The Paper Chase

by John Osborn

  “I tell you, you can’t pass without my outline,” Bell screamed.

  And then they were past him. Bell watched them walking away down the path.

  “I’ll let you see it,” Bell called. “Really, you can see it. Please, I’ll show it to you.”

  As soon as they got into their room at the hotel, Ford had the television taken out. It was hard to do, but he faced down the big eye and tossed it out.

  They paid fifteen dollars a day just for the room, and having the food brought in cost another fifteen. But they were probably the only people getting their money’s worth. They never left the room. The only people they saw during the week were the maids who came in around eleven to make the beds. After three days, even that was a distraction and they didn’t open the door for them.

  That brought the manager up, trying to find out if they’d turned on the gas, or were using the hotel for a homosexual orgy. He saw the books strewn over the floor, the reams of paper spread on the bureau and chairs.

  He screamed.

  Hart and Ford were sitting on the floor in their underwear and hadn’t shaved since they came. The manager said they were putting cigarette butts out on the rug, which they weren’t. He threatened to call the police.

  Ford unkinked his knees and stood up, glaring.

  “If you kick us out of here, you’ll ruin our whole goddamned lives. Everything is riding on these seven days. Everything in the world. If we leave now, we’ll flunk. We’ll lose everything we’ve worked for.” He stared at the manager like a torch. “You kick us out of here and I’ll sue your goddamned hotel for a million dollars. I’ll burn the fucking place to the ground.”

  Ford was in a delirium. Hart could see that. He moved in between them. Hart told the manager he’d report the hotel to the newspapers. Tell them they were a dope ring working out of the hotel. He said no one would ever stay there again. Hart looked the manager straight in the eyes and told him to shut up and get out.

  The manager flapped down the hall, sputtering to himself, but he didn’t come back.

  They couldn’t get room service that night and their water was cut off. They put through a call to the manager’s office and left a message with his secretary. The message said a shipment of dope had come through and they were holding the manager’s special brand. The water and room service came back in half an hour.

  They pared down the outlines so that almost all the cases were eliminated, leaving just the general theories. Then they memorized the outlines, throwing in the name of a case wherever they thought it might impress a professor. By the end of four days they could recite the outlines of each of the six main courses perfectly.

  They practiced running through the outlines while one timed the other. The idea was to repeat the outlines after writing each exam question to make sure they’d left nothing out.

  The exams would be four hours long. They took some old exams and practiced, timing themselves.

  Then the seven days were up. They came out into the sunshine like prisoners set free. They hadn’t seen a newspaper or received any mail. But nothing had happened. Absolutely nothing.

  They avoided everyone in the dorms. They didn’t say hello, smile, or meet stares. They wanted to remain uncontaminated. They shaved, showered, dressed and then went to a small restaurant near the law school.

  There was only minimal conversation over breakfast. In half an hour exams would start and they would be in competition. After breakfast they left each other, wanting in the last minutes to be alone.

  It was drizzling, the warm beginning of a summer rain.

  Hart stood outside Ames Hall. The exam would begin in ten minutes. He kept away from the small groups of students nervously talking on the lawn. He kept a tree between himself and the others.

  He was talking to himself, not openly, but in his mind, addressing himself in commands.

  “Listen, Hart,” he said, “shake contracts. Pour it out on that exam. Shake it loose and pour it all out. Don’t leave the smallest fact in your mind. Make a clean sweep. Write it all down and sweep it out.”

  At five of nine, he walked into the building, up the steps, taking them one at a time in measured strides, looking straight ahead. Into the building, down the hall, on the last walk.

  The exam books were laid out on the desks, an empty seat between each book so that there would be no cheating. Hart took a seat at the side of the room so that there would be as few people around him as possible.

  Others were filing in too. Some were studying their outlines in a futile attempt to cram in the things they should have learned before. Others were just moving blindly toward the nearest seat in a short mindless dance, their arms hanging limp at their sides.

  “O.K., baby, O.K.,” Hart said, rubbing his palms together. The people near him yanked around.

  “O.K.,” he repeated, “bring that fucking test in here.”

  57

  HART WALKED OUT into the yard after his contracts exam. His hand ached from the writing, but he felt free. What he knew about contracts was on that exam. He had left it behind.

  He turned the corner of Langdell, almost skipping along, his adrenaline still pumping, things looking crisp and bright. And there, coming around the far end of the library, walking fast, was Kingsfield.

  They would pass unless Hart turned away. Hart moved slightly toward the center of the path.

  “Professor,” Hart said, “I wanted to tell you I enjoyed your class.”

  Kingsfield stopped. It seemed that the professor’s eyes were built in black layers, each layer obscuring the others. Without a trace of expression, Kingsfield nodded.

  “Good,” Kingsfield said. “That’s fine.”

  Hart’s pulse was pounding. His eyes turned into circles of feeling.

  “I want to tell you that the class meant something to me,” Hart said. “You meant something to me.”

  It was hard to tell what Kingsfield thought. He didn’t reply right away. Maybe that was just because he was almost seventy years old and used to speaking to people from the lectern. Finally, the corners of his thin lips turned up in a slight smile.

  “What was your name?” Kingsfield said, stepping past Hart. His voice sounded as if it came from a long way off.

  “Hart, Mr. Hart,” Hart said.

  “Well, thank you, Mr. Hart,” Kingsfield said, and then he was gone.

  58

  THEY WERE AT THE CAPE, tanned and healthy, sitting on the rocks above the beach, looking down into the water, sorting the mail. Hart’s letters were in a small pile beside him in the sand. They hadn’t been to the post office in a month because Susan said it was more fun to get the mail all at once.

  The letter in Hart’s hand had THE HARVARD LAW SCHOOL stamped in neat letters in the upper left-hand corner. He slipped it out of the pile and nudged it behind him.

  “All right,” Susan said. “You’re holding out on me.”

  “It’s my grades from the law school,” he said matter-of-factly, dropping the letter on a rock.

  “You know, Dad’s coming down here in a week. You’ve never talked to him close up. Of course, it’s not much of a surprise,” she said. Most of her mail was advertisements. She was making them into gliders and sailing them across the beach into the water.

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” Hart said. He picked up the letter from the law school.

  “No way,” Susan said.

  The wind shifted behind them and her next glider caught it, sailing almost twenty yards out.

  “Are you going to open the grades?” she asked, “or are you going to see if your glider will go further than mine?”

  “Well,” he said, “I don’t know.” He was thinking.

  Then the wind got gusty. Hart folded the letter in half, curving up the sides, making a glider. The letters, “Harvard Law School” glistened on the wings like insignia. He stood up, tested the wind and let fly. The glider sailed up on a strong gust and then dropped down far out, landing in the waves. It held on
for a while, converting into a sailboat. Finally the waves got the best of it and, waterlogged, it sank down until they could no longer see it.

  END