The Faculty Club: A Novel (9 page)

"What do you want?" he snapped at me.

"Nigel, what's wrong?" I took a step toward him.

"Don't patronize me," he said.

"Nigel, we're friends, right?"

His eyes burned right through me.

"Friends." He turned the word over like a moldy peach. "I thought you and Daphne were friends now."

"It's not like that."

"You think I don't see what you're doing?"

"I'm not doing anything."

He ignored me and turned back to one of the books he hadn't knocked to the floor.

What the hell, I thought. "Say, you don't have Goldman's
Theory of Criminal Justice,
do you?"

Nigel laughed bitterly. "Like it would help." He smirked. "I've already read it."

"Look, Nigel, it's after midnight. Let's call it a day. We can grab a beer. Get some food. Sal's is still open."

Nigel shook his head without looking up. His movements were quick, jerky. What happened to the suave, graceful gestures of Nigel Manning, son of an ambassador and a movie star?

"How can I call it a day," Nigel said, "when it takes an hour to read a case, and I've got a hundred more cases to go?"

I did a double take.

"Why does it take an hour to read a case?" I asked.

He looked wounded. "How long does it take
you
?"

"I don't know. Ten minutes? Twenty?"

"That's
impossible
. Half the time it's not even apparent what they're talking about. Who taught these judges to
write
? It's all gibberish."

He sounded frantic. All the pressure and strain of three months of law school was pouring out of him like bile.

And that's when I realized, at this moment, Nigel
was
Humpty Dumpty: infinitely fragile, a web of invisible cracks running through his handsome face. He was
crushable
. Motions were due in a week. All I had to do was turn around and walk away, and he and John were finished.

Instead, I sat down. I didn't say a word as he wiped his eyes, blew his nose, and composed himself.

Then, I taught him how to read a case. I showed him how to skim through the pages of words and tease out the key elements--the
issue,
the
posture,
the
holding,
the
rationale.
I showed him how meaning could emerge from the chaos, the way constellations emerged from a dispersion of stars.

When we were done, Nigel frowned at me.

"I envy you, you know."

"Are you
kidding
me? I'd give anything to have your life. You've traveled the world. You go to parties with Oprah and Bill Gates. You envy
me
?"

"You're a nobody," he said matter-of-factly. "You never have to wonder if you're here because some professor loved your mom in
Last Affair.
" He smiled lightly. "You're white, so you never have to entertain the thought that you're here to populate the cover of an admissions brochure--you know, the one with the smiling rainbow coalition sitting under a tree?"

"Nigel, that's bullshit. You're one of the smartest people I've ever met. The only reason I can read a case is because I spent the last four years living in my parents' basement, practicing for law school. While you were out having a life."

"Maybe yes, maybe no," Nigel said. "But
you
never have to wonder."

The hell I didn't. I was a category too. The country rube, here
at the pleasure of the Northern gods. I tried to think of a way to say this, but Nigel spoke first.

"I want you to know something, Jeremy. I appreciate what you did tonight. But the V and D is my destiny. My dad was in it. And his dad before him. And you can trace it all the way back to the first black man in the V and D, in a time when black men didn't get shit handed to them. So I tell you this out of courtesy for the kindness you showed me: don't be surprised when I do whatever it takes to hurt you."

With that, he picked up his books and left without another word.

Daphne and I sat next to each other in the packed courtroom. Her leg was pressed against mine under the table. The chamber overflowed with spectators--hundreds of jealous classmates, chattering professors, curious undergraduates, high school debate teams, townies, press, even a few tourists with cameras--every seat was full, and people stood two rows deep in the back of the room. All here to watch the 203rd chapter of the oldest, most prestigious mock trial in the nation. Actors from the drama school would play the star witnesses: Arnold Reid, the altered vet; Sheila Reid, his loyal wife. Doctors from the university would serve as expert witnesses, providing actual medical testimony and standing on their own credentials. The jurors were upperclassmen, 2Ls and 3Ls eager to decide the fate of the best and brightest first-years.

A warm front had moved in overnight, pushing away the clouds and cold and sending bright rays of sunlight streaming into the courtroom from the wall of windows. Across the aisle from us, Nigel and John sat at their table, laying out stacks of papers. Next to them was their client, the unfortunate Arnold Reid, played by a good-looking young drama student.

The murmuring suddenly stopped, and I looked over and saw the procession of judges enter from a side door. The retired
Supreme Court justice was first; he looked more rested and relaxed than I'd ever seen him in pictures, almost embarrassingly so: he had a tan that looked straight out of a bottle. The former U.S. Attorney was next, pudgy and good-natured, with neat prep-school hair, owlish glasses, and a deep dimple in his chin. Professor Bernini entered last. He looked straight ahead, avoiding eye contact with the room. His trademark impishness, that twinkle in his eyes, was completely gone. He was taking his role as judge seriously.

The men marched solemnly and took their seats on the bench high above us.

Dean Thompson addressed the room. He welcomed the crowd and gave each judge a warm, reverent introduction. He introduced the four of us, then closed with a long list of the famous people who'd won this event as first-year students.

Then, the retired Supreme Court justice leaned forward.

"Are both sides ready?"

"Yes, Your Honor," Daphne said, rising.

"Yes, Your Honor," John echoed.

"Okay. The State may proceed."

I felt a shot of voltage from my toes to my fingertips. The State. That was me. And this was real. Holy shit. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. Until this moment I'd been watching this like a very pleasant movie. What the fuck was I
doing
here?

I stood up and faced the jury.

I cleared my throat. You could hear a pin drop in the room. I felt every one of the thousand eyes on me.

The jury was composed of random 2Ls and 3Ls--people I'd seen in the halls but didn't really know.

Slowly, I started to speak.

"May it please the Court. Counsel, ladies and gentlemen, good
morning. We expect the evidence to show that on September 22 of last year, this defendant had a business dispute with a man named Russell Connor. The defendant drove home. He removed a nine-millimeter handgun from his safe and drove back to his office. He pointed this gun at Russell Connor and shot him in cold blood. He shot him three times. Russell Connor was unarmed. He was sitting at his desk. He died on the spot. Russell Connor left behind a wife and four children."

I let that sink in.

"Ladies and gentlemen, those are the facts of this tragic event. This is a case of cold-blooded murder, pure and simple. I ask you to remember that. This is a case about Jennifer Connor, who will never see her husband again. This is about Stacy, Marcus, Noah, and Blake, who will never see their father again. No matter how complicated this case may become, if you hang on to that idea, then at the end of the day, common sense is going to win. And we will give the wife and children of Russell Connor what they deserve. Justice." I took a breath and nodded. "Thank you."

I walked back to my seat and sat down. Daphne wrote something on a legal pad and slid it over to me.
S*O*L*I*D,
it said.

Moments later, Nigel was standing in front of the jury. He raised his hand, just slightly, like a conductor the moment before a symphony begins, and a silence fell over the room.

"Imagine," he said softly, his clear British accent carrying through the hall, "that you are about to go to jail for the rest of your life."

He wore a three-piece suit, with a gold watch-chain hanging across his vest. He appeared likable, precise, trustworthy. There was no hint of the fragility from the other night. I wondered how many people who looked perfect were secretly a mess on the inside.

"Imagine that every detail pointed to the fact that you were guilty. Every fact. Every witness. No way out."

Nigel sat down on the edge of his table and sighed.

"Now imagine one more thing.
You
didn't do it."

He looked at each juror.

"How angry would you feel? How helpless? Would that be justice?" He paused. Then suddenly, his tone lightened. "Of course not. That's easy. We don't punish people for things they didn't do."

And then he looked directly at me, his face showing a profound distaste. "But that's
exactly
what the prosecution is going to ask you to do. They are going to ask you to send a good man to jail for an act that was not his own."

Nigel stood up and looked at his client. He smiled.

"Witness after witness is going to tell you that Arnold Reid was the kindest, gentlest man they ever met. A soft-spoken husband and father. A small-business owner. A man who dreamed of going back for his MBA. But first he had something to do. He decided to leave his comfortable life and serve his country in a time of war. Two months later, he went to Iraq as a private in the army. He didn't have to go. He didn't need the money or the scholarships. He
chose
to go. That's the kind of person we're talking about.

"And then it happened." Nigel put his hand on the rail of the jury box and leaned in. "One day, Arnold was fixing a tire on the side of the road in Baghdad, when--
BAM!
" Nigel smacked his hands on the rail, startling the jurors. "A rocket landed twenty feet from where he was kneeling.

"Arnold was treated in hospital after hospital. It was a fight for his life. And he pulled through. He was honorably discharged and sent home to his wife and children. But not without scars.

"Arnold was left with a strip of metal, a twisted piece of rocket, lodged in his head. That was the price he paid for serving his country.

"And suddenly, nothing was the same. He had constant headaches. He couldn't think clearly. He couldn't concentrate at work. He was suddenly irritable, impulsive. He wasn't
himself
. All because of the piece of metal that pierced his skull as he was serving his country."

There was a righteous anger now in Nigel's voice. His eyes were strong and clear, but they were watering too. He pointed an accusing finger at us.

"And when a man named Russell Connor tried to take advantage of Arnold, tried to exploit his handicap and steal his business, something unpredictable happened. This piece of metal, this foreign object, interrupted the electricity in Arnold's brain and sent it in a direction it never meant to go. And so his body committed an act that this kind, gentle man never would have done in his forty years on earth.
That
was his crime: having a piece of metal shot into his brain while defending his country."

Nigel fixed the jury with a holy stare.

"I ask you to focus your powers of compassion and ask yourself: what if that piece of metal had been shot into
your
head? What if your good thoughts were suddenly hijacked? Would we be right to strip
you
from
your
family
and send you to jail for the rest of your life
?"

Nigel leaned back on his table again, looking exhausted. He smiled sadly, cautiously.

"Well, now you have the power. And I beg you--I beg all of us--to use it with mercy and wisdom."

And he sat down and wiped his brow with a handkerchief.

* * *

The law was clear. If you know right from wrong, if you are awake and you intend your actions, then you are responsible for them. It doesn't matter if you were born angry or mean or impulsive. So why should it matter if you were born kind and gentle and then changed by a bomb?

As with any good mock trial, we were on the verge of blowing our fragile categories wide open. Do we have minds, capable of choice and free will? Or do we have brains, made of cells and electricity, firing like pinball machines with only the
illusion
of free will?

In one fell swoop, Nigel had swept aside hundreds of years of criminal law and asked, how can we punish this man? And he spoke like a Shakespearean actor. His client wasn't even real, and when I saw one of the jurors dab at her eyes, I knew I was in trouble.

If Daphne were just gorgeous, or just smart, she would be amazing. But the combination of both seemed unfair, statistically boggling, almost mystical; she took the air out of the courtroom. And yet in front of the jury, she seemed softer than I'd ever seen her--except maybe for that brief, sleepy moment at the end of Nigel's dinner party, her hair down, her contacts out--then and now, she was warm and likable, someone you could curl up with by the fire in pajamas and read a book.

"Mrs. Reid, you told us your husband was a kind and gentle man, is that right?"

"Yes," said the actress playing the defendant's wife.

Daphne was near the witness stand, close to her--just two ladies talking.

"He wasn't violent
at all
before the accident, right? Night and day? That's what you said?"

"Night and day."

"And that's important, right? It's important because you believe it was the accident that made your husband commit this crime?"

For a second, the witness tried to look at Nigel and John, but Daphne stepped casually into her view.

"Right?"

"Yes."

"
Kind and gentle
. Those are the same words the attorney used to describe your husband, aren't they?"