Scaria

 

The phone rang. I answered. Call it a Pavlovian response; it’s the only one I know to stop the damn thing from ringing.

There was silence at the other end. Usually that means that telemarketers are trying to reach me again. They have some dialing system where they don’t actually call you, but somehow make your phone ring, and when it stops ringing, then they mosey their intrusive lazy butts onto the line to sell their snake oil.

It was a snake oil call all right, but it wasn’t a sales pitch. Antonin Scalia wanted to speak to me. Why? I wouldn’t have guessed in a hundred years.

"Your father sent me," he declared.

I could have responded with something conversational like "My father...?" but couldn’t imagine how that would advance the conversation. Also, I wasn’t sure if this was a gag. I mean, I’d never spoken to a Supreme Court Justice, and never thought that if I did it would be this one.

Scalia is so far to the right, he’s gotta worry about falling off the edge of the earth. He should worry less about falling and more about being pushed. He’s not well liked, except by his friends and admirers, but most others who know anything about him consider him a little too tightly wrapped.

"Your father is retired," he continued after I didn’t need to say anything. I remained silent; I had known this since he had retired back in the last century.

"He said that even though you’re not a shrink yourself you could probably help me. All the real shrinks he knew either would require five visits before they said anything, or they hated me too much to think they could help."

That warranted a response. "Those medical academics, tsk-tsk. I don’t think they hate you...they just don’t understand you."

The silence at his end was deafening. I would have wondered if I had offended him, but I didn’t care. Plus I still wasn’t positive it was he. Yes, my father has tremendous respect for my intellect, and it’s true that most psychoanalysts insist on at least a week of couchtime before you’ll get a word out of ‘em.

"They don’t want to understand me," the black-robed caller spat out petulantly.

"Now, now, let’s be a little more understanding ourselves, all right?" No comment.

"They are jealous that you get to judge, not just give advice."

There was a grunt of genuine satisfaction at the other end of the line. I hated myself for given him a moment’s pleasure.

"Of course, you’re right. It’s so obvious."

"Yes," I almost drawled. "So what’s on your mind, Mr. Justice?" I prodded, knowing there wasn’t going to be a fee for this one.

There was a moment’s hesitance, and then a child-like cast strangled his assertiveness; he almost whined, "Please call me Chief Justice."

"But you’re not," I instinctively admonished. Hey, facts are facts, at least on paper, and though Scalia was likely to replace Admiral Rehnquist when the white-coats arrived to belatedly buckle his gold-striped cuffs behind his back, such events had not yet transpired. But facts don’t matter much in a conversation like this one, so I back-pedalled a little and added, "Not quite yet...Chief."

I could feel the warm oleaginous gratification flood through the line. I slid my chair away from the desk, peering at the speakerphone, making sure I didn’t get any on me. When the tide neaped back, I said, "So chief, how can I help?"

He launched into it like a new ship trying to escape the champagne bottle. "It’s this way. The loonies from the 9^th Circuit have ruled that the special election in California must be halted because they’re still using punch card ballots in some counties."

"Yes, I noticed the story on the wires. That should drop it your nine laps, right?"

"That’s the problem, yes."

"What’s the problem?"

"Well what do we rule?"

"The law should help you in that area, shouldn’t it?"

"Law, schmlaw...if I had wanted legal advice, I would have called a scholar. I’m talking politics now. I don’t want us to look as bad as we did after Florida."

"Why not? I didn’t think you cared."

"Well, of course I don’t, and Bill doesn’t, after I explained it to him, but some of the others, especially the girls, they get a little antsy. Especially the new girl. She stalks up and down the halls harrumphing about posterity."

"So why don’t you just do the right thing?"

"That’s the problem. That’s why I called."

"Why?"

"Why? I don’t know what the right thing is."

"You mean you’d do the right thing if you knew what was right?"

"No, certainly not. I’d do a one-eighty. My problem is, I’m ready, but I don’t know which way to turn. Do I say the voting should go ahead, in which case we’ve got a better shot at dumping Davis..."

"Excuse me, ‘we’ meaning Republicans?"

"Well, yes. If we postpone until March, it’s the presidential primary, more Democrats will be voting, and they would probably keep Davis in office."

"And if you let the vote go on as scheduled on October 7^th, then you think Davis might be ousted?"

"I think it’s more likely."

"And that’s a good thing?"

"Well, it could be if we had a decent candidate in the race; someone who could beat that casino-coddling Bustamante, but Bustamante’s leading in the polls, and the two Republicans are battling it out like they want to see who gets the captain’s chair on the Titanic. McClintock is one of us, but there aren’t a lot of us, and Ahnold, he’s almost as pink as Jane Fonda. You’d think from his movies he’d be conservative, but he likes pot, porn and abortion."

"Do you think your, um, guys would have a better shot against Davis in March?"

Desperation had seeped back into his voice, "It couldn’t be much worse than it is now."

"There, there...I know you will get through this. Let me ask you...how do you think your fellow justices -- excuse me, I mean the Associate Justices -- will view the issues?"

"Well, of course, Clarence will follow my lead; he’d be my shadow on a cloudy day. And Bill will vote with me; I’ll tell him he’s been named man of the year in Guinea-Bisseau. Arty will probably go along, too; he’s been off his medications for almost a month now and he trusts me. I’m a little worried about Sandy, though, ever since we doubled up on the dishes. Ruthie wouldn’t vote with me even by mistake. Nor would Powell. Souter and Breyer would resuscitate FDR if they could get away with it."

"Same ole, same ole, it sounds like."

"Yes, that’s why they all look to me for leadership. Some go with me, some go the other way, but they all look to me, to see which way the wind is blowing. I just need to know which way to victory. We showed them in Florida. When the pedal hits the metal, we got our boy elected."

"Yes, you did," I observed in as neutral a tone as I could manage while I swallowed the bile rising up my spiritual gorge.

Then it was as if his balloon deflated again. "So what do you think?"

"That bi-polar is treatable in some cases." I didn’t want to hold out too much hope.

"And?"

"If you give California the green light, that would fly in the face of the Florida decision."

"And we’d have egg on our faces."

"I don’t think it would be noticed," I said. "Besides," I mollified, "people would put it behind them sooner. If you hold up the vote, you will be the object of their scorn through March."

"That’s right. I like that."

"The scorn?"

"No, not having to drag it out."

"Of course, if Davis beats the recall, you’ll get the blame," I warned. "You had the opportunity to stop the thing and you didn’t."

"That would be awful."

"But then, Davis would be as lame a duck as there is, since he’s termed out, he faces a huge deficit, and everybody still hates him."

"That wouldn’t be so bad."

"It would be if the economy turned around and Davis was able to get California back into the black."

"Omigod, he could be a shoe-in for the Democratic presidential nomination."

"But if the economy stays south," I soothed, "the voters would scrape him off their shoes on the curb."

"The economy isn’t going anywhere."

"That’s not what your friends in the White House are saying. They say the economy is rebounding."

"Yeah, right. These are the same dim bulbs who said Iraq would be a cakewalk."

"You put him there, pal."

"He wasn’t our first choice. That’s why we took so long deciding Florida."

"What pushed you over the line, if you don’t mind my asking?"

"The idea that Tipper would be the self-appointed conscience of America. Sandy and Arty love heavy metal, and they thought she would ban it."

"Aha," I said as if he were making sense. I could hear him thinking three thousand miles away. "So is there anything else?"

"Else? What do you mean else? You haven’t told me what I should do about this California mess...if that isn’t redundant."

"I’m in something of a quandary, sir. You don’t know what the right thing is, and you wouldn’t necessarily do it anyway." What else could I say?

It was time for a pop therapy favorite. "Your problem is that you don’t have a goal. If you had a goal, then I’m sure you’d know what to do."

"But I do have a goal...."

I knew what he meant, and I didn’t have any good news for him there either. "I don’t mean about your replacing the Admiral on the bench, I mean about California. The fact is that your boy isn’t going to win The Golden State next year, nor the nation. And you have to face the plain ugly truth that no Democrat is ever going to let you become Chief Justice, so you might as well settle in for four, maybe more, years of playing second fiddle."

"You mean controlling things from behind the curtain," he offered, wanting to be let down gently.

"As you like it," I said as generously as I could.

"I suppose you’re right. So what should we do about California?"

"It’s tough, since there is no clear answer." I thought for a moment. "Did you ever think about just flipping a coin?" I inserted an appropriate note of jocularity, but not so much that he could ignore the question.

He was unflappable. "We flip coins all the time. Sometimes we do rock-scissors-‘n-paper. You wouldn’t believe some of the major cases."

"Please don’t tell me."

"Okay, then, I suppose I need to figure this one out on my own. Do we want Davis booted or have him crash and burn over the budget crisis, giving the Republicans a better chance in oh-six, or do we try to get Ahnold in now? Can Davis be ousted? Can Arnold win?"

I could hear the frustration mounting in his voice. This was not going well. I interrupted, "There is an alternative."

"What’s that?"

"You could break new legal ground."

I could hear the suspicion growing on his mind like mold on his brain.

"What did you have in mind?"

"Why not tell the ACLU to stuff it? Tell all those whiners who can’t manage to cast a punch-card ballot that they’re too stupid to vote properly anyway, and tough nuggies."

"Hey, that has a nice ring to it."

"For you maybe, but there are a lot of people who will call you racist."

"So what," he almost gushed, warming as he did so quickly to the idea. "They said the same thing in Florida, and that butterfly ballot was more complicated than a Rorschach test. I like it. I like it. I think the others will, too. Seven-two is a slam dunk."

"Good luck," I said, and hung up the phone. I meant for all of us.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.

 

Home

©2003 SetonnoteS

.