Mr. Kalman says sure. “And bring me back some Juicy Fruit gum, will you? You can put it on the room.”
Alistair gives me a look that says, I wonder what else we can put on the room.
I have to say there’s a pretty awesome gift shop at the newly reopened Watergate Hotel. Besides the usual racks of candy, gum, souvenirs, and games, there’s a whole section of guidebooks to Washington, DC, and other books on Congress, the presidency, and the Supreme Court. While Alistair is busy cuddling a stuffed panda, I browse the shelves to see if there’s anything on my man, Justice Gaylor S. Rauch.
A different kind of book catches my eye. A small paperback with a plain cover and the words “Supreme Court Rules” on the front.
“Sam, check this out. He speaks Chinese.”
Alistair pulls the string on the stuffed panda, and sure enough there’s a squeaky voice saying something like, “I’m on a ten-year loan to America. Come see me before I get shipped home,” but I can’t be sure of the translation because, no kidding, it’s really in Chinese.
Not the Supreme Court Rules, though. It would have seemed like Chinese to me just three months ago, but now it’s in English I can understand. It tells all the rules and procedures for arguing a case before the court. I figure we’d better buy this and give it to Mr. Kalman because it’s been more than thirty years since he faced “the bench,” as it’s known around here.
“Come on,” I say to Alistair after I grab a few packs of Juicy Fruit for Mr. Kalman and a dozen Crunch bars for the team.
But Alistair hesitates. It’s like love at first sight with the stuffed panda.
“Seriously? You’re getting the panda?”
“I can’t help it. It’s so cute.”
He holds it up to me and makes its left paw wave.
“Alistair . . .”
“I won’t charge it to the room. My mom gave me a twenty for just this sort of thing.”
“Wouldn’t you rather put the twenty toward a zoo ticket? Then you could see the real panda.”
“What if it’s not there on the day we go? They get sick sometimes. Or they’re inside sleeping.”
“You can always come back for the stuffed one.”
“It might be sold.”
He’s having a hard time with this decision. And I’m having a hard time waiting for him to decide.
Finally he nods, but instead of putting the stuffed panda back where it was, he tucks it behind a fishing magazine. As an afterthought, he grabs a biography of Chief Justice Reynolds.
We show our room key to the lady behind the cash register.
“I still need a signature,” she says.
“Get it from him,” Alistair says. “It’ll be worth more.”
21
Heaven Help Us
After lunch on Sunday—this time Catalina and Jaesang did the ordering, pizza all around—Mr. Kalman rolls the top sheet of his legal pad over and says, “Let’s start with the Chief.”
Alistair takes his last bite of pizza crust and a swig of Coke, then stands to face us all. He rolls up his sleeves—both arms are tattooed with notes—and starts to talk.
“John Reynolds. Captain of his high school football team and regional champ in wrestling. His first major case: Hedgepeth v. Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority. I can hardly pronounce that. The city of Washington, DC, had a rule in the subways. No food allowed. I mean, none. If you were caught eating in the station or on the train, you’d get a big fine. Now, there was this twelve-year-old girl on her way home after school. She was hungry. I can relate to that. On her way to the station, she stopped at a McDonald’s and bought some french fries. The train was due any minute, so it’s not like she had time to eat. But while her friend went to buy the tickets, the smell of the french fries coming from her backpack made her hungrier . . . and hungrier . . . until she couldn’t take it anymore. She reached in . . . pulled out a single french fry and tossed it into her mouth.
“The transit cops swooped in and arrested her, handcuffs and all, then dragged her down to Juvy. They held her there for three hours until her mom came to pick her up. The family sued. If the girl had been a grownup, they argued, she would have gotten off easy, with just a citation. But because she was a kid, they put her through hell. For one french fry.”
Alistair waits for this to sink in. We’ve all got terrified looks on our faces.
“Guess who Reynolds sided with.”
“The girl,” Sean says. “It’s an equal protection and due process violation.”
“The cops.”
We sit there in stunned silence as Alistair steps over to the whiteboard and writes “Reynolds” under “Heaven Help Us.”
Next Sadie clicks her laptop, and Clement Williams appears.
“Clement Williams. Born in 1948 in St. Simons Island, Georgia. Appointed by Bush One in ’91. He’s been on the bench for twenty-six years, and he never talks.”
“What do you mean he never talks?” I say.
“Never talks during oral arguments. Never asks questions or makes comments. He just sits there. Stone silent.”
“Why?”
“It has to do with Justice Williams’s childhood, Sam. His ancestors were slaves, and he spent his early childhood in a remote part of Georgia where people still spoke an African-English dialect called Gullah. Later, as the only black student in an all-white school, Williams took a lot of teasing for the way he talked. So he developed what he calls the habit of listening instead.”
“Maybe he’ll listen to us, then,” Catalina says.
“Well, Catalina, here’s what Williams wrote in a 2007 case about freedom of speech. And I quote: ‘The Constitution does not afford students the right to free speech in public schools.’”
“In other words—” I say.
“Heaven help us,” we all say.
Sadie tapes Williams next to Reynolds.
When it’s Sean’s turn, he presents Justice Fitzgerald. “Leading proponent of using foreign or international law as an aid to interpreting the US Constitution.”
“Translation, Sadie?”
“He’s willing to consider what
