Merrion snuffled, thickening his voice into the On the Water' front pug's clot: '"I tell yuh, Charlie, I could ah been a contend ah Well maybe but then again, maybe not. What if that's all nothin' but the good old stuff? Maybe if he'd turned it down, never become the Boy Judge, famous from border to border border of Holyoke, border of Ludlow maybe he never would've gotten another bite of the apple.
"Maybe… ah yes, that sad word maybe. He wants is you to tell him you think if he hadn't taken Canterbury, that instead of everybody saying now that some guy he used to teach with has a mortal lock on the next Supreme Court vacancy, it'd be him; it'd be Lenny. He waits for you to do that, say that, grease up his ego for him like a dog waits for you to finish doing whatever you're doing to that prime-rib bone with those pathetic little teeth of yours, and give it to him, who needs it; can handle it; knows what to do with the thing. Well, boo-fuckin'-hoo; you don't feel sorry for him and so you don't say it.
And then when you don't suck it up and lie to him, tell him what he wants to hear, he sulks for the rest of the day.
"He's got no idea how he tempts me when he does that. He's got a question? I got a question as well. Does he know why his job was created? Arthur and young Roy Carnes did it for their pal, Judge Spring. Lennie was the jay vee team. The reason for his job was to free up Chassy's afternoons. This was years before I got my job, but according to Larry Lane courthouse people used to feel sorry for Lennie then. Chass treated him like a servant. Made it very clear to him and everybody else the only use that he had for him was to do the scut-work, clean up all the messy cases he left behind when he snuck out at lunchtime to play the market.
"Havin' heard what the guy hadda take, now and then I used to feel sorry for him. But now I don't, anymore. It's not a bad job that he's got. It's taken good care of him, all of these years. He didn't come from big money although until a few years ago he expected to have a lot some day; he thought he was gonna come into a bundle, this uncle of his went to Jesus. Then Unk died and someone else got it. Too bad for Lennie. But just the same, since before he turned thirty he's never had to worry once about a paycheck. No one's gonna lay him off. If he gets hurt on the job, or him and the beautiful Julia get sick, the doctor bills're paid. And when the day finally comes, he decides he'll retire, state pays him a pension and covers her, too, long as they're still alive.
"You know what? He's got a real beef about that, lifetime-security deal. He hasta contribute to his pension fund, deductions from his paycheck. "Federal judges don't have to do that," is what he says.
"While they're still sitting they get all they earn, after the taxes, of course, and then they retire on full pay."
"Okay, juicy deal, but so what? He isn't a federal judge. Most of the rest of us aren't either, and we have to contribute don't we? I said that to him once, he's pissin' and moanin', there isn't much left of his check by the time he gets it: "Hey," I say, like I just thought of it, "I have to contribute to my pension plan. What're you gripin' about?"
"I almost had him. He almost said what he would've regretted; had it right onna tip of his tongue. "You're not a judge; you're a clerk."
"He could see me thinkin': "Come on, come on, say it." He caught himself just barely in time. If he says it then I'm gonna say it: "And I'm not a federal judge, either, your Honor. No one in this courthouse is." He din't say anna thing "So okay, maybe he's right: His job's not the best deal inna world. But still, you come right down to it, it isn't a bad deal at all.
Twenny-five years ago, he knew, didn't he, what it was he could expect?
Sure he did. It was all laid out plain for anyone to see, even way back then. He wasn't stupid, was he? He didn't first learn to read after he took the job; he isn't saying that, now. So he knew what the deal was, and he accepted it. Hell is he bitchin' 'bout now?"
On Monday morning at 10:1 °Cavanaugh buzzed Merrion in his office and Merrion without needing to answer the phone picked up his portfolio and his brown-enameled metal box of files, the paint worn away from the lower back corners by his thumbs over the years, and headed up the private east corridor to the door to the hallway that led from Cavanaugh's chambers directly onto the bench in Courtroom 1.
The eight rows of benches behind the bar enclosure were overcrowded, usual on Monday mornings, filled with the weekend yield of State and local police activities in the Four Towns and on the turnpike. Most of the people had been in the courthouse since it opened at 8:30. They were restless. There was a lot of traffic back and forth through the brass-studded, coarse grained green-leather-padded swinging doors that opened into the main corridor and foyer outside the rear of the courtroom.
Those who were defendants had reported to the probation office in the basement of the courthouse for intake processing. Many had accompanied defendants, in order to provide moral support, additional bail money or legal advice or because they were small children of defendants who had no one to babysit and would have risked additional charges of child neglect if the kids had been left alone and a DSS caseworker dropped by to make one of the periodic unannounced supervisory visits required by regulations. The children cried and squirmed and fidgeted and dropped their plastic nursing bottles on the floor, so that their mothers had to grope around under the benches and pick up the bottles and wipe the non-spill mouthpieces on their sleeves. They slapped the children and hissed at them angrily, several of them in Spanish. Then they looked around anxiously in case someone official might have seen and recognized them as they hit their children, and had taken out a spiral notebook to write down details of their unfitness as parents.
There were thirty-four matters on the criminal list. Judge Cavanaugh was seated behind his desk. He cupped his hand over the microphone on the bench that fed the tape machines recording all public utterances at every session, and leaned forward so that his face and Merrion's were barely a foot apart. "Hate to tell you this, Judge," Merrion said in a low voice as soon as he had reached the clerk's desk, one step down in front of the judge's, and turned his back on the crowd, 'but as soon's you get through arraignments today, we got four domestic violence cases onna list I gotta ask you to hear. We got these two women comin' in, new, but the usual thing say they want restraining orders, husbands battin' them around. And there's a guy today, too, little change of pace Ellsworth Ryan's his name wants one. I told him he hadda come in front ah you.
"I dunno what to make of this bird. He looks like he should be able to take care of himself all right, but he says she's always telling him he's got to sleep sometime. That's all she says, nothin' else, but that's enough for him: he thinks that means that when he sleeps she's gonna get him. So, what do I know, huh? Ellsworth says he hasn't been able to get any rest. He's afraid to go to sleep. Says he's afraid if he does, his devoted wife Sheila, she gets a few too many drinks in her, she'll come and stick a bread knife in him while he's got his eyes closed and he can't defend himself.
"And then we got the Federico matter comin' up again, for your listening pleasure. Johnny Federico. His wife's name is Tishie, you recall. You oughta be pretty close to being on a first-name basis now.
You put the paper on him, week ago, and far as we know, until yesterday he's okay, left her alone. Now she says she wants him violated. Had him picked up on the restraining order early last night. Cops held him overnight in the lock-up up the Pond, meditate upon his sins.
"She says he come home Sunday evening; he'd been to the ballgame, Sons of Italy from Holyoke hired a bus, took it down to Fenway Park, an' he had too much beer to drink. Must've got it onna bus. That horse-piss they sell at the ball-park now hasn't got enough kick in it give a young nun half a charge. Got back to Holyoke all fulla beer, and he decided: "Well, this'd be an awful good time, go back home and violate the order." Which he knows perfectly well he's not supposed to do, since you told him to stay the hell away from her and leave her alone.