Karolyne surprised me by saying we did. She went up to her closet and returned about a minute later with just such a cap.
“Wonderful.” He tried it on. “May I borrow this cap for the trip?”
“Of course!” said Karolyne. “You look a little like Mickey from Rocky!”
He chuckled and finished his tonic water wearing the cap.
Karolyne said, “Justice Scalia, you haven’t gotten our Christmas present yet, but can we show you what it is? We’re still waiting for it to come in. The woman who’s making it takes her time.”
“Do we have the time now?” Justice Scalia asked.
“Sure, Nino,” I said. “We still have ten minutes. I think you’ll like it.”
Lyne went upstairs to get it. In her Boston College undergraduate handbook, she’d found a prayer by St. Thomas Aquinas and asked me to write it out in my finest penmanship. I read it to him as we sat around the breakfast table:
Give me, O Lord, a steadfast heart which no unworthy thought can drag downwards; an unconquered heart which no tribulation can wear out; an upright heart which no unworthy purpose may tempt aside. Bestow upon me also, O Lord my God, understanding to know thee, diligence to seek thee, wisdom to find thee, and a faithfulness that may finally embrace thee; through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
—St. Thomas Aquinas
“It’s an excellent prayer,” said Justice Scalia. “Very nice. I don’t recall seeing it before.”
“We’ve made it into three handkerchiefs for you,” said Karolyne. “One says ‘A steadfast heart,’ one says ‘An unconquered heart,’ and one says ‘An upright heart.’ ”
“That’s so very kind of you. My Christmas present?”
“Yes,” said Karolyne.
“And I’ll have these when I get home?”
“We’ll send them on as soon as they arrive—probably as soon as we get back from Hong Kong,” said Karolyne. “We know you’ve always been partial to Sir Thomas More, but I’m partial to St. Thomas Aquinas. I repeat these three phrases whenever I feel overwhelmed.”
“That’s really thoughtful. I’ll use them. Aquinas was splendid, and I’m glad to know about this prayer. I’ll remember it.”
The doorbell rang. Justice Scalia put both the prayer and his knit cap into his briefcase with his iPad and a few other loose papers, and we were all soon in the marshals’ car and off to the airport.
When we arrived, we actually walked in the “out” way at security. The marshals whisked us through with no wait at all. We walked about 50 yards from the entry point and went straight onto the American Airlines plane as soon as boarding began. The marshals accompanied Justice Scalia down the jet bridge until the moment he boarded.
* * *
53. For a humorous television account of this haircut—which aired more than two weeks after it occurred—go to http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Justice-Scalia-Suprises-North-TX-Barber_Dallas-Fort-Worth-368249691.html. The reporter had no idea why Justice Scalia happened to be in Dallas.
10
The Asia Trip
(Jan.–Feb. 2016)
As we boarded the plane in Dallas and said goodbye to the marshals, it suddenly occurred to me that we were now on our own: Karolyne and I would now be responsible for Justice Scalia, except at the airports, where the State Department would take charge. We probably both felt a little nervous.
Our flight left on January 24 at 11:30 a.m., arriving in Hong Kong on January 25 at 6:35 p.m. Justice Scalia and I sat just opposite each other in row 4, with a partition between us; we lowered it so that we could talk easily and hand things back and forth—mostly articles that I was asking him to read on the subject of statutory construction. We had some Champagne, tried the excellent business-class fare, and chatted for the first couple of hours. Then he wanted to see a movie, and I went to sleep listening to my iPod. After that, it was mostly Karolyne that he talked with, as one or the other of them would walk up or down the aisle to see what was up.
But this leg to Hong Kong was just en route to Singapore. Our flight to that city didn’t leave until 1:50 a.m. (for arrival in Singapore four hours later). During our seven-hour layover in Hong Kong, we waited in a Chinese-government VIP lounge, where we were looked after by two staffers from the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong. We were the only people in the lounge, which had lots of comfy chairs and two couches, as well as two adjoining bathrooms. The Consulate had prepared briefings for us on Asian news: folders containing news clips about all sorts of things affecting U.S. relations with Asian countries, especially China. The biggest news at the time was that a Hong Kong bookseller who sold banned books had mysteriously disappeared.
Mostly we slept in the lounge on the couches, though at intervals Justice Scalia, Karolyne, and I would all be awake. The staffers from the Consulate brought us tea and dim-sum dumplings.
At one point we did a little work on the second edition of Reading Law. I trotted out a law-review article criticizing the decision in FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.,54 in which the Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, held that cigarettes aren’t drugs and therefore aren’t subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Justice Scalia had joined in the opinion. The law-review writer argued that because nicotine is a drug, cigarettes should fall within the definition of “a drug-delivery device”—something used to deliver a drug to the human body. I asked Justice Scalia how this could possibly have been in line with his textualist philosophy, given that nicotine is a drug that is delivered by means of cigarette paper. He grew contemplative and asked me to read the relevant passage, which I did. He sighed heavily, as he often did in deep thought, and proclaimed: “Nobody ever thought that that provision in the Food and Drug Act gave the FDA the power over such a well-known phenomenon as cigarettes. There are lots of other statutes dealing with cigarettes as such.” He also thought that drug was being used, contextually, in a therapeutic sense, not in the broader sense of substances that have no beneficial effect. We spent probably 15 minutes discussing the case, and he persuaded me that drug must have been meant in a therapeutic sense.
I mentioned that I hadn’t seen him smoking in at least a couple of years. He smiled, putting his headphones on, and said he’d given up even the occasional cigarette. Then he dozed off listening to Mozart.
Singapore
When we finally arrived in Singapore on January 26 (we had lost a full day), we were met by a U.S. Embassy representative named Nick, who looked and acted the part of a career diplomat. About five feet ten inches, of medium build, he was conservatively dressed, with a short haircut. Tortoiseshell glasses straddled his aquiline nose, and he had rapid, intelligent-sounding speech. He was studiously apolitical but exceedingly well informed, and he was refreshingly candid about the local political situation.
Our local guide and caretaker, meanwhile, was a National University of Singapore representative named Johann, a native Singaporean who had spent a good deal of time in Europe. His job was to organize special events at the university and to handle special visitors. He was earnest, thoughtful, well organized, and eager to please. He’d be our university escort for the entire stay.
Right off the jet bridge, we were taken by bus to a VIP lounge, where we waited for our bags. Nick began briefing us all on U.S. Embassy views on Singapore. When our bags finally arrived, we boarded a bus, and Nick continued briefing us all the way to the Shangri-La Hotel. Upon arriving, we thanked him and said goodbye with the understanding that we’d see him again upon leaving Singapore and also upon his return to the States from service overseas.
Although Justice Scalia’s beautifully outfitted three-room suite was ready upon arrival at 7:30 a.m., our room wouldn’t be ready until 1:00 p.m. at the earliest. Justice Scalia kindly offered to have us wait in his suite until our room was ready. We demurred but took our bags there to freshen up. Then the three of us went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. The offerings included not just a buffet but also an à la carte
Singaporean breakfast, an Indian breakfast, and a Japanese bento box. That first morning, Justice Scalia ordered an all-American breakfast with scrambled eggs. Beginning the next day, he branched out with the bento box—featuring grilled fish, pickled vegetables, rolled omelet, dried seaweed, and sticky rice—and didn’t again revert to American fare until we reached Hong Kong.
After breakfast, Karolyne arranged to have Justice Scalia’s suits steamed, and then she and I went to the spa for a few hours while Justice Scalia rested. He was to meet with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong from 5 to 6 o’clock at the Istana, his official residence. Several times before the trip, Karolyne and I were told that this meeting, as well as the meeting with the president of Singapore University, would occur with Justice Scalia alone. Karolyne and I were decidedly not invited. When we saw Justice Scalia at 1:00 p.m. to get our bags to take them to our room, he was reading Court-related work.
Because we’d have only one opportunity—that afternoon—to do any shopping in Singapore, we had arranged for Johann to pick us up at 1:30. We asked him to take us to a good street-shopping spot. I asked for the antiques district, but he said there was none. Instead he explained that there was a style of ceramics and other crafts called Peranakan; it was peculiar to Singapore. Very special, he said.
Intrigued, we decided to go. We dressed informally, but none more so than Justice Scalia, who wore a navy golf shirt, seersucker shorts, light-brown socks, and brown dress shoes. Johann, despite the humidity and heat (which he was used to, since Singapore stays at 95° Fahrenheit pretty much year-round), was dressed in a suit and tie. When we got to the small Peranakan shop, none of us liked what we saw. We didn’t want to buy anything there. I told Johann that we wanted a big street full of all types of different shops: silks, rugs, dresses, art, sculpture, and so on. There had to be such a place, I assured him: every major city has one. Johann was reluctant at first to bring up Arab Street because he thought it wouldn’t be good enough for us—but in fact it was just what we wanted. While we were there, Justice Scalia bought a pink silk scarf for Mrs. Scalia.
He also came close to buying a three-by-four-foot Persian rug. I bargained for him, trying to get it down from $2,000 to $450 U.S., but the dealer stopped at $550 U.S. Good thing, too, perhaps: Justice Scalia was concerned about such a major expenditure on something that Mrs. Scalia had never seen. He thought she’d like it, and he imagined she wouldn’t say otherwise. In any event, we both felt a little skittish when we couldn’t get the price we sought.
When we returned to the Shangri-La, Justice Scalia said he didn’t want to go to sleep before meeting the prime minister, or else he might not be able to get up when Johann arrived to transport him. Instead, we opted for a late lunch at the hotel’s international buffet. Justice Scalia and Karolyne, both adventurous foodies, enjoyed exploring the fare and made many trips back to the little stands together.
Jet Lag Catches Up
Karolyne and I were to meet Justice Scalia and Johann in the lobby at 6:30: they would swing by to collect us for a dinner hosted by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, along with four other Singaporean judges and a New Zealand High Court judge. So Karolyne and I decided to go to our room to take a nap. I set my alarm for 6:10 so that we’d have 20 minutes to prepare. Soon I was utterly unconscious—and so was Karolyne. The next thing I knew, our room phone was ringing. I picked up: “Mr. Garner, Justice Scalia is waiting for you here at the reception area.”
“I’ll be right down!”
I looked at the clock and panicked. It was 6:43. We were 13 minutes late. Karolyne jumped up and we got dressed in less than two minutes. I tied my tie in the elevator. It was 6:46 before we got downstairs. By then I had discovered that I’d set the alarm for a.m., not p.m. That old pitfall.
When we got into the lobby, I hurriedly approached Justice Scalia and profusely apologized that my alarm hadn’t gone off—and that jet lag had sent us into a deep slumber. I felt certain that he would be irked by our late arrival.
But no. Tom Leighton of Thomson Reuters had just arrived in Singapore and was in the lobby entertaining Justice Scalia, who greeted my apology with joviality. “That’s okay, Bryan, we’ve got plenty of time to get to dinner.” He seemed carefree, and on the way out to the van he enjoyed regaling us with the political astuteness and wide knowledge of the prime minister. The two had hit it off splendidly, and they enjoyed talking about the 2016 presidential election. Mostly, Justice Scalia said, he listened while the prime minister gave him his penetrating analysis of American politics in particular and world politics in general.
After we said goodbye to Tom at the hotel’s entrance, Johann took us to Corner House, a restaurant in the Singapore Botanic Gardens. As it happened, we were among the first to arrive. There were formal introductions all around: Justice Scalia, five other judges, and Karolyne and me. At dinner, I was sure to sit away from Justice Scalia, as I normally did, so that others would have a better chance to interact with him. At his end of the table, there was frequent laughter. Like Justice Scalia, Chief Justice Menon was both good-humored and gregarious.
A Full Day Ahead of Us
We agreed to meet for breakfast the next morning at 9:00. Our itinerary was full. Johann would pick us up at 10:30 a.m. for an 11:00 a.m. law-school class on constitutional law, a 12:40 p.m. lunch with the entire Supreme Court of Singapore at the Court’s dining room, a 2:00 p.m. meeting with the Court’s law clerks, a 5:00 p.m. talk in which Justice Scalia and I would make a joint presentation on Reading Law at the Supreme Court’s auditorium, and finally a 7:00 p.m. dinner hosted by Justice Quentin Loh and Dean Chesterman at an Italian restaurant named Forlino.
On this second morning, January 27, Tom joined us at breakfast. He would accompany us in most of our activities for the rest of the trip. In his mid-50s, he was quite fit, a former navy man with a buzz-cut. His dry sense of humor, often self-deprecating, made him a great companion. Although Justice Scalia didn’t know him well at first, Tom soon became an integral part of our little troupe, and he fit in perfectly. Over breakfast, Tom explained something about what, from the publisher’s perspective, we might try to accomplish with this book tour for Reading Law. He had brought several boxes of giveaway books for the judges and other dignitaries we’d be meeting.
After breakfast, we went to our rooms to freshen up, having agreed to meet in the lobby at 10:30 for Johann to fetch us. Karolyne and I arrived at the lobby a few minutes early and met Tom there. I asked whether he had brought books down with him. He hadn’t, so I suggested that he grab a few quickly before we left. He called an elevator, and just as his elevator left Justice Scalia stepped off another one, saying, “Let’s go!”
“It’ll be just a minute, Nino. Tom is grabbing a few books to give away.”
“He’s late?!” He furrowed his brow.
“No, he was here. I just sent him to his room to get a few books.”
“And I have to wait again? This isn’t good. You don’t make me wait!”
“It’s my fault, Nino. I’m sorry. Let’s go out to the car. He’ll be down in 90 seconds. He knows it’s urgent.”
With a grand harrumph, he strode through the marble entryway and toward the van in front. He was clearly annoyed. We got into our seats and waited about another minute for Tom, who of course was unaware of what had happened. When he got into the van, Tom and Karolyne engaged in some lighthearted jocularity, and soon the unpleasantness evaporated.
As we entered the university grounds, we saw a huge sign with a picture of Justice Scalia and the title of his public-lecture series: “Judicial Interpretation of Legal Texts.”
“Stop the bus!” I said.
“Why?” said Justice Scalia impatiently.
“Nino, get out and pose for a photo beside the sign.”
“I’m not going to do that,” he said, probably from a sense of modesty.
“Oh, come on! This will be your only chance.”
“Okay. I guess I will.”
He posed alone, pointin
g at the photo of himself and giving the old-fashioned “okay” sign with his right hand. Then he posed for a photo with Karolyne. He was delighted—glowing, in fact.
When I asked what he’d be speaking about to the class, Justice Scalia said he wasn’t quite sure what the format would be. He’d give some remarks from one of his “stump speeches” and then invite questions. He was an old pro at this kind of forum, and it always went off well. We speculated about how good the students’ command of English might be and whether he should speak a little more deliberately than he would with an American audience. “I’m not going to do that. The bright ones will get it.”
When we arrived at the law school, we were greeted by Dean Chesterman, a thin, fit, bespectacled Australian man in his early 40s. Quick-witted and charming, he is an expert in international law, public authority, and data protection. We would later find out that he was once a Rhodes Scholar and that his wife is the daughter of Singapore’s president, Tony Tan. He made us feel at home in the academic environment of a Singaporean law-school class, and his introduction of Justice Scalia was deft and short. He’d arranged for a third-year student to lead a question-and-answer session with the Justice. As it happened, all the students we heard from were impressive. They asked intelligent, thoughtful questions about particular American cases, such as Obergefell (the same-sex-marriage case), and Justice Scalia answered with characteristic panache.
One student asked how, at oral argument, an advocate should respond to a judge’s questions from the bench. Justice Scalia advised that an advocate should never view questions as interruptions, but instead as indications of real interest and attention. “Answer the questions directly!” he said. “If it’s a yes/no question, there are only four possible answers—and you must say one of these at the outset of your answer: ‘Yes,’ ‘No,’ ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘I’m not telling.’ ” This line was a crowd-pleaser.
Nino and Me Page 33