The Diviners

by Rick Moody

  His friend’s road led into the world of business, where the special chum served first at Debevoise and Plimpton. Specifically, the chum worked on several pro bono cases that the distinguished jurist considered unworthy of such a legal mind, e.g., Massiah v. United States. This early work made the special chum aware of what he really wanted to do, which was entertainment law, and it was in this cause that the special chum relocated to the dangerous land across the mountains, California, after which the distinguished jurist saw far less of him.

  For his part, the distinguished jurist was for some years involved in the education of meandering and unfocused law students. While the special chum was trying to establish the D.C. office for Debevoise, making the acquaintance of such memorable persons as could exist in the heavily perfumed air of the Kennedy and Johnson years, the distinguished jurist was languishing instead in Cleveland, and this, as anyone will tell you, is not a place where one makes a long-standing contribution to national jurisprudence. At one point, he attempted to relocate to a more suitable environment, Georgetown, perhaps, or Columbia, but when he visited the campus of Columbia, he found it peopled entirely by communists of dubious hygiene, including one remarkably unpleasant and outrageous young man who had the audacity to take the distinguished jurist to a house of ill repute! He was meant to be going to a faculty soiree of some kind, and instead this appalling young man took him into a building on Upper Broadway populated with scantily clad women of a different color from himself. It was only when he made clear that he was an adherent to the pre- Vatican II tenets of the Roman Church that his kidnapper relented.

  And so the distinguished jurist remained for some years in Cleveland. He thundered in the classroom about tort reform, about the necessity of constitutional limits on claimants. He would thunder in the classroom about the so-called right to privacy, which is not a right but a weakness of character, since it exists nowhere in the Constitution of the United States of America, neither in the Bill of Rights, nor elsewhere, and he thundered thus because he did not really wish to be in the classroom. His wish was to be in government, and at last he was given a chance, when again justice was being meted out appropriately by the men and women of a benevolent administration. In this capacity he served until a delusional peanut farmer from Georgia appeared on the horizon. In the following years, first at the University of Chicago and then at the American Enterprise Institute, he was given the chance to evaluate his positions and to refine them such that he came to see that by not opposing the usurpation of power by judicial activists, the distinguished jurist was giving material aid and comfort to the forces of evil.

  Relief appeared once and for all in the person of a godly man, a man who had come in from the wilderness, a man who had once called himself a unionist but who was now a man of belief, and this God-fearing man plucked the distinguished jurist from a think tank, raising him from nowhere to the Court of Appeals and later to this very temple of jurisprudence, according to a senatorial vote of 99-0, so that the jurist might write his blistering concurrence in, e.g., Webster v. Reproductive Health Services.

  It is fateful, after all, that the distinguished jurist was redeemed by a veteran of the entertainment world, a former movie star, because, as noted, this is precisely the direction traveled by his chum from law school. His special chum, who had once been a vigorous outdoorsman and sportsman, and a swashbuckling swordsman with the ladies, packed up and settled in the city of Los Angeles. This vexed the mind of the distinguished jurist, who felt that the place was peopled by drunkards and child molesters, notwithstanding the beauty of some of its flora. Moreover, in the case of the special chum, there were, concurrent with the relocation west, a number of modifications of comportment and habits that did not seem in keeping with the wearing of neckties.

  In fact, there was a period during which the distinguished jurist and the special chum didn’t speak at all, and this had in part to do with a rumor that began circulating among classmates about the special chum, namely, that perhaps the special chum had a certain weakness proscribed in the Old Testament and in other enduring scriptures that do not change because of evolving standards of decency. Language is fixed and perfect, and the company of heaven sings when in the presence of perfectly deployed sentences. Even more disappointing were some of his hires, including a person alluded to above, whose name the distinguished jurist cannot bear to mention, who went on to become the heir apparent at the conglomerate of the special chum. How was this possible?

  Christmas cards still arrived, and birthday cards still arrived, and this was no small feat on the part of the special chum, as the distinguished jurist has a goodly number of children, after all, and yet the special chum remembered the birthdays of all these children and even a couple of grandchildren. There were telephone calls now and then, and the distinguished jurist did his best to discount the rumors and he paid no attention to the diminishment in the excellence of the written grammar of the special chum, which he believed was owing to the influence of the film world. The special chum had advanced swiftly and decisively in the world of entertainment, until, at first, he was the head of a film studio, and from this aerie the special chum advanced through the ranks of the parent company that owned the film studio, which parent company was in the business of spirits and intoxicants, a business that, in the view of the distinguished jurist, was only marginally more harmful than the film studio itself. And in due course the special chum became the chief executive officer of the company in question, a major Fortune 500 corporation with holdings in beverages and entertainment. The company boasted operations national and multinational, and a myriad of contentious and opinionated stockholders.

  The apotheosis of the special chum took place during or contemporaneous with the decision in the case that came to be entitled Maryland v. Craig, which case, as many will remember, had to do with the alleged molestation of a certain child. The child testified during trial proceedings via one-way closed-circuit television in a separate room. The Court of Appeals overturned, complaining as to the use of this novel form of cross-examination, et cetera. The distinguished jurist, naturally, finds the idea of child abuse abhorrent, perhaps worthy of the ultimate penalty, and he believes, naturally, that people who have the problem that the special chum is rumored to have, the love that dare not speak its name, are more likely to behave as child molesters behave, and the distinguished jurist, naturally, would no more hold on behalf of a child molester than he would favor a Soviet, and yet, in thinking about the special chum, and in thinking about the Constitution of the United States, the distinguished jurist, during the conference on Maryland v. Craig, came to feel that perhaps there are aspects of what he might call the human in people who are afflicted with this dread sin, and perhaps the human merited, in this particular instance, an opinion that was not entirely alien to the cause of the molester, whose case went down in flames nonetheless, as the distinguished jurist knew that it would.

  His perambulations now bring the distinguished jurist into the empty, reverberant cavern of the spiral staircase of the Supreme Court of the United States, a design element that is so splendid that the distinguished jurist often pauses to gaze upon it, and it’s here that he arrives at a decision, Solomonic in its evenhandedness, viz., that he will tell the special chum, Naz Korngold, that if the special chum would like to meet him in chambers, then perhaps the two of them could dine briefly as planned while the jurist’s clerks work on his concurrence. Perhaps in due course he might be able to give the chum a little tour of the premises, including the hall on level one where his own portrait will hang. Perhaps he can bring him here to the spiral staircase. When he returns to his chambers, this offer entire is dictated to the distinguished jurist’s secretary, Mrs. Edith Wilbur, who then places the call while the distinguished jurist watches, standing by the edge of her desk, mouthing the words to make sure that she makes the offer just as he has dictated it. Mrs. Edith Wilbur is schooled in making these telephone calls in such a way as to produce maximum impac
t with the announcement of the caller, indicating that she is calling from the Supreme Court of the United States. And therefore Mrs. Edith Wilbur gets through immediately to the assistant of the special chum, the executive assistant being known as Georgia the Peach, and Georgia the Peach patches the secretary through to the mobile phone of the special chum, and the secretary makes the offer and she then nods thoughtfully, without making eye contact with the distinguished jurist, whose hovering is not ideal but effective nonetheless. Then Mrs. Edith Wilbur announces, having terminated the connection, that the special chum would indeed be glad to appear at the Graeco-Roman temple of jurisprudence, especially since he has a matter of personal import to discuss.

  It’s only after the terms of the meal are settled, and after fending off his one especially sycophantic clerk, that the distinguished jurist remembers the last time he saw the special chum. This was perhaps eight or nine years ago, on the occasion of a shooting expedition in the state of Maryland. On, or about, or during Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., and this he remembers because he recalls explaining to the special chum about the implications for copyright raised by Feist, wherein originality triumphed over “industrious collection,” to the detriment of phone book compilers henceforward. He recalls the special chum laughing grimly and asking if the vogue, in his own business, for film “sequels” might be affected, since those films seemed less the products of “authorship” than works that were simply compiled by the “sweat of the brow” from preexisting narratives. The distinguished jurist remembers these things, and he remembers that it was early spring, and that the weather was overcast, with light winds, and that the smell of sulfur and ejected cartridges was wonderful, as ever, and he remembers, naturally, that the special chum was not doing very well in the matter of obliterating the little clay pigeons. The special chum was made increasingly uncomfortable by his abject failure.

  Of course, the distinguished jurist was not born into the condition of firearms enthusiast. It’s more that his position on the Second Amendment has made it natural. In the march of life, strange bedfellows do we become. In truth, the distinguished jurist, as a young man, rarely found himself in the company of those who had been reared up with firearms and the sport thereof, and yet as he rose through the ranks of national adjudication, he found himself learning about firearms and connoisseurs of firearms. He found himself appreciating the ritual of cleaning, preparing, shooting, caring for the gun, nailing up the kill, plucking the kill, and here the distinguished jurist will admit that he does take care of the plucking himself, disbelieving that his wife should be burdened with such things. And though the distinguished jurist was not born to carry a gun, like many men of leisure, he is rather good at the sport, and so he was handily trouncing the special chum on the day in question, at least in numbers of clay pigeons dispatched. Even the young man who was accompanying them in the marshes of Maryland, the young man from the local rod and gun club, found himself saying nothing in the tense silence as the special chum shouted “Pull” again, and again the clay pigeon traversed the sky unperturbed.

  Because the location of the shooting expedition was outdoors in a rather rustic part of the state of Maryland, there were about them some examples of what remained there of wildlife, the few species that had not yet properly come under man’s dominion. There were a few buffleheads, and there were a few cormorants and other such waterbirds, and there were a few geese. Canada geese, in particular. On a number of occasions, the special chum was heard to exclaim that these birds were pestilential, and he used a number of obscene epithets for the geese, and he noted that when he was a child, these geese were given to leave droppings on the lawn of his summer home, on the windward side of Cape Cod. Goose droppings, the special chum remarked; horrible. You’d go out there in the morning, you’d better be sure to wear Wellingtons if you didn’t want to step in the mounds. The birds were unfriendly, too, the special chum observed, always trying to run the children off the estate. The distinguished jurist took pause here, since he could not help but notice that the special chum’s dream of a Cape Cod childhood was at variance with some of what he knew of the special chum’s curriculum vitae. The special chum during his time in Hollywood had apparently gerrymandered the locale of the story, because the special chum was, by virtue of his religion, occasionally picked on as a lad, and this was something that on the most drunken nights in law school the special chum would share with the distinguished jurist, calling him by his diminutive name, saying that they understood each other because they were here at the law school at a time when the scions of Protestant legacy would not have any truck with them. They had each overcome the prejudices of the nation, the special chum indicated back in law school, and yet, out in the marshlands, with his gun loaded, the special chum, as if he had something to prove about the rumors that the distinguished jurist had heard about him, had felt a need to seem other than what he was, that is, a person whose summers had taken place in Mamaroneck, by the Long Island Sound.

  Accordingly, what happened next was perhaps natural. It was perhaps part of the natural order that the special chum should call “Pull,” that the clay pigeon should rise up into the sky like a tiny emblem for Apollo making his journey across the day. And yet, just when the special chum might have fired on the clay pigeon, he instead turned the barrel of the gun in another direction. Both the distinguished jurist and the young man operating the slingshot for the clay pigeons ducked, flattened themselves, and there was a pause and a pathetic squawk as the shot perforated the hide of one of the Canada geese settled nearby beside some brush. The other geese reared up, astonished, and the whole of the gaggle took flight, except for one, who remained behind momentarily, looking, no doubt, at its now mortally aerated mate. Then this bird, too, lifted off. There was a silence as the special chum took all this in, the fact that he had finally hit something. Then he ejected his cartridge.

  “Fifty years of irritation rectified,” said the special chum.

  Their rod and gun club guide mumbled something about how they were definitely pests and needed to be shown a thing or two, or that’s how the distinguished jurist remembers it. The rest of the day, no more than three quarters of an hour, passed in uncomfortable silence.

  Though there was an aggrieved apology, next day, when the distinguished jurist reached his chambers, a little handwritten note about the nature of sportsmanship and how the special chum, by his own reckoning, had failed the test of sportsmanship (and would the distinguished jurist please accept this gift in his name to Ducks Unlimited in the amount of et cetera, et cetera), the distinguished jurist found the event, the dispatching of the goose, unsettling, distasteful, and so further years passed without much consort between the two friends.

  However, one finds that old friends are gilded by the lateness of the hour, the headlong rush to the beyond. We are thrown into this life to fend for ourselves, and everywhere there are disappointments and conspiracies that can drive us from our charted course. We are only given a few bosom mates. No lapse in judgment should separate us—for whose slate is without its chalk marks?—and though the distinguished jurist has spoken out to any number of groups against the love that dare not speak its name and how its pleas for special rights must be repelled—notwithstanding these things, the distinguished jurist always did like the special chum. Though the special chum is thicker around the waist now, and though his blue eyes have dimmed, and though he is craggy and not the rake he once was, the distinguished jurist feels that he will not give up on the amity of long lives lived together. Such is loyalty.

  In fact, this is what he is thinking as he waits at security in the rear of the building, when the special chum arrives and passes through the metal detector.

  “Good buddy!” says Naz Korngold.

  “Special friend!” says the distinguished jurist.

  The two hug. The distinguished jurist takes in the outfit, the pleated pants, the silk shirt, the sport coat.

  “You are looking es
pecially natty,” he says to his old friend.

  “You’re hale as ever,” says the special chum. “I was expecting you’d look like you’d got no sleep in the last couple of weeks. But you look ready for combat!” Here the special chum smacks the distinguished jurist on the shoulder, as he might have done forty years ago. It feels only a little forced.

  Then the special chum takes pause and gazes down the length of the corridor where they stand, which, because it is a Sunday, and because the special chum has entered from the back, looks like a public office building anywhere in the District of Columbia.

  “They spend the redecorating budget upstairs,” the distinguished jurist offers, meaning the courtroom itself, with its opulent swags of drapery and its allegorical murals.

  “But this is where it all happens,” says Naz Korngold.

  The distinguished jurist prides himself on a spotless office. The piles of briefs and memos are tidied up and put in their particular areas, and at the end of each day the distinguished jurist insists that Mrs. Edith Wilbur should clear off his desk in its entirety, because he cannot think properly with his desk covered in papers. This is the condition of his desk when he enters with the special chum. Mrs. Edith Wilbur enters behind them, to make sure they have everything they need. The distinguished jurist sends her away. Next, the particularly sycophantic clerk also tries to stop in for an introduction, no doubt recognizing the special chum from photographs, but the distinguished jurist also sends the sycophantic clerk packing, telling him that there are some capital cases that must be dispatched. At last, the distinguished jurist points to the empty chair by the desk and then he indicates the table across the room, where there await two steaks, two salads, some French bread, and a bottle of vin ordinaire, procured especially for them.