Sons of Fortune Page 14

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  Professor Karl Abrahams entered the lecture theater as the clock struck nine. The professor gave eight lectures a term, and it was rumored that he had never missed one in thirty-seven years. Many of the other rumors about Karl Abrahams could not be substantiated, and so he would have dismissed them as hearsay and therefore inadmissible.

  However, such rumors persisted, and thus became part of folklore. There was no doubting his sardonic wit should any student be foolish enough to take him on; that could be testified to on a weekly basis. Whether it was the case that three presidents had invited him to join the Supreme Court, only the three presidents knew. However it was recorded that, when questioned about this, Abrahams said he felt the best service he could give the nation was to instruct the next generation of lawyers and create as many decent, honest counselors as possible, rather than clear up the mess made by so many bad ones.

  The Washington Post, in an unauthorized profile, observed that Abrahams had taught two members of the present Supreme Court, twenty-two federal judges and several of the deans of leading law schools.

  When Fletcher and Jimmy attended the first of Abrahams’s eight lectures, they weren’t under any illusion about how much work lay ahead of them. Fletcher was, however, under the illusion that during his final year as an undergraduate, he had put in sufficiently long hours, often ending up in bed after midnight. It took Professor Abrahams about a week to familiarize him with hours when he normally slept.

  Professor Abrahams continually reminded his first-year students that not all of them would attend his final address to the law graduates at the end of the course. Jimmy bowed his head. Fletcher began to spend so many hours researching that Annie rarely saw him before the library doors had been locked and bolted. Jimmy would sometimes leave a little earlier so that he could be with Joanna, but he rarely departed without several books under his arm. Fletcher told Annie that he’d never known her brother to work so hard.

  “And it won’t be any easier for him once the baby arrives,” Annie reminded her husband one evening after she had come to pick him up from the library.

  “Joanna will have planned for the child to be born during the vacation so she can be back at work on the first day of the term.”

  “I don’t want our first child to grow up like that,” said Annie. “I intend to raise my children in our home as a full-time mother and with a father who will be back early enough in the evening to read to them.”

  “Suits me,” said Fletcher. “But if you change your mind and decide to become the chairman of General Motors, I’ll be happy to change the diapers.”

  The first thing that surprised Nat when he returned to the university was how immature his former classmates seemed to be. He had sufficient credits to allow him to move on to his sophomore year, but the students he had mixed with before signing up were still discussing the latest pop group or movie star, and he’d never even heard of The Doors. It wasn’t until he attended his first lecture that he became aware just how much the experience of Vietnam had changed his life.

  Nat was also aware that his fellow students didn’t treat him as if he was one of them, not least because a few of the professors also appeared somewhat in awe. Nat enjoyed the respect he was afforded, but quickly discovered there was another side to that coin. Over the Christmas vacation, he discussed the problem with Tom, who told him that he understood why some of them were a bit wary of him; after all, they believed he had killed at least a hundred Vietcong. “At least a hundred?” repeated Nat.

  “While others have read what our soldiers did to the Vietnamese women,” said Tom.

  “I should have been so lucky; if it hadn’t been for Mollie, I’d have remained celibate.”

  “Well, don’t disillusion them would be my advice,” said Tom, “because my bet is that the men are envious and the women intrigued. The last thing you want them to discover is that you’re a normal law-abiding citizen.”

  “I sometimes wish they’d remember that I’m also only nineteen,” Nat replied.

  “The trouble is,” said Tom, “that Captain Cartwright, holder of the Medal of Honor, doesn’t sound as if he’s only nineteen, and I’m afraid the limp only reminds them.”

  Nat took his friend’s advice, and decided to dissipate his energy in the classroom, in the gym and on the cross-country course. The doctors had warned him that it could take at least a year before he would be able to run again—if ever. After their pessimistic prediction, Nat never spent less than an hour a day in the gym, climbing ropes, lifting weights and even playing the occasional game of paddle tennis. By the end of the first term back he was able to jog slowly around the course—even if it did take him an hour and twenty minutes to cover six miles. He looked up his old training schedule, and found that his record as a freshman remained on the books at thirty-four minutes, eighteen seconds. He promised himself that he would break that by the end of his sophomore year.

  The next problem Nat faced was the response he got whenever he asked a woman out on a date. They either wanted to jump straight into bed with him or simply turned him down out of hand. Tom had warned him that his scalp in bed was probably a prize several undergraduates wanted to claim, and Nat quickly discovered that some he hadn’t even met were already doing so.

  “Reputation has its disadvantages,” complained Nat.

  “I’ll swap places with you if you like,” said Tom.

  The one exception turned out to be Rebecca, who made it clear from the day Nat arrived back on campus that she wanted to be given a second chance. Nat was circumspect about rekindling that particular old flame, and concluded that if they were to rebuild any relationship, it would have to be done slowly. Rebecca, however, had other plans.

  After their second date, she invited him back to her room for coffee, and started trying to undress him only moments after she’d closed the door. Nat broke away, and could only come up with the lame excuse that he was running a time trial the following day. She wasn’t put off that easily, and when she reappeared a few minutes later carrying two cups of coffee, Rebecca had already changed into a silk robe that revealed she was wearing little if anything underneath. Nat suddenly realized that he no longer felt anything for her, and quickly drank his coffee, repeating that he needed an early night.

  “Time trials never worried you in the past,” teased Rebecca.

  “That was when I had two good legs,” replied Nat.

  “Perhaps I’m no longer good enough for you,” said Rebecca, “now that everybody thinks you’re some kind of hero.”

  “It’s got nothing to do with that. It’s just…”

  “It’s just that Ralph was right about you from the start.”

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Nat sharply.

  “You’re simply not in his class. In or out of bed.” She paused.

  Nat was about to respond but decided it wasn’t worth it. He left without saying another word. Later that night he lay awake, realizing that Rebecca, like so many other things, was part of his past life.

  One of Nat’s more surprising discoveries on returning to the university was how many students pressed him to run against Elliot for the president of the student senate. But Nat made it clear that he had no interest in fighting an election while he still needed to make up for the time he’d lost.

  When he returned home at the end of his sophomore year, Nat told his father that he was just as pleased that his cross-country time was now down to under an hour as to discover he was placed in the top six on the class list.

  During the summer, Nat and Tom traveled to Europe. Nat found that one of the many advantages of a captain’s salary was that it allowed him to accompany his closest friend without ever feeling he couldn’t afford to pay his way.

  Their first stop was London, where they watched the guards march down Whitehall. Nat was left in no doubt that they would have been a formidable force in Vietnam. In Paris, they strolled along the Champs Elysées and regretted having to turn to a ph
rase book every time they saw a beautiful woman. They then traveled on to Rome, where in tiny back-street cafes they discovered for the first time how pasta really should taste, and swore they would never eat at McDonald’s again.

  But it wasn’t until they reached Venice that Nat fell in love, and overnight became promiscuous, his taste ranging from nudes to virgins. It began with a one-day stand—Da Vinci, followed by Bellini, and then Luini. Such was the intensity of these affairs that Tom agreed they should spend a few more days in Italy and even add Florence to their itinerary. New lovers were quickly picked up on every street corner—Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Canaletto, Tintoretto. Almost anyone with an o at the end of their name qualified to join Nat’s harem.

  Professor Karl Abrahams stood in front of his desk for the fifth lecture of the term and stared up at the semicircle of tiered seats that rose above him.

  He began his lecture, not a book, not a file, not even a note in front of him, as he took them through the landmark case of Carter v. Amalgamated Steel.

  “Mr. Carter,” began the professor, “lost an arm in an industrial accident in 1923, and was sacked without receiving a cent in compensation. He was unable to seek further employment, as no other steel company would consider offering work to a one-armed man, and when he was turned down for a job as doorman at a local hotel, he realized that he would never work again. There wasn’t an Industry Compensation Act until 1927, so Mr. Carter decided to take the rare and almost unheard-of step at that time of suing his employers. He wasn’t able to afford a lawyer—that hasn’t changed over the years—however, a young law student who felt that Mr. Carter had not received fair recompense volunteered to represent him in court. He won the case and Carter was awarded one hundred dollars in compensation—not a large amount for such a grievance, you might well feel. However, together these two men were responsible for bringing about a change in the law. Let us hope that one of you might at some time in the future cause the law to be changed when faced with such an injustice. Subtext, the young lawyer’s name was Theo Rampleiri. He only narrowly avoided being thrown out of law school for spending too much time on the Carter case. Later, much later, he was appointed to the Supreme Court.”

  The professor frowned. “Last year General Motors paid a Mr. Cameron five million dollars for the loss of a leg. This was despite the fact that CM was able to prove that it was Mr. Cameron’s negligence that was the cause of the injury.” Abrahams took them through the case slowly, before adding, “The law so often is, as Mr. Charles Dickens would have us believe, an ass, and perhaps more importantly, indiscriminately imperfect. I have no brief for counsel who look only for a way around the law, especially when they know exactly what the Senate and Congress intended in the first place. There will be those among you who forget these words within days of joining some illustrious firm, whose only interest is to win at all cost. But there will be others, perhaps not so many, who will remember Lincoln’s dictum, ‘let justice be done.’” Fletcher looked up from his notes and stared down at his mentor. “By the time we next meet, I expect you to have researched the five cases that followed Carter versus Amalgamated Steel, through to Demetri versus Demetri, all of which resulted in changes in the law. You may work in pairs, but not consult any other pair. I hope I make myself clear.” The clock struck eleven. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Fletcher and Jimmy shared the workload as they trawled through case after case, and by the end of the week, they had found three that were relevant. Joanna pulled from the recesses of her memory a fourth that had been heard in Ohio when she was a child. She refused to give them any more clues.

  “What does love, honor and obey mean?” demanded Jimmy.

  “I never agreed to obey you, freshman,” was all she said, “and by the way, if Elizabeth wakes up during the night, it’s your turn to change her diaper.”

  “Sumner versus Sumner,” Jimmy told her triumphantly as he slipped into bed just after midnight.

  “Not bad, freshman, but you still have to find the fifth by ten o’clock on Monday if you’re hoping to get a smile out of Professor Abrahams.”

  “I think we’d have to do a whole lot more than that to move the lips on that block of granite,” said Jimmy.

  As Nat climbed the hill, he spotted her running ahead of him. Nat assumed he would pass her on the downward slope. He checked his watch as he reached the halfway mark. Seventeen minutes and nine seconds. Nat felt confident that he would break his personal best, and be back on the team for the first meet of the season.

  He felt full of energy as he surged over the brow of the hill and then he swore out loud. The stupid woman had taken the wrong path. She had to be a freshman. He began to shout at her back, but she didn’t respond. He cursed again, changed direction and chased after her. As he came bounding down the slope, she suddenly turned and looked startled.

  “You’re going the wrong way,” shouted Nat, ready to turn and quickly retrace his steps, but even at twenty yards he wanted to take a closer look. He jogged quickly up to her, and kept running on the spot.

  “Thank you,” she said, “it’s only my second time on the course, and I couldn’t remember which path to take at the top of the hill.”

  Nat smiled. “You have to take the smaller path; the wider one leads you into the woods.”

  “Thank you,” she repeated, and began running back up the hill without another word.

  He chased after her, and once he had caught up jogged by her side until they reached the top. He waved goodbye once he was certain she had returned to the straight and narrow. “See you later,” he said, but if she replied, Nat didn’t hear her.

  Nat checked his watch as he crossed the finishing line. Forty-three minutes, fifty-one seconds. He cursed again, wondering how much time he’d lost redirecting the wrong-path woman. He didn’t mind. He began to cool down, and took longer over his stretching exercises than he normally would have done, as he waited for the young woman to return.

  Suddenly she appeared at the top of the hill, running down toward the finishing line. “You made it,” Nat said with a smile as he jogged over to join her. She didn’t return his smile. “I’m Nat Cartwright,” he said.

  “I know who you are,” she replied curtly.

  “Have we met before?”

  “No,” she said, “I know you only by reputation.” She jogged off in the direction of the women’s locker room without offering any further explanation.

  “Stand up, those who managed to find all five cases.”

  Fletcher and Jimmy rose triumphantly, an emotion that deflated when they discovered at least seventy percent of the class were also on their feet. “Four?” said the professor, trying not to sound too disdainful. Most of those remaining rose, leaving around ten percent still seated. Fletcher could only wonder how many of them would complete the course. “Sit down,” he said. “Let us begin with Maxwell River Gas versus Pennstone; what change in the law came about because of that particular case?” He pointed to a student in the third row.

  “In 1932 it became the company’s responsibility to ensure that all equipment complied with safety regulations, and all employees understood any emergency procedure.” The professor moved his finger on.

  “Any written instructions had to be posted where every employee could read them.”

  “When did that become redundant?”

  The finger moved again, another voice, “Reynolds versus McDermond Timber.”

  “Correct.” The finger moved again. “And why?”

  “Reynolds lost three fingers when cutting a log, but his defense counsel was able to show he couldn’t read, and had not been given any verbal instruction on how to operate the machine.”

  “What was the basis of the new law?” The finger moved again.

  “The Industry Act, 1934, when it became an employer’s responsibility to instruct all staff, verbally and in writing, how to use any equipment.”

  “When did that need further amendments?” Someone else was
selected.

  “Rush versus the government.”

  “Correct, but why did the government still win the case despite being in the wrong?”

  Yet another selection. “I don’t know, sir.” The finger moved scornfully on, in search of someone who did.

  “The government was able to defend its position when it was shown that Rush had signed an agreement stating…” The finger moved.

  “…that he’d received full instructions as demanded by law.” The finger moved again.

  “That he had also been in their employ beyond the statutory three-year period.” The finger continued moving…

  “…but the government went on to prove they were not a company in the strict meaning of the word, as the bill had been badly drafted by the politicians.”

  “Don’t blame the politicians,” said Abrahams. “Lawyers draft legislation, so they must take the responsibility. The politicians were not culpable on this occasion, so once the courts accepted that the government was not subject to its own legislation, who caused the law to be changed yet again?” He pointed the finger at another terrified face. “Demetri versus Demetri” came the reply.

  “How did this differ from past laws?” The finger came to rest on Fletcher.

  “It was the first time that one member of a family sued another for negligence while they were still married, as well as being fifty-fifty shareholders in the company concerned.”

  “Why did that action fail?” he continued to stare at Fletcher.

  “Because Mrs. Demetri refused to give evidence against her husband.”

  The finger moved on to Jimmy. “Why did she refuse?” demanded Abrahams.

  “Because she was stupid.”

  “Why was she stupid?” demanded the professor again.

  “Because her husband probably made love to her, or hit her, the night before or possibly even both, so she caved in.” A little laughter broke out.