A change of gravity

by George V. Higgins

  Leonard was filled with consternation. Until then a registered but politically inactive Democrat, he had in his four years of teaching acquired three close friends among the faculty. Two of them were slightly older; the third was nearly twice his age. He asked them for advice. They told him unanimously, earnestly and truly, that they were prescinding from their pronounced Democratic loyalties as they advised him not to accept the nomination. They said that while they fully understood that the temptation to embark upon a judicial career at such an early age was very strong, if he was as smart as they knew him to be he would resist it. They said that while his considerable intellectual powers, maturity of judgment and evenness of disposition satisfied them that his youthfulness was irrelevant to the issue of fitness and judicial temperament, his possession of those qualities at so early an age established him as 'a bright and rising star."

  They said it would be only a matter of time, and not very much of that, either, before someone tapped him 'as a non-political prestige appointment. Every politician needs one now and then, to take the stink off the cat and dogs he has to appoint so the public doesn't gag on the payoffs." They predicted confidently that patience would be rewarded within ten years 'at the outside' with a nomination either to an appellate court, 'where by rights you ought to be, with your writing ability and all," or, failing that, 'an important position in Washington.

  "What you've got to do is wait," they said. "Don't be in a hurry. Then when you die, you'll be famous, which's really the only way to be dead.

  Everyone says so. You wont have all that good a view of it yourself, but everyone who's still alive and knew you will sincerely wish you were also still alive, so you could be around to see it. "What a turnout, my God. What a shame Lennie's dead. Can't you just see him, if he could be here and see this, am I right? What a kick he'd get out of it."

  "And these people wont be just saying they're sorry; they'll really mean it. Even if they did think sometimes while you were still alive you seemed pretty full of yourself. Once you're safely dead, they'll stop thinking like that. They'll be in awe, you were so famous. How many people get that kind of tribute, huh? How many people can actually say that, that people were actually sorry when they died.

  "Except your family, maybe. When they see the big turn-out and hear all the fine speeches, they'll be so proud of what you were when you were alive they'll almost be glad you're finally dead. Now without having your big ego around, your grieving heirs'll finally get some real enjoyment out of your career. Even if they do find out later you weren't carrying quite as much insurance as they would've thought you might've, man of your prominence."

  Leonard demurred. He said it seemed to him that judicial service while still fairly young would enhance his resume and therefore as his hair began to turn grey, as theirs had, and he had to start buying pants in larger sizes and pills to treat various ailments, as they had told him they had been obliged to mandate regular promotions to higher and higher courts, 'like they had to do with Ben Cardozo, until you finally get to the level where the only higher court is the one where Moses sits."

  His colleagues said that would probably be so if the appointment were at least to the superior court, extended as a prophylactic early coronation preferably by a Democratic governor compelled to make and thus to disinfect a couple other highly unsanitary nominations, 'maybe a whole string of out-and-out stinkers. Then your precocity would count, and in your favor. Then you'd be getting the nod because you're a legal Mozart, you're so bright, and just like it didn't matter he was only four when he was writing symphonies and stuff because the music was so good, it wouldn't matter with you that you're such a young lawyer, because you're such a brilliant young lawyer.

  "But," they said, 'since it's to the district court and it's being offered by a practicing Republican, it'll be the kiss of death. If you take this thing, you'll regret it the rest of your life." They said it would be deemed, correctly, a patronage bonbon, paying off his uncle.

  "So although your precocity still counts, now it counts against you.

  Now you're not getting the job even though you're young, because you're so bright; you're getting this job because of uncle's pull, even though you're still wet behind the ears."

  They said acceptance of the Canterbury nomination would forever nullify Leonard's potential usefulness as a high-class nominee. "Doesn't matter, he's your uncle; that he's family and he loves you very much.

  It's a hard world. You let somebody pimp you, fact he's kinfolk doesn't matter; still makes you a common whore."

  Leonard agonized. He said: "But look, it's not that easy. If my uncle hadn't gone ahead and done this so I got this nomination, that'd be a different thing. Then of course I'd wait; I'd have to. I'd have no choice. I'd be just another meek and blushing virgin, hoping to be kissed some day if not by an ugly governor looking for an appellate judge or a senator with warts but a prime federal vacancy, then at least by a handsome prince dangling a powerhouse deanship. But now that Andy's gone and done this, other people know, how shameless I am.

  No more playing hard to get: "Oh gee, I don't know. I'm not really sure." They know Andy didn't do this because what I really wanted was a Raleigh ten-speed bike; I really do want a judgeship. Trouble is the Canterbury slot was all the governor had in stock the day that Andy went shopping.

  "Well, too bad for me, that's how it turned out, but it is the way it turned out. I want to be a judge, and I've got this bird in hand. Not the best judgeship in the world, no, not one I ever wanted. But still, an honest-to-God judgeship. One more than most guys who want a robe 're ever going to see or have, mine to accept or reject.

  "What if I turn it down and never see another one? It could happen.

  Say No, and bide my time, wait for a better one. People aren't stupid; they'll know what I'm up to. They'll say: "This young man does not suffer from lack of self-esteem."

  "Suppose they then decide: "Okay, so that's how he feels, little prick: wants to start off at the top. Holdin' out for First Circuit Court of Appeals. Fine. Best of luck to him." And then I never get another one. What do I do then? I'll regret it all my life."

  His friends said that was the sort of anguish that generally made it much easier to give sound advice than to take it. Julia said his friends were right and he should heed what they told him, even if it did mean that Uncle Andy, who'd been known to be vindictive, would be very angry at him.

  "Forget about him, Len," she said. "You can't make your decisions on the basis of how you think Andy Finn's going to react. It's your life, not his; you're the one who has to live it — even though he'd like to run it. There's a way to tell him nicely. You don't have to come right out and say it, that it's a third-rate judgeship and it isn't good enough for you even though that is the reason. And if Andy still gets mad, so he never tries to get you another nomination, well, that's the way it goes."

  Julia also said that she was prepared to face the probability — Leonard had seen no reason to mention it to his friends that if he turned down Canterbury Andy would probably cut him out of his will. "My mother and I're the only kinfolk he's got. This isn't small change that we're talking here; this's serious money. Outside of what he spends on politicians, Andy's very frugal; he's really got no vices. He could pay off our mortgage tomorrow out of petty cash.

  "Well, that'd also be too bad, if he disinherited you," Julia said, 'although I doubt he would. Because as you say, who else's he got? And if he leaves it all to your mother, you'll get it anyway just have to wait a little longer."

  "Unless my father spends it first," Cavanaugh had said.

  "She wont let him," Julia said. "She's got him well in hand. Look, this's being silly. Even if you never get another offer, you'll be better off. We'll have each other, our life together; you'll be happy, knowing what you did was right."

  Leonard had reluctantly rejected everybody's counsel and called his Uncle Andy. Choking back his misgivings, he expressed deep gratitude for the appointment, and with much fa
nfare became Associate Justice Leonard B. Cavanaugh. In the Transcript Freddie Dillinger called him 'the Boy Judge of Canterbury," reapplying the label every time Cavanaugh was in the news until his own retirement, thirty-two years later.

  The faculty colleague twice Cavanaugh's age in 1961 took a leave of absence to become special counsel to the US Senate Commerce Committee investigating price-fixing in the sugar industry. Not wanting to leave Boston and her friends, his wife opposed the move but went along when he made it, becoming sad and bitter. Three years later when his leave was about to expire, he notified the law school that with his wife terminally ill in Georgetown Hospital he could not return to Boston. A year and a half after that, widowed and then newly remarried to Sen.

  Harriet Fathergood, D." Ore." he resigned at seventy-two as chief counsel to become 'rich in my old age; now that I've found out what they mean by "better late than never." He became chief of legislative liaison for Coldhammer Industries, an international conglomerate concentrating on the manufacture of packaged foods the fourth-largest consumer of raw sugar in the world.

  The second of Leonard's colleagues went on to become general counsel to the New England Council, serving eight years until appointment as Under Secretary of Commerce and later his selection as head of the Latin American Affairs desk of the World Bank.

  The third became an associate justice of the superior court. Later he gracefully declined a federal district court judgeship, confident that he would be elevated as he was, six years later to associate justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. In that capacity he wrote a majority opinion breaking new ground in the resolution of conflicts between the laws of privacy and those of creditor's rights. Soon after the SJC decision, his book-length treatise on effective legal protection of privacy in the computer age was published, immediately becoming the bible of the telecommunications industry. Relinquishing his SJC seat at sixty-five, five years before mandatory retirement age, he became Of Counsel to Magruder, Magrid and Locksley, P.C." at 1334 Connecticut Ave." N.W." Washington counsel to Mar Sat Corp." a leading manufacturer of satellite communications equipment.

  From time to time Leonard found their names in the newspaper, or inadvertently saw them interviewed on television. He mentioned those sightings when he encountered the SJC judge at Massachusetts bench and bar events. He supposed his efforts not to sound wistful were not entirely successful, but even though his old friend was invariably warm and cordial, and tried hard to pretend that one judgeship was much like any other, they found as the years went by that they had less and less to talk about. Many times in the course of many evenings, in conversations that seemed to him, in the comfort of good food and wine, to merit some reflection on his long career in Canterbury; each time what he said, after shaking his head once, was: "Well, it's simple, isn't it? I made a big mistake."

  "Then everybody's supposed to feel sorry for him," Merrion perceived, and reported to Hilliard, back when Cavanaugh at fifty-four was dourly observing his 25th anniversary on the bench, Reagan was approaching the end of his first term as president, and the old dancing school on the second floor above High Street in Holyoke was still available for private conversations late in the evening. "And I did, I used to feel sorry for him, I first went in there, heard him say something like that. One of his old pals'd gotten some great new job and his name in the paper, and Lennie was all depressed."

  Merrion snuffled, thickening his voice into the On the Water' front pug's clot: '"I tell yuh, Charlie, I could ah been a contend ah Well maybe but then again, maybe not. What if that's all nothin' but the good old stuff? Maybe if he'd turned it down, never become the Boy Judge, famous from border to border border of Holyoke, border of Ludlow maybe he never would've gotten another bite of the apple.

  "Maybe… ah yes, that sad word maybe. He wants is you to tell him you think if he hadn't taken Canterbury, that instead of everybody saying now that some guy he used to teach with has a mortal lock on the next Supreme Court vacancy, it'd be him; it'd be Lenny. He waits for you to do that, say that, grease up his ego for him like a dog waits for you to finish doing whatever you're doing to that prime-rib bone with those pathetic little teeth of yours, and give it to him, who needs it; can handle it; knows what to do with the thing. Well, boo-fuckin'-hoo; you don't feel sorry for him and so you don't say it.

  And then when you don't suck it up and lie to him, tell him what he wants to hear, he sulks for the rest of the day.

  "He's got no idea how he tempts me when he does that. He's got a question? I got a question as well. Does he know why his job was created? Arthur and young Roy Carnes did it for their pal, Judge Spring. Lennie was the jay vee team. The reason for his job was to free up Chassy's afternoons. This was years before I got my job, but according to Larry Lane courthouse people used to feel sorry for Lennie then. Chass treated him like a servant. Made it very clear to him and everybody else the only use that he had for him was to do the scut-work, clean up all the messy cases he left behind when he snuck out at lunchtime to play the market.

  "Havin' heard what the guy hadda take, now and then I used to feel sorry for him. But now I don't, anymore. It's not a bad job that he's got. It's taken good care of him, all of these years. He didn't come from big money although until a few years ago he expected to have a lot some day; he thought he was gonna come into a bundle, this uncle of his went to Jesus. Then Unk died and someone else got it. Too bad for Lennie. But just the same, since before he turned thirty he's never had to worry once about a paycheck. No one's gonna lay him off. If he gets hurt on the job, or him and the beautiful Julia get sick, the doctor bills're paid. And when the day finally comes, he decides he'll retire, state pays him a pension and covers her, too, long as they're still alive.

  "You know what? He's got a real beef about that, lifetime-security deal. He hasta contribute to his pension fund, deductions from his paycheck. "Federal judges don't have to do that," is what he says.

  "While they're still sitting they get all they earn, after the taxes, of course, and then they retire on full pay."

  "Okay, juicy deal, but so what? He isn't a federal judge. Most of the rest of us aren't either, and we have to contribute don't we? I said that to him once, he's pissin' and moanin', there isn't much left of his check by the time he gets it: "Hey," I say, like I just thought of it, "I have to contribute to my pension plan. What're you gripin' about?"

  "I almost had him. He almost said what he would've regretted; had it right onna tip of his tongue. "You're not a judge; you're a clerk."

  "He could see me thinkin': "Come on, come on, say it." He caught himself just barely in time. If he says it then I'm gonna say it: "And I'm not a federal judge, either, your Honor. No one in this courthouse is." He din't say anna thing "So okay, maybe he's right: His job's not the best deal inna world. But still, you come right down to it, it isn't a bad deal at all.

  Twenny-five years ago, he knew, didn't he, what it was he could expect?

  Sure he did. It was all laid out plain for anyone to see, even way back then. He wasn't stupid, was he? He didn't first learn to read after he took the job; he isn't saying that, now. So he knew what the deal was, and he accepted it. Hell is he bitchin' 'bout now?"

  On Monday morning at 10:1 °Cavanaugh buzzed Merrion in his office and Merrion without needing to answer the phone picked up his portfolio and his brown-enameled metal box of files, the paint worn away from the lower back corners by his thumbs over the years, and headed up the private east corridor to the door to the hallway that led from Cavanaugh's chambers directly onto the bench in Courtroom 1.

  The eight rows of benches behind the bar enclosure were overcrowded, usual on Monday mornings, filled with the weekend yield of State and local police activities in the Four Towns and on the turnpike. Most of the people had been in the courthouse since it opened at 8:30. They were restless. There was a lot of traffic back and forth through the brass-studded, coarse grained green-leather-padded swinging doors that opened into the main corridor and foye
r outside the rear of the courtroom.

  Those who were defendants had reported to the probation office in the basement of the courthouse for intake processing. Many had accompanied defendants, in order to provide moral support, additional bail money or legal advice or because they were small children of defendants who had no one to babysit and would have risked additional charges of child neglect if the kids had been left alone and a DSS caseworker dropped by to make one of the periodic unannounced supervisory visits required by regulations. The children cried and squirmed and fidgeted and dropped their plastic nursing bottles on the floor, so that their mothers had to grope around under the benches and pick up the bottles and wipe the non-spill mouthpieces on their sleeves. They slapped the children and hissed at them angrily, several of them in Spanish. Then they looked around anxiously in case someone official might have seen and recognized them as they hit their children, and had taken out a spiral notebook to write down details of their unfitness as parents.

  There were thirty-four matters on the criminal list. Judge Cavanaugh was seated behind his desk. He cupped his hand over the microphone on the bench that fed the tape machines recording all public utterances at every session, and leaned forward so that his face and Merrion's were barely a foot apart. "Hate to tell you this, Judge," Merrion said in a low voice as soon as he had reached the clerk's desk, one step down in front of the judge's, and turned his back on the crowd, 'but as soon's you get through arraignments today, we got four domestic violence cases onna list I gotta ask you to hear. We got these two women comin' in, new, but the usual thing say they want restraining orders, husbands battin' them around. And there's a guy today, too, little change of pace Ellsworth Ryan's his name wants one. I told him he hadda come in front ah you.