TO-WIT: AT THE DANCE
During what is euphemistically referred to as the formative years, I matriculated at an all-male prep school. I formed for four years there, and what it was I formed mostly was an incredible yearning for the opposite sex – a fortuitous happenstance considering that the only available warm bodies were not opposite.
Oh God, how I wanted a woman, not just any woman, mind you although I had none of those either but rather a special woman, one who could touch me in all the right emotional places and send the both of us soaring out into the universe, celestial bodies together and free.
The school was not entirely insensitive to the plight of the teen-age male and would from time to time arrange for our student body to get together with the student body of an all-female prep school (that was a rather nice turn of a phrase, don’t you think) for a dance, either home or away. but it was the late Fifties then, and you could always tell a Saturday dance was a hand by the white lumpy stuff in the tomato soup at Friday night dinner.
I went to every dance with the same lustful hope, tomato soup notwithstanding. As the young women paraded into the auditorium, I would stand outside and stare, sometimes even drool, in anticipation of an evening surfeit with sensual splendor. I always picked out the woman I knew to be the stuff of my dreams and I’d ask her for the slow dance. I would dance with her as passionately as I could but to no avail. Invariably at dance’s end off she went with another guy, usually one wearing the varsity letter I could have earned only if debating had been a team sport, and I would go off and sit in the corner, feeling dejected and impotent.
I never found that special woman in prep school, not in college either. But when I got to law school, there she was, replete with diaphanous gown and long flowing hair. It was Miss Justice, that divine and sensuous beauty of logic, intellect and fair play, the lady of my dreams and the great love of my life. She cared not a whit that I never lettered or that I deemed myself overweight and unattractive. Rather she always listened to my words and heard my heart, and though we didn’t always agree, at times she would smile at me with such delectable sweetness that I knew that I was beloved. I’ve danced passionately with that lady off and on now for more than twenty years, through some good times and bad, and taken as a whole, it has been a lovely affair. But now Milady has gone off to dance with another and my head hurts, and so do my feet, and I’m going to go sit in the corner for awhile and tell you just what this has to do with the practice of law.
Not long ago, at Milady’s whispered urgings, I took on a case that had all the earmarks of a passionate quest. It was a political case, a judicial election case actually, and my client had been outraged by the egregious machinations of one of the local political parties to place a judicial candidate on the ballot. The conduct was clearly in conflict with an appellate court interpretation of the state constitution and ought not to be unchallenged.
“Oh, what a luscious case,” I thought, the juices starting to flow. “There are wrongs to right, a banner of unfurl and tonight Milady and I shall dance under the stars.” As things turned out though, it was a short dance.
I concocted an extremely elaborate, well-thought out plan of attack, and soon found myself sailing through the various appellate courts, asserting original jurisdiction, seeking plenary jurisdiction, filing off pleadings at the highest levels of the procedural stratosphere. But I would no sooner file a pleading than it would be denied, sometimes even though the opposing counsel filed no response. On one occasion, one of the opposing counsel wrote the appellate court that he was not going to respond to a pleading I had filed because he agreed entirely with the opinion of the lower court. His letter was dated the day before the lower court’s opinion was filed.
What was going on? The facts were clear, the case law was clear, but Milady had become uncharacteristically quiet. In fact, she was nowhere to be found.
And then one night last week, and a dark and stormy night it was too, while one of my particularly ingenious pleadings was still pending, I received phone call from a friendly local political committee man. “you cannot win this case,” he said, and he proceeded to tell me why.
Sure enough, the next day an opinion came down, ignoring my precedent as if it hadn’t existed, and there I was, heaved out into the street, my briefcase flung out after me. “and stay out,” someone might just as well have yelled, as if the indignation of a bum’s rush was not enough.
But by then I knew. This was, after all, a political case, and it seems that on this particular occasion Milady had been charging for her favors. All my passion, all my intellect, all my me had been of no import whatsoever.
You know what the real trouble with passion is? It makes a wonderful sword but a lousy shield. So here I am, once again in the corner like the wallflower of old, bleeding about the head and feet and not feeling much like dancing anymore.
Oh now, don’t fret for me, at least not excessively. Losing is inherent in this business and God knows I’ve had enough experience at it. But I am going to sit the next few dances out and brood in the corner about Milady for a bit while she’s off dancing with the quarterback again.
© 1991, S. Sponte, Esq.