This Is How It Begins

by Joan Dempsey

  “We’re not going to win this thing, are we?”

  “No, no, no,” said Abe, “don’t think that for one minute, son. They’re in the wrong here, not you. But this is why we need to review the specific complaints extremely carefully. We can’t leave any smidgen of doubt about your intentions.”

  Tommy pushed his hands up under his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

  “I can’t even believe it. It’s just poetry!”

  “We’re not really talking about poetry, Tom,” Robert said quietly.

  “I know that! For god’s sake! Sorry. It’s just … really? It’s Whitman. It’s Anderson.”

  Lolek yearned to reach out and touch his son in some small way, to smooth the worry from his expression and tell him everything would be okay, even though he wasn’t at all sure it would be. He put his arm across the back of Marta’s chair and touched her hair. She turned to him with surprise and he gave her a grave look. Her small, sad smile was enough to flood him with hope that whatever had brought on this chill between them could be dissolved, and that they could help each other support Tommy.

  Izaac cleared his throat.

  And then,” he said quietly, as if to gently lead them out from under the shadow of defeat, “when we’re done here today, we should all walk outside together—even you and Robert, Tommy—so Channel 7 shows us as a united force. And Tommy, I think if you want you can tell Wendy Chen off the record how you feel about the kids, and tell her when the hearing is over you’ll give her an exclusive interview. Does that strategy make sense to you, Lolek?”

  “It does make sense, yes, and that way you’ll be able to control the timetable yourself. Whenever you’re ready, Tommy. Whenever you and Abe and Robert think it might best serve your case.”

  Tommy nodded with understanding and agreement, and Lolek felt grateful for the connection. He gave Marta’s shoulder a little shake, and she met his eyes. He saw her for what seemed like the first time in ages, and understood just how much he’d let his job consume him, how much he took her for granted. A heaviness had settled into her face, a softness had developed under her chin, and her chestnut hair had lost a bit of its old shine but none of its color, and he found himself wondering if she was dyeing it. He couldn’t tell. Under his hand, her shoulder felt soft, and he massaged it for a moment, aware that his own hand and fingers had also grown thick. None of that mattered. What mattered is that they were still here together, thirty-six years later, taking care of their son.

  “Your mother and I would be more than happy to stand by you in that interview, if you think it would help.”

  As soon as it was out of his mouth, he knew it was a mistake. But that’s all he had been trying to say, truly it was, that he and Tommy’s mother were here for Tommy all the way, that they would do whatever they could to take care of him, and he hadn’t meant to imply at all what he could tell Tommy was now assuming, what he could see in Tommy’s tightened jaw and averted eyes, what he saw pass between Tommy and Robert with one fleeting glance, that once again it was not Tommy’s father they were dealing with but the calculating senate president, the egotistical politician who never engaged in anything without first considering his own agenda.

  23

  Connie’s Approach

  Meck could hardly believe he’d just welcomed Connie Clough into his home. He still hadn’t gotten accustomed to the idea of working with Connie, a nationally renowned constitutional law scholar and skilled litigator who was legendary in the Christian community because of his passion for religious freedom. He had flown in from Kansas City to prepare them for the arbitration hearing, and each time they met, Meck had to force himself not to succumb to idolatrous feelings in much the same way he’d had to with Pastor Royce when the pastor first recruited him. Connie physically loomed over Meck, but it was the size of his intellect that was truly towering. It helped that Connie was so down-to-earth; if you met him for the first time at a church social, you’d never know he was a legal giant.

  “Perfect winter’s day out there, Warren. Thank the good Lord for the men doing the plowing. Roads aren’t too bad.”

  Gracie sniffed at Connie’s boots, and Connie spoke to her in a low tone and roughed her up around her collar. When he stopped, she leaned against his thigh and stared up at him. He took off his oversized aviator glasses and waved them back and forth to clear the condensation. His eyes appeared smaller, more vulnerable without them. He held the glasses up to the hall light, and then put them back on. The flaxen wire rims matched his thinning hair and dominated his face, encircling his prominent cheeks almost completely. Meck thanked him for coming out on a Saturday, hung his coat in the closet under the stairs, and ushered him into the living room. Connie looked around pointedly, his eyes widening.

  “I know, pretty outlandish,” said Meck. “I went through a bit of a colonial phase.”

  His face grew warm and he frowned, berating himself for trivializing what was hardly a phase. What kind of shame must he feel that he not only anticipated a negative reaction from Connie but also tried to beat him to the punch by proactively judging himself outlandish? He took a breath and imagined he was in the studio, about to go on air.

  “Truthfully, Connie, it’s more than a phase. I love having the kind of furniture Sam Adams might have had. Consider this armchair. Late sixteen hundreds, solid oak, crafted by a joiner using the frame and panel method so the chair could weather swelling and shrinking from season to season. This one’s notable for these intricately carved arches and lunettes. They called them great chairs not only because of their size but because they were reserved for heads of households or important guests. Please, try it. It’s far more comfortable than you might imagine, although my own size is more suited to that little comb-back Windsor rocker.”

  Connie settled into the chair. He smiled and rubbed his hands back and forth along the wood.

  “I feel as if I should be beckoning a servant to bring me some wine.”

  “That’s ironic,” said Jill, who had just walked in, ushering Ben and John in front of her while Andrew clung to her leg. “I was about to offer you coffee, Mr. Clough, how are you? No, no, please don’t get up.”

  “Thank you, dear. I wonder if I could trouble you for a cup of black tea? With a little milk?”

  “Certainly. Happy to oblige.”

  “Good wife you have there,” said Connie after Jill left. “You must be proud.”

  Meck felt his face growing hot again, and he inclined his head to acknowledge the compliment.

  “Thank you, I am. She does a great job.”

  The three boys stood uncertainly together in the middle of the room. Meck nodded once at Ben, prompting him to greet their visitor. Each boy wore a clean pair of khakis and a white button-down shirt under a navy-blue sweater. Their blond hair had been carefully combed and slicked, and Meck made a mental note to thank Jill for getting them ready. He was pleased at the mature way Ben approached Connie and offered his hand. Connie rose from the great chair to formally greet the boys. John, the eight-year-old, spun away from Connie as soon as they’d said hello, and skipped wildly over to the rocker. His skinny legs hung well above the floor, and he clung to the arms and pitched his torso forward, then back, getting the rocker going.

  “It’s not going to take flight, John. Just slow it down a bit.”

  John gave Meck a wide smile and let the rocker slow, then jutted his chin in and out to keep it moving more slowly. Connie sat back down in the great chair, and Meck took one end of the couch, his only concession to modernity, and even then it was Queen Anne style, designed to look like an antique. Andrew crawled up next to Meck and buried his head in Meck’s armpit.

  “I hope you don’t mind, Connie, but I thought it might be a good experience for the boys to sit in. Since we’ve been home-schooling, Jill has put a heavy emphasis on social studies, even for young Andrew here. Right, Sport?” He smoothed a hand over Andrew’s hair. Andrew nodded solemnly, never taking his eyes off Connie.

  �
��I’m more than glad to have you boys here. One day when we have a whole team of Meck men setting our country’s political agenda, we’ll all remember this day.”

  Ben stood in front of Connie. He was small for his age, but confident enough to look Connie in the eye. He put his hands into his pants pockets and stood as if at attention.

  “Mr. Clough, sir? I wanted to thank you for your work defending Bridget Mergens in front of the Supreme Court. Back when I was still in public school, they weren’t going to let me form a Christian club, but they changed their minds when I showed them the Mergens decision. I couldn’t believe they didn’t already know about it.”

  Connie glanced at Meck in surprise, and Meck felt a surge of love for his son, who had asked him earlier if he might approach Connie. The day the school principal had refused Ben club privileges, Ben had come home not in tears but with a lip-trembling refusal to feel humiliated, and a stoic determination for justice. “The principal is just like those kids who kicked John,” he’d said. Meck and Jill had steered him to the library to discover how he might fight back.

  “How old are you, young man?” Connie asked now.

  “Eleven, sir, nearly twelve.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “Thank you, sir. I wrote a paper about the Mergens case last month.”

  “Well I’d like to see that, Ben, if you’d be willing to share.”

  Ben broke into a huge smile and nodded enthusiastically. Again Connie rubbed the great chair’s smooth oak arms.

  “That was some time ago,” he said in a wistful tone.

  “Yes, sir, 1990. Do you think what we’re talking about today will draw on the Equal Access law the way you did? If the Christian kids are being discriminated against in the same way?”

  “Excellent question, Ben. Let me turn it around and ask you—what do you think?”

  Meck had to suppress a smile as Ben swept back his bangs with both hands, a gesture he had unconsciously copied from Pastor Royce. Meck realized with surprise that Ben was about the age Meck had been when he’d first met Pastor Royce. Meck had responded to the pastor in much the same way Ben was reacting to Connie.

  “I guess I expect the law won’t apply. It’s only about extracurricular clubs, right?”

  “Exactly right. This is more an issue of restricted speech and disrespect for religious beliefs within the classroom. The same moral principles apply, though, so you keep thinking along those lines. I’m glad you’re here with us today, young man. I welcome your perspective.”

  When Whit, Ed Shaw, and Arnie Dengler arrived, they moved into a four-season sunroom and sat around a chestnut trestle table that could comfortably fit twelve. Jill came in with a pitcher of orange juice and a second cup of tea for Connie, then poured coffee all around. She laid small plates, juice glasses, and cloth napkins at each of their places and then brought out two serving platters, one with a stack of coffee cake squares, the other with frosted cinnamon rolls, all still warm from the oven. John immediately got to his knees on his chair and flung out an arm toward the cinnamon rolls, but a sharp look from his mother stopped him, and he sat back and folded his hands on the table, his tiny shoulders stiff with tension, like a leashed dog anticipating release.

  “Is there anything else you need right now, Warren?” said Jill.

  Meck shook his head.

  “I’ll leave you men to your business, then. Boys, you be respectful, and pay attention. I’ll just be in the kitchen if anyone needs anything. Gracie-girl, you come along with me. There’s a good girl.”

  The sound of a jazzy xylophone blasted the room. Whit murmured an apology, retrieved his phone, and stepped out. He came back while the cake and rolls were still being passed around.

  “We have a problem. That was Pastor Royce. The Westboro Baptist Church people caught wind of the hearing. They’re planning to picket.”

  “Oh, Judas Priest,” said Dengler, closing his eyes as if he could block out the news. He pulled his handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped his broad forehead. “The media will glom on to those people like nobody’s business. We won’t get a word in edgewise.”

  “How did they know where it is?” Ben glanced over at Meck to see if it was okay to have asked.

  “Everyone in the Fellowship knows where it is, Ben,” said Meck. “Besides, it hardly matters. All they have to do is show up in town, and the media will find them. Either way, Arnie’s right that the media will focus on them, and then everyone will think we’re all totally … well—”

  “Whackadoodle?” said Dengler.

  John giggled, and Meck gave him a reprimanding look. John flopped back in his chair and cupped a hand over his mouth, his eyes shining merrily.

  “Now Arnie,” said Connie. “They may employ a different strategy, but they are Godly people.”

  “They’re EGRs is what they are,” said Dengler.

  “Extra! Grace! Required!” said John, bopping his head with each syllable before clapping his hand back over his mouth.

  “With friends like those …” muttered Dengler. “We’ve got to shut them down.”

  “Maybe, Connie,” said Shaw, “you know someone in the Phelps family we can talk to?”

  “I’m afraid this isn’t a group you can reason with, Ed,” said Whit. “There’s no fighting them. We just have to be smart. We can use them to strategic advantage. They can help demonstrate our sanity. Pastor Royce said they’re submitting an amicus brief, too.”

  First the early dismissals, then the assault, then the attempt to spy at the State House, then Danny, Clancy, and Blair muscling their way into the studio, and now this … Meck felt the campaign slipping from his grip. He closed his eyes, trying to avert the thought.

  “I have to say,” said Connie, “their briefs are well written. Completely useless, but well written. As much as I agree with them that we’re doomed as a nation if we don’t resurrect our Christian roots, how they think Bible passages and citations from biblical scholars will sway serious men of the law on matters of public policy is beyond me.”

  “Whackadoodle,” said John. Dengler bellowed out a laugh. Meck and Whit exchanged a look, both suppressing smiles. Meck knew exactly what Whit was thinking—for an eight-year-old, John was remarkably quick-witted.

  “How about I ask Pastor Royce to work up some talking points about the picketers?” said Whit. “Focus on free speech.”

  “Good idea,” said Meck. “Hopefully he can work it into tomorrow’s sermon. And dissuade any of our own people from protesting at the hearing. We don’t need the bad press the Westboro folks will unleash.”

  “Let’s get to the hearing itself, then, shall we?” said Connie. “I’ll let you gentlemen work out the media bits on your own time.”

  Despite Connie’s perfectly pleasant tone, Meck felt chastened. He wished he’d commandeered their agenda from the start instead of getting sidetracked by Westboro. He also wished he’d taken his usual seat at the head of the table instead of giving it to Connie. Sitting on the side meant he had to continually lean forward to see past Dengler’s bulk, and he didn’t much like that he was on a par with his kids, who’d never seen another man in his chair. He cleared his throat and let his resonant radio voice come forth. As soon as he began to speak in that tone, his boys sat up straighter, and every man’s eyes were on him.

  “Absolutely, Connie. We’ll get through this as quickly as we can and let you get on with your weekend. Here’s the lineup of witnesses. Arnie and Ed, of course, will both testify. We have four sets of parents, all good, well-spoken folks who are prepared to do whatever it takes. Their children will be there, too. We thought it would be important for the arbitrator to hear from them firsthand, and they’re all good kids, they all know what’s at stake. Pastor Royce spent a lot of time with the families, so I feel confident they’re well-briefed. The pastor himself will testify, since he’s counseled a lot of these kids, so he can speak to impact. I can do the same, if necessary.”

  “I almost forgot!”
said Whit. “We did get Kinney as arbitrator. Pat Kinney.”

  “What luck!” said Dengler. “Thank the good Lord for small favors.”

  He laid a heavy arm over the back of Meck’s chair. Meck frowned and leaned forward.

  “Luck has nothing to do with it,” said Meck. “Don’t you remember that first meeting of Redeemer attorneys? Early 2004? You were there. Kinney being chosen to arbitrate this meeting began that day.”

  Connie put his hands over his ears.

  “I didn’t hear that, gentlemen.”

  John swiveled his head back and forth, and when no one responded to Connie, he raised his hand as if he were in school, and when Meck nodded, he repeated the part about luck having nothing to do with it. Dengler laughed, and John frowned at him.

  “He’s not laughing at you, John,” said Meck, although he wasn’t certain this was true. Ever since the visit from Eric, he’d been aware of keeping his distance from Arnie. Whit had said he didn’t think Arnie was smart enough to have recruited Eric, and Pastor Royce had concurred. Still, Meck no longer trusted him.

  “What Mr. Clough said, John, was just a figure of speech; he heard what I said, he was simply indicating that he didn’t really want to know. Sometimes it’s better to have a shield of ignorance. Do you know what I mean?”

  John nodded uncertainly. Andrew, who’d been gravely chewing tiny bites of cinnamon roll since the meeting began, was trying in vain with his napkin to rub the icing off his fingers. He gave up, neatly folded the napkin, and pinned his wrists to the edge of the table, awkwardly holding up his fingers.

  “Go on into the kitchen and see your mother, Sport. She’ll get you cleaned up.”

  Andrew nodded and slid down off his chair, trying not to touch anything. He hesitated behind his chair, and Meck felt a sudden rush of love for this serious boy who wanted to do the right thing and push in his chair as he’d been taught, but wasn’t sure he should with sticky fingers.

  “Go ahead, Sport, you’re okay.”