George Higgins - A change of gravity

'"His mother was kind of disappointed, thought he should get his degree, but I supported him in that decision. Couldn't've done much else, said anything much against it not and been consistent, dropping out of AIC like I did. But also I agreed with him. I didn't think he needed it. I thought he could get along without it and if he didn't want to do it then he probably shouldn't he wouldn't get nothin' out of it. And on the basis of the way that things seem to've worked out, I think you'd have to say that both of us were right.

'"And then his two sisters. Well, Deb just did the two years to get her nurse's thing there; the associate degree. The bachelor's which was two more years, she didn't do 'til later and she paid for that herself. So it was just Marie Louise that actually went and stayed the whole entire four years. Not that that was not expensive, having her down New Rochelle there — Jesus, checks I used to write. But still, it wasn't that bad. Her being the only one of the three of them that really went, the whole four years. The way it worked out, me and Lois hadda pay for just the six years of college, not the twelve like wed been planning.

'"So okay, now I buy the tickets, Jeff and I go to the ballgame, and that's sort of my present to him. His coming to the games with me, that's his present to me."

"It's like it's some kind of a sacrament," Merrion said to Cavanaugh, 'going to the fucking ballgames. He exaggerates the meaning out of all proportion. Once he said to me that I must know what he was talking about, how much he gets out of it, because I probably did the same thing with my father, and I said Not really we only went once. Why, I couldn't tell you; it just wasn't a big deal for us. Sammy didn't know what to say. I hadda try to help him out.

'"Look," I said, "Pat was just never that much of a sports fan, is all.

He could talk sports with the customers and sound like he liked sports; he didn't mind them. He'd watch a game, TV. But going to the games, all that kind of thing? Didn't interest him. He was a nice guy and a good father and he took us fishing, me and Chris, the Connecticut shore, Long Island Sound. But only once or twice. I don't know what made him do it. He must've gotten the idea from someone at work, so when he got a day off, he took us and we rented the equipment and we fished. Caught something too, I remember. I forget exactly what. It was okay, but no regular thing. It was a pretty long drive.

'"We never had things that we did on a regular basis with him. But it was all right, you know? It really was. He worked hard, six days a week, and when he got a day off he worked around the house, cut the lawn, I dunno painted the hallway. He's been dead forty years. I don't recall now exactly what he did with his spare time. But I know he didn't collar me and Chris and tell us that we couldn't play baseball with our friends over Curtis School field, or go swimming up the pond, because he had a day off and we hadda spend it with him. Pat just wasn't like that, and I guess neither was I. So it was really okay."

"Sammy looked very confused. Flustered. Like he'd said something that he shouldn't've. He said: "And of course, you couldn't after that. You never had a son." And then he got even more upset and looked at me and said: "Amby, you know, I didn't mean to say that. I'm sorry. It came out."

"And I said to him: "Didn't mean to say what, Sam? That I never had any kids? Well, so far's I know, at least. But I knew that. And yeah, sure, now I sort of envy you, all my friends with grown-up kids.

Envy you now I didn't used to, when you've got the heartache of bringing them up. Naturally, you do that; you get to be my age and you think it must be nice to have the kids. After it's too late for it: that's when it crosses your mind, like lots of things, everything else you missed out on. "I should've gone to Rio. Would've been nice, to see Rio. Should've done that, I was younger." '"It's just cheap regret, tinsel. Fact is, I didn't. And it wasn't that the right girl never came along, so I never hadda chance. Even back when I was going around with this woman I thought I was probably gonna marry, kids were not on my mind. I don't think they were on hers, either. I don't think she ever mentioned the subject. I think I could've been a father; far's I know I wasn't shooting blanks. One time, kind ah scary, I was still in school, it looked as though I might gonna be one, but it turned out she was just late. After that I always took the precautions.

'"So I never made an actual decision, I wasn't gonna get married and have kids. I just never got around to it. But I knew it. You didn't hurt my feelings, saying it."

"I'm not sure he believed me," Merrion said to Cavanaugh. "He looked awful contrite. But anyway, that's what it is: to Sam what him and Jeff do with the Red Sox every summer is a holy thing.

"Six times a season," Merrion told Cavanaugh. "I used to think they must go at least once every week that the Red Sox were home. Every time the two of us met for lunch during the baseball season, it seemed like they'd gone to the game the night before. Not that we started meeting to talk about baseball; it was for business, a pleas anter way to discuss things we needed to talk about anyway, in the course of doing our jobs. So you and I know what we're doing here. Larry never did that, and Richie didn't, either. But I think they should've. A certain amount of regular, ongoing coordination between the state and the federal systems: I think it's essential these days. There's so much overlap now, especially with all the drug stuff. I know:

Probation. But the state probation guys don't do it enough, at least in my estimation. Maybe the ones in Superior do it, but on the District level, they don't.

"Anyway, we both just figured that since we gotta do this, and since, you know, you're both gonna have lunch anyway, well then, why not meet and have something to eat the same time? Made sense."

"And you're good at having lunch, aren't you, Amby?" Cavanaugh said.

"Hey," Merrion said, 'you're tellin' me I'm fat, is that it? Jesus, what I have to take in this job anna pay's not all that good either."

"But by judicious use of the expense account," Cavanaugh said, 'you're able to make the ends meet."

"Oh, what's this we got now?" Merrion said. "Now I got you also getting' on me, claimin' I cheat onna gyp sheet?" '1 don't know," Cavanaugh said, waving his hand. "I also don't care.

That's between you and your God. Or Theresa in the treasurer's office.

Whoever it is, it's not me."

"Well, okay, then," Merrion said. "Anyway, now you're gonna meet Sam and see for yourself. He's a little like his uncle, the chief: he's got enthusiasm. He's really into his work."

"As many times as I've seen them do it, your Honor," Paradisio said over the sandwiches, 'and it must be hundreds now, it never ceases to amaze me. They try to make me think they've become attached to me. And therefore I've become attached to them.

"It's ridiculous. It should be pretty clear, no matter how stupid you are, how much you wanna believe what you gotta know just isn't so, it isn't gonna matter if I like you; I think you caught a bad break or you're a nice guy, or if you make me laugh. I imagine you also run into this yourself, Judge, now and then, this same phenomenon: sometimes it just about drives me crazy. The law's put someone in your power, and he knows it, but he seems to have the idea that if he can ingratiate himself with you, you wont exercise it.

"Well as we all know, it isn't that way and it can't be that way. You can't allow it. Instead what the situation is is this: "If you give me a reason, so I have no choice, what I'm gonna do, my friend, is violate your sorry ass. Callin' me your buddy, or any of that shit, just wont do the job for you. Cryin' wont help either, do you any good at all.