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 the courts in other countries have said about an issue. So if we can find a foreign ruling about homework, it might help our case.”
“Also, Justice Fitzgerald is generally thought of as a swing vote, meaning he can go either way.”
“Just don’t call him that to his face,” Mr. Kalman adds. “He hates being called the swing vote.”
We decide to put Fitzgerald in the “Not Sure” column.
Sean also picked Justice DeFazio. “A libertarian,” he says.
“There’s a librarian on the Supreme Court?”
“No, Alistair, that word is li-ber-TAR-ian. It’s someone who wants to keep the government out of our private lives.”
“In other words—”
“On our side!”
I can see why Sadie fought for Eleanor Cohen. “Cohen’s the youngest of the Supreme Court justices. First woman dean of Harvard Law School and something of a rebel. When she was thirteen she demanded equal time for bar and bat mitzvahs—equality for boys and girls—and she got the rabbi to compromise. So it seems she’d favor a nation of children fighting for their rights. But—”
Alistair and I exchange a look. “There’s always a but.”
“Here it comes,” Sadie continues. “Her mom was a teacher who once made a fifth-grade girl cry.”
“Because she didn’t do her homework?” Catalina asks.
“Because she didn’t try her best.”
We all stop to think about that. If I didn’t try my best on something, and a teacher called me out for that, I’d think she was a good teacher. But if she made me feel bad after I did try my best, I’d think she was a monster.
Mr. Kalman asks Sadie where she’d put Justice Cohen.
“Have to go with ‘Not Sure’ on this one.”
All eyes turn to Jaesang, who holds up Stuart Renfro.
“Not much to say about this guy,” Jaesang says. “His father was a lawyer for—guess who.”
We all shrug.
“The San Francisco Board of Education.”
“Heaven help us!”
Jaesang writes him next to Reynolds and Williams.
When Catalina speaks, it’s like the topic is “My Hero.” “Cecilia Suerte grew up in a tenement neighborhood near Yankee Stadium. She’s a big Yankees fan. Her parents were Puerto Rican and spoke only Spanish at home. When Cecilia was nine, her papi died of heart disease. Her mami had to raise Cecilia and her brother, Juan, alone. She bought them an Encyclopedia Britannica and made them read one page every night. Cecilia’s favorite book series was Nancy Drew. Her favorite TV show was Perry Mason. She was on the debate team, like you guys, and grew up to be, well, you know. Oh, and Juan, he grew up to be a doctor.”
Mr. Kalman looks at us, and Sadie says, “Nancy Drew? Perry Mason? The Yankees?”
“On our side,” we all say.
Catalina smiles and adds Suerte’s name to “On Our Side.” But Mr. Kalman erases “Suerte” and writes her in the middle, under “Not Sure.”
“What are you doing?” Sadie asks.
“Overriding you. That encyclopedia on the shelf might come back to bite us.”
Then Catalina gets up. “Just because we don’t want homework doesn’t mean we don’t want to learn,” she says.
And she puts Justice Suerte back under “On Our Side.”
Next up: Gaylor S. Rauch.
“The newest justice on the court,” I tell them. “Thinks there’s no place closer to God than a trout stream. Loves to spend time with his kids in nature. And in 2016, he upheld a kid’s right to burp in class.”
“Sam,” Catalina says, “think about which president picked him. Put him under ‘Heaven Help Us’!”
“He’s for freedom of speech,” Sean says, adding a burp for emphasis. “Put him ‘On Our Side’!”
“Sam, he’s your justice,” Mr. Kalman says. “What do you think?”
I have to go with my gut on this one. On one side is the trout stream and the burping boy. Those give me a warm, fuzzy feeling. On the other is the fact that he’s brand-new on the court, so we don’t really know what he’s thinking.
Altogether it adds up to . . .
“Not Sure.”
“My justice, Rachel B. Rosenburg, was one of nine women in her law school class. The dean said that women shouldn’t be there because they were taking spots that men should have. But Rachel B. Rosenburg persevered and graduated first in her class. She’s the oldest member of the court but still works out every day in the gym—which is more than I can say for myself—and she’s never missed a case. She fights hard for the rights of women and children. She adored her husband and was devastated when he died. But she went back to work, because her other love has always been the law.”
Mr. Kalman uncaps a dry erase marker. The only sound in the room is the squeaky noise it makes as he writes “Rachel Braun Rosenburg” under “On Our Side.”
Nine justices. Three “On Our Side,” three “Not Sure,” three “Heaven Help Us.” We knew it was going to be a long shot.
Mr. Kalman, who took notes on everything we said, hands his legal pad to Sadie and tells her, “Type these up for me.”
Sadie looks stunned. Every page on the legal pad is full. “What am I, your secretary?”
“Consider it community service. It’ll look good on your college applications.”
That night when we’re all in pajamas and ready for bed, Alistair asks Mr. Kalman for a story about what it was like when he was a kid. Jaesang, Catalina, and I want to hear too, so we all gather around him and listen.
“As childhoods go, Alistair,” Mr. Kalman says, “mine was delightfully dangerous.”
“How so?”
“There were no adults around.”
“You were an orphan, Mr. Kalman?” I ask.
“Just an independent kid, Sam. My parents owned a deli in the Bronx and were working all the time. I was more or less left alone.”
“How did you get to see your friends?”
“By walking out the back door and into the alley. There, I’d meet up with my pals. We’d head off to wage daily battle, almost to the death.”
“You were in a gang?”
“More like a team. We played stickball. The Jewish kids against the Italians or the Irish. And what we couldn’t settle with sticks, we’d settle with fists.”
“Fights, huh?” Alistair says, eyes widening with interest. Sadie and Sean come in from the other room to listen.
“Fact of the matter is, I was a scrawny kid. The only thing I had going for me was my mouth. Sometimes, fighting words spewed forth.”
“Did you ever win a fight?”
“Never won. Never lost.”
Never won, never lost. Delightfully dangerous. My head is spinning with paradoxes.
“How can you never win and never lose at the same time?” Jaesang asks.
“Let me tell you about the mighty Joe Mancuso. He was big, strong, and bearded, while the rest of us only dreamed of shadows on our upper lips. One time we got into an epic fight. I forget what started it, probably something I said, but the rules were if you wanted the fight to be over, you had to say uncle. Joe had me pinned to the ground with his big knees on my chest and my blood on his fist. ‘Say uncle,’ he barked. ‘Say it or I’ll hit you again.’ I shook my head. He hit me again. ‘Say uncle now,’ he said, along with some other words you don’t need to hear. I shook my head. He hit me again. This went on for, oh, half an hour at least. Bands of boys from the neighborhood, Jewish boys, Italians, Irish, all the kids whose parents were hard at work, gathered around us to see if Kalman would break down and say the word. But I never did. Finally, Joe began to tremble. He climbed off me and sat there in the alley, and in front of all those other boys, he wept.
“Imagine big, bearded Joe, king of the alley, laid flat by his own heaving sobs.
“I got up, wiped the blood from my mouth, and crawled over to him.
“‘Why, Joe?’ I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. ‘Why the hell are you crying?’
“‘Because you won’t say uncle,’ he said. ‘And if you won’t say uncle, how can I ever win?’
“I haven’t thought about Joe Mancuso in a long time. But somebody,” he says, looking over at Sadie, “made me think of him the other day.”
Mr. Kalman puts out the light, and we all head off to bed. I don’t need the Guided Meditation Lady to help me fall asleep. I just think about the scrawny little boy who wouldn’t say uncle.
Tomorrow, I hope, neither will we.