George Higgins - A change of gravity

"His home, then, always was here. Wherever his life and work and service to his country took him, he never really left. His heart and spirit remained in Holyoke and this valley along the Connecticut River, with the people that he knew and served so very well. He never forgot where he came from.

"He always knew who he was. He never lost sight of the job he had to do. He was a devoted son, husband and father, an honest and far-sighted public servant, the kind of candidate who gives meaning to the term "public service," a hero and the best friend a man could have.

Raise a glass today to Arthur Carnes Ave atque vale."

The Carneses, Arthur in the Senate and Roy in the House, had first combined in 1954 to carve the Canterbury District Court jurisdiction out of the Holyoke, Chicopee, Palmer and Northampton Districts. There was merit to the rationale they publicized. The continuing escalation of the Cold War made it likely the civilian population around the US Air Force Strategic Air Command base at Westover Field would increase, as more and more Air Force dependents moved in. The Fisk Tire Company was working two shifts to meet the booming demand for real rubber tires to replace the synthetics rationed in wartime. The new Monsanto plant in Springfield was attracting young workers and their growing families.

The University of Massachusetts at Amherst was expanding. And, as Larry Lane said, there didn't seem to be any reason to think business would be tailing off at the Tampax factory in Palmer.

"Like it or not," Arthur said in the Senate, 'more people means more work for our court system, just as surely as it means more work for our school systems and our hospitals, more demands upon our water systems and our highways. Either we expand our facilities and agencies or we overcrowd and overload them to the point at which they simply cannot get their jobs done, and break down. If we expect and want the prosperity of our cities and towns to continue, with the population growth that good times economically attract, we have to be prepared to pay the price in necessary services. We need another court."

The Carneses had intended that Arthur would become its first presiding justice, but by the time Chassy Spring's building committee Chicopee assistant clerk of court Larry Lane served it as consultant and Fiddle Barrows's construction people had the building ready for occupancy, early in 1957, Arthur's prostate cancer had been diagnosed. The prognosis was encouraging, Arthur's regular physician having digitally detected the growth early. But his cancer specialist said that in his view with radiation treatment and chemotherapy ahead of him, Arthur was probably going to find himself having to spend a lot of his time in a hospital Johnny at Mass. General in Boston, and would most likely be more comfortable and have a better chance of recovery if he stayed close by. "Particularly since you've already got your apartment in Charles River Park. Instead of getting yourself into a new situation where you have to travel a hundred miles every time you have to come in."

"So there they were," Larry Lane said. "Arthur and Roy with their brand-new courthouse and nobody to put in it. Except me, of course, I was ready enough. Anything to get out of Chicopee and away from that bastard Popowski. Maurice was a son of a bitch. So they had a clerk.

But they also needed a judge.

"Roy thought about it and decided he didn't want it. Too early for him to put himself out to pasture. He was still in his thirties, waiting to take Arthur's seat in the Senate, still thinking maybe some day he might make a run for Congress." In 1962, when Roy moved up, Dan Hilliard, a Holyoke alderman because of strong though private Carnes support, won his first election to Roy's former seat in the House.

"It's hard for me to think now only fifteen years've gone by since we opened the place," Larry said to Merrion. "So much's happened since then. Take me for example, what's happened to me. You want the truth, I thought what happened to the Carneses was kind of funny. The two of them had it all planned out so neat, so firm, so fully packed, so quick and easy on the draw. Then the doctor sticks his finger up Arthur's ass, finds a little bulge up there that don't seem right to him, and "That's it. All bets're off. It's time to make new plans." Serves me right, I guess, that now it's happening to me. I'm on terminal leave."

Bureaucratically terminal meant 'using up vacation time before formally commencing retirement," but in Larry's case it carried another one of its meanings as well. He hadn't told anyone outside of his family.

Until his mind was changed by Merrion's visit, he hadn't planned to tell anyone else.

His eyes had instantly filled up when he saw who was at his door.

"Where the hell've you been?" he said, his voice clogging up, grabbing the Christmas whiskey with his left hand, using his right to pull Merrion into the apartment.

"I just found out, Thursday," Merrion said, shutting the door behind him. "I would've come over yesterday but I hadda stay with my mother.

My brother Chris didn't show up again, the shit, and she got all upset I couldn't leave her on Christmas. But I didn't know, you're here by yourself. I just assumed you're okay. I know now I should've asked.

But no one told me. I feel awful bad about this, Larry. Should've given you a call."

"Ahh," Lane said, shaking his head, clearing his throat, 'never mind the details, pal; stick to the important things. First thing is to get some ice here. Then we can figure out who's to blame, you for not calling or me. Not all your fault, you didn't know. Glad to see you's what's important. Kind of lonesome here. Not as tough as I thought."

He put the bottle on the red Formica counter dividing the kitchen from the dining area and opened the refrigerator freezer door. He put the tray on the counter and then rested his hands on the surface and gazed at Merrion. In a flat voice he said: "Doctor says I'm dying, Amby. He gives me a year to live and says it's not going to be fun. It's lung cancer, both of them. I'm too old for one of those new transplant-operations and it's too far along to stop. I'm numberin' out my days and as far's my family's concerned, I can do it by myself."

His wife and his kids had made his choice clear: he'd 'either quit drinking, get a second opinion, maybe have surgery, radiation and the chemotherapy, and at least do my best to get better," or else he would have to get out. "They said she couldn't take it, watching me die, without at least tryin' to get better."

He snorted. "Which is never gonna happen, me get better, matter what I do, or don't." Talking made him wheeze. "Everybody knows it; nobody ever does. Doesn't matter what the hell I do to myself or let someone else do to me better I'm not gonna get.

But that's the choice my family gives me. Get better or out of their lives."

He told Merrion that he'd asked for time. "I've seen what all that medical business does to a guy. It slows the dying down, I guess, lets him live a little longer. I don't argue with none of that. But what they do to you guarantees you're not gonna enjoy any life you get afterwards. If they'd drug you enough — morphine, maybe some of that heroin the cops've got in their evidence locker make you happy no matter how shitty you felt or how much of you's even left, well then, that'd be a whole different thing. Something like that I might go for.

But this other shit? I don't want it. When I go, what goes will be me. Me, pissin' and moanin' like always, not some dim bulb that finally burned out. That's all I was asking them for, time to die my own way."

Describing the outrage to Merrion had made Lane indignant again, and therefore very emphatic. "Not more time to live, you understand. I wasn't asking for that. Not looking for miracles here. Not from that bunch, at least, fuckin' damned ingrates they are. Just some time to think. Seemed reasonable to me. After all, I've supported the whole fuckin' raft of 'em," Larry had eight children, 'all of these fuckin' years. Roof over their heads; warm dry place to sleep; pretty good food, by and large. Didn't cook it, no, but I paid for it oughta get some credit for that. Court's indulgence, as we say? Couple of days, over the weekend, decide which life I'd like better, little short one I've got left. I needed some time to think. "Sunday night be all right, say? After the Celtics game? I'll give you my answer then."