THIS IS THE first time I’ve seen any crack in the judge’s composure. Barry and me and the prosecutor are in her office, the two of them standing before her desk, me off of Barry’s shoulder a step and a half back, my usual subservient spot. She has Barry’s brief and the prosecutor’s response spread in front of her. There are Post-its tagged in half-a-dozen spots. Eight-inch thick law books bound in calfskin are open on the floor surrounding her chair. Looking down at the briefs she flicks her glasses to her face and then off again and looks up at Barry.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, counselor, but I think you’ve got a point here.”
Barry stays perfectly still, but the prosecutor slumps in his place and groans audibly. I can see that his collar is imperfectly rolled down over his tie. “Come on,” he mutters under his breath.
The judge shakes her head. “I hear you, Mr. State’s Attorney, but we’re in a real bind here.” I see Barry suppress a grin. “If I deny this, you’re looking at an appeal for sure. Hell, he’s going to appeal anyway, am I right?”
Barry refuses to give anything away, standing stock-still, his expression unchanged.
The judge continues. “But if I deny it and he appeals, you’re looking at pretty much a full retrial. The appeals court may even just send it back here and we start all over completely, new jury, everything. That’s what I’d do if I was them, anyway.”
The prosecutor apparently concedes the point, ducking his chin to his chest.
“So what I’m thinking,” the judge says, “is that we just bite the bullet and get it over with. Let’s lay all the cards on the table and see what the jury makes of it and we’ll let appeals come in and clean up the whole mess rather than sweeping some of it under the rug for later.” The prosecutor nods in a way that makes it look like someone is pulling a string on top of his head. Barry allows himself a grin.
I want to tell him that it’s never good to laugh at your own jokes, but as we leave and hustle back to the town car, I decide not to piss on his parade.
“The one regret I’ve always had,” he says, “is that I wasn’t born a woman so I could experience the miracle of birth.”
“I can think of a few million women who might trade with you,” I reply. “I’m totally serious. It’s why I don’t have children. Being the father is an inferior substitute. But here, with this, I feel like I’m actually birthing something, that what I’m doing here will be permanently woven into the tapestry of the American experience.”
“Your legacy,” I say.
Barry frowns. “Are you listening to me? I’m not talking about something as simple as that. We’re at the DNA level here, my friend. A legacy is the thing people remember about you. What I’m talking about is marrow-level permanence. This will forever be of the world, even if people don’t know it. It’s like, when we … when I do this act, where others are bound to a generally agreed-upon reality-based community, I am capable of creating my own reality, and others will come behind me to study what I do and comment, judiciously, if you will, but there I am creating newer realities that others will live by. I will be one of history’s actors.”
“Like Hitler?” I say.
“We’ll see,” Barry replies. “We shall see.”