Supreme Courtship

by Christopher Buckley

  From Pepper’s side of the door came a hollow, bellowy sound of the kind heard in the sea mammal section of the zoo as feeding time approaches.

  “You all right, honey?” JJ said somewhat pointlessly.

  “Of course she’s not all right,” Juanita said.

  JJ took out his gold pocket watch and said, “Maybe I oughta call the White House.”

  “Sí. Call them.”

  “What am I supposed to tell ’em?”

  “That she’s sick.”

  “I can’t tell the President of the United States she’s got her head in the toilet. It ain’t dignified.”

  “Tell them that she ate something.”

  Pepper, listening to it all from behind the door, said, “I’m all right. Just give me a…” This was followed by another aquatic sound.

  She had, to be sure, been through rather a lot at this point and had run through a lifetime’s supply of adrenaline. A few hours earlier, as she lay awake, sweating into her 800-count hotel sheets, staring at the time display on the clock, it had dawned on her that there was now no going back. Her new office was in a marble building that looked like it belonged on the Acropolis. She’d had recurring dreams in which its great bronze doors clanged shut behind her. When she turned around, she saw hooded figures welding the doors shut, to the accompaniment of demonic cackling. She stared into the blue water in the toilet bowl. Even the toilet water looks expensive. The President of the United States and the world media were cooling their heels waiting for her in the Oval Office.

  Oh, girl, she thought, struggling to her feet and looking at the ghastly reflection in the mirror. What in hell have you got yourself into?

  “What about a nip of bourbon?” JJ suggested through the door.

  “No seas tonto, JJ. She can’t have bourbon on her breath for the President,” Juanita said crossly.

  “Wasn’t suggestin’ she drink the whole bottle.”

  Pepper opened the door, pale, but upright. “All right,” she gasped. “Let’s do this thing.”

  Juanita marched her back into the bathroom to attend to hair and lipstick and other necessaries. JJ shrugged and drank the bourbon himself. The swearing-in went without incident, with Chief Justice Hardwether doing the honors. Pepper had gargled beforehand with about a quart of mouthwash and smelled like a spearmint forest. The Chief Justice smelled kind of minty himself. There was a nice small lunch, and President Vanderdamp autographed his place card for Juanita.

  CHAPTER 14

  On Capitol Hill, Senator Dexter Mitchell was having an officially unofficial meeting with his old friend Senator Clement Cranch of the great state of Mississippi. Cranch was Chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee, almost never referred to as “the powerful Senate Ethics Committee.”

  The meeting was not going to Dexter’s satisfaction. Cranch kept shifting in his chair and doing things with his mouth as if he were a recent recipient of oral surgery.

  “I just honestly don’t see the problem, Clem,” Dexter said. “It’s not like I’m trying to hide income.”

  “Dexter, you’d need a mine shaft to hide that kinda income.”

  Dexter made a dismissive gesture. “Now that’s only a best-case scenario, like if the series goes into syndication. For starters I’d only be pulling down, you know, fifty grand,” he lowered his voice, “per episode. Tops.”

  Cranch snorted. “That’s one-third of a Senate salary, Dex. How’s that gonna look on the front page of the Washington Post? How’s it gonna look back in Hartford? You think of that?”

  “Yes, Clem, I have, and I think the people of Connecticut would be proud to see their senator on TV.”

  “You’re already on TV.”

  “I’m not talking about C-SPAN, for God’s sake. We’re talking network, prime time. Look, Clem, there’s all sorts of dimensions to this thing.”

  “Whenever people tell me ‘There’s all sorts of dimensions to’ something, it always boils down to one-money.”

  “Listen, Clem-and this is strictly between us. Can I trust you on this?”

  “Dex, I’m the Senate Ethics chair. I guess you can trust me.”

  “Okay. I don’t give a rat’s ass about the money. You think I’m getting into this so I can move to McLean and build myself some forty-thousand-square-foot McMansion? This money-all of it-is going into my war chest.”

  “What war chest?”

  “For when I run again, Clem. For the big job.”

  Cranch shook his head. “Dex, I don’t care if it goes for a McMuffin in McLean, for Vegas hookers, or for cleft palate surgery for kids in the damn Congo. The rules are the rules.”

  “Fuck the rules.”

  “That’s a fine thing to say to the Ethics chair.”

  “That’s right, Clem. It’s a chair. Not a throne.”

  “Well, whatever it is, it ain’t a toilet, and you ain’t about to take a crap in it.”

  “Write new rules,” Dexter said. “For God’s sake. No one expects ethics in the Congress, anyway. Try Googling ‘ethics’ and ‘Congress,’ see how many matches you get.”

  “Be that as it may. It’s my job, Dexter.”

  “With all the dire things going on in the world right now… the economic situation, Texas about to mine its border with Mexico, these Russian submarines snooping off our shores like great white sharks, TV judges on the Supreme Court… and you’re all bent out of shape because a U.S. senator wants to lift the image of the entire government and maybe make a little walking-around money on the side…”

  “I’m tired of this conversation, Dex. The rules say no outside regular salary. And that’s that. Over and out.”

  “It’s not a salary.”

  Cranch slammed his fist on his desk. “Then what in tar hell is it? And don’t you tell me it’s an honorarium. We get into more pissin’ matches over that goddamned word honorarium.”

  Dexter stood before a window, looking at his presidential-yes-reflection. He sighed philosophically.

  “It’s sad,” he said. “You devote your entire life to public service… your whole life… and an opportunity comes along to do something good for your family, a little money-”

  “I thought the money was going to your war chest.”

  “I consider my family part of my war chest, Clem. And the next thing you know you’re being trampled into the ground by the Four Horseman of the Ethicalypse. No wonder young people don’t want to go into politics these days.”

  “That was a fine oration. Up there with Cicero. You done?”

  “Will you walk with me, Clem? Will you take a few steps with me?”

  Senator Cranch sighed. “Dammit, Dex, it ain’t up to just me.”

  “This could be good for all of us. A sitting senator on a popular prime-time TV show, dynamically playing President of the United States.”

  “Hold on. Hold on. How did you wantin’ to play Mr. Hollywood President become a mission of mercy on behalf of the U.S. Senate?”

  “Have you seen the latest polls? Do you know what percent of the American people have quote-unquote high confidence in the Senate?”

  Cranch groaned.

  “Twelve percent,” Dexter said. “Twelve percent. Donald Vanderdamp-who has brought incompetence and dishonor to the office of the President-he has better numbers than us.”

  “If it comes to that,” Clem said, “I don’t have a whole lot of quote-unquote confidence in the American people. But we’re stuck with each other. As for Don Veto, I wouldn’t worry none about his popularity ratings. Maybe he got a little temporary uptick from the Cartwright thing, but he’s a long way from winning any beauty contests. Hell, the Presidential Term Limit Amendment just got voted out of committee. Bussy Filbrick says it’s gonna sail through the House faster than shit through a goose. According to my whip count, it’s got over sixty-eight votes in the Senate. [18] Personally, I wish I could vote for it twice. That self-righteous cocksucker just vetoed my shrimp boat building initiative in Pascagoula.”

  Dexte
r said, “What good is denying him a second term? From what I hear, he doesn’t even want a second term.”

  “How’d you like to go down in history as the president who caused a constititutional amendment keeping presidents from having more than one term? I’d call that a serious humiliation, far as a legacy goes.”

  “Wouldn’t it be simpler just to impeach him?” Dexter said.

  “Be simpler,” Cranch said, “to shoot the sumbitch. But they got laws, so they tell me.” The two men stared at each other.

  “I didn’t say that,” Cranch said. “Looky here, Dex, I’d like to help. I sure would. I love you like my brother.”

  “You don’t have a brother, Clem.”

  “Well, if I did, I’d try to love him like I do you. But I can’t just go creating a loophole the size of the Grand Canyon for you. They’d run me outta here faster than a nukular particle accelerator. Sorry, old buddy, but you’re gonna have to choose between the U.S. Senate and this TV show.”

  JUST A FEW BLOCKS AWAY at the marble palace, everyone was being very nice. Pepper had been bracing for wrinkled brows and sneers of cold command from her fellow justices. They practically greeted her with sugar donuts and hot chocolate. Paige Plympton, apparently a fan of Courtroom Six, gave her a little hug. Paige was an unflinty Maine Yankee; former Chief Judge of the State Supreme Court. Her ancestors had come over on the second boat to land after the Mayflower. “We sent the servants on ahead.”

  Only two handshakes from her new peers were on the cool side: Justices Santamaria’s and Richter’s.

  Pepper suspected that Silvio might feel a little awkward inasmuch as he’d given an interview after her nomination was announced calling it “another installment in the Great Dumbing-Down.” She’d been tempted to bring along a thirty-six-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew and a bag of pork rinds. Paige had advised against it.

  Ruth “Ruthless” Richter wasn’t outright hostile, but her vibes were of the what-are-you-doing-here kind. But then she, like CJ Hardwether, was going through a rough patch as a result of a vote. Ruth had written for the majority in al-Muktar v. United States, the ruling that freed “suspected terrorist”-as he was then called by the media-Sheik Mohammed al-Muktar from the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo. Two months later, Sheik al-Muktar graduated to “confirmed terrorist” after blowing himself up on a parking lot shuttle bus at Disney World along with twenty-three visitors to the Magic Kingdom.

  Justice Richter stood by her opinion on constitutional grounds, but her approval ratings were now such that she had to be moved about town in an armored personnel carrier with helicopter gunships patrolling overhead. So she was understandably a bit on edge these days. One morning while the justices were in conference, a law clerk passing outside dropped a volume of U.S. Reports onto the floor of the marble corridor, causing a bang. Ruth dove under the table.

  Ishiguro “Mike” Haro was the first Japanese-American Supreme Court justice, and persuasive evidence that Asians really are intellectually superior to the other races. His hobby was doing the Times of London crossword while blindfolded. He’d graduated from Stanford Law School at age twenty. By twenty-four he was a Silicon Valley billionaire start-up lawyer; at twenty-eight, the youngest judge on the federal bench (Ninth Circuit). He was, like many of advanced intelligence, impatient with those of more modest brilliance. He was not shy of expressing deeply held opinions, such as that President Truman was-as he put it, perhaps unwisely within view of someone’s cell-phone video camera-“a runty genocidal haberdasher” for having dropped the A-bomb on some of his relatives. He was not overly popular with the law clerks-even his own-who made puns on his surname’s similarity to an Asian mispronunciation of “hello.”

  Justice Morris “Mo” Gotbaum had been, until joining the Court, senior senator from New York. He was a famously soft touch when it came to staying executions, having granted seventy-eight stays so far. This caused tensions between him and Silvio, an ardent champion of the ultimate sanction. Silvio kept a little guillotine cigar-cutter on his desk-for the amusement of visiting children (he claimed). Mo never missed an opportunity to tweak him. Once during oral argument in a case involving a public school teacher who had been fired for expressing a favorable opinion about Intelligent Design, Mo had asked the teacher’s attorney, “If Intelligent Design exists, how would you explain the U.S. Tax Code?”

  In other ways, Mo was atypical for a New York Jewish liberal. His great passion in life was putting on black leather and touring the country on a Suzuki Rocket motorcycle-he privately called it his Crotch Rocket-with his wife, Bella, hanging on behind for dear life. He faithfully attended the annual biker rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, every year and gave passionate, well-footnoted speeches to the bikers, calling for a motorcycle exception from the national speed limit. When bored during oral arguments, which he frequently was, he would hum “Born to Be Wild.”

  Crispus Galavanter was second in juniority to Pepper. He occupied the “black seat” on the court, though it is seldom openly referred to as such. He had first come to prominence in an unusual way: by taking on the Ku Klux Klan-Web site slogan: “Bringing a Message of Hope and Deliverance to White Christian America! A Message of Love NOT Hate!”-as a client.

  The Klan had wanted to open a store in a mall in suburban Boise, Idaho, where it could sell Klan notions and memorabilia, his and hers ceremonial robes and caps, dinner-table flaming crucifix candelabra, hangman noose light switches, Third Reich memorabilia, reissues of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, manuals on breeding pit bulls and Alsatians, and other heartwarming gewgaws. The mall owners, however, perhaps seeking a more elevated tone, refused to rent them space.

  Crispus, then a young local attorney, volunteered to handle the Klan’s case “for costs.” The Klan was initially somewhat taken aback, but after some head-scratching and palavering decided what the heck, they might look kind of good in court if they had themselves a smart “colored” lawyer, so they said, okay, just so long as we don’t have to eat with you or share bathroom facilities, and forget about dating any of our daughters. No problem at all, Crispus said. Put it out of your minds. You concentrate on spreading that message of love to White Christian America and let me deal with these small-minded mall owners.

  He was brutally pilloried in the press for his efforts on behalf of the Idaho Klan, accused of all manner of outrageous grandstanding, called all sorts of names, about the mildest of which was Black Judas. Through it all Crispus smiled and kept his head down and diligently argued his client’s case. He framed it as a civil rights case and fought it all the way up to the Idaho Supreme Court.

  In his argument before the state’s highest court, Crispus eloquently championed his client’s views on the superiority of the white race; Jewish control of the media, the international banking system, and bottled drinking water; the Vatican’s secret deal with NASA to put a Catholic on Mars; and Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations that required filling out endless, unnecessary paperwork before burning a cross on public land. By the time Crispus was finished, he had all the judges doubled over with laughter. They ruled in favor of the mall, made the Klan liable for the mall owners’ legal costs. Crispus thereupon smiled and presented the Klan with a bill that, coincidentally, amounted to one dollar more than it had in the bank. It filed for bankruptcy.

  When questioned about whether his representation of the Klan was consistent with a lawyer’s duty to represent his client vigorously, Crispus would say that he had made precisely the arguments the Klan had wanted made, and that the fee he had charged was reasonable. As for the Klan, it was entitled to full consideration of its legal claims, and that legal consideration had destroyed it.

  Crispus was appointed to the federal bench and a few years later moved on up to the high court. He golfed with Tiger Woods.

  CHAPTER 15

  Three years earlier, a man named Jimmy James Swayle had walked into the Rough River Savings and Trust Bank in Hotbridge, South Dakota, and presented
the teller with a note written in incongruously polite language. Pleace hand over $TEN THOUSDAND or I will be compelt to shoot the poor customers. Sorry for the inconvenients. Hurry up OK.

  The teller duly activated the silent alarm and, reciprocating Mr. Swayle’s politeness, insisted on counting out his request in one- and five-dollar denominations, apologizing for not having larger bills. Presently, Sheriff’s Deputy Edward Fogarty entered the bank with drawn shotgun and commanded Mr. Swayle to drop his weapon and lie facedown on the floor. Mr. Swayle pointed his pistol at Deputy Fogarty and pulled the trigger. The gun, a Rimski 9mm semi-automatic, failed to fire. Deputy Fogarty walked over to Mr. Swayle, gave him an understandably robust butt in the face with the shotgun, and hauled him unconscious off to the pokey.

  After a not very long trial, Jimmy James Swayle was found guilty of attempted armed robbery and murder and sentenced to twenty-five years. And there, but for the genius of the American legal system, the books might have quietly closed on a not distinguished criminal career. However…

  … a second-year law student doing a project at the state penitentiary advised Mr. Swayle to file suit against the Rimski Firearms Corporation on the grounds that their product, which he had legally purchased, had failed to function properly “during a business transaction,” causing him not only loss of income but also significant psychic and physical distress, entitling Mr. Swayle to damages under South Dakota law. Since Mr. Swayle was a citizen of South Dakota and Rimski was a Connecticut corporation, Mr. Swayle was able to bring suit in federal court. The case had worked its way up the judicial ladder from the district court, the Court of Appeals, and had finally fetched up on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court.

  Mr. Swayle’s petition for certiorari was just one of about 7,000 the Court receives each year asking to be considered for review. The justices accept only seventy or so of these for oral argument. Four justices have to agree to grant cert in order for a case to be accepted. Generally, the Court accepts only cases that it finds interesting; but sometimes a “what the hell” element seems to come into play. Justices look solemn in their formal black robes, but every so often they like to have a little fun by taking on a strange case, or overturning a presidential election, that sort of thing.