Courthouse Portraits #1

We summer associates get paid to go on field trips. We get paid to meet people who are interesting and/or scary and/or bizarre and/or... (insert panoply of human behavior here). For example, yesterday... (all names changed to protect my anonymity)...

"Judge Grandpa": white-haired, round-faced, with a hardcore local accent. He came in to provide insight and guidance for the future to us fresh-faced, suit-wearing, overpaid summer associates. His guidance was to get out of the big firm and work in public service, a.k.a. follow his example: before being a judge he was the DA; before that, he was Chief of Police; before that, he was a beat cop. Given that resume, he probably knows the underbelly of this city almost as well as he knows himself, if not better. I wish this guy would write a novel, what stories he must have. He rambled pleasantly and dispensed pearls of wisdom like, "Before I was a judge, I thought judges were the dumbest things God ever gave breath to. Now I'm a judge, I know they are! Heh heh. Don't you go thinking that just because I put on this robe, I acquired wisdom and understanding of everything. I'm just up there fakin' it like everybody else."

"McGuire, the Aggressive DA": that's my nickname for the polar opposite of Judge Grandpa's affable, rough-hewn humility. This guy is six-four and completely bald; I assume he shaves his head not just to hide the fact he's losing his hair, which is evident from the outline of five o'clock shadow on his pale scalp, but also because it makes him look mean. He has big blue kewpie-doll eyes beneath eyebrows knotted in permanent anger. He swaggers around the courtroom chewing gum with his mouth open, even in front of the bench. The way he walks makes you wonder if he's having a contest with himself that involves trying to get his shoulders to go as far left and then as far right as possible with each step. He glares at everyone and threatens to slam the law down like a hammer on the head of the least little jaywalker. He treats pathetic ghetto kids dragged in for simple possession of narcotics like they're Slobodan Milosevic. On his lapel is an American flag pin nearly an inch and a half wide. To entertain myself the next day, I casually say, "Oh, hi, McGuire" when I happen to see him on my way out of Starbucks. This is entertaining because he has no idea who the hell I am, so my greeting alarms him: his eyebrows squinch up in wary confusion, he looks slightly destabilized. He doesn't ask who I am, presumably both because that's impolite and because he's too control-hungry to admit when he's confused. So I'm going to make a point of saying hi as I walk past any time I see him from now on.

"Guido Sarducci, Esq.": he's with the DA's office too. He looks like Father Guido Sarducci in a cheap, shiny grey suit. During our field trip to watch hearings and an attempted homicide trial, the judge's clerk put us in the jury box so we could better see the goings-on, and Mr. Sarducci came over, leaned against the box, and started telling jokes in a slightly anxious voice as if he secretly really, really wanted us to like him. When he found out what firm we're from, he said, "I tell ya something: I've been with the DA 22 years, and as summer associates -- summer associates! -- you guys are getting paid more than me. Never work for the government. Never."