Deadlock

by James Scott Bell

  But she was not unaware of the other side, the original intent argument, which said that unless one stuck close to the philosophy of the founders, judges would be free to change the laws according to their own preferences. Nevertheless, she had decided early on in her law studies that the latter school was impractical.

  “I would hope,” Millie said, “that any judge, indeed any politician, would be open to changing for the better. I hope that I am as well. All I can say is that I take my position as a justice of the Supreme Court with the utmost seriousness. It is an honor for me to serve there, and I will continue to strive to do what is right as…” She paused, a word coming to her throat and sticking there. The word was God. “… as I see it.” In that moment an image of Jack Holden flashed through her mind. She wondered if he was praying for her.

  Gelfan read a few more questions. Then it was Hal Killian’s turn. The handsome Wisconsin Democrat was thoughtful and articulate.

  “Justice Hollander,” he said, “I’ve admired your judicial opinions over the years. I find them models of clarity, of principle. I would be interested, do you have any judicial heroes? Anyone you would hold up as a model?”

  “Yes,” Millie said without pause. “Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. I believe he brought an integrity and clarity to the Court that has rarely been surpassed.”

  “I agree with you,” said Killian. He engaged her in a range of questions, and then things swung back and forth, between Republican and Democrat. By the time the session ended, Millie felt as if she’d been run up a flagpole in a hurricane. But she had a sense that the hearing had gone her way. In fact, Sam Levering winked at her just before the break.

  She was going to be the next chief justice of the highest court in the land.

  3

  When Millie got back to her chambers, Rosalind Wilkes, one of her clerks for the new term, was waiting. She was a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, and one sharp cookie. She had Millie’s court mail.

  “I weeded out most of it for later,” Rosalind said, “but there’s one letter here that looks like it came from Santa Lucia.”

  The letter was addressed by hand, in ink. The return address was also in ink. It was from Jack Holden.

  “Thank you, Rosalind,” she said. “Would you mind closing my door?”

  When she was alone again, Millie opened the letter with unexpected anticipation.

  Dear Justice Hollander:

  I hope you don’t mind a real letter. I know email is more practical, and considering your schedule, preferable. But I have never felt I can get to the heart of things better than if I put pen to paper. And I want to get at the heart of things in this letter.

  I watched the hearings on TV. It may be presumptuous of me to read anything into what I saw, and I know I have barely come to know you, but it seemed to me there was real anguish inside you as you went through some tough grilling. I want you to know that I was praying for you the whole time.

  Praying! She remembered that moment when she was being interrogated by Senator Gelfan, and her mind had flashed to Holden. She had wondered if he was praying for her.

  The surprising thing to me was my own reaction. It was more than just a feeling of compassion, as one would have toward a friend in distressing circumstances. What I was feeling was wishing I could be there with you. I wanted to be able to offer a word of encouragement, and

  The last sentence did not end with a period. There was white space, and then Holden started again.

  Hang it all, I’m not as smooth at this as I thought. Here’s the deal. I wanted to be with you because I began to feel more than just respect for you while you were here in Santa Lucia. I began to feel affection.

  I hope you didn’t drop a volume of Supreme Court Reports on your toes when you read that.

  It came as a shock to me. I didn’t think I could feel this way again about someone.

  I had to decide if I should keep quiet about it, just let it go, or tell you. Well, I’m telling you. And I am inviting you to write back and tell me to jump in that lake after all. I will respect that.

  I have nothing against lakes per se, but here is my preference: I would like to continue our conversation. By phone, letter, pony express, whatever. I don’t want to stop talking with you.

  May we?

  There it is. As I write this, I’m wondering if I’ll actually put it in the mail. But I had to get my feelings down on paper.

  Regardless of your decision, it was an honor to get to know you out here, to have the chance to spend some time with someone I deeply respect.

  It was signed, simply, Jack.

  Millie was glad she was sitting down. Glad she didn’t have a heavy volume in her hand to drop on her foot.

  She felt her face heating up. She shivered, actually shivered, like a child watching a scary movie. She sat there for a long time.

  Then she decided it was time to tell him what had happened to her. She took out several pieces of paper and her favorite fountain pen. And began to write.

  4

  The demons were active tonight.

  They swirled around his head, like dancers of death, jabbing at him. Sam Levering even saw them in the swirls of his bourbon, in the way the light hit the ice. And sometimes he heard voices.

  Images came at him, haphazard but horrid, from the past. He saw his son as a boy with flaxen hair and unlimited potential. He saw his own political career devastating his family. And worst of all, he saw himself not caring. Giving everything up to serve his unlimited ambitions and grasping dreams.

  He kept the lights off at times like this. Normally his home was fully illumined, and people would be around. Servants. Friends. People to distract him. Even Anne, working her behind-the-scenes magic, would have been welcome.

  But when the demons came he preferred to drink them away in the dark, here in the library. And no one else was home.

  Had it all been worth it?

  Levering forced himself to say yes. He had fought the good fight, for civil rights and the right to choose. For subsidies to help single mothers and laws to keep the wealthiest Americans from enjoying tax breaks while the poor couldn’t even get a decent minimum wage. And countless other fights. There had been heartbreaks and setbacks, to be sure. He had been bloodied, but remained unbowed.

  Yes, it was worth it, he told himself again. But somewhere, a voice argued with him. It was not worth it, this voice said.

  If he could have gone back in time, back to before his first elective office, back to a wife who loved him and a son who adored him, would he do it? Would he give up being just a few years from the presidency of the United States for that?

  Senses and sounds from his memory. Smell of ocean. The three of them at the Pacific shore, a little place called Cambria, his wife had found it (she did things like that, and back then she could convince him to go). Tad only three and stark naked, ocean swirling around his feet as he giggled and jumped up and down. Sam with his milk skin (which would burn soon enough) and bathing suit, picking up his son and wading further out.

  The smoothness of his son’s skin. The laughter. The little eyes widening as the waves came toward them, and Tad clinging tighter to Sam’s neck, the only one who could save him.

  Levering drank quickly, the bourbon burning in his throat – the burning was the best part – and then up through his nose. And before he could remember anymore, the demon dance was interrupted by the phone. The direct line.

  “Catch you at a bad time?” President Francis asked.

  The worst. “No, Mr. President. Just enjoying a quiet evening at home.”

  “Sorry to hear that, if you know what I mean.”

  Levering could almost see him raising his eyebrows, Groucho Marx style.

  “Reason I called,” Francis said. “You happy about Hollander?”

  “Did you see the hearings?”

  “Some.”

  “What was your take?”

  “Frankly, Sam, I got a little nervous. That st
uff about being open to changing. What was that all about?”

  Levering knocked back the rest of his booze. “Just horseradish to calm the conservatives. Being open to change means hey, I might even slide over to your side sometime. But she won’t slide.”

  “You’re still sure about that?”

  “John,” Levering said with mild reproof, “I’ve been in this game a long time.”

  “All right,” the president said. “Just keep your eyes wide open. This is a delicate balance we got going here. I don’t want to lose the presidency over this.”

  “That would be tragic, John.”

  “I better keep my eye on you, too,” Francis said with a laugh.

  You got that right, Levering thought.

  After the call Sam Levering poured himself another drink, a stiff one, no ice. He killed it in less than a minute. He wanted sleep now, wanted the demons to quit for the night, and alcohol was the only way he knew to do that.

  He was stumbling out of the library when he lost his balance. He fell, and as he did he reached out with his arms, flailing stupidly, grabbing for anything to prop him up. All he could reach were books, and they fell on top of him as he hit the carpet.

  Cursing, he clambered to his feet and felt for the light switch. His vision was blurry, the room angling at strange degrees according to his pickled brain. He leaned over to the four volumes that had landed on him, cursing some more, and then he stopped cold.

  One of the books was a crisp, black, leather-bound Bible. The one his son had sent to him years ago. He had not noticed it since. He’d just shoved it in the stacks and forgotten all about it.

  Now it had jumped out at him, like an accusation.

  He picked it up at once, ran his thumb over the leather cover, hefted it. It hefted back, the weight of its pages heavier than he remembered.

  For a moment he thought he might cry.

  Instead he grunted. Carrying this Tad-thing, he felt his way through the darkened house to the back door. He staggered outside into the stillness, down the steps, and onto the grass. He found the trash bin, opened the lid, dumped the Bible inside it.

  Then he slammed the lid down with all his strength.

  5

  A little old woman who might have stepped out of a Frank Capra movie answered the door. “Hello, Millie,” Dorothy Bonassi said, as if eight years hadn’t passed since they’d seen each other. “Come in. Bill’s expecting you.”

  The house was large, but not ostentatious. Books were everywhere. A grandfather clock tick-tocked in the large hall.

  Dorothy Bonassi showed Millie through the kitchen and out the back door, which opened to a commodious verandah. It overlooked a green lawn, with a large dogwood in the middle.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Millie saw a gardener fiddling with some dirt near the house. He wore a large sun hat and gloves, and worked a trowel like a pro.

  Dorothy paused and shook her head. “Bill, did you forget she was coming?”

  The gardener said in a familiar voice, “No, Mrs. Bonassi.” And then William T. Bonassi looked up from his garden and smiled. “Welcome, Millie. Nice to see you again.”

  “I’ll just go and make some iced tea,” Dorothy said.

  Bonassi took off his gardening gloves and offered his hand to Millie. His grip was firm and sure. Like the man himself, Millie thought. Here he was, eighty-nine years old, and looking as full of life as he did when he’d retired. She remembered his vibrancy from those days, his prodigious memory and his sense of humor.

  “I’m getting ready for the fall planting,” Bonassi said. “Trying to bring in Black-eyed Susan this year. You know Black-eyed Susans?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Millie said.

  “Rudbeckia fulgida. Nice, hardy flower, grows in sun or shade. What I like about them is they’re tough and easy to grow in almost all types of soil. Except soggy. Soggy soil isn’t good for the Susan.”

  He looked at her as if expecting a response. “No,” she said with half a brain. “Soggy soil isn’t good.”

  “Always thought the Susan was what a Supreme Court justice ought to be like.”

  Millie cocked her head, seeing a little glint in the eyes of her former colleague.

  Bonassi said, “Firm, ready for any weather. But not soggy in his philosophy. A soggy philosophy makes a soggy judge.”

  Mrs. Bonassi played the perfect hostess, as Millie remembered her. In fact, she did not seem to Millie to have aged so much as… fulfill. That was an odd word, but the only one Millie could think of. Dorothy set the tea out on a silver tray on the verandah.

  “I won’t say I wasn’t surprised when you called,” Bill Bonassi said. “We served, what, two years together?”

  “Two, yes.”

  “And I don’t remember that many conversations, outside the normal small talk. I do remember two words you used to say to me all the time, however.”

  “Really? What were they?”

  “I disagree.” And then he laughed. Millie could not help but laugh a little, too. In this setting he seemed more like a favorite grandfather than an esteemed former justice.

  “I must admit I was a little intimidated,” Millie said.

  “By me?” Bonassi said.

  “By Bill?” Dorothy said at the same time.

  Millie nodded. “The Lion of the Court, after all.”

  “Ah,” Bonassi waved his hand in the air. “Twaddle. Who makes up those names?”

  “I do remember something about you,” Millie said. “Your faith. Bill, you never talked about your religion around us and I respected you for that. You didn’t want it to become the thing that defined you on the Court. And I – ”

  “No, no,” Bonassi gently corrected. “On the contrary, my faith defines me in every way. But then again, everyone has faith.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, we have faith that there is such a thing as existence. And that we are rational creatures capable of finding answers. We have to make that leap of faith or there’s nothing to talk about, is there?”

  “I suppose not,” Millie said with a slight laugh.

  “Faith precedes knowledge. It makes knowledge possible.”

  “But how did your faith influence you on the bench?”

  Bonassi thought about the question, his fingertips touching in steeple fashion. “It certainly influenced my view of the basis of law. I believe the principles of justice to be real, not merely manmade ideas. May I inquire, dear Millie, why you are asking?”

  Millie took in a deep breath. “I didn’t know who else to come to. I had an encounter with God – ” Does this sound stupid? “I mean, I have come to believe in a God. I hadn’t thought about him for a long time, but I’m thinking about him now and I’m pretty shaken up about it.”

  Dorothy Bonassi immediately put an understanding hand on Millie’s arm. She said nothing, only smiled. “Tell us about it,” she said at last.

  Millie did, starting from the accident all the way through to the moment on the plane when she felt like a door was opening for her.

  When she finished, the Old Lion had a sparkle in his eyes. He seemed fifty years younger. “I didn’t embrace Christianity until I was out of law school. It threw me for a large loop, too. Changed the way I looked at the law, that is for certain.”

  Yes, and that was what terrified her. The law, for her, had been a solid piece of ground for over thirty years. It was shaky now, and she could not see the sinkholes. “Tell me how,” she said.

  “I started thinking about the rights of people,” Bonassi said. “That’s what the law comes down to. It’s about people. What gives people that sort of dignity, I started to wonder. And I decided that it was God. I came to see that without principles of law firmly rooted in a source outside of ourselves, the very idea of law becomes an absurdity. That’s what Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence, after all. We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. Without that source, where do rights come from? It can only be from
the subjective preferences of whoever happens to be in power, including judges.”

  Millie had, of course, heard that argument many times before. “But I have always believed that the principles in the Constitution itself bind us.”

  “What are those principles, Millie?”

  “Equal justice under law, to start.”

  “And how do we define justice?”

  “That’s always the question, isn’t it? Each case is different.”

  “The principles, however, are not. The founders set this country up on a foundation of biblical metaphysics.”

  “On what?”

  “They were steeped in the Bible. It was the one book that everyone knew. The Bible teaches this: that nature is intelligible, the product of a loving Creator. It teaches the dignity of every man. It was Jefferson who said, ‘The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.’ He really believed this, contrary to what some revisionists claim.”

  “Jefferson wasn’t a deist?”

  “There’s a lot of flapdoodle taught about Jefferson. Just read what he wrote. In his Notes on the State of Virginia, he said” – Bonassi closed his eyes, finding the words – “ ‘Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not violated but with his wrath?’ That is what I’m talking about.”

  “Jefferson wrote that?”

  “And Madison, father of the Constitution, said the belief in a ‘God all powerful wise and good is essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man.’ As Casey Stengel used to say, you could look it up.”

  Millie lifted her glass. It slipped out of her hand, slamming hard on the glass table.

  “I’m sorry,” Millie said quickly.

  “Think nothing of it, dear,” Dorothy Bonassi said. “Bill sometimes has that effect on people.”