Con Law Part 3

Mr. Stanton, from the back row: 'I said goofy stuff like that back in college, but I was stoned at the time. I made a video and posted it on YouTube, got a hundred thousand hits.'

'And you still got into this law school?'

'Rich daddy,' Ms. Garza said.

Mr. Stanton shared a fist-b.u.mp with his buddies.

'Was Kennedy like that when you clerked for him?' Mr. Brennan asked.

Book's clerks.h.i.+p for Justice Kennedy had made him a hot commodity among const.i.tutional lawyers because Kennedy was often the swing vote in crucial fivefour decisions.

'I came on board ten years after Casey. Kennedy was just trying to broker a peace in the abortion war. He respects the Court, and he wants the people to respect it as well.'

'Too late for that,' Ms. Garza said. 'We're not stupid. We know the Court's just another political branch.'

'The Const.i.tution is just politics?'

'Professor, everything is just politics.'

Book felt as if he had just been told that the love of his life had cheated on him. The Const.i.tution is just politics? The Court no less partisan than the Congress? Ms. Garza read his mind.

'The only difference between Congress and the Court is that we can vote those Republican b.a.s.t.a.r.ds out of Congress.'

'Mr. Stanton-'

He looked up from his texting.

'Ms. Garza is mistaken, isn't she?'

'In so many ways, Professor.'

'Make your case.'

'First, her T-s.h.i.+rts are getting old. Second, she-'

'About the Court being a political branch.'

'Oh. The Court is perceived as being political because the justices subverted democracy in Roe. In America, we don't stage violent protests and burn down cities when our side loses an election. We organize for the next election. But we want to vote. The people didn't get to vote on abortion.'

Ms. Roberts again: 'As Scalia said in his Casey dissent, quote, "value judgments should be voted on, not dictated." And quote, "the people know that their value judgments are quite as good as those taught in any law school-maybe better." I like that.'

Ms. Garza again glared at her cla.s.smate.

'Now you're quoting Scalia? Jesus, Liz, you wouldn't talk for eight months, now you won't shut up. Quote this.'

Ms. Garza jabbed her middle finger at Ms. Roberts.

'Unacceptable, Ms. Garza. An apology, please.'

'Oh, I'm really f.u.c.king sorry, Ms. Roberts.'

That const.i.tuted sincere for Ms. Garza.

'Civility, people. This is a cla.s.sroom, not the Supreme Court conference room on decision day. Ms. Garza, your reb.u.t.tal to Mr. Stanton's case-the reb.u.t.tal that does not include your middle finger.'

'Two generations of women have grown up with total control over their reproductive decisions, both contraceptives and abortion. If men get to vote on our right to abortion, they'll take that right away from us. Then they'll take the right to use contraceptives. Because men want desperately to control women-our lives, our liberties, our work, our pay, our s.e.xual activity, our bodies, and most of all, our wombs.'

Mr. Stanton: 'Trust me, I don't want anywhere near your womb.'

The cla.s.s laughed. Ms. Garza did not.

'Stanton, you're just mad because women won a right to an abortion.'

'I'm mad because the liberal justices hijacked the Const.i.tution-they made it up!'

'You don't know that.'

Mr. Stanton pointed down at Book. 'He said so in his last book.'

Another round of laughter.

'How do you know I'm right?' Book said.

'Because you're down there lecturing, and we're up here taking notes.'

More laughter.

'How do you know I'm not just another tenured professor pus.h.i.+ng my personal political beliefs on his captive audience of impressionable students?'

'Because you're not teaching over in the English department.'

The entire cla.s.s laughed and let out a collective sigh of relief when the bell rang. They rose as one and gathered their belongings. Book yelled over the noise.

'Read National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, aka Obamacare, for the next cla.s.s.'

The ma.s.s of students parted like the Red Sea before Moses. Half rushed for the doors. The other half surged down to the front and around Book, peppering him with questions and pus.h.i.+ng copies of his latest book, Con Law: Why Const.i.tutional Law is the Greatest Hoax Ever Perpetrated on the American People, for him to sign. It was currently number one on the New York Times nonfiction print and digital bestseller lists.

'Professor, would you sign your book for my mom? Her name's Sherry.'

He signed the book with a Sharpie. Another came forward.

'Sign my book, for my dad. Ken.'

He signed. Another hand came forward.

'Sign my Kindle.'

'Your Kindle?'

'I have your e-book on it.'

He signed her Kindle. She then stepped close and held out her cell phone in front of them.

'Can I take a picture of us? For my dad? He said when you're on the Supreme Court-'

Book had made many shortlists of potential candidates.

'-you'll straighten those crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds out.'

She snapped a photo.

'My dad never misses you on those Sunday morning talk shows. He loved that line yesterday on Face the Nation-'

Book had partic.i.p.ated via a satellite feed from the local Austin studio.

'-when you told that senator that you were neither liberal nor conservative, Republican nor Democrat, but that instead you were the last known practicing Jeffersonian in America.'

'It wasn't a line.'

The students drifted off. Book gathered his casebook and notes and walked out the door and down the narrow corridor crowded and noisy with aspiring lawyers chatting about their lucrative job offers from large law firms. Thirteen years before, he had walked the corridors of Harvard law school, aiming to do something important with his life, perhaps even to change the world. But not to get rich. Money had never motivated him. He had found that he needed few material things in life. He lived in a small house near campus. He had acquired the Harley secondhand and made it his own. He had never owned a car, and he no longer owned a suit. Having things meant nothing to him. Doing things meant everything. And he did everything at a fast pace.

Because he knew he didn't have much time.

Chapter 2.

'Get a haircut, Bookman.'

Book took the stairs two steps at a time, so he was quickly past the white-haired man dressed immaculately in a suit and tie walking down the stairs. He was the dean of the law school.

'Right away, Roscoe.'

Tenure had earned Book a fifteen-foot-by-twenty-foot office, a lifetime salary, a secretary, and the right to wear his hair long. He arrived at the fifth floor, turned a corner, ducked between students, and entered the front room of the two-room office suite where a middle-aged woman wearing reading gla.s.ses secured to her neck by a glittery strand of beads sat at a desk and held a phone to her ear.

'Here he is,' Myrna said into the phone. She covered the mouthpiece and whispered, 'The police. Again.'

Book put the phone to his ear. 'John Bookman.'

'Yeah, uh, Professor, this is Sergeant Taylor, Austin PD. We found your mother.'

'She wandered off again?'

'Yes, sir. She was at the mall. Victoria's Secret. Walked out with an armful of lingerie, said she had a date tonight. They called us, we took her home. I called your sister. She's on the way. I'll stay till she gets here.'

'Thanks, Sergeant.'

'Don't mention it. I worked with your dad.' He paused. 'Uh, Professor, I don't mean to mind your business, but you should really consider putting your mom in a home. Folks in her condition, they wander off, get lost, end up outside all night. One day we might not find her in time. Your dad wouldn't have wanted that.'

Book thanked the officer and hung up the phone. He could not abide the thought of his mother in a nursing home. Myrna regarded him over her reading gla.s.ses.

'You okay?'

He wasn't, but he nodded yes.

'Messages?'

Myrna held up pink call slips. 'Fox wants you on the Sunday morning show, by satellite. To debate the Supreme Court's decision on Obamacare.'

'With whom?'

'McConnell.'

'Again? After our last debate?'

'He's a politician, doesn't know you made him look like a fool.'

'Wasn't exactly hard work.'

'And Meet the Press wants you to debate Schumer.'

'Him, too?'

She shrugged. 'They're gluttons for punishment.'

'What else?'

'They're stupid, they're egomaniacs, they're-'

'The messages.'

'The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times want your comments on the case.'

'When?'

'Today. Front-page articles in tomorrow's editions. And you're late for the faculty meeting.'

Myrna reached down to her oversized purse and came up again with a sealed plastic container. Several years back, she started bringing him leftovers from dinner the night before because he ate protein bars for breakfast, bachelor and all; it was now a daily ritual.

'Chicken quesadillas,' she said.

'With your guacamole?'