The Laws of Gravity (12 page)

The Age of Mandatory Retirement

“Oyez! Oyez!” Flannery sang out in his piercing tenor. Solomon’s court chamber echoed like a swimming pool, though the smell in the room was one of something melting or burning.

Listen, listen. The way Flannery called it, the words sounded like
Oh yes, oh yes!
Ecstatic. Like a lover. It reminded the judge of the opening words to the most seminal prayer in Judaism, the shema, “Hear, O Israel!”

Of course Flannery need not have cried “Oyez” at all. The principal clerk was a standing joke at the Supreme Court offices of Mineola, clown of the third floor, of Part 301. There was no need for this bit of fancifying, this calling out of the “Oyez, oyez!” in New York, and it was normally the task of the part clerk anyway, a lowlier position, to bang in the judge and call out the “All rise,” but try telling Flannery.

“The Honorable Justice Solomon Richter, Supreme Court of the State of New York! All ye draw near! Give your appearance and ye shall be heard.”

A few heads turned. Sergeant Carter Johnson, tipstaff in charge of security, grinned at the judge and winked, his big arms folded across his dark blue uniform. The silver badge twinkled on his broad chest like a
fallen star. It was not like him to be jovial. Two younger security officers shifted from foot to foot in front of the two exit signs. They reminded Sol of colts in a field—better to let them run. Sol gathered up the folds of his robe and moved behind the oak stand.

Solomon’s courtroom seemed fuller than usual for a simple civil case. A married couple was suing a local caterer over an incident with a sprinkler system. Claimed it had ruined their wedding. The bride had slipped and fractured her ankle. The real question, Sol thought, was whether they’d allow it to ruin their whole marriage.

His elderly court recorder nodded and beamed at Sol over her stenotype machine, as if he were accomplishing something momentous simply by walking into the courtroom and mounting the three steps to his bench. He had always felt uncomfortable ascending those last few steps, unworthy.

There was a note at the bench, in his chief clerk’s flourishing handwriting: “Important. Please recess for five minutes.” The judge looked over at Flannery and frowned. Flannery beamed back. The smell of burning had grown stronger. Maybe there was a fire somewhere in the building.

“Good morning,” the judge said, keeping his face unreadable. “Court will recess for five minutes.” There was concern—near panic—among the people gathered, defendant and plaintiffs. The bride limped out exaggeratedly on the arm of her groom. It took just a few minutes to clear the room. Sergeant Johnson, in his dark blue uniform, kept everyone calm as if organizing a class trip for elementary school students. When he shut the heavy doors leading into the courtroom, however, he stayed inside. So did the judge’s entire staff.

“Would you kindly step into your chambers a moment, Your Honor?” said Flannery.

“What the hell is going on here?” the judge asked.

He entered his chambers, saw the cake, and finally understood all the smiles and secret nods. He’d nearly forgotten what day it was.

Flannery turned and waved his bony arms like an orchestra conductor. “
Hummmm
…
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you
…” his voice sharp as a whistling teakettle. All the others joined in, even the judge’s misanthropic secretary Myra.

Solomon grumbled, “You’re lucky the smoke alarm didn’t go off. That thing is a hazard.”

“You’re lucky we used long-burning candles!” Myra called back.

The court recorder said, “Make a wish!”

A few of the candles had already burned out. The birthday cake looked like a forest fire with small blackened trees; more the scene of a disaster than a celebration. Here he was, Justice Solomon Richter, seventy years old, the age of mandatory retirement. Three months left, and the clock ticking. It was the end of an era, his era.

He thought an instant, made his hopeless wish, bent at the knee, and blew out the candles.

That night, Sol had to run the gauntlet of a family party. His wife, Sarah, had organized it, and their daughter Abigail was there, along with her good-for-nothing live-in boyfriend, Tomas.

Sol’s only living brother, Arthur, and his wife, Ruth, sat at the table; his clerk Flannery showed up wearing a bright blue vest and matching tie. Sarah had made roast leg of lamb, Sol’s favorite.

“Lovely, lovely,” his brother Arthur said, rubbing his hands—the chubby gourmand, though his blood pressure and cholesterol were lousy, and he’d already suffered one heart attack the winter before. The next blow might kill him, but he’d be happy if he died with his mouth full, Sol thought grimly.

“Is there any mint sauce, dear?” Arthur asked Sarah.

“Of course,” Sarah said. She pushed a cut-glass bowl closer to Arthur’s doughy hand. Arthur wore a diamond pinkie ring, and a ring with a red stone in it on his pointer finger. There was something damned effeminate about Arthur, in Sol’s opinion—the way he gushed over food; the silly bright-colored clothes he wore. But his loudmouth wife seemed not to notice or to care.

Sol had stopped for wine on the way home. He went by way of Roslyn, a ghost town these days—more small businesses closed than open. Even the duck pond was deserted in the center of the park, though here it was the end of winter. Sol parked by the water and stood looking down at the bedraggled cattails. Wind cut at his face.

What next, he thought.

Bridge. Gin rummy. Four months a year sweating in exile down in Florida. Golf, chess—he had always hated games.

In Ray’s liquor store Sol felt overwhelmed by choices. What kind of wine did he want? asked the man behind the counter. This was Ray, the owner, renowned for his foul temper and good heart. It was known he let drunks sleep it off in the back of the store. He glowered at Sol. “What’ll it be—French, Italian, Californian?”

Sol rubbed his head. “Lamb,” he said.

“Lamb,” Ray snorted. “That tells me nothing. I know people who drink rosé with lamb.”

“What do you recommend?” Sol asked.

“What do you like?” Ray countered.

“I would like,” Sol said, “to be five years younger. What kind of wine do you have for that?”

Ray made a face, twisting his lips. “Let me suggest a syrah or a Côtes du Rhône,” he said. “Not for you, for the lamb.”

“Just give me two bottles of the best.” Then Sol remembered that Flannery was coming to dinner. “Make that three,” he said.

“Where were you when I was in real estate?” Ray asked. He limped to the back of the store and reappeared a few minutes later, thumping the bottles down on the counter. “So what is it, an anniversary?”

Sol dug out his wallet. “Birthday,” he said.

“Oooh.” Ray raised his eyebrows. “One of the big ones?”

“None of your goddamn business,” Sol said. He wasn’t smiling.

Ray wedged the wine bottles into a cardboard container. Then he took a tiny bottle of schnapps and tossed it into the paper bag. “Happy birthday,” he said.

Sarah met Sol at the front door, took his coat and hat, kissed his cheek, and murmured, “Tomas got laid off again. Be nice.”

“I’m always nice,” Sol grumbled.

Sarah rolled her eyes.

“There’s something wrong with a grown man who can’t hold down a job,” Sol said.

“Stop.”

“I’m just saying,” he said.

“Sol,” she said, in a warning voice. “Make an effort. Please.” Sarah was wearing the diamond necklace he’d bought for their twenty-fifth, and the matching earrings he’d purchased when she turned sixty. It reminded him of the old story of a millionaire, who, when he was first married, couldn’t afford anything but some candy peanuts, which he gave to his wife with a note, saying, “I wish they were emeralds.”

Years later, he gave her emeralds with the note, “I wish they were peanuts.”

He kissed Sarah’s soft cheek. “I promise I will make an effort.”

She shook the cold air out of his coat. It fluttered across him like a ghost. Then she hung the coat in the closet and patted his hand. “Happy birthday,” she told him.

He groaned.

Flannery was three sheets to the wind before the lamb was served. He sat so close to Sol’s daughter Abigail that he was practically in her lap. He was in the process of demonstrating how limber he was. He performed this same trick at every dinner party; pulling his leg back behind his head and over his shoulder, like some contortionist elf. He looked like a trussed old turkey.

“Yoga,” he said. “That’s what keeps me young. Hatha yoga. Your Honor, you should give it a try.”

Abigail regarded him with amazement. Her eyes were hazel, with orange circles around the iris, which gave her the bright-eyed look of a cat.
“I remember you did that once when I was a teenager,” she said. “I think at my sweet sixteen. I can’t believe you can still do it.” Her long, ginger-colored hair was tied back in a bow, resting on the back of her slim neck.

“Oh, yes,” Flannery said. “I’m extremely limber for my age. Extremely active.” He managed to make it sound obscene.

“That’s enough of that,” Sarah said.

“I am willing to bet that no one else at this table can do this,” Flannery said, still a human pretzel.

“I wouldn’t want to!” called his sister-in-law Ruth in a loud, carrying voice. Her voice wobbled, her throat wobbled. She was wearing a baseball cap covered with gold sequins perched at a rakish angle on top of her bright orange-red hair. Ruth dressed in jeans two sizes too small, embroidered denim jackets, short skirts, and high heels. She still wore low-cut blouses to show off her ample bosom. Tonight she was wearing a gold miniskirt and a white T-shirt with gold lettering that read “Fort Lauderdale Yacht Club.” You’d think she lived on a yacht, but in fact she and Arthur spent one month each winter in a one-bedroom condo rented by their son Morris, the lawyer.

Ruth patted Flannery on the shoulder. “But it’s very impressive!” She sounded like she was hollering even when she spoke in her normal volume, her voice like that of Judy Holliday, the gangster’s girlfriend in
Born Yesterday
. Ruth had grown up dirt poor in the worst area of Flatbush. For this reason she never left the house without matching jewelry—matching earrings, bracelets, rings, pins, shoes, bags, matching everything. No wonder she shrieked.

Flannery untied himself. He brought the foot back down to the floor and wriggled his shoulders to loosen them. His right arm rose in the air, holding a glass of wine.

“To the Right Honorable Justice Solomon Richter,” he said. His voice trembled. “The best judge in the state of New York; the fairest, the smartest, the most committed judge it has ever been my pleasure and privilege to serve.” He drained the glass and set it down.

“Hear, hear!” said Abigail with a delighted smile. “To Dad!” She clapped her hands together as she had when a child. The slender fingers were ringless, of course, a fact that bothered Sol more than he cared to say. Why wouldn’t Tomas want to marry her? Why wouldn’t any sane man?

Flannery leaned forward to look directly at Sol. “I promise,” he said, “to find you the case of a lifetime this year. Something worthy of your valedictory term.”