalled, had ever sat beneath the evening stars and discussed the mysteries of life, at least not with him. There was no reason to think their ability to communicate with him would have been improved by the passage of time. The gulf between them could only have been widened by time and the difference in lifestyles.

  To them he would always be Hank Green’s younger brother. A pale shadow indeed. Hank Green was strong, breezy, and a local sports star. Jerry Green had been strong enough but lacked the coordination that insured excellence in athletic competition, and he had been painfully shy. The contrast between the two brothers had done nothing to enhance Jerry Green’s popularity as a youth.

  He sped past the Stadium Exit sign and was unsure whether he should take it. He passed the exit and then saw a big green highway sign proclaiming: Lansing, next 2 exits. He moved into the right-hand lane and prepared to leave the interstate.

  The state highway skirted along the western border of the university’s lands. Most of the experimental farms were gone. Michigan State had been a true agricultural school when his father had been on the faculty. It had offered a program of liberal arts, but the farming courses had been the core of its real function.

  Now large multistoried buildings loomed where fields of crops had grown. He experienced no sense of being on a college campus when he looked at those buildings; no ivy covered their walls, no ancient trees shaded their walks. They looked like huge concrete and steel blocks set down in the middle of a flat farm field. And they were essentially just that.

  The highway branched off in several directions and the signs were confusing. He made the wrong choice and headed west, away from the university.

  He found himself in the city of Lansing. He ended up at Michigan Avenue. To his immediate right was the bridge over Grand River, the wide, shallow stream that wound through the town. To his left, at a distance, was the state capitol, with its familiar statue of Austin Blair, the Civil War governor, guarding its smooth lawns.

  Green turned right and headed back toward East Lansing and the university. Everything was different, and yet nothing had really changed. There was development going on. The old railway station now was a restaurant. Sparrow Hospital still stood but it had been so enlarged and modernized that it was almost unrecognizable. The Church of the Resurrection and its school remained as always. Commerce flourished. The names and the businesses were different now, but they were bright, prosperous, and well maintained. He was at the campus almost before he realized it.

  The big sign marked it—Michigan State University, Pioneer Land Grant College.

  He t
ried to look at the familiar buildings, this was the old campus, the places he remembered, but clusters of students lined the roadside, dashing across when they had the chance. He was forced to keep his attention on the driving. The wide boulevard of Michigan Avenue became Grand River. As he approached the student union the students seemed almost suicidal in their urge to cross.

  He passed the last grassy island and the boulevard merged into one wide street. He was surprised to find himself caught in a traffic jam.

  In the old days, even the idea of traffic congestion at this point of the road would have been considered impossible. He saw the sign ahead and had to squeeze into the left turn lane and inch along with the other cars. Horns blared behind him as he waited for oncoming traffic to clear before swinging left into the driveway of the motel.

  It was new, two stories high and rambling along the top of a ridge. Its architecture imitated a Swiss chalet. He registered, drove to his parking space, and unloaded his bags into the room.

  The room was attractive and neat, somewhat larger than most hotel rooms. He checked the place over. The cable worked. He hung up his suits and unpacked.

  He felt tired and sat down on the bed. Somehow things didn’t seem complete. He felt he really should call someone and report that he had arrived safely. His wife would be busy at her office in Washington and would only wonder at such an unnecessary call. There was no one else. The White House people would be interested only in results. The fact that he had arrived held no interest for anyone but himself. He had never before realized just how unattached he really was. Jerry Green felt lonely.

  The motel had a restaurant. He idly flipped through the room service menu. The desk drawer contained the usual postcards, stationery, and Bible.

  He picked up the telephone book and opened it. It was there. He knew it would be.

  Green, Henry J.… 201 Sunset Lake Lane, followed by the telephone number.

  He would have to call his brother sometime. Even if rebuffed, he still felt obligated to make some civilized symbolic gesture. It wouldn’t do if he just ran into his brother on the campus, although it was so large and there were so many people that it did seem unlikely. Still, the call was something he felt had to be done.