The Paper Chase

by John Osborn

  “I don’t know,” he called. “Maybe you’ve just got it or you don’t. Maybe that’s the way it is. Remember I’m here to answer your questions. Just ask. Remember I’m the only third year student you can trust. Talk to me.”

  In the hall, walking back to their room, Hart and Ford were quiet. Outside Hart’s door, Ford smiled weakly and shook his head.

  5

  THE STUDY GROUP sat around an oblong table in one of the small discussion rooms off the lounge on the first floor of the dormitory.

  “The only sensible thing is to divide up the courses,” Ford said. “Each person do an outline. Then at the end of the year we have them Xeroxed and exchange them.”

  “I want property,” Bell said, the words lumbering out of him. Bell was big – he took up nearly the whole end of the table. The way he talked made words seem big too. He opened his mouth wide.

  “There’s no guarantee that we will all be here in the spring,” Anderson said, ignoring Bell. “After all, some of us might be drafted, or have nervous breakdowns. I think we should research the incidence of nervous breakdowns.”

  “I’m gonna take property,” Bell said.

  Kevin was stubbing out a cigarette. Before the smoke died, he lit another. Each movement was perfectly balanced, practiced.

  “I’ve already started to outline property,” O’Connor said, flexing his backbone, and then snapping up to give himself a few extra inches. Even so, his mustache barely reached Bell’s shoulder.

  “Hart, don’t you think this is the logical thing to do?” Ford said. “To divide up the courses?” Hart nodded slowly.

  “All right,” Ford said. “Let’s divide the courses up.”

  “We’ve divided them,” Bell said. “I’m taking property. That course was made for me. I need it. Real estate law is where the action is.” His eyes lit up. He made property sound like a whole school.

  “I think we should talk about who gets which course,” O’Connor said. “Maybe we should draw lots. Like I said, I’ve started to outline property.”

  “Forget it,” Bell growled. His hand turned into a fist, and the veins of his wrist popped out of the flesh. O’Connor looked at Ford.

  “Listen, Bell,” Ford said.

  Anderson cut in. “Bell, try to think of this in terms of maximum utility. Apply some logic. Each course is weighted equally as far as your average is concerned. Strive for the highest average you can attain. Treat all your courses as of equal importance.”

  “I’ve already decided,” Bell said. “They’re not equal.”

  Anderson looked out the window. Then everyone looked away from Bell.

  “Oh hell,” Bell said slowly. His fist relaxed and he inspected the table. “I don’t know. My father is in property law. I know that stuff.”

  “Go ahead and take property,” O’Connor said. His little face rounded out in a smile. “If you like it, you’ll do a better job. I can outline something else.”

  “Anderson,” Ford said, “which course do you want?”

  Anderson adjusted his black glasses. “It’s not important to me,” he said. “I’ve already made out a studying schedule to the end of the year, dividing my time equally among all courses. I’ll outline anything.”

  “Kevin?” Ford said. Kevin stubbed out his cigarette, half burned. He drew back in his chair. His voice came out high-pitched.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know which course I’ll be best at.”

  “You shouldn’t necessarily outline your best course,” Anderson said, glancing at Bell. “Perhaps your overall average will improve if you outline your worst.”

  “I don’t know which is my worst,” Kevin said.

  Kevin’s nervousness, a fingernail on slate, sketched lines on Hart’s mind.

  “All right,” Ford said, “Hart, which do you want?” ”

  “Contracts,” Hart said, blinking.

  “I’ll take criminal law,” Ford said. “You guys who haven’t decided-you can divide up the rest any way you want.”

  6

  HART FINISHED HIS WORK about one-thirty most nights, and afterward he wrote a letter. Sometimes to his parents. Sometimes to his girl back in Minnesota. Tonight when he tried to write, the letter didn’t come. He bent over his pad, conjuring up visions, but all he could see were the pages of the large case books on his desk.

  The cool autumn air slid in through the window, inviting him out into the absolute quiet. He pulled on a Pendleton shirt and opened the door to his room. In the long corridor, the doors of most rooms were at least partly open, anticipating the ring of the one pay phone. Standing across from it, outside his door, Hart heard pages turning, pens quietly marking up the casebooks, abstracting cases for easy reference the next day.

  Maybe he should go back. In torts, the methodical German was proceeding down rows, calling people in order. He was five seats away from Hart. Would he ask five questions in the fifty minutes of class? Hart pushed it out of his mind. He cursed the linoleum tile floors which echoed his footsteps.

  Outside he saw the rows of windows, actually saw faces bent down over books, etched by the desk light into the blackness of the rest of the room.

  He crossed the grassy yard in front of Langdell-it looked like the Escorial, a mad black shroud-and walked away from the law school and the college, losing himself in the small Cambridge streets.

  He had no idea where he was going and after five minutes, no idea where he was except for a vague feeling that the law school was somewhere off to the right. Down a side street the cramped three story buildings opened up into a small park crisscrossed with asphalt paths. He stopped and scouted the clearing. The park’s dull lamps were warm. He’d cross, move into the open.

  He had thought he was alone. Behind him came quick taps, footsteps, light and moving fast toward him. A figure, closing in, coming to him, not past. Impossible, he thought, not turning again, I don’t know anyone.

  He expected the girl to pass quickly, but as she pulled abreast, her hand took his.

  “Do you mind? Just to the street. There’s a pervert following me.”

  From just under a lamp, Hart peered into the darkness. Rounding a corner in the path was a man. His eyes met Hart’s and with a squeal, the pervert vanished into the trees.

  “At least he’s pulled his pants up,” the girl said. “He looks better in pants.”

  He walked her to the edge of the park. She was small, compact, and he felt protective. Could he go home with her? Could he go to bed with her? Could he run away with her?

  He asked if he could see her home. A smile, nothing else, and they walked on, she guiding him by holding his arm, through the small streets, lined with trees, the old wooden frame houses painted in drab colors with white trim.

  In front of one of these houses Hart said good-bye and turned to go. Then he realized he didn’t even know her name, or which apartment was hers. She was already on the stairs. Even on the sidewalk, he could hear the stairs creak and then a door open. He watched for a sign, and on the third floor a green light went on.

  Marking the window, he left for the dorm. Now he could taste the night. It was his friend, slowly uncovering Cambridge, showing him special little things as he walked. He wanted to smile at someone, but there was no one on the streets. He even looked for a policeman to wave at, but he saw only the houses.

  Of course, Hart did not write any letters that night. Nor the next. From then on he wrote grudgingly, avoiding anything that might bring probes into what his life was really like. He wrote, “Yes, things are fine. I’m learning a lot. Turning into a real lawyer, and I enjoy the law.” He tried to throw his parents and his girl off the track. “Nothing happens here,” he wrote. “We sit in the dorm at night and study, worrying about grades,” which was mostly true. He wrote, “I don’t have time to think of anything but law school,” which wasn’t.

  Two days later, he retraced his steps. He turned down the dead end street her house was on, walking fast on the opposite sid
e. He glanced up at her window as he passed, saw the green light, turned around at the end of the street and headed back toward the apartment.

  The stairs swayed under him. There were footprints in mud that must have been tracked in last winter. On the third floor, he found only one door. It didn’t fit its frame. Dull light filtered out around it, along with the quiet music of guitar, dulcimer and pipe.

  He stepped back, shaking himself loose, getting calm. The banister quivered with his touch. He looked over, wondering what to grab if it collapsed. Then he knocked hard, three huge swipes at the door to cover his nervousness, and stepped back, thinking maybe it was forward to come so soon.

  She came to the door buttoning up the last buttons on a red shirt as faded as her blue jeans.

  “I was walking by and saw your light,” he said. It was one of his few attempts at a lie. She smiled, not sure whether he was being sarcastic.

  “I know you, the pervert,” she said, holding the door open.

  He stepped into the living room. Chinese paper lamps hung from the ceiling near a low sofa with a paisley print thrown over it. The green light came from a door in the corner, and through it he saw an open window and a bed set on the floor. The musty air seemed to lie in layers. It was too dark to make out the designs of a woven cloth ripping away from nails that pegged it to the far wall.

  “It’s nice to have visitors,” she said.

  She sprawled on a pillow facing Hart. He put his coat on the sofa and sat down beside it, leaning against the wall. She wasn’t as pretty as he had thought. Perhaps he’d been improving her in his mind. Her hair was thick and full, laced in different shades of brown. It fell in bunches almost to her waist. Nothing stood out except shining below her ears were tiny earrings-gold circles the size of dimes that swung when her head moved.

  He wanted to talk. Wanted to tell her the things that had happened since he came to Cambridge. About not having done his work for tomorrow. About not being able to write letters home. About the study group. He wished she’d ask where he went to school, and then reach into him, bring it all out.

  Instead, they talked about books. Mostly, she talked. Asking his preference in things he’d never heard of, explaining subtle variations among authors he’d never read.

  He was frustrated by his lack of force, ashamed by his cowardice. Why couldn’t he direct the conversation? As he watched her, his body began to weaken, slowly soften. He felt she must feel it too. His mind began to move in visions. A mythical Hart crossing the room, putting a tentative hand in her hair and with the other laying her across the pillow. Nodding thoughtfully as they stretched flat, the pillow under her hips.

  “Would you like to drive?” she said.

  His mind came back to the room. She was watching him as if she knew everything there was to know.

  “There are some good roads about twenty minutes away. It’s good to drive at night. There’s nothing on the road and the leaves are falling.”

  The old Porsche looked like a German army helmet, the headlights like holes cut in the rim for eyes. She drove fast, faster than Hart could ever remember driving. He thought about asking her to slow down, or asking to drive himself, but he didn’t. What the hell, he thought, it’s just this once, if I die, I die. Giving himself up to the speed and the wind, he could talk.

  “I don’t know … I got completely turned on, sitting with you in the room,” he said. “If we hadn’t gone out for a drive, I would have tried to sleep with you.”

  She spun the car around a corner. They were in the country now. The road was narrow, no center line, and the car drifted over to the left side, almost brushing the bushes that bent down from the bank. The trees on either side fell together in the wind and touched over the top of the car.

  “I know,” she said. “That’s why I thought we should drive. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “You wouldn’t have done it?” Hart said. “Do you think that would have hurt me?”

  “I’m not so condescending that I think the refusal would have hurt you. But if you’d tried, I might have kicked you in the balls. That would have hurt you.” She locked her arms straight, pushing herself back into the seat, and laughed.

  “Let me ask you something.” She slowed the car down to fifty, and looked at Hart very seriously. “Why did you decide to go to law school?”

  7

  FOR SEVERAL WEEKS, Hart had been preparing to enter a new echelon in the classroom structure. Class had quickly divided into three factions. One was composed of those who sat in the back of the room. They had forever given up sitting in their assigned seats and preparing the cases. They knew they would not make Law Review and had decided it was worthless to reach for anything below. Released from the constant threat of having questions directed to them, they laughed and talked while the class progressed. But it was an uneasy existence, possibly only because the professors respected this truce and would not try to ferret out a student from the anonymous group at the back. And it was degrading when the professor, knowing full well that the student was not sitting in his seat but was in the back, would call out the student’s name, lingering over the silence, driving home the fact that he was a coward.

  The second group were the students who, though they did not raise their hands and volunteer answers, would attempt a response when called upon. They made no pretense of ease, and lived in admitted constant fear.

  The last group, the elite, the upper echelon, were the volunteers. They raised their hands in class: they thrust themselves forward into the fray. It wasn’t that they were any smarter than anyone else. They weren’t, or at least most of them weren’t. But they had courage. They never had to worry about being called on because the professors tried to divide the class time among all the students. And beyond that, in several cases, they had achieved the ultimate recognition. The professors knew their names-knew them on sight.

  Hart began his preparations carefully. He answered questions to himself, trying to beat the time of the student who was actually answering. He kept a record of the times his answer matched the one the professor ultimately gave his blessing to. Gradually his record improved, and he was frequently able to guess precisely what the professor was leading toward.

  Finally he felt that his record was good enough and chose a section of his contracts course, about a week in advance of the current materials. He carefully prepared an outline.

  Sometimes he was amazed at what he was doing. Why didn’t he just answer, put it on the line? Why was he so concerned about answering the question correctly? He knew that the emulation of the third group came from the mere fact that they answered the question and had nothing to do with whether they answered the question right. And why did he keep his preparations secret, especially from Ford?

  He chose Monday for the attempt. Over the weekend he reviewed his outline, wrote out endless lists of possible questions and tried to get some sleep.

  Class started unexpectedly. Kingsfield lectured for twenty minutes, summarizing the material they had been discussing through the previous week. Hart heard nothing of the lecture. He copied Kingsfield’s words in jagged pen strokes, sometimes cutting through his paper. Finally Kingsfield turned to the first case in the new section, Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Ball Co. Without looking for a raised hand, he picked a name from the seating chart.

  “Mr. Farranti, could you give us the facts of Carbolic Smoke Ball?”

  Hart’s hand shot up. He was sitting directly below Farranti, and as Farranti bent forward to answer, Hart’s hand was thrust in front of Farranti’s mouth, two inches away from his lips, which twisted up at the corners in astonishment as he swallowed the words he was about to reply with.

  Recovering, Farranti gave the facts of the case while Hart occupied himself drawing lines on his paper, his hand completely out of control.

  Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Ball Co. was not difficult to relate to the class. The defendants entered an advertisement in the Pall Mall Gazette, in November of 1891, stating: />
  £100 reward will be paid by the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company to any person who contracts the increasing epidemic influenza, colds, or any disease caused by taking cold, after having used the ball three times daily for two weeks according to the printed directions supplied with each ball.

  During the last epidemic of influenza many thousand carbolic smoke balls were sold as preventives against this disease, and in no ascertained case was the disease contracted by those using the carbolic smoke ball.

  On the strength of this advertisement, a Mrs. Carlill bought a smoke ball, used it diligently, according to the instructions, until she developed influenza.

  When Farranti had finished, Kingsfield asked him for the court’s reasons in finding in favor of Mrs. Carlill. Farranti did not reply immediately but several of the regular participants raised their hands. That stimulated Farranti into action: “She had fulfilled the conditions of the offer. The bargain was complete.”

  Kingsfield addressed his next question to the class. “Ah, but was there a bargain here? Was there an actual communication between the parties? Did she not have an obligation to notify the company if she had accepted their offer?”

  Hart tensed. He had not reached any final conclusion about the proper answer to the question. But time was running out. He might not get another chance. As if he were reaching up for a light cord in a dark room, he raised his hand and Kingsfield, glancing up from the seating chart, called his name.

  “It’s obvious that notice is not important here. The offer requires no notice, it requires no personal communication. What is important is consideration. You can only have a binding contract when each party gives something to the other. Did Mrs. Carlill give anything to the company? The company argued that Mrs. Carlill, in using the ball, did nothing for them. All they were interested in was the sale. The answer to that is, of course, that the company benefits from the sale itself. But beyond this, consideration does not necessarily, in all cases, have to pass to the other party. Mrs. Carlill suffered the inconvenience of having to use the ball. She gave something up, even if it did not pass to the other party.”