George Higgins - A change of gravity

Julia also said that she was prepared to face the probability — Leonard had seen no reason to mention it to his friends that if he turned down Canterbury Andy would probably cut him out of his will. "My mother and I're the only kinfolk he's got. This isn't small change that we're talking here; this's serious money. Outside of what he spends on politicians, Andy's very frugal; he's really got no vices. He could pay off our mortgage tomorrow out of petty cash.

"Well, that'd also be too bad, if he disinherited you," Julia said, 'although I doubt he would. Because as you say, who else's he got? And if he leaves it all to your mother, you'll get it anyway just have to wait a little longer."

"Unless my father spends it first," Cavanaugh had said.

"She wont let him," Julia said. "She's got him well in hand. Look, this's being silly. Even if you never get another offer, you'll be better off. We'll have each other, our life together; you'll be happy, knowing what you did was right."

Leonard had reluctantly rejected everybody's counsel and called his Uncle Andy. Choking back his misgivings, he expressed deep gratitude for the appointment, and with much fanfare became Associate Justice Leonard B. Cavanaugh. In the Transcript Freddie Dillinger called him 'the Boy Judge of Canterbury," reapplying the label every time Cavanaugh was in the news until his own retirement, thirty-two years later.

The faculty colleague twice Cavanaugh's age in 1961 took a leave of absence to become special counsel to the US Senate Commerce Committee investigating price-fixing in the sugar industry. Not wanting to leave Boston and her friends, his wife opposed the move but went along when he made it, becoming sad and bitter. Three years later when his leave was about to expire, he notified the law school that with his wife terminally ill in Georgetown Hospital he could not return to Boston. A year and a half after that, widowed and then newly remarried to Sen.

Harriet Fathergood, D." Ore." he resigned at seventy-two as chief counsel to become 'rich in my old age; now that I've found out what they mean by "better late than never." He became chief of legislative liaison for Coldhammer Industries, an international conglomerate concentrating on the manufacture of packaged foods the fourth-largest consumer of raw sugar in the world.

The second of Leonard's colleagues went on to become general counsel to the New England Council, serving eight years until appointment as Under Secretary of Commerce and later his selection as head of the Latin American Affairs desk of the World Bank.

The third became an associate justice of the superior court. Later he gracefully declined a federal district court judgeship, confident that he would be elevated as he was, six years later to associate justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. In that capacity he wrote a majority opinion breaking new ground in the resolution of conflicts between the laws of privacy and those of creditor's rights. Soon after the SJC decision, his book-length treatise on effective legal protection of privacy in the computer age was published, immediately becoming the bible of the telecommunications industry. Relinquishing his SJC seat at sixty-five, five years before mandatory retirement age, he became Of Counsel to Magruder, Magrid and Locksley, P.C." at 1334 Connecticut Ave." N.W." Washington counsel to Mar Sat Corp." a leading manufacturer of satellite communications equipment.

From time to time Leonard found their names in the newspaper, or inadvertently saw them interviewed on television. He mentioned those sightings when he encountered the SJC judge at Massachusetts bench and bar events. He supposed his efforts not to sound wistful were not entirely successful, but even though his old friend was invariably warm and cordial, and tried hard to pretend that one judgeship was much like any other, they found as the years went by that they had less and less to talk about. Many times in the course of many evenings, in conversations that seemed to him, in the comfort of good food and wine, to merit some reflection on his long career in Canterbury; each time what he said, after shaking his head once, was: "Well, it's simple, isn't it? I made a big mistake."

"Then everybody's supposed to feel sorry for him," Merrion perceived, and reported to Hilliard, back when Cavanaugh at fifty-four was dourly observing his 25th anniversary on the bench, Reagan was approaching the end of his first term as president, and the old dancing school on the second floor above High Street in Holyoke was still available for private conversations late in the evening. "And I did, I used to feel sorry for him, I first went in there, heard him say something like that. One of his old pals'd gotten some great new job and his name in the paper, and Lennie was all depressed."

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?"