February 21, 2009

Book Review Highlight Al-Qaeda Goes to College

On Jan. 23, 2009, Adjunct Prof Blog announced  that James Ottavio Castagnera, a well known lawyer and professor at Rider University, just wrote an exciting new book entitled “Al-Qaeda Goes To College.” Professor Castagnera was kind enough to provide me with an advance copy and I could not put it down. 
The book starts off by detailing how Professor Castagnera world began to change on 9-11. It then goes on to discuss the Anthrax scare that occurred at the Hamlton New Jersey Post Office, just a few miles a way from Rider University.    
The book’s research is excellent and it is full of detailed footnotes that others will undoubtedly find helpful.  Professor Castagnera central thesis, however, is on the impact  9-11 had on higher education. He views 9-11 as a double edge sword. On the one hand universities lost their innocence at great cost (increased governmental regulations, security costs etc.), but on the other hand universities also got a windfall because now they offer more programs and research on national security. Professor Castagnera believes that American universities have met the challenge of 9-11 and we are better off because of it. He compares 9-11 to WWII and states that America became a super power because of WWII.

The book goes on and covers such topics as universities’ roles in training counter-terrorism experts, particularly anthropologists working in Iraq and Afghanistan; bio-terrorism research on campuses; inflammatory critiques by the likes of Ward Churchill; the conspiracy theories advocated by some academics regarding 9/11; lawsuits against universities by terror victims trying to get settlements from countries like Iran by seizing archaeological artifacts in American universities; accused Islamists teaching at American colleges, like Sami al-Arian at USF.

This book not only presents well researched factual information, but it also contains legal analysis. For example with respect to the discharge of Professor Ward Churchill, Professor Castagnera outlines the First Amendment rights of public employees and in particular academic freedom. 

To my knowledge, this is the first book on how 9-11 has changed the world of higher education.  This book will be available around April 30th and you can pre-order it now from the above link. You will be glad that you did.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Chapter Thirteen
     “I don’t know, Ned.  It’s not like he knows Led Zepplin or

somebody like that.”  My best friend, Chris Natoli, sat on his‘’=[1]0*†(†(∞

the Hilltop pool.  “I just don’t think I could handle being around

a guy like that.”
     “Well, I’m really not around him all that much,” I explained,

sipping my blueberry Italian water ice.  “He doesn’t come into

Berger’s office every day.  Half the time I’m stuck by myself in a

back room with a typewriter typing up stuff that Berger claims that

lazy secretary of his doesn’t have time to get to.”
     Chris distractedly picked with his right forefinger at a zit

on his large, round belly.  Sometimes he seemed more like Archie’s

son than I did, except for his jet black hair and a deep tan I

couldn’t have achieved even if I had been able to spend the summer

working in Wildwood.
     “Yeh,” he said, “but aren’t you afraid of catching HIV from

him?”
     “Listen, Chris,” I replied, now idly inspecting my own stomach

for any sign of a new pimple. “If there’s one thing I am getting

out of this summer job, it’s a first year of medical school.  When

I’m not up in New Hope serving as an indentured servant to Ms.

Florence ‘God©Almighty’ Kaiserman, Pop’s got me down at the

Philadelphia Free Library or at Jefferson University xeroxing every

article on HIV and AIDS I can lay my hands on.  Then I have to read

them, write a synopsis and file them.”
    While a part of my conscious mind was explaining all this to

Chris, another part was taking note of the chest hairs he had begun

to sprout.  Where he had a nice crop of pubic hair coming up and‘’>[1]0*†(†(∞

nasty looking zits in varied stages of rise and decline occupying

that favored location on mine.  I flicked at the nastiest of the

trio with a vengeful finger nail.
   “Believe me,” I continued, “somebody or other has investigated

every conceivable aspect of HIV infection.  There’s a study that

finds that HIV can’t be transmitted from person to person by

drinking out of the same communion chalice at a church service.

Another study claims that cookies baked by an advanced AIDS patient

in a hospital where eaten by the doctors there with none of them

picking up the virus.”
    “Well,” Chris replied, taking a Snickers bar from his beach bag

and tearing off the wrapper in one neat motion the way an

experienced hunter might skin his quarry, “I still don’t know if

I’d take the chance of being around that guy.  Why all the articles

anyhow?”
     “Arch says we have to convince the judge that if Dennie is

given his old job back through a court order, there’s absolutely no

chance he could transmit HIV through the food to the restaurant’s

customers.  We have some pretty good experts lined up who are going

to say that too,” I added.
   Chris chomped off about half the Snickers bar and mumbled around

the wad of chocolate in his mouth, “If you say so.”
    Chewing reflectively he added,”Hey, maybe I shouldn’t be

hanging around you.”‘Ä%?0*†(†(∞

panicky look on my face and drop my water ice, which landed upside

down on a dusty bare patch in the lawn.
    Chris laughed and a few flecks of the chocolate coating from

the Snickers popped out of his mouth and onto his ample belly.
    “Hey, man,” he mumbled,”chill out.  It was just a joke.”  And

as if to prove it, he handed me the surviving half of the Snickers.

“Here…want a bite?”

‘’@0*†(†(∞

walls and solid oak doors, but the eardrums, brains and other vital

organs of the persons taking futile refuge behind those walls and

doors.  In this case, as usual, the refugee was me.
     I bent lower over the latest JAMA (that is, Journal of the

American Medical Association) article on AIDS as a health threat in

the restaurant industry.  I focused on the technical jargon and

hoped Mrs. Kaiserman might think I’d gone off for an early lunch.

But no…
    “Ned!”  Louder this time, if that was possible.  “I need you.”
     During the four or five weeks I’d been working in the Law

Offices of Lawrence Fishbine Berger, he and Mrs. Kaiserman

apparently had concluded there was not enough work on the Lustig

case to keep me fully occupied.  Or perhaps Larry was just

determined to get his money’s worth, since he had agreed at the

fateful picnic to pick up half my paycheck.  Whatever the reason,

my time was now about equally divided between helping get √
√Lustig v.

Freeman’sƒ
ƒ ready for its August trial date and serving as Mrs.

Kaiserman’s gopher.  Though I found Mrs, K. pretty grating on my

young nerves, I had to admit I enjoyed the opportunities her little

tasks gave me to get out and about on balmy summer days when

otherwise I’d be in my closet/office peering at small print.
‘Ä%A0*†(†(∞

that played proxy to a proper desk chair, stood up and stretched.

I had been hunched over my labor for almost two hours, since I had

arrived at around nine in morning.  My leisurely reaction to Mrs.

Kaiserman’s clarion call resulted in a third howl of “Ned!  Are you

back there?”
     Opening my door I responded in a tone that I hoped masked the

irritation Mrs. K. always aroused in me, “Right here.  I’m on my

way, Mrs. K.”  Unfortunately, I think the rhyme resulted in a sing™song tone that sounded a note of sarcasm.
    “I’m on my way, Mrs. K,” the fifty©something secretary mimicked

back at me.  “You’d be on your way to a job bagging fries at

MacDonald’s, if it were up to me, young man.  This office requires

a proper law clerk, not a high school kid who happens to be an

attorney’s son.
    “That’s what Larry promised me.  But he’s so cheap… look what

I get.” 
     I could feel my ears turning red, as they always did when the

Kaiser©cow went off on one of these tirades.  I had complained to

Archie about her the first time it happened.  He had been

sympathetic and promised to speak to Berger about it.  But nothing

changed, and Pop had been pretty vague and evasive, when I tried to

pin him down about just what, if anything, he’d said to his co™counsel about my latest tormentor.
     Given that my most of my pay was deferred until the case’s

end, I was ready to react.‘’B[1]0*†(†(∞

have brought circumstances to the crisis stage, when the front door

swung open and in strutted Dennis.  His expression suggested he was

preoccupied at the instant he entered the reception area where Mrs.

K.’s formidable hundred and eighty pound hulk blocked anyone who

hoped to sail back to her master’s large, rather opulent rear

office.  But as soon as he saw me, Lustig’s expression changed.  He

flashed his puckish smile and I swear his violet eyes flashed.
     “Ned, how √
√areƒ
ƒ you?” he inquired brightly.  Then, tilting his

head slightly to the left, he pronounced a perfunctory “Mrs. K.”

upon the grand dame of Larry Berger©land, whose scowl shifted

seamlessly from me to him.
    The anger drained from my face, as I seemed to involuntarily

absorb some of his good humor, a reflex I had come to recognize in

myself with a certain sense of surprise each time it was repeated.
    “Hey, Denny.  I’m okay, man.”
    “Great.  So how about an early lunch?” he asked.  “that is,” he

added, cocking his head in Mrs. K.’s direction again, “if the

mistress of the establishment has no objection.”
    The Kaiser©cow’s look would have killed if it could.  Her

normal lack of friendliness was enhanced in Lustig’s case by her

unvarnished disapproval of gays. 
    “Ned was just leaving with a package I have to get over to

Wellington Realty before noon,” she carped.
    “Fine.  He can drop it off and then we can can grab a bite at

the Sunflower.  It’s only half a block away.”  Denny picked up the‘’C[1]0*†(†(∞

backed my way toward the door, shrugging to Mrs. K. as I went.
Her face was crinkled up like a lunch bag that had been used more

than once and she was silently mouthing words in Denny’s direction.

I was no lip reader but hte words seemed to be ones that my parents

strictly forbade me to even think of using.
     The small of my back rammed into the door knob.  I reached

behind me with my right hand, turned the knob and did a smart

little about©face out the door and bounded down the three brick

steps onto the sidewalk, where a leering Denny stood waiting with

Mrs. K.’s package tucked under his left arm.
     “Somehow, over the months that I’ve been coming here, I’ve

gotten the distinct impression that that old cow doesn’t approve of

the gay lifestyle,” Denny observed in that droll way he had with

his eyes twinkling mischievously.
     “In the weeks that √
√I’veƒ
ƒ been coming here, I’ve formed the

distinct impression that the Kaiser©cow does not approve of anyone

younger than she is, smarter than she is, happier than she is, or

richer then she is,” I retorted, falling into step with Denny on

the uneven slate sidewalks.  “In short, she doesn’t much like

anybody who ever has a reason to come into her reception room.”
    Denny laughed out loud.  “Kaiser©cow… I like that, Ned.”
     We walked briskly down the streets of New Hope chatting

happily.  But once again, waiting for a traffic light to change, I

caught a glimpse of Denny’s expression when he was unaware that I

was looking at him.  I saw the same anxiety peep out from behind‘’D[1]0*†(†(∞

through the door of Berger’s offices a few minutes earlier.

‘’E0*†(†(∞

little cafe owned and run by a couple of Denny’s gay friends, I was

again struck by the ethereal sort of violet shade of his eyes, as

I had been a number of times before.  This time I was relaxed

enough with him to say so.
    “The same as Elizabeth Taylor,” he replied, looking me straight

in my eyes and giving me the full effect.
     “What do you mean?” I asked, not getting his point.
     “Liz Taylor and I wear the same shade of contacts,” he told

me.
      “Those are contacts, Den? I never guessed.”
      “Ned, darling, nobody has lavender eyes,” Denny responded.
Then noticing Lawrence, the older of the Sunflower’s two owners

approaching to refill our Cokes, he added, “Except perhaps Larry

here.”
     Looking up at Lawrence, who reached for my glass and poured

Coke and ice from his pitcher, Denny added, “Do you have lavender

eyes, sweetheart?”
     “If you cared anything about me at all,” Lawrence retorted,

pouring Coke into Denny’s empty glass and ©©© purposely, I think ©™© letting it splash onto Denny’s half©eaten BLT sandwich, “you’d

know I have dishy green eyes.”
     Denny smirked as Lawrence moved on to another table requiring

refills.  “The man’s mad for me,” said Denny when Lawrence was out

of eavesdropping distance.  “He also knows I can ‘’F[1]0*†(†(∞

lives with.  He’d bounce Henry out on his ear and have me move in

in  a minute if I’d let him.”
    I had no idea what to reply to that.  So I took an extra©big

bite of my Phillie cheesesteak and stared at my fries.
    After lunch, which Denny insisted on paying for (he always

seemed to have plenty of cash, though so far as I knew he hadn’t

worked since the Freemans had fired him last December), he

suggested a walk down along the Delaware River.  I protested that

Mrs. K. would be watching what time I returned.
    “What’s the Kaiser©cow … God, I √
√loveƒ
ƒ that name, Ned,” he

replied, putting his arm around my shoulder, ” what’s the K©cow

going to do?  Fire you?  I think not.
    “No,” he added, steering me toward the little park that runs

down to the river bank, “I think her office, powerful though it may

be, lacks that level of authority.  Let us commune with nature

awhile.”
    We wound up seated beneath a large silver maple growing near

the water’s edge.  I leaned back against the southwestern side of

the trunk and let the sun caress my face.  I closed my eyes and

might have drifted off to sleep had not a sweet, smoky odor entered

my nostrils at that moment.  I turned my head slightly to the left

and squinting against the bright sunlight, saw with my left eye

Denny sucking hard on a small, hand©rolled cigarette he held with

the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.‘Ä%G0*†(†(∞

guys, who frequented certain restrooms at the high school, smoked

the occasional joint in there.  I honestly had never touched the

stuff myself.  In fact it scared me a little bit.
     Denny held his breath a few seconds, then exhaled loudly.  He

noticed me watching him intently.
     “A hit, Ned?” he inquired, holding the marijuana cigarette out

to me.
     “No, I don’t think so, Den,” I responded.
     “What’s the matter? Afraid you’ll contract the dreaded

disease?” he asked.  His voice had a little bit of menace in it I

thought, just the least edge on it, like a challenge.
    “I don’t do drugs, Denny,” I aliterated a little nervously.
    “You’re not telling me the magic weed is unknown at… where is

it you go to school?”
    “Haverford High,” I responded.
    “Ah, yes… Haverford,” he said.  “Goat crossing… did you

know that’s what it means?”
    I didn’t say anything.  I just stared at the joint that seemed

to be billowing its pungent white smoke in my direction.
Denny moved his hand a little closer to my face.  Still I didn’t

reach out and take the joint from him.
    A second later he pulled it back.  “Okay, sweety. suit

yourself.”  He took another long drag on the joint and held the

smoke in much longer than before.  When he exhaled almost no smoke

came out of his mouth at all.‘’H[1]0*†(†(∞

replaced by a kind of meanness I had never seen them reflect

before.
    “Well, little darling,” he said, almost with a snarl, “You

needn’t worry about catching the dreaded affliction from yours

truly.”
    “Denny, I didn’t…” I stammered.
    “Because I’ve never had the dreaded plague.”
    “What?” I responded in an embarassingly high©pitched voice.

“What do you mean?”
    “I’m not HIV positive, you little asshole,” he said in a nasty

little whisper that passed through me like a winter chill even

though the day was hot and humid.
     I didn’t need Denny’s arm around my shoulder to guide me back

to the office.  I followed him like a whipped puppy.  The mix of

emotions was almost overwhelming.  Because of Dennis Lustig I had

come to terms with Archie’s alternate plan for how I spent my

summer.  Denny was a victim that had been wronged.  Like my Dad, I

had come to believe I was working to right that wrong.  In between

assignments as Mrs. K.’s gopher I was serving the side of justice.
     Denny also ©©© perhaps somewhat paradoxically ©©© had come to

represent forbidden fruit.  “Alternative lifestyle” is the buzz

phrase today.  I’m not sure I had ever heard it back then from

anyone except Denny.
     He claimed to know Lou Reed and had even “walked on the

wildside” , as the infamous lyricist had put it in one of his most‘’I[1]0*†(†(∞

teenage male who is already pretty clear on his own ‘straight’

sexual orientation.  Now I wondered if all this ‘wild side’ stuff

was also so much fantasy talk from the lips which had just revealed

their devastating secret.
     Denny elaborated on his revelation as we took a winding and

indirect path in the general direction of the Berger Law Offices.
     “The first test did come back HIV positive, Nedster,” he

stated, most of the earlier meanness gone from his voice now.

“That’s when I flipped out and spilled my guts to the Freeman…

and got my sweet gay butt fired in the process.”
     I stumbled on the uneven bricks of a historically restored

stretch of New Hope’s sidewalks.  Regaining my balance, I smiled an

uneasy, crooked little smile at my companion.
     “I didn’t go back for a retest until after I had already

signed on with the AIDS Law Project,” he continued, “and they had

hired your dad and Larry to represent me.  I was so psyched out…

I was sure the next test would be the same. 
     “See this queen I had a thing with for a  awhile… well, I

knew he had it.  So I just naturally figured I must have it, too.”
     I idley kicked a brick chip lying on the walkway.
     “When my doctor finally bullied me into getting retested, the

test came back negative.”
      Denny suddenly stopped and turned to face me.  I was
still staring at the ground and nearly bumped into him.‘Ä%J0*†(†(∞

suppressed the urge to shrug his hands off me and brush past him

and run back to my closet office and lock the door.  I stood there

numbly staring back into the ‘Liz Taylor’ eyes, now intensely

sincere.
    “Ned, can you imagine in your wildest young dreams how I felt?

I felt like freakin’ Lazarus, called from the tomb by Christ

himself.
    “Ned, lad, the kid here is not a religious man.  God knows, the

churchmen have little use for the likes of me.  But you may

believe, young Ned, that I felt reborn that day.”
    He released my shoulders, turned and resumed walking.
I followed along behind, more confused and emotionally distraught

than ever.
    “The doctor demanded we get a third test.  This time I was a

nervous wreck, but eager to oblige.  The result was another

negative.  I was going to live!”
    Denny’s arms went up, his hands palms open, over his head in a

gesture of.. what?  Elation?  Redemption?
     For a half block we walked in silence.  Then Denny sat down on

a bench in front of an antique store, one of the dozens that line

the streets of New Hope.  He gestured for me to sit beside him.
    He placed a hand on my knee.  Again I fought back the urge to

pull away.
     “Ned,” he said, again all ‘Mr. Sincerity’, “I need your help.”
‘’K0*†(†(∞

Wednesday.  The rest of my week was utter emotional turmoil.  I did

Mrs. K.’s bidding without protest, as if I was her personal robot

or zombie.  At home I kept to myself as much as possible.  I hardly

touched the Lustig file, which anyway was about as well organized

as a high school kid working pretty much unsupervised could make

it.
      On Friday afternoon, Archie, who hadn’t been in New Hope all

that week, drove up to collect me and the file and take us both

home for the weekend.  He and Larry Berger had decided that Pop

would attend and defend Denny’s deposition, which was scheduled for

Monday morning at ten o’clock in the opposing lawyer’s conference

room.  Lustig would be placed under oath and asked as many

questions as the opposition cared to ask.  And this was precisely

why Denny had chosen his moment on Wednesday to reveal his

devastating secret to me.  The guy who claimed to cruise on the

wild side of Greenwich Village with the likes of Lou Reed wanted

his sixteen©year©old ‘buddy’ to break the news to his father before

the day of the deposition.
     I chose our drive home to Havertown as the moment to break the

big news to my old man. In 1984 Archie owned a 1978 Cadelac that

was about half a block long and guzzled gas at a ferocious rate.

“A big man needs a big car,” he would shrug when Mom, writing a

check for his gasoline credit card at the end of the month would

berate him about the expense.  The car was a sort of white and‘’L[1]0*†(†(∞

in the winter time, and usually referred to as “body cancer.”
     The whole family referred to Archie’s Caddy as “White Fang”,

the name of the friendly bear on the Soupy Sales Show, which at

that time Arch still liked to watch as re©runs on one of the cable

channels.  Riding in White Fang was like sitting in a living room

chair that was floating on a cloud.  Even six years old, rusting

out and boasting more than ninety©thousand miles, the Fang was a

smooth©riding chariot.
     Ordinarily, after my week of alternately slaving in my closet™office and tramping all over New Hope with Mrs. K.’s shrill

instructions reverberating in my ears, I’d lean back and snooze

while Pop played his “oldies” tapes  and got me safely home for a

weekend of reviving my tan at the swim club.  But this Friday

afternoon I sat bolt upright, watching like a sentinel for the

right opening to break my news.
     Since that time back in January, when I decked Big Bill Hall,

wound up in the hospital myself, and ended the day crying on the

old man’s shoulder, a sort of silent bond had existed between me

and my Dad.  Or maybe it’s more accurate to say a barrier between

us, built during my early teen years, had been knocked down.

Whatever had happened that day had felt really nice ever since; but

while it had made communication between Archie and me a lot

friendlier, it hadn’t made communication much more frequent.  We

still seldom had long or animated conversations.  And so this‘Ä%M0*†(†(∞

New Hope and headed for I©95 when I started it off.
     “Dad,” I began, “you know I’ve gotten pretty friendly with

Denny this summer, don’t you?”
     “Sure, Ned,” Pop replied, not taking his eyes off the winding

two©lane highway he was navigating amidst fairly heavy Friday

afternoon rush©hour traffic.  “I think that’s a good thing.

Denny’s very bright, and I want you to grow up without prejudice

against people who are different from you.  I want you to evaluate

them one by one.  I thought you’d see the same good qualities I saw

the first time I met with Denny.”
     I looked sideways at Archie.  He had a contented look on his

face.  I suddenly realized I was about to crumble an illusion as

large as the one I had been harboring until Wednesday afternoon.
     “I thought it was a good thing too.”  I chose my words

carefully, a boy crossing a freezing cold stream on slippery rocks,

any one of which could tip and dump me in an instant. “…at

first.”
    Archie shifted his head slightly to the right, keeping his left

eye on the road ahead.  A better lawyer than he knew, his

attorney’s antennae sensed trouble.
     Why √
√Iƒ
ƒ was so nervous I’m uncertain.  I had done nothing wrong

that I knew.  But somehow I felt guilty by association.  I had been

bedazzled by Lustig’s apparent panache and his colorful
stories.  If I had not tasted forbidden fruit, I had enjoyed the

titilation that comes to a teenager from being around someone‘’N[1]0*†(†(∞

shame or apology…someone who carried a fatal disease without

showing fear or regret.  Calling Mrs. K. the Kaiser©cow was a

reflection of the attitude I affected when Denny was around.  The

double shock of first being confronted with the temptation to try

marijuana, followed almost immediately with Lustig’s revelation of

what I had come to call in my mind “the Big Lie,” had brought

painfully home to me how I had, as the Bible says, sinned in my

heart.  Consequently, I felt a shared guilt, made only heavier on

my shoulders by the very delay in telling my Dad that this guilt by

association had engendered.
      “Dad, Denny came by the office on Wednesday and we had lunch

together.  Then we took a walk down to that park along the river.

“
     “Okay.”   I could sense Archie tensing up.  I saw his hands

tighten on the steering wheel.
     “Something happened that I have to tell you about.”
     Archie jerked the wheel a little, getting the car safely away

from the center line.  His whole body seemed to sag as if a long

sigh had been released.  Then he instantly tensed up again.
     “Well, then what, Ned?”
     “I guess I should tell you everything.  First of all, he lit

up a joint,” I said.  “Uh, do you know what that is, Pop?”
     Archie’s big face relaxed a little and his lips parted in a

sly smile.  “Yeh, Ned.  I’m a child of the sixties, remember?  Yeh,‘Ä%O0*†(†(∞

bothered with that junk to tell you the truth.”
     Then tense again, smile all gone.  “Hey, you didn’t try that

stuff, did you?”
    “Heck, no, Arch.  I promised you and Mom I wouldn’t.  And I’ve

kept my word.”
     “Well, hey… good.  Great!  So I’ll talk to Lustig.  I’ll

tell him not to do that around my kids.  Okay?”
     I figgited in the soft leather seat as White Fang cruised up

the ramp onto I©95 South.
     “That’s great, Arch,” I said.  “But that’s not what I really

wanted to tell you about.”
     By now Archie must have been wondering what more could be left

to tell.
     “Dad, Denny confessed to me that he’s not HIV positive.”
     Archie’s big melon head snapped to the right even faster and

farther than before.  A big tractor©trailer blasted its horn in
three short, loud bursts, as White Fang drifted into the left lane.

Archie’s head snapped back the other way and this time he had to

pull hard on the wheel to get us back into the right lane.  There

was a sort of miniature rest area ahead with just a picnic table

and a battered green trash barrel.  Archie didn’t say a word as he

maneuvered White Fang off the interstate and brought her to a halt

near the table.  Archie threw open the heavy door, banging it on

the corner of the wooden table.‘Ä%P0*†(†(∞

on my side, walked round the back of White Fang and sat down at the

picnic table on the bench opposite the one now occupied by my Dad.
     Archie dragged his big, sweaty right hand down the length of

his face and then clapped his blue, watery eyes on my face.
     “Ned.. son, are you telling me that Dennis Lustig told you he

is not HIV positive?”
     My eyes met his.  “Yeh, Arch, that’s what I’m telling you.  He

told me Wednesday afternoon right after he offered me the

marijuana.  And he told me he wanted me to break it to you and Mr.

Berger before his deposition on Monday.”
     Archie dropped his eyes to the table.  “Why, that little…”
Then he looked back up at me. “Did he say how long he’s known this,

Ned?”
    “Yeh, Pop.  He said he found out when his doctor finally forced

him to go in for a re©test.  He said the first test back in

December actually was positive for HIV.”
     The old man pondered this for a minute or two, idly rubbing

the side of his bulbous nose with two fingers.
     Finally he said, almost as if to himself, “Well, at least

that’s something.  At least he wasn’t lying to us from the

beginning.”
     And then, after another pause and some more rubbing of his

nose, “Come on.  Get back in the car.  We’re heading back to New

Hope.”
‘’Q0*†(†(∞

Berger inquired, his feet on the table, cocktail in hand.
     Archie and I had returned to Berger’s office to find the front

door still unlocked at almost 6:00 PM.  We walked in and found

Larry and Mrs. K. having scotch on the rocks together in the

conference room.  (Mrs. Kaiserman, I ought to add, was Berger’s

thrice©divorced aunt, which went a long way toward explaining how

she had held onto her job.  Her willingness to hang around on a

Friday afternoon and provide Larry with company for his tippling

apparently was another.)
      Archie had begun by suggesting that Mrs. K. ought to be

excused.  After first grandly declaring that, “Aunt Flo is privy to

all my secrets,” he agreed after further prompting by Pop to send

her on her way.  She had tossed back the dregs of her drink,
glared at me and my Dad, flashed Larry one of her most insipid

smiles and stomped out.
      “Lock up on your way out, Flo,” Berger had bellowed more

loudly than was necessary, given the modest size of his law

offices.  Archie and I exchanged rueful glances that said we were

both wondering how many Berger and his beloved aunt had shared

since we had left little more than an hour ago.
     As if reading our minds, Berger said, “First and last one,

guys.”  As if to prove the point he drained his glass and placed it

back on the credenza against the wall. 
     Turning back to us,he asked again, “So what’s so important?”‘’R0*†(†(∞

first he was even more incredulous than Pop. 
     “Alright, let’s settle this right now,” he had finally said.

Turning in the swivel chair back toward the credenza, he punched

the “speaker”  button on the phone and dialed Denny Lustig’s home

phone number.  Over the phone’s speaker we could hear the numbers

being dialed and the ringing at the other end.  And then…
    “Hello, sweetheart.  This is adorable Dennis.  I’m off burning

my candle at both ends and so can’t take your call.  But I love

your cute tushy.  So leave a name and number at the tone…”
     Larry and Archie exchanged disgusted looks as Berger lifted

the receiver from its cradle and slammed it down again, which

disconnected the call. 
     “Okay,” he said, leaning toward us across the table.
“Let’s assume Lustig told the lad here the truth.  We have the

deposition coming up on Monday.  How do we handle it?”
      I sat stone still for the next twenty minutes as the

discussion became a debate and raged back and forth across the

cherrywood conference table.  After reviewing the law together and

agreeing that an employer was guilty of handicap discrimination by

treating an employee as if the employee were handicapped, even if

he really wasn’t, Berger contended that the team should tough it

out.
     “Look, Arch, according to what Lustig told your kid,” he

argued, referring to me as if I wasn’t there (and who knows… by

then he may have forgotten I was), “Denny honestly believed he had‘’S[1]0*†(†(∞

appears that he filed his discrimination charge with the human

relations commission in good faith.  And when he signed the

complaint, he apparently still didn’t know that the test was wrong.
    “We’ve got ‘em, Arch.  I’m telling you, we got ‘em on this.”
    Archie took a minute to reply.  He cleared his throat furiously

and wiped his big hands on his trouser legs.
     “Technically, Larry, you’re right.”
     “Sure I am,” said Berger hastily, a half smile on his lips.
     “But…”, Archie continued.
     “But what?” Beger’s tone signalled he was prepared to turn

nasty.
     “But it’s just not right,” Archie stated, a little lamely I

thought.  Berger angrily pushed his chair back from the table,
banging the back of it against the credenza.
     After that Berger tried everything ©©© shouting and

intimidation, legal reasoning, even pleading toward the end ©©© but

to Dad’s credit he stuck by his initial, lamely©stated conclusion

that proceeding with the suit was “just not right.”
     Berger never folded either.  Instead it was agreed that Archie

would get hold of Marsha Milhouse at the AIDS Law Project in the

morning and see if she was available for an emergency meeting.

Larry for his part would keep trying to reach Lustig.  At Archie’s

prompting, Berger agreed that, even if Lustig changed his story

when he got hold of him, the emergency  meeting would go forward,

AND with or without the client.‘’T[1]0*†(†(∞

walked around the side of his house©turned©office, we could see

Berger, still in the conference room, reaching for the crystal

decanter of scotch. 
     On the ride home Archie and I hardly exchanged ten words. 
     “You two guys are pretty late,” Mom had commented when we

finally came home.
     Archie gave her a guilty look.  “Something came up at the last

minute,” was all he said in reply. 
     Mom turned as if to ask a follow up question, but Archie had

already retreated to his office.
     I took the stairs two at a time and made it to my room before

she could interrogate me.

‘’U0*†(†(∞

in his ‘sanctum sanctorum’ making and receiving telephone calls.

When Claire and I got up around ten, Mom was already gone.  We

assumed ©©© correctly ©©© that she was putting in some overtime at

REFA, where the fiscal year, ended July 1, was being closed out by

her department together with a group of outside auditors.  Mom was

always more tense and overworked than usual during this part of the

business cycle.  Whether Archie was able to keep his news from her,

which would have only made her emotional state worse, I didn’t

know.
      I filled Claire in on the situation over bowls of Fruit Loops

at the kitchen table.
      “Holy shit!” she had blurted out, when I came to the clincher

about Lustig not being HIV positive.  Then she clapped her hand

over her mouth and giggled.
     Just about then the old man emerged from his office and padded

in his bedroom slippers, pajamas and robe into the kitchen.
     Claire and I looked up from our cereal, perhaps looking a

little guilty, as people often do when the person they’ve just been

talking about suddenly appears in the doorway.
     Archie looked back at us with tired, sad eyes. 
     “Hi, kids,” he muttered, shuffling past the table and over the

refrigerator.  He opened the frig door and just stood there,
kind of staring at the stuff inside.
     “Pop,” I said.‘’V0*†(†(∞

downtown at one o’clock.”
     “Dad.”
     “Yuh, Ned?”
     “I want to come along.”
     “Ned, this is no place for you.  This meeting could get pretty

ugly.  I don’t think anybody will want a kid there.” Archie

considered what he had just said, and added, “No offense, Ned.”
    “None taken, Arch,” I replied.  “But I’m the one Denny chose to

confide in.  I had to take the heat of breaking the news to you and

Mr. Berger.  I think I have a right to be a part of this.”
     Archie seemed to ponder this a moment, the refrigerator door

still standing open, the frig motor humming away, trying to keep

the temperature down where it’s supposed to be.
     “Yeh, Ned.  I think you’ve earned that right,” he finally

pronounced.  “Okay, you can come.”
     I glanced at Claire who just rolled her eyes at me.
Claire wanted no part of this thing and never had.
     As for me, I was swinging wildly between cynicism and naive

idealism.  Working these past four weeks from mid©June to mid©July

on the Lustig case had been both a noble crusade, viewing it with

my Dad’s eyes, and a walk on the wild side, as seen through Denny’s

violet orbs.  Now the case, and by implication my efforts in it,‘’W[1]0*†(†(∞

riding with Archie in White Fang to our meeting, I could almost

palpably feel the shredded idealism which my Father continued to

wear like a tattered uniform.  Mentally I pulled a bit of that

threadbare cloth over to my side of the front seat and tugged it

across my skinny teenage shoulders.
        We spoke little as White Fang hauled us down West Chester

Pike and Chestnut Street and finally parted with us at the AIDS Law

Project offices, located in an aged four©story office building on

Cherry Street a couple of blocks east of Broad.  On Saturdays the

building was guarded by a lanky, Black rent©a©cop who seemed to

lear at Archie and me when Pop told him where he wanted to go… as

if perhaps he thought Archie was an obese child molester with his

latest conquest. 
     The rickety elevator slowly lurched its way to the fourth

floor and let us off in the Law Project’s reception area.  Another

lean young man, this one White, sat at the reception desk.  I noted

quickly that he was wearing two earings in his right ear, three in

his left.  His blond hair sported an auburn streak front to rear

just left of center.
     He led us back to a conference room, and advised us we were

the first to arrive.  He offered Archie a cup of coffee.  He gave

me a quick appraisal, then said, “We also have cocoa.”
     “No thanks,” I replied, my mind more concerned with where I

ought to sit when the others arrived.  Obviously I wasn’t anything

like an equal at the table, and I figured Denny could speak for‘’X[1]0*†(†(∞

beaten©up end table in the far corner of the rather cramped

conference room.  I said, “Pop, maybe I’ll sit there and reorganize

some of the articles and stuff in the file folders.”
      “Sure, Ned,” Archie responded somewaht absently.  I guess he

was mulling over how he thought the meeting ought to go.
     Five minutes after the receptionist brought Dad his coffee,

Marsha Milhouse and Larry Berger arrived together.  Berger had a

Dunkin’ Donuts paper coffee cup in his right hand, a briefcase in

his left.  Like Archie he was dressed in an Izod polo shirt and

slacks.  Milhouse also had her briefcase, but no coffee.  She wore

a sweatshirt and jeans, and what looked liked men’s high top

sneakers, the tops hidden by the legs of the jeans.  Her hair was

longer than when we’d first met, unkempt and sort of romantic

looking, like a woman who had spent the morning running through the

Scottish Moors in some old movie.
     Before Archie had a chance to inquire, Milhouse sat down and

said, “I’ve been trying to reach Denny all morning.  I’ve called

everywhere I can think of.  Nobody I talked to… none of his

friends or members of the gay community in New Hope has seen him

since Thursday night, when he apparently left the Forbidden

Fruit… that’s a gay bar in New Hope… in what the owner told me

was a very drunken condition.”
     Milhouse ran her left hand through her tangled mane and looked

from Archie to Berger and back again.  Berger and Archie also

exchanged glances.  Berger being the most vocal lawyer at the‘’Y[1]0*†(†(∞

first in response to the AIDS executive’s news.
     “It sounds to me like Denny knows the game is up,” he said in

an even voice, which must have masked keen disappointment.  “And I

have to agree with that.  I say we drop the suit on Monday

morning.”
    Now it was Milhouse and Berger who exchanged another round of

glances.  Berger repeated what he had said the day before:
     “Like hell!  The Human Relations Act makes it a violation to

treat someone as if he’s disabled.  When Freeman’s fired Denny old

man Freeman thought our boy had HIV.  Denny told him so in good

faith, so there’s no estoppel argument operating here.  Freeman’s

is still on the hook and I say we continue going after them.”
     Archie starred into his coffee.  Milhouse, after apparently

pondering Berger’s point for a brief moment, said, “I agree.  This

is still a significant test case in Pennsylvania.  If we back away

now the whole gay rights movement suffers.  And we set the

development of the law on AIDS discrimination back a year in this

state.”
     Berger and Milhouse turned their gazes on Archie, who sipped

his coffee and went through his throat©clearing ritual, before

speaking again.
     “I’m sorry, Larry… Marsha.  But as I see it, no matter how

sincerely Denny believed he was infected when he told the Freemans,

the fact is he’s perfectly healthy now.  He could have cleared up

the mistake months ago if he had just listened to his dcotor and‘’Z[1]0*†(†(∞

legal fees and suffered negative publicity, possibly loss of

business.  And nobody will believe that this wasn’t a set up if we

change our legal theory now. 
    “I think we could lose this case and wind up being sued for the

other side’s attorney fees,” he concluded.
    Berger curled his upper lip in a show of undisguised contempt.

I noticed from my perch in the corner that his eyes were blood

shot, and wondered how many more scotches he had consumed after we

left New Hope last evening.
     “Archie, boy,” he growled. “This is no time for a loss of

nerve.  √
√Weƒ
ƒ have valuable attorney time into this case too.  And so

far as what anybody thinks, we’ll be crucified as bad or worse if

we pull out now.  I say damn the torpedoes.”
    Archie’s big, bloodhound eyes looked pleadingly, but I thought

rather hopelessly, at Marsha Milhouse.
     Milhouse raked her hair with her hand again and said,”I have

to go with Larry on this one, Arch.  This is our test case and we

have to stay the course… go the distance, as you boys like to

say.”
     Archie recognized he wasn’t going to win this one, at least

not here and now.  So he retreated to a fallback position.

(Somebody once unkindly remarked about my Dad in his later years

that, “Archie’s philosophy is that the best offense is a good

defense.”  There has always been some truth in that.)‘Ä%[0*†(†(∞

flashed quick, triumphant glances at one another.  Arch didn't

notice because his eyes were glued to his coffee cup. 
     "But before we make a final decision, I think we have to know

were Denny's head is this morning," he continued.  "He's the one

who has to face a deposition Monday morning."
     "We can postpone," Berger chimed in, his voice turning into a

low, rumbling smoker's voice.
     "Regardless," Archie pressed forward," We have to find Lustig

and talk to him, as soon as possible."
     "Why don't you handle that?" Milhouse said, turning to Berger.
     "I'd love to," he replied, fishing a cigarette out of a pack

in his shirt pocket. (I had noticed that when Berger wasn't in a

situation where he could drink, he smoked.  But, as he had once

jokingly remarked, "I never sin with both hands at once.") "but I

promised the missus we'd drive over to Trenton to see her sister."
     "Never mind," said Archie, surprising me, "I'll run Denny to

ground and talk this through with him.  I'll call you both tonight

and let you know how I made out."
     This offer posed a dilemma for Berger and Milhouse.  The one

team member who wanted to drop the suit was offering to deal on

their behalf with the client.  This endangered their case.  On the

other hand Berger didn't want to spoil his weekend, and Milhouse

wasn't leaping to the task either.
     "Look, Arch," Milhouse said, "that's fine, but we have to be

agreed on our proposed course of action."‘'\[1]0*†(†(∞

get Denny straightened out for Monday.  Or if he’s too
upset, I’ll see what I can do about a continuance.”
     Milhouse and Berger simultaneously smiled at Archie.  And why

not?  They had what they wanted from the meeting and they didn’t

have to blow the rest of their weekends to get it.

‘’]0*†(†(∞

     And so, by mid©afternoon Archie and I were in White Fang,

grinding up Interstate 95 North to New Hope.  Archie had directions

from Marsha Milhouse to Denny Lustig’s apartment, which proved to

be on the third floor of an old, and rather poorly restored,

building that housed an antique shop on the ground floor, even

though it was located away from the main tourist thoroughfares.
     In fact there were few shoppers on this side street and Archie

actually was able to park right in front of the shop.  He told me

as firmly as Archie was ever able to give an order to one of his

kids that he wanted me to stay in the car.  I didn’t argue.  I

watched through White Fang’s right side window as Archie went into

the shop, apparently to confirm that Lustig lived upstairs, then

came out, turned left and went through a small, ornate door with a

leaded glass picture of some saint or other, which I guess had been

removed from a defunct church and used in the ‘restoration’ of the

building.  Before Archie closed the quasi©religious door behind him

I caught a glimpse of a steep set of stairs that obviously led to

the top two floors.
     As five minutes turned to ten and then fifteen, I began to

daydream and then to doze off.  Claire and I usually slept until

around eleven on Saturday mornings, typically having either been

out the evening before at a school event or else having watched a

double feature of rented videos from Movies Unlimited.‘Ä%^0*†(†(∞

when Claire invited me to stay up with her for a pair of horror

flicks (one of the earliest “Nightmare on Elm Street” films plus

something else I’ve since forgotten), I hadn’t refused.  So,

dragging ourselves out of bed early to see what Archie was up to,

Claire and I had missed a couple of those hours of sleep.  As 4:20

PM came up on White Fang’s digital display, my eyelids were

drooping.
    In fact, a pleasant dream involving a meadow and a beautiful

red dog, an Irish setter I think, had just begun to flow across the

screen behind those eyelids when a thud, followed by a violent,

wrenching shake from White Fang, caused me to snap open my eyes and

jerk up straight in the seat.  I was startled to find myself face

to face with Denny Lustig.
     Only after several long seconds of starring dumbly into

Denny’s eyes, which bore a startled expression which I had never

seen in them before, did all the details begin to organize

themselves and form a coherent pattern in my confused mind: Denny

was sprawled across White Fang’s hood, his neck was twisted in an

unnatural contortion, and blood was trickling from his nose and

mouth.  Most odd of all, one of his eyes was violat, the other a

pale blue.  As my mind at last interpreted the pattern, my mouth

opened in a long scream.

‘’_0*†(†(∞

     The rest of that Saturday is a series of blurry, indistinct

and unreliable images, rather like those we all have from our early

childhoods.  You can never be sure whether the images are authentic

memories or pictures your subconscious has conjured from

photographs and verbal descriptions provided by your relatives.
     I see myself wrapped in a blanket.  I hear a paramedic telling

Archie “the boy is suffering from mild shock, but he should be

alright in a little while.” 
     I see Larry Berger and Marsha Milhouse and news people and

police, all swirling around the scene like so many actors trying

with their limited numbers and props to convey the sense of some

battle scene in a Shakespearean play.
     I seem to recall snatches of the ride home, lying on White

Fang’s back seat, the blanket still wrapped around me, occasionally

seeing street lights shining down into my face from above the car

as we drove in the deepening twilight.
     I still can feel Mom’s arms around me, see her undressing me

and almost smell the clean sheets that she pulled all the way up to

my chin.  I recall the wet warmth of a tear landing on my forehead

as she bent down to give me a goodnight kiss.
    I also recall the warm summer darkness that enveloped me,

followed by an even blacker, warmer sleep in which no dreams I can

remember intruded.  I slept for fourteen hours.
CHAPTER TWENTY©ONE‘’`0*†(†(∞

suicide was front page news (albeit, below the fold) in the

Philadelphia Inquirer.  Archie was visible in the background of a

photo that showed police and medical personnel gathered around a

body bag lying on a portable gurney in front of the seedy antique

store.  His name was mentioned as one of the deceased’s attorneys,

but he wasn’t quoted.
     On Monday Archie appeared at the opposing attorney’s office at

ten o’clock, the time designated for Denny’s deposition.  The

attorney voiced his supposition that the AIDS Law Project likely

would drop the suit under the circumstances and Archie opined that

most likely it would. 
      I was at home on Monday afternoon.  I had had a bad nightmare

the night before, and didn’t seem to have the energy to do anything

but watch television.  I was seated in Archie’s lazyboy chair in

the living room, watching sitcom re©runs on a local cable channel,

as I had done since getting out of bed that morning, when Dad came

home from the deposition that never was.
     I looked toward the center hall when I heard him come in the

door.  He was about to turn and retreat to the sanctum sanctorum

when he must have felt my eyes on him, turned and caught my gaze.

He came into the living room and sat on mom’s matching lazyboy.  He

didn’t say anything and neither did I.  We just sat there and

watched an episode of the Dick VanDyke show in black and white.‘#a0*†(†(∞

too… not just because of the father and son thing, but because we

had been to battle and suffered a hard defeat together.
     An hour later we’d watched the Lucy Show and were well into

“Bewitched”, when the doorbell rang.  To me it was like a distant

train whistle… there but of no significance to me.  Even Archie

only responded after it rang a second time.  He paddled across the

carpet between me and the boob tube and into the front hall.  I

heard him open the door but I paid little attention as he talked to

whomever was there.  I wasn’t paying much attention to Elizabeth

Montgomery’s antics on the TV screen either.  The screen in my

brain kept rerunning the image of Denny Lustig’s face, pressed

against White Fang’s windshield and trickling blood down onto the

windshield wiper.  I was okay so long as I didn’t let that image

move beyond the inside of my skull down into my stomach, where it

kept wanting to go.
     Archie told me later, when I was more myself, that he had had

to call me three times before I turned away from the TV screen and

looked at him.  He was standing in the hallway with two people, a

mand and a woman, who were maybe a little older than he was,

perhaps as old as he is now. 
     “Come over here, son,” he said to me.  “I think you ought to

meet these folks.”
the center hall.
     “Ned, this is Mr. and Mrs. Lustig.”  I must have looked

puzzled, because he added, “Denny’s mom and dad.”‘’b[1]0*†(†(∞

of Archie… held out his hand and I shook it with my own rather

limp right hand.  Denny’s mother was a little younger looking than

her husband, her hair a rusty red color, her eyes puffy from

crying.  In retrospect I think the look I detected at that instant

in those big, green eyes was one of longing as she saw before her

the son she had had at home with her just a decade or so ago.

Neither grieving parent said anything to me.
     Archie broke the awkward silence, saying, “Let’s go into my

office.”  Then he added, “Ned, you’re welcome to join us.”
     I almost declined, much of me wanting badly to return to the

narcotic effect of the television set.  But I followed the three

adults into Dad’s den not because I cared about the case or Denny

Lustig anymore, but because I found being in my father’s presence

even more comforting than the soothing caress of the flickering

light from the cathode ray tube.
     As in the meeting in the conference room of the AIDS Law

Project, seemingly a century ago on Saturday, I sat in the chair in

the corner farthest from Archie’s desk.  Lustig’s parents sat in

the black walnut captain’s chairs nearer the rolltop desk.

    Archie positioned himself in his leatherette desk chair with

the squeaky wheels.  Dad had not met the Lustigs before.  To my

knowledge Denny had never mentioned his family, though I now

suspect that his parents were the source of his ever©ready supply‘’c[1]0*†(†(∞

was pending.  The Lustigs had come from Iowa to reclaim their boy

and take him back home.
     The Lustigs declined Archie’s offer of a cup of coffee or a

cold drink.  They explained that they had met with Milhouse, who

had told them a few more facts than they had already gleaned from

the newspaper accounts and a rather perfunctory telephone

conversation with Larry Berger.
     “But you were there,” Mrs. Lustig finally said.  “You were in

the room, when Dennis…”  Her voice trailed off and she looked

blankly, sadly at the worn Oriental throw rug under Archie’s chair.
     Mr. Lustig reached across and took his wife’s right hand in

his big, knarled left one.  He looked Archie hard in the eyes, the

way a tough farmer might look at a prospective opponent in a a bar

and grill on a Saturday night.
     “Mr. McAdoo, we want to know what happened in that room that

resulted in our boy going out his bedroom window.”  The statement

carried overtones of both a challenge and a threat.  I wondered

if Mr. Lustig thought my Dad had thrown his client out the window.

     Archie must have drawn the same inferences from the bereaved

father’s tone, because he replied, “Mr. Lustig… Mrs. Lustig, I

wish I could tell you what caused your son to jump out that open‘Ä%d0*†(†(∞

him.”  He paused and cleared his throat.
    “I’ve reviewed the moments before it happened maybe a hundred

times by now in my mind.  I can see myself seated in the straight™backed chair near the door, Denny across the room, sitting in the

cracked leather chair he had positioned by the window.  There was

a little table there, where he had a tape player, some tapes, a few

books and newspapers.  I imagine he sat there at night, read,

listened to music, and caught the night breezes through the

window.”  Another short pause.
    “It was a comfortable looking corner and he seemed at ease in

it.  We all have a special spot in our home, where we feel safest

and most comfortable, I think.”  Archie gestured loosely with both

arms.  “My family calls this my sanctum sanctorum.”
He gave a sort of embarrassed smile. 
    “That spot seemed to be Denny’s sanctum sanctorum.  He seemed

completely at ease in it.  He went over with me how he had kept

putting off the second HIV test until, by the time he found out he

was alright, we were already deeply into the case.  His voice was

thick with a sense of irony, even anger.  He said he had become a

symbol in the gay community.  ‘I finally was somebody.’
He repeated that a couple of times.  But, honestly, I didn’t detect

anything like real despair.  At times he even shook his head and

laughed.”
     Archie’s third pause in his sorrowful narrative seemed

intended to let his guests speak up.  But Mrs. Lustig just‘’e[1]0*†(†(∞

gaze never left my father’s face.
     The pause was just becoming uncomforatbly protracted when he

resumed, “Denny was just sitting there, shaking his head slowly and

laughing softly.  I was trying to think of the right thing to say.

Before I could come up with anything, he looked straight at me.”

Archie now returned Mr. Lustig’s gaze directly.  “Pretty much the

way you’re looking at me now.  He said,’Seven months ago I was just

the night manager of a tacky family restaurant.  Then I became some

of the things I’ve always wanted to be:  a symbol, a martyr, a

cause.  For a little while I wasn’t just a strange little man with

strange desires.  I was somebody.  I counted.  The fact that I was

going to die in the end really didn’t take away from how good that

felt.  When you’ve been treated like a freak… a queer… all your

life, dying can seem like a small price for that kind of rush.’
    “He kept staring at me, watching to see if I had gotten his

point, I guess.  Then he just calmly stood up and turned to the

window.  I don’t know what I thought.  But I guess it just seemed

he was going to open it wider or something.  In fact, he did open

hesitating, he dove out head first.”
     As Archie said his last sentence, Mrs. Lustig burst into tears

and covered as much of her face as she could with her left hand.

Mr. Lustig finally released Archie from his hard stare.  He fumbled

in his back pocket and pulled out a white handerchief, which he

forced into his wife’s right hand.  ‘Ä%f0*†(†(∞

compsure.  Archie said to me, “Ned, go get a couple glasses of ice

water.”
     I hopped up from my perch and headed for the door.  As I

scooted through, I heard him call after, “Make that three, Ned.”
     When I returned from the kitchen with three glasses of ice

water, emotions had subsided some, and everybody seemed grateful

for the refreshment.  I reclaimed my corner spot.
     Finally, after several long pulls at his glass of water,

Denny’s dad said,”Mr. McAdoo, I guess I owe you an apology.  I have

to admit I’m not real crazy about lawyers.  And I was thinking that

maybe something you said or did had… well, you know, had pushed

our boy over the brink.”
     Now his eyes were aimed at Archie’s old rug and not at the old

man’s sweating, embarassed©looking face.
    “There’s no need for that, Mr. Lustig,” Dad said.  One of

Archie’s failings as a lawyer (but one of his strengths as a human

being, I believe) is that he never closes in and takes advantage of

an opponent’s admission of weakness.  He is ever the gentleman in

a world populated by predators.  “I couldn’t be more sorry about

your son’s death.  I believe… I’ve always believed he was a fine

young man.”
    Mr. Lustig looked up from the rug.  “He was a fairy, Mr.

McAdoo.”  His look and his voice suddenly lost its edge and

softened.  “But he was our son and he deserved better than he got.”

A new sort of sadness entered those hard blue eyes.  “From me, and‘’g[1]0*†(†(∞

sprawled on a car hood on the front page of a newspaper.  He didn’t

deserve that, Mr. McAdoo.”
    “No, sir,” said Archie, “No, he didn’t.”
    Then he added, “If there’s anything I can do…”
    Mrs. Lustig looked up and for the first time proved that her

gaze could be as mezmerizing and as willful as her husbands.
    “There is, Mr. McAdoo,” she stated firmly.
    “What’s that, ma’am,” asked Archie innocently.
     “You can continue Dennis’s lawsuit,” she told him.

CHAPTER TWENTY©TWO
      Archie’s decision to push forward with the Lustig case

encountered nothing but negative reactions.  Larry Berger guffawed

and told my Dad he was “even dumber than I thought you were.”

Marsha Milhouse went balistic, screaming at Archie that he was

“ruininng Action AIDS’ plan to lay a sound foundation of legal‘’h[1]0*†(†(∞

generally.”  The Freemans’ attorney, Ernest Oakes, promised Pop to

“pursue my clients’ legal fees against you personally once we’ve

gotten this worthless case dismissed.”  Denny’s suicide, followed

by the pathetic appeal of his parents, had turned the members of

the late, great Lustig litigation team on their heads.  Now it was

my Dad who was intent on going forward, while the other two wanted

nothing but to jump ship as neatly and quickly as possible.
     But the biggest blast of this maelstrom of criticism came …

probably predictably … from Mom.  From the time Archie had first

announced his commitment to Denny Lustig’s ’cause’ back in January

down to Denny’s suicide on July 17th, she had kept her peace, and

the relative peace of our household as well.  To her great credit,

I believe in retrospect, she also refrained from telling her spouse

“I told you so,” after Denny’s dramatic death left me temporarily

in a state of semi©withdrawal. 
     Now she was wildly angry and upset, as only a wife and mother,

who believes she is fighting a hopeless battle for her home and

family can be.  At least two loud and ugly arguments, which Claire

and I could hear through closed bedroom doors, and perhaps others

that could have occurred while we were at the swim club (where I

was determined, and now permitted, to spend what was left of my

summer vacation), were followed by a long stretch of Mom’s silent

treatment.
     Claire, Chris Natali, and I compared notes at poolside, and

unanimously conlcuded that Mom was totally in the right.‘’i[1]0*†(†(∞

by a profusion of big black curls that probably hadn’t been

threatened by a barber since the summer had started, “Douesn’t your

Dad mind that half the known universe hates him by now?”
     I lay with my head on my beach bag, the sun in my face, eyes

closed behind silver©lensed sunglasses.  “I’m not sure I even know

him anymore, Chris, ” I replied.  “At first the case seemed to

bring us closer.  He was really understanding when I got into

trouble for that fight last term. 
    “And it even was kind of fun working for him this summer

until…”  My voice trailed off as an ugly, unwanted snapshot

intruded for the ten thousandth time upon the warm glow that I

liked to maintain as the exclusive image behind my eyelids.
    “None of us really feels like we know him anymore,” Claire

chimed in, completing my thought for me.  “He’s ,like, obscessed,

I guess.”  Claire, who to her chagrin freckles rather than tans,

adjusted the top of her swim suit above her budding breasts.
“Mom told him he needs psychiatric help.  But I don’t think she

really means it.”
     Chris bit thoughtfully into a granola bar and brushed the

resulting shower of crumbs from his stomach, which, like his hair,

had grown over the summer, but was beautifully tanned.
     “Lots of people are going nuts these days,” he observed after

swallowing the bite of his bar. “That Lustig must have been crazy.

Maybe he affected your Dad.”‘Ä%j0*†(†(∞

with her folded towel and knocking the rest of the granola bar out

of the startled boy’s hand.  He picked it off the grass and

carefully inspected it for dirt particles, replying a little

testily,  “I said affected, not infected, Claire.”
     Claire seemed a little embarassed.  “Sorry, Chris.  Guess I’m

a little touchy about this.  It’s such a drag having everybody you

know think your father is either a loony or a secret gay or

,like… I don’t know.
     “And it’s no fun being at home anymore either,” she added.
Suddenly she was crying.  “Oh, Ned, why did Dad ever have to get

mixed up in this mess?  Why’d he have to mix us up in it?”
     I pulled off my sunglasses and tossed them onto the grass.  I

pulled Claire to my warm, bare chest.  I hugged her hard and tears

filled my eyes too.
     Chris must have felt out of place in all this McAdoo emotion.

He studied his big belly, carefully surveying its expanse for

errant granola crumbs.  “Maybe I’ll go grab a shower, now,” he

said, ambling to his feet and trudging off toward the bathhouses.
     Claire and I looked at each other and wiped away one another’s

tears with gentle fingetips. 
     “Thanks, Ned,” Claire said in a horse, choked little voice,

“I’ve really been needing a hug like that from somebody in this

screwy family.”
     “Yeh, me too,” I responded.‘Ä%k0*†(†(∞

Claire.  I held a hand above my forehead to block out the sun.  I

saw it was the head lifeguard, Sally Spacich.
      I smiled back ay her, my tears creating a rainbow in the

corners of my eyes that made Spacich seem as if she was standing in

a spectrum of colors.
     “Yeh,” I said, “Yeh, Sally, I guess we’re just fine.  Thanks.”

CHAPTER TWENTY©THREE

     What happened after that in the case of Lustig v. Freeman’s

Dairy Bar and Restaurant I must report as pure hearsay, since I

stayed as far away from the case and my father as I could.  That

was how Mom very vocally wanted it.  And, frankly, it’s how I

wanted it, too.  Stage two of Mom’s response to Archie’s decision

to go the case alone ©©© the silent treatment ©©© gradually thawed

to the point where in early August she and Pop were communicating‘’l[1]0*†(†(∞

table conversations were not exactly animated or dynamic.  Claire

and I kept pretty quiet, too, behaving a little like gold miners in

the scene from some old movie in which a box of nitroglycerin has

just been brought down into the tunnel where they’re working.
     Most days my main haunt was the swim club, although once or

twice a week the dark cloud of depression would blot the sun and

then I’d take refuge at our electronic hearth, watching one sit©com

after another and eating a lot of junk food.  Fortunately for my

boyish figure, the swimming offset the empty calories.  Gradually

my body was developing the deep tan I had hoped to get at the

Jersey shore.  And just as gradually but surely, the sun and the

swimming burned and scrubbed at the scar on my psychy.  Just three

weeks Denny’s fatal dive onto White Fang’s  hood I could get

through a 24©hour period without imagining his sad, dead eyes, one

Liz Taylor’s and the other his own, more than a dozen times or so.

And I had learned to switch off the image, like changing a channel.

I wasn’t over it all, but I was moving in the right direction.  It

felt good.
     In fact, it felt so good, that I tended to avoid my father,

associating him with what felt so bad.  And so what information I

could have picked up about his lonely progress I carefully avoided

obtaining.  For instance, I never even knew about the deposition of

Orville Freeman, the owner of the restaurant where Denny had

worked, until two weeks after it took place.‘Ä%m0*†(†(∞

and Ernest Oakes arrived filled with arrogance and contempt.  The

old man added that he had anticipated that attitude, since Oakes

had already threatened him over the telephone that he was going

after attorney fees once the case was dismissed.  The mistake Oakes

made, Archie then remarked with a trace of a smirk on his large

lips, was that, being mainly a corporate and real estate lawyer, he

hadn’t really researched employment discrimination law very

closely.  Nor, apparently had he bothered to prepare his client

very thoroughly for what they expected to be a romp around what was

now a case of Dennis Lustig’s estate frivolously trying to pursue

the decedent’s seemingly©defunct cause of action.
     I didn’t bother to ask Archie for the deposition transcript

until after the case was over and I was psychologically ready to be

reconciled with him and with Denny’s ghost.  Even then I wasn’t

really able to fully appreciate the nuances of the proceeding.  I

still keep that deposition transcript today among my growing

collection of memorabilia of what I fancy are now two rather

interesting, and perhaps not insignificant, legal careers.
It’s only about 50 pages long, not a particularly big document of

its kind.  It begins with the witness being sworn by the court

reporter.  The parties are seated around the table with which I was

so familiar in Larry Berger’s offices.  Though Berger had washed

his hands of the case, he wasn’t so much of a turncoat as to deny

Dad the loan of the conference room.‘Ä%n0*†(†(∞

agree to the “usual stipulations.”  These include waiver until

trial of most objections that normally would be brought up before

a judge in a courtroom but which tend only to slow down the

progress of a discovery deposition.  Only the witness, the two

lawyers and the reporter are present, and both attorneys agree to

the usual groundrules.
      Archie then explains to Freemen what he intends to do.
“I’ll be asking you a number of questions, Mr. Freeman.  If at any

time you don’t understand a question, just say so and I’ll be glad

to rephrase it.  If you do answer a question, I’ll assume you

understood it and are answering to the best of your ability.  Is

that fair enough?”
     “Yeh, yeh,” Freeman seems to be grumbling. “Let’s just get on

with it.  Lustig is dead and I still have a restaurant to run.”
    “Alright,” my Dad responds, “Just one more preliminary issue.

Are you under any medication or other drug which might prevent you

from answering to the best of your ability?”
     I can see Orville Freeman turning to his attorney, his face

reddening in annoyance, as the transcript reports him saying,
    “What the hell is this, Ernie? “
    Oakes replies, “It’s only routine preliminaries, Orv.”
    It was a couple of weeks later than I learned what Orville

Freeman looked like.  Then he was in an apron and chef’s hat.  But

I see him in a tight©fitting seersucker suit or a brown sport coat

and coordinated tan pants that his wife had picked out for him, a‘’o[1]0*†(†(∞

the lawsuit, and his former night manager, and of my Father.  I see

him turning back to face Pop, the color in his cheeks subsiding to

their normal ruddy complexion, as he regains his control, and with

it his arrogance.  Having seen how ably Pop had defused the anger

in Denny’s dad, another aging farmer, I can visualize how well he

‘worked’ Orv Freeman, patiently but efficiently toward Archie’s own

goal.
    “No, Mr. Attorney, I am not under the influence of any drug

which will prevent me from answering your questions.  I’m not under

the influence of any substance at all, except maybe the caffein in

my morning cup of coffee, which I had when I opened my restaurant

at seven this morning.”  The transcript doesn’t reflect a pause,

but I suspect there was one, before he smuggly adds, “It’s your

client, or should I say your late client, who no doubt knew a thing

or two about the influence of drugs.”
     Most attorneys, faced with such a demeanor so early in a

deposition would have requested the witness’s counselor to caution

him about being more cooperative.  But Archie just plodded on,

patiently questioning Freeman about his business and slowly leading

him up to the evening shortly before the previous Christmas, when

Dennis Lustig had called him at home.  At this point the deposition

reads like this:
     Q.  And what did Mr. Lustig tell you when he called you that

evening?
     A.  What difference does it make?  It was all a lie anyway.‘’p0*†(†(∞

question I ask you and refrain from editorializing.
     BY MR. OAKES:  Orv, please… just answer the question.  The

sooner you do, the faster we’ll be out of here.
     BY MR. McADOO:  Do you need me to repeat the question, Mr.

Freeman?
     A.  No, no.  You asked what Lustig said.  He said he had been

tested for HIV and that he had come up positive.
     Q.  What did you understand that to mean?
     A.  That he had AIDS and he was going to die.  I’m just saying

that it wasn’t true.
     Q.  But at the time of the call, you didn’t know it wasn’t

true, did you?
     A.  With him, I should have known.  Mr. Slick, that’s who he

was.
     Q.  But did you know?
     A.  No, I didn’t.  I believed him.
     Q.  Do you think he knew at that time that it wasn’t true?
     BY MR. OAKES:  Objection to the form of the question.
     BY MR. McADOO:  Well, Mr. Oakes, I’m not sure I see anything

wrong with that question, but since we haven’t agreed to waive

objections to form until trial, I’ll try and rephrase.
     Q.  Mr. Freeman, looking back on that telephone conversation,

do you believe today that Dennis Lustig was deliberately lying to

you?
     A.  How would I know?‘’q0*†(†(∞

over the phone?
     A.  He was alright through most of the conversation.
     Q.  You say ‘through most of the conversation.’  Was there any

time when he was not ‘alright’?
     A.  Well, yes.  He seemed to be crying at one point.
     Q.  When was that?
     A.  When he told me about being HIV positive.  But he could

have been faking it.  He considered himself quite the amateur

actor.  But if he was so terrific, why was he managing a

restaurant?
      Q.  Maybe he wasn’t much of an actor at all.  Maybe he was

really upset?
      A.  Yeh, maybe.
      Q.  At any rate, you believed him when he told you he was HIV

positive.
      A.  I did.
      Q.  What did you tell him?
      A.  I said if that’s the case, then he should consider

himself on a permanent leave of absence.
      Q.  In other words, you fired him?
      A.  I put him on a leave.
      Q.  But you said it was permanent.
      A.  Well, I knew that once you have AIDS you don’t get over

it.‘Ä%r0*†(†(∞

today, did you consider that you had fired Dennis Lustig that

night?
      A.  Okay, Mr. McAdoo, yes I did.
      Q.  Thank you for that honesty, Mr. Freeman,  Now let me ask

you this:  why did you feel you had to fire him?
      A.  Well, I never cared much for the fact that Lustig was

gay.  But, heck, if you insisted all your staff be straight in

southern Bucks County you couldn’t staff a large restaurant like

ours.  But AIDS is another matter.  Who’s going to bring their kids

for ice cream if they know the guy managing the kitchen has an

incurable, fatal disease?  Hanging onto Dennis Lustig would have

been the kiss of death for Freeman’s restaurant.
     Q.  Perhaps I can appreciate your point of view, Mr. Freeman.

But Mr. Lustig had worked for you for some years.  Didn’t you feel

you owed him something?
     A.  Owed him?  The little liar wasn’t even sick.  I’m glad I

dumped him when I did.  I would have fired him for lying anyway.
I believe God intended to punish him one way or the other.

‘’s0*†(†(∞

CHAPTER TWENTY©FOUR
     Within a week of Orville Freeman’s deposition, Archie filed a

motion for summary judgment with the Court of Common Pleas for

Bucks County.  The motion argued that the estate of the plaintiff,

Dennis Lustig, was entitled to win its case against Freeman’s Dairy

Bar and Restaurant because Mr. Freeman had admitted that he had

discriminated against the plaintiff in violation of the

Pennsylvania Human Relations Act.  What Freeman’s lawyer, Ernest

Oakes, apparently hadn’t bothered to learn, and therefore hadn’t

bothered to tell his client, until it was too late, is what Berger

and Milhouse knew back when they still wanted to proceed with the

case just hours before Denny’s death had changed their minds: the

statute made it illegal to treat an employee in a discriminatory‘’t[1]0*†(†(∞

have one.  Archie argued that it really didn’t matter whether his

deceased client had lied or not back in December when he told

Freeman he was HIV positive.
     “The undisputed, material facts are that Mr. Lustig told Mr.

Freeman he had tested HIV positive,” the brief supporting the

motion concluded, “Mr. Freeman believed him, and though the

decedent was at that time perfectly able to perform his position,

the defendant summarily terminated his employment for the sole

reason that the defendant believed the decedent to be suffering

from a disability.”
     And little more than a week after that, on the Saturday of

Labor Day weekend to be precise, yet another visitor appeared at

the Mcdoo front door seeking a word with my Father.  This time the

visitor was Ernest Oakes, who had called ahead to make sure we

weren’t away for the weekend. 
     I was burrowed into my usual Saturday morning nest, one of the

two lazyboys in the living room, watching Looney Toons and munching

a blueberry Poptart.  I paid little attention as Archie ushered the

attorney into his inner sanctum.  I hadn’t met Oakes.  And besides,

I was still consciously withdrawn from anything having to do with

the old man’s legal practice, especially the Lustig case.
     The conversation was a very quiet one.  I heard nothing over

the cartoon voices and the boisterous music coming from the

television.  Even when I got up once to go to the powder room built

under the center hall staircase, which required me to pass within‘’u[1]0*†(†(∞

didn’t hear any of the conversation occurring on the opposite side.
     About an hour after Oakes had arrived, he and Archie emerged

from the sanctum and Oakes left… without shaking Archie’s hand I

noticed, glancing casually at the two men.  Archie gave me an

ambiguous look.  I thought I detected the ghost of a smile on his

face, or maybe just a bit of a twinkle in his watery blue eyes.  He

seemed to consider saying something as he looked at me.  But then

he turned, went back into his office and closed the door.
     Sunday was spent at the swim club.  Mom, Claire and I were

intent on enjoying the last weekend before the pool closed for the

season.  Mom packed a big picnic basket and cooler of drinks and

icecream bars.  Archie excused himself, saying he had pressing work

that wouldn’t wait.
     Mom looked at him skeptically.  But relations were still very

strained.  So she didn’t try to talk him into coming along.
     Monday morning, Labor Day, I woke with a bittersweet feeling
similar to the one I always had when I both looked forward with

anticipation to the imminent start of a new school year and a

whimsical wish that the summer could last just another week.  The

feeling was more bitter than sweet that summer, as I fought the

usual rush of bad memories that had haunted me since mid©July, and

also that morning fought back a growing anxiety about meeting Big

Bill and his buddies in the middle school halls again.
     All in all, I wandered down to breakfast with no youthful

energy or boyish excitement to share with the rest of my family. ‘’v[1]0*†(†(∞

in a new Led Zeplin t©shirt and sexy little shorts, she was excited

about going to the Hershey Amusement Park with her best friend,

Jennifer Gallagher, and her family.  In fact, CLaire had just about

wolfed down a bowl of Fruit Loops when a horn blew in our drive,

and she was on her way.
     As she literally skipped through the center hall, Archie came

down the stairs.  I noticed that, even though it was only eight

o’clock, he too was already all dressed… in a sport coat and tie

no less. 
     “Hey, gorgeous,” he said to Claire, “how about a kiss for the

old man?”
     Claire stopped, turned and gave Archie a kiss on one of his

big, plump cheeks. 
     “Here’s a little something extra.  Buy a nice sweatshirt or

something,” said Archie, handing Claire a folded bill.  “Just do

your old Dad a favor and bring me the newspaper from the driveway

before you go.”
    “Wow, thanks, Dad,” squeeled Claire, jamming the bill into the

tiny back pocket of her tight blue shorts.  She skipped out, picked

up the paper, and gave Arch a peck on his other cheek before

turning and running to the Gallagher’s green Chevy van.  Archie

beamed and waived as he watched the van back out of the drive and

head away down the street.
     He closed the front door and took the paper from under his

left arm.  He looked over the  first page, smiled a satisfied‘’w[1]0*†(†(∞

sitting at the table sipping her coffee and thumbing through a

flier from the Manoa Hardware Store. 
     Archie placed the paper in front of Mom, turned and went to

the counter to help himself to a cup of coffee.  His back turned to

Mom, he had the satisfaction of hearing her choke a little on her

next sip of coffee, as her eyes scanned the lower half of the front

page of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
     I walked quickly across the tile floor to stand behind her and

look over her shoulder, as I had peered over Archie’s shoulder at

another newspaper nearly eight months earlier.  “Settlement reached

in case of man fired because he had HIV,” the headline read.  The

subhead said, “Successful plaintiff committed suicide this summer.”
      Archie had done it.  I learned how a little later that same

day.

‘’x0*†(†(∞

CHAPTER TWENTY©FIVE
     Mom and I both accepted Archie’s invitation to drive up to

Doylestown with him.  He was scheduled to meet Ernest Oakes at his

law office at ten thirty to sign some documents.  While Archie had

succeeded in onsisting on the right to break the story to the

Inquirer, winning for himself the story in the lower left hand

corner of the day’s front page, a condition had been absolute

secrecy concerning its monetary terms.  To help preserve his

client’s confidentiality conditions, Oakes had insisted that the

settlement check be exchanged for signed releases on the holiday,

when most of the legal district around the courthouse would be

deserted by other attorneys and the usual contingent of journalists

assigned to the courtroom beat.
     Mom and I went window shopping among the antique stores on

main street, while Archie met with Oakes.  Denny’s Dad, who had

flown into Philadelphia Sunday night, had driven out in a rental

car and was already waiting in Oakes’ office, Archie told us later.

Orville Freeman wasn’t present.  Oakes turned over two checks,

representing Archie’s contingent fee and the remainder of the‘’y[1]0*†(†(∞

was subdued, business©like, a little frosty on Oakes’ part.      

  But Oakes did tell Dad something he hadn’t divulged in their

first meeting:  In the politically©wired world of county politics,

where a successful restauranteur is a real player in the coveted

tourist trade, judges who must win periodic reelection to their

posts are mindful of the impact of their decisions upon such

personages as Orville Freeman.  Though a questionable call on the

part of the judge assigned to decide Archie’s summary judgment

motion, that esteemed Bucks County jurist had made an ex parte call

to Oakes, advising him as an old friend and colleague in the county

bar that he not only was likely to lose on the motion, but that he

may have malpracticed in the balance.  Oakes was man enough, and at

least attorney enough, to reveal these facts to my Father, while

Denny’s Dad waited outside Oakes’ office for his turn to sign the

settlement.  Of course, he was also enough of a lawyer not to tell

Archie before he had reached a settlement figure on Saturday, for

fear that Archie or his client might hold out for more.  All the

same, Archie graciously agreed to maintain this confidence together

with those he was formally promising to observe that day.
       Mom and I were walking back toward White Fang when we saw

Archie and Mr. Lustig shake hands on the sidewalk in front of

Oakes’ office door.  I noticed someone peek from behind a vertical

mini©blind in the office’s front window.
     Dad spotted us and waived as Mr. Lustig walked away in the

opposite direction.  The mini©blinds closed again.‘’z[1]0*†(†(∞

street, I looked out the back window and saw Ernest Oakes step out

of his office and stare after us down the street.  He seemed to

shake his head, as if in amazement, then turn and head
down the sidewalk in the opposite direction.  As we came to the end

of the block I saw Mr. Lustig getting into his rental car.  He

didn’t look up at us as we passed and Archie didn’t blow the horn

or waive at him.
     Archie was silent until we were outside town and Mom and I

respected his silence.  Then he reached into his coat pocket and

handed Mom the check.  It was folded in half.  As she opened it and

looked at it, he said, “That should cover my hourly rate on the

case, wouldn’t you say?”
     For the second time in just one morning my Dad had managed to

shock my Mother.  He said he couldn’t say how much the total

settlement had been.  But he observed that we could probably make

a pretty good guess if we assumed the usual contingency was a

third, but that the check included a calculation of the costs he

had incurred up front in the case, such as the expense of the

crucial Orville Freeman deposition.  He then swore us to secrecy as

well.
     “Archie,” Mom asked, showing the old boy some signs of

affection for the first time in… how long?  “Shouldn’t we

celebrate?  I mean it’s a holiday.  And then there’s this.”  She

looked really hard at the check again.  She held it in both her

hands, as if it might evaporate if she didn’t hold on tight.‘’{[1]0*†(†(∞

     I was leaning over the seat, my own eyes perhaps bugging out

a bit as I studied the check Mom was clutching.  Not a fortune, but

good wages for a job well done.  I felt a weight lift from me.  I

like to think, looking back now, that it was the vindication of my

Dad’s principles, and not the handsome fee, that released me from

under the clouds that had been haunting me for almost two months.
     “Sure, Arch,” I said, calling him affectionately by his first

name, an old habit Claire and I had indulged in almost forever, but

which I had dropped during the weeks of my withdrawal from him and

all he stood for.  “Whatever you say.”
     Archhie seemed to ponder that for a moment.  Then he said,

“You know what?  In all these months, I’ve never actually seen

Freeman’s Dairy Bar.”
     “Archie, you wouldn’t dare!” exclaimed my Mother.  But her

mischievous look told me… and my Father… that she was for it.
     Archie navigated White Fang to Newtown, a village held second

only to New Hope in all Bucks County for its touristy atmosphere.

It was a little past noon by the time we found Freeman’s Dairy Bar

and Restaurant, and the parking lot was pretty full.  White Fang

being the luxury liner she was, Archie had to park her way in the

back of the lot, right beside the dumpster.
     Inside we had to wait in line about ten minutes for a table.

When we were finally seated, the festiveness of the occasion seemed

to demand that we all three skip a nourishing lunch and have

icecream sundays.  Archie ordered one called “Lost Youth” which‘’|[1]0*†(†(∞

gallon of whipped cream.  Naturally, he had ordered the large.
     Mom made do with a small “Dusty Road” sunday made with frozen

yogurt.  I was Mr. In©Between, getting a medium banana split.
     The sundays arrived in less than ten minutes and Archie was

about to attack the mountain of cream when a shadow fell across the

table.  Looking up from his “Lost Youth”, Archie saw Orville

Freeman staring down at him, wearing a white apron and chef’s cap.

     “Mr. Freeman,” Archie said in a voice that betrayed his

surprise, and perhaps a touch of anxiety.
     “The same,” was all Orville Freeman said in reply, as he bent

over, grasped the base of the silver sunday bowl in his huge right

hand and placed Archie’s “Lost Youth” on his head like a soldier’s

helmet.  Since Pop had ordered the large size, it fit fairly well.

The hot butterscotch held it stickily in place.
    “Excuse me, folks,” he said to Mom and me, taking in both of us

with a quick, friendly smile… the kind he no doubt gave all his

valued customers as he cruised his restaurant, spreading goodwill

and winning back the same.
     He turned and headed back toward his restaurant’s kitchen.

Then turning and giving us another quick, friendly look, he said in

a soft voice that belied his great size, “The sundays are on the

house.”
     When the shock wore off, the restaurant began to buzz as

people speculated about what had just happened.  A few obviously‘’}[1]0*†(†(∞

departed.  A couple of little kids came over and pointed at Pop

until their parents scooped them up and carried them back to their

own tables.
     “I’m calling the police,” said my Mother, who was beet red

from a combination of anger and embarassment.
     Archie reached out with his left hand and gently held her

right arm as she made to get up from the table.  With his own right

hand he gingerly removed the sunday bowl from his head.  Two

waitresses rushed over, their hands full of paper towels and

napkins, both nervously glancing over their shoulders in the

direction of the still swinging kitchen doors, probably wondering

what their boss would do if he caught them aiding the man he had

just coated with ice cream, whipped cream and hot butterscotch

sauce.
     “We’re not calling the police,” Archie said in a quiet voice.

He was perfectly calm as he took his time in cleaning off as much

of the mess as he could.
     “Wait here and finish your sundays,” he gently commanded as he

went to the men’s room on the other side of the main dining area.

He returned in about ten minutes.  Mom had only poked at her “Dusty

Road.”  I had eaten  all of my split, partly I think in fear that

if I didn’t eat it either Freeman or Archie might put it on my

head.
     When Archie came back his hair was wet but clean, and combed

the way you comb your hair with your fingers when you get out of‘’~[1]0*†(†(∞

better to use.  He carried his wet jacket over one arm.  His shirt

and tie also looked wet in several spots, as did one pants leg

which he had succeeded in only partially scrubbing of butterscotch

sauce and vanilla icecream.
     He walked with a fair amount of dignity out of the restaurant

as everyone stared after us. 
     “We ought to call the police,” my Mother insisted again, as

Archie steered her toward White Fang with his free hand.
     “No, we shouldn’t,” he assured her.  Normally she would have

disputed his opinion. But today she let him call the shots.  Archie

was downright cheerful as he drove home, the window wide open to

help him dry off.  He explained briefly that Freeman, denied his

day in court by good lawyering tactics, had a lot to get out of his

system.  Archie said he was actually glad to have given him the

chance. 
    “Let’s just be glad it was an ice cream sunday and not a gun,”

he added, I think only half in jest.
     “I just wish Denny had been there to see it,” he added.  “It’s

the kind of ending he would have really appreciated, I think.”
    Even at sixteen I was smart enough to fight back the urge to

reply, “Maybe he was there in spirit.”  Maybe he was, but I was

never that hoky, not even then.
    So Archie McAdoo had shown them all he was a good lawyer in the

end.  And a good man, who could let the vanquished opponent make

his point, even at Archie’s own expense.  ‘’[1]0*†(†(∞

on a day©to©day basis.  But both his attitude and the quality of

his legal practice seemed to change for the better, little by litle

and day by day, from then on.
     As for me, I decided that, though I knew I was choosing a

tough life, I wanted to be an attorney too.  Denny’s ghost lives

with me still, as I’m sure he lives with my Dad.  Each year in a

lawyer’s busy life brings other scars and other ghosts.  You learn

to wear the former with pride, even if gained through your own

stupidity, and you learn to live on friendly terms with the latter.

     Oh, yes, one other thing:  although Archie has continued to

this day to eat as much as ever, he has never eaten so much as a

spoonful of icecream to the best of my knowledge.  As magnanimous

as he was the day Orv Freeman decorated his head, some part of

Archie… the really vulnerable core, I think… can’t bring

himself to enjoy the stuff anymore. 
     Once, a couple of summers later, when the old boy was deeply

embroiled in his well©known tree mold case, he was offered a

lucious©looking chocolate cone at a church picnic.
    “No thank you,” he had unhesitatingly told old Mrs. Shuck, who

was holding out the cone at her booth on the church’s front lawn.
    “What’s the matter, Mr. McAdoo,” she had asked, perhaps a

little surprised that such a large man would turn down such a

scrumptious concoction.  “Don’t you like ice cream.”‘’Ä[1]0*†(†(∞

as he could manage.
                         ©end©

Buy this book and its sequel, “Ned McAdoo and the Molly Maguires,” at http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=1257238

åChapter Eleven
     When I came back downstairs Claire was waiting for me in the

front hall.  I guess she didn’t want to make a solo appearance.  We

walked out to the kitchen, which smelled of baked beans and onions,

through the sun room and out the back door into our yard.
      The six adults were all seated around a big round table that

I recognized as belonging to our neighbor, Charlie Halleck.

Knowing old man Halleck, I’d have bet anything he wouldn’t have

loaned it to dad if he had known what kinds of people would be

eating at it.  Off to the right a teeange boy and girl were playing

a lethargic game of badminton across the net that Arch must have

hastily put up earlier in the day.
     As Claire and I walked across the lawn to the table, I felt a

sudden rush of anxiety.  I recognized Dad’s co©counsel, Lawrence

Fishbine Berger, because Archie had done some real estate work with

him in the past.  And I recognized Dorothy Berger, his wife, who

had been to dinner at our house a couple of years ago.  By process

of elimination the third, and youngest, male at the table had to be

Dennis J. Lustig.
     My first impression of Denny Lustig was that he had to be

related to the actor Tom Cruise, who had just burst upon the movie

scene with a sexy little comedy called “Risky Business.”  Cruise

had played a teen who, left alone at home for the weekend, turned

his house into a brothel for two days.  Naturally, Mom had objected

to my seeing it, but I had managed to catch it at the Lawrence Park

Shopping Center on a Saturday afternoon anyway.‘’3[1]0*†(†(∞

her parents’ protests, was in love with Cruise, and for that reason

every guy who, like me, had slipped in to see it, hated him.  And

Lustig was just about as good looking as the famous young actor.
     Lustig looked particularly appealing, placed as he was between

Archie and Larry Berger.  If ever there was a Laurel and Hardy of

the law, my Dad and his sometime co©counsel were that duo.  As big

and round and fat as the old man was (and pretty much still is,

despite the ice cream aversion), Berger was as thin and stooped and

stringy.  If Lustig was the Tom Cruise of the case, Berger was the

Walter Matthau.  But I’m probably getting you confused with all my

movie allusions.  Suffice it to say that, if and when they ever

entered a Bucks County courtroom, the client ©©© even though he was

under an HIV death sentence ©©© was going to look dazzling in

contrast to his two attorneys.
    As Claire and I came into the backyard from the sun room we had

let the screen door slam behind us.  Everybody at the table had

looked up at once, and Archie lumbered to his feet, knocking his

molded plastic lawn chair over behind him.  He looked beleaguered

and the blue barbeque apron he wore was smeared with drying red

sauce and sundry other, unidentifiable food products.
    “Hey, kids, glad you finally made it,” he said in what I

recognized as phony©jovial tones.  The stress Archie was enduring

was hidden just below a very thin layer of congeniality.

    “Ned… Claire… I’m sure you remember Mr. and Mrs. Berger.”‘’40*†(†(∞

Mr. Berger, slumped back in his molded plastic chair… one of a

dozen Dad had purchased en masse from an end©of©summer sidewalk

sale at the Manoa Shopping Center last August and then left stacked

in the backyard all winter to turn from white to a cruddy©looking

shade of gray… lethargically waved the hand that wasn’t holding

his scotch on the rocks. “Hi, kids.  Great to see you two again.”

Yeh, sure.
    Mrs. Berger, by contrast, leaned forward so that her cleavage

became clearly visible to my pubescent stare.  Two very thin

shoulder straps, which seemed to be little more than bits of twine,

held up her dress, which barely contained her ample bosum.  She

flashed a big smile at us, revealing a mouthful of braces.  By 1985

middle©aged orthodontic work had become all the rage and Mrs. B.

obviously was right on the cutting edge of the trend.  Her big

smile compressed her eyes down to two slits and some of her

heavily©applied sky©blue eyeshadow cracked and flaked.
    “Oh, my, you two have gotten so big.  Claire you’re quite the

woman.  Your father reminded me before you got her that you’re

almost Gwenny’s age.”
    Turning round in her chair, so that I now got to study her

bare, freckled right shoulder and back, she shouted as if her

daughter were two or three backyards away.  “Gwenny, get over here‘Ä%50*†(†(∞

down and come here.” 
    The Berger offspring appeared to be no more enthusiastic about

this close encounter of the teenage kind than Claire and I were.

But we went through the motions of shaking hands and getting

acquainted.  Then Archie, still standing uneasily throughout this

ritual completed the introductions.
   “Claire… Ned, this is Mr. Lustig.”
    Claire smiled at Dennis Lustig.  Being a girl she could get

away with not shaking his hand.  But I was a boy,,, a young man…

of 16.   I leaned across the table and proffered my limp right hand

to Mr. HIV himself.  Lustig practically leaped to his feet and took

my flaccid paw in his own strong right hand and pumped it

enthusiastically.  My arm undulated like a length of linguine.
     “Ned!  What a pleasure.  Your father tells me you’re now part

of the Lustig litigation team,” he bubbled.  “If you’re anything

like your heroic father, I’m just thrilled to welcome you onboard

our Starship Enterprise.”
     I found it disconcerting the way he stared right into my eyes,

his own a mix of mischievousness and a probing quality, as if over

time he had developed the habit of trying to ascertain what the

people he met really thought about him.  The other disturbing

quality about his eyes was their color… a sort of violet that

seemed at once beautiful in a feminine way and quite unnatural.‘#60*†(†(∞

the opposite was true, and I knew Lustig could see that in my eyes

and feel it in my ‘dead fish’ handshake.
     I pulled back my hand and suppressed the urge to wipe the palm

on my pants leg.  Lustig’s eyes held onto mine for another long

second or two, the obvious amusement in them very disconcerting to

me.
     “And this,” my Dad chimed back in, “is Marsha Milhouse, the

executive director of the Pennsylvania AIDS Law Project, which is

co©counseling Dennie’s case with us.”
     For the first time I noticed the woman sitting to Archie’s

left at the picnic table.  Her hair was brown and cut almost

boyishly short.  Her face was round and full, her body a bit

chunky, maybe even muscular… for a woman, that is.  She smiled,

stood up and shook my hand far more firmly than even Lustig hand

done.  (And his handshake had been pretty firm for a f… I stopped

myself from thinking that word.  That word was for Big Will Hadden

and his fascist father, not for Archie McAdoo’s son.)
     Milhouse also held out her hand to Claire, who took it and

shook it awkwardly.
     “Ned,” said Milhouse, turning her attention back to me and

still standing up, “your father tells me that you’ll be helping

prepare our case for trial this summer.”
     “Uh, yeh, right,” I said somewhat uncertainly. ‘#70*†(†(∞

it, young Ned, my son and heir, is officially a part of the crew of

the Starship Enterprise.”
     With that, the old man bent over, hoisted his bottle of

Budweiser from the table and toasted me with it. 
     “Welcome aboard, lad,” said Larry Berger, taking a long pull

at his glass of scotch.
     “Here, here,” said ‘Marsh’ Milhouse, picking up her own beer

bottle and taking a swig from it.
     Lustig and Mrs. Berger each picked up some kind of a foamy

pink drink that they had in front of them, gave a little toast in

my direction and took little sips that left flecks of pink foam on

their upper lips.
    Licking off the foam, Lustig added, “I adore your dacquerys,

Arch.”
    I noted furtively out of the corner of my left eye that Mom,

who had remained silent through this whole get©acquainted ritual,

didn’t pick up her drink… a Diet Coke, if I knew my Mother… to

toast my being beamed onboard the Lustig spaceship.  Whatever

planet I was bound for with my Dad and his “team”, Mom was not

making the voyage either in person or in spirit.
     By the time the little ritual was completed the Berger kids

had managed to finish their badminton game and swagger over to the

picnic table.  Archie and Mrs. Berger handled the introductions

among us kids.  ‘Ä%80*†(†(∞

“Why don’t the four of you go listen to some tapes in the family

room and get to know each other better?  I’ll give you a shout when

the chow is coming off the grill.”
     The four of us looked at each other a little uncertainly and

shrugged in acceptance of Dad’s suggestion.
     As we turned to head inside, Lustig was on his feet, the eyes

still sparkling their violet mischief.  “I love music,” he

proclaimed.  “Does anybody mind if I tag along?”

‘’90*†(†(∞

awkward.  The room was pleasantly cool, the old couch and chairs

the most comfortable furniture in the whole house.  Dennis Lustig

had refilled his dacquery glass before leaving the backyard.  The

rest of us got cans of soda from the refrigerator at the foot of

the basement stairs.  The awkwardness began to fade from the room

as we discovered that we all shared a liking for Lou Reed.
     I put the tape on the stereo and soon Lou was half singing,

half speaking, “take a walk on the wild side.”  When Reed reached

the line in the song that says, “he shaved his legs and then he was

a she… take a walk on the wild side,” Lustig, who was sitting

alone in a chair diagonally to the left of the couch where Jasaon

Berger and I were sprawled, looked at us with those weird but

appealing eyes of his and said,
   “He’s gay, you know.”
   There was a moment of awkward silence and surprise. 
   Finally, a second before all the earlier awkwardness could fall

on us like a wet blanket, I responded.
    “Who?  the guy in the song?  Obviously.”  I tried to sound

cool.
     “Well, sure, him too,” replied Lustig.  “I meant Lou Reed.”
     Jason apparently had recovered from his initial surprise,

shared I’m sure by all four of us kids, that Dennis Lustig would be

so up front about a subject that was still pretty much taboo in

‘burbs the likes of Havertown.‘’:[1]0*†(†(∞

heir asked in a challenging tone of voice. ” I never heard that he

is.”
     Lustig flashed Berger the Younger a condescending smirk. 
“Trust me, my dear,” he almost purred, “I make it my business to

know the queens who are making their marks.”
     This deliberate gender switching had a titillating effect on

me, though it clearly made Jason uncomfortable and more defensive.

Claire and Gwen were flipping through Claire’s albums and tapes,

close by one of the stereo’s two speakers.  If they had heard this

dialog they never let on.
     “So √
√howƒ
ƒ do you know?” Jason pressed, crossing his legs and

holding his Diet Coke can with both hands in his lap.
     “How do I know?” Lustig replied in even, velvet tones.  “Well,

young Jason,” he continued after a delicate sip of his daquery,

“first, I would be quite certain of it ©©© even if I didn’t know

Lou personally ©©© merely by his voice, his clothes, his lyrics,

his phrasing… Dear God, it all says, ‘I’m queer as a three dollar

bill and proud of it, darlings.’”
     Of course, it was the parenthetical that had hooked us.
     “You know Lou Reed?” Jason and I seemed to ask simultaneously.

Our duet caught the girls’ attention, and all eyes turned to Dennis

Lustig, who seemed to bask in our gazes as if they were eight

spotlights turned on him.  For the first time I discovered how much

Dad’s pro bono client loved the limelight.
     ‘’;0*†(†(∞

the palm of his hand, as he described the gay scene in New York and

in New Hope, Pennsylvania.  He told us about the weird behavior and

kinky clothes that were part of “Cruising” in Greenwich Village,

which Al Pacino had dramatized in a scandalous film none of us had

been permitted by our parents to see (although Jason chimed in with

a slightly aggressive assertion that he and a friend had managed to

slip in to see it at a local mall multiplex theater).
     Lou Reed liked to perform in a black t©shirt and a leather,

billed cap that evoked Marlon Brando and motorcycle gangs.  Pacino

had been pictured on the movie posters in such a leather jacket and

cap, the jacket decorated with chains.  I now could picture Dennis

Lustig doffing his restaurant manager’s blue blazer and striped tie

and exchanging them for Reed’s black t©shirt and Pacino’s black cap

and shiny leather motrocycle jacket.  I saw him jingling in his

chains around my mental image of Greenwich Village.  
     Denny… we were all to call him Denny… had a knack for

making eye contact and of speaking in a hypnotic, conspiratorial

purr that kept even a teen’s short attention span in his firm

grasp.  The sense of being given a glimpse of not an “R” but, yes,

an “X” rated movie, and a documentary at that, insured our rapt

attention as he painted verbal images of cowboy bars and wild

parties.  Weaving through all the images were Lou Reed, “queer as

a three dollar bill,” and Denny himself.
     Even Jason had left off challenging Denny’s verasity after the

first five minutes of detailed descriptions, including how Lou‘’<[1]0*†(†(∞

entered one of the Washington Square watering holes he and Denny

both frequented, announcing his arrival before anyone inside

actually spotted him.  Denny was the smiling, hissing serpent,

feeding us forbidden fruit and we loved it.
    Before we had quite had our fill, Archie shouted from the top

of the basement stairs, “Hey, you guys, dinner’s ready.  Come and

get it  before I eat it all myself.”  With Pop that might be no

idle threat.
    Claire turned off the tape and we all headed upstairs and out

to the backyard.  I was the last to leave the family room, turning

off the lights, as Mom had trained Claire and me to do.  As I

started up the stairs I saw that Denny was waiting at the top.
     As I climbed to where my head was about level with his chest

he put his right hand on my left shoulder and said,
     “You found all that pretty exciting, didn’t you, Ned?”
     My reaction was automatic.  I brushed his hand from my

shoulder. 
     “Hey, relax,” said Denny in his most soothing voice.  “I can

tell you’re not cut out to be a sister.  I’m just pleased to see

that the new member of my trial team isn’t homophobic.  I can see

you appreciate the validity of alternative life styles.  That’s

all.”  He stayed where he was, forcing me to brush past him. 

Buy this book at www.lulu.com

‘      ‘#         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘åôChapter Seven
Like so many of our adolescent fears, my fear that my junior
year at Haverford High would turn into a living hell proved to be
extremely exaggerated.  Even we top©track students called him
‘Weasel’, but Mr. John Brennan, the school’s assistant principal
and head disciplinarian, was known for absolute fairness and for
taking no prisoners.  His investigation of the Hadden©McAdoo close
encounter resulted in no punishment for me, beyond what had already
been imposed on my face by Big Will himself.
As for Hadden, he not only missed the Lower Merion meet ©©©
which, thank heavens, Haverford won without him ©©© but was
suspended from the wrestling team for an additional two weeks.
More importantly, Mr. Brennan let it be known that Archibald McAdoo
was off limits to retribution.  So while I was subjected to some
harsh glares from Hadden and his cronies, no one laid a hand on me
or openly harassed me after that.
Meanwhile, like all lawsuits, √
√Lustig v. Freeman’s Farm Dairy
Bar and Restaurantƒ
ƒ settled into the rhythm of its investigatory and
preparation stages, when the news media more or less loses sight of
it and the professionals ©©© in this case Pennsylvania Human
Relations Commission fact finders and the attorneys for the two
parties ©©© quietly go about their business behind the scenes.  Pop
lost a couple of clients over it, Mom continued to stiffen every
time the case was brought up within her hearing, but the Haverford
community, including the kids at Haverford High, put the case in
the back of its collective mind.‘      ‘$         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘å     To my surprise there was one more reason why my fears of daily
persecution in the halls of Haverford High never came to pass. Mr.
Brennan, it turned out, was not the only person there of whom the
students were now wary.  The word had spread among all 4000 of them
that a top©track honor student, and one with a reputation (to the
extent they had heard of him at all) of being a bit of a wimp, had
attacked Big Will Hadden… and left him writhing in agony on the
cafeteria floor.  Like a latter day Billy the Kid, I had become
something of a legend in my own time.  Friends told me the rumors
included speculation that I was a black belt in karate or kung fu.
And so, life went on.
January passed, as did the spring term, and then it was June.
The Human Relations Commission found merit in Dad’s charge that
Dennis Lustig was the victim of handicap discrimination when he was
fired by Freeman’s restaurant, the Freeman family predictably
refused to rehire Lustig, and the old man and his co©counsel, Larry
Berger, filed a complaint in the Bucks County Court of Common
Pleas.  This step resulted in a news conference.  The fresh
publicity cost Archie another client.  But by then I was out of
school for the summer, so whatever the kids at Haverford High were
thinking didn’t matter much to me.

‘      ‘%         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘åChapter Eight
It was another Thursday night, this time in mid©June, and the
Clan McAdoo were celebrating, as was our family tradition, the end
of another school year.  Having walked on those figurative eggs for
the past five months, since the infamous Big Will Hadden incident,
I felt special reasons to party.
“Uno!” declared Claire, laying down a yellow ‘Draw Two’.
Archie made a great show of grummbling as he drew two cards from
the deck.
Okay, okay… to those of you who are thinking that ‘Uno’ is
a kid’s game, and that everyone around that kitchen table from
Claire on up through me and Mom to Pop was too old to be playing
it, let me say that the card game had become another McAdoo
tradition.  In fact we had a score book dating back to around 1980,
that contained a running tabulation of our individual victories.
For instance, my page reflected the four hundred and twenty©two
wins I had achieved to date.  I should also note that another
McAdoo family tradition was to be absolutely merciless toward one
another when it came to any game we played together, but especially
when it came to Uno.
“Sorry, Mom,” I said in a tone of mock contriteness, as I
played a ‘Draw Four” card.  “The new color is blue,” I added
authoritatively.
“I’m sure your poor little heart is just breaking,” said Mom,
picking her four cards from the deck.  “You wait until the order
gets reversed, smart guy.”‘      ‘&         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘å     Claire, who had just shovelled a big paw©full of popcorn into
her mouth, tossed a blue three onto the heap and shouted “I’m out”,
sending several pieces of popcorn leaping from her mouth onto the
table.
The rest of us started counting up the points we were stuck
with in our hands.  Claire, who was by another McAdoo tradition
always the score keeper, gleefully recorded our points.
“Three,” Archie reported.
“Eighteen, Dad,” said Claire, making the notation in our record
book.  “That gives you a big eighteen.”
“Five,” I mumbled.
“Whoopsie, Nedster,” chortled my litle sister.  “That puts you
over the top with a big twenty©two. So©o©r©ry.”
“Yeh, I know you are, Sis,” I said.
Claire’s big brown eyes turned to Mom.
“Eleven,” admitted our mother, who hated to lose.  (Archie
always said she would have made the better lawyer in the family.)
“Twenty©seven, Momsy,” giggled Claire.  “Looks like it’s just
you and me, Poppo.  And I only have twelve little points.  Care to
deal.”
I got up to go and use the bathroom, not much interested in
the outcome of the game, since I was out of the running.  As I
headed out of the kitchen, Archie asked, “Where you going, Ned.”
“Little boys’ room, Dad,” I responded, turning back to face
him.
“You’re coming back, right?”‘      ”         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘åô    “Aw, I don’t know, Pop.  It’s not my night.” I said.
“Well. let’s just play one more game,” he said.  This should
have put me on my guard, as much as if Arch had cleared his throat,
because Uno was definitely not one of the old man’s great loves.
He played because he believed, as he often said, “A family that
plays together stays together.”  The way we usually bickered during
these cards games, I wondered sometimes if the cliche shouldn’t be
rewritten to read, “A family that plays together brays together.”
Whatever, by sixteen it was clear to me that Archie did his part in
maintaining this McAdoo tradition out of a sense of commitment, not
out of love of the game.  And since we had played the mandatory
three games per session, I should have known his demand for a
fourth game had an ulterior motive.
I used the powder room in the center hall and then sat back
down at the table.  Pop picked up the deck and bgan dealing… a
task he particularly disliked.   As we picked up and sorted our
cards, Archie’s throat©clearing ritual began.  At last my guard was
aroused.  Furthermore, I could sense Mom tense up too.  Only Claire
went on sorting and resorting her hand, while stuffing the last of
the popcorn into her mouth.
“Ned, Mom tells me you’re planning to drive down to Wildwood
this weekend and look for work,” was the old man’s opening gambit.
“Yeh, Pop, that’s right,” I responded uneasily.  The card game
proceeded lethargically, as Pop continued, “You’re getting
close to college age.”  He indulged himself in a last round of
throat clearing. “And I think it’ll improve your chances a lot of‘      ‘(         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘
getting into a good school if you have some worthwhile experience
on your resume.”
So, okay, I was ready to bite. “Like what, Dad?”
“Yes, Archie, like what,” Mom chimed in warily, playing a card
as she did.
“Like how about the Peace Corps?” Claire contributed merrily.
“Do they have an office in Afghanistan?”
“No,” said Archie, giving Claire a warning look. “Like working
for me.”
Obviously ol’ Arch had not talked this over with Mom in
advance, or even given her a little clue.
“Doing what, exactly?” she asked, taking the words out of my
mouth.
“Well, hey, there’s the sweeping, and the filing, and…”
“Ease up, Claire,” said Archie, a little edgy as he pushed
ahead.
“Larry Berger and I can use some help with the Lustig case.
Since it’s pro bono, we really can’t afford to hire a law student
as a summer clerk.  And it’s all stuff that with a little training,
I think Ned could handle.  It looks like we might be coming to
trial by the end of the summer.”
“You mean I won’t get paid, Pop?”
“Oh, sure, I’ll pay you.” Archie paused.  “When we’ve won the
case.  Even though it’s pro bono, when we prevail, the law allows
us to collect reaosnable attorney fees.”
“Don’t you mean if you win, Dad?” I pressed.‘      ‘)         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘å     It was Mom’s turn to play again.  But she put her cards down
on the table in front of her and folded her hands in front of her
chest.
“Archie, I don’t think I want Ned involved with that case.
Remember what that Hadden kid did to him back in January?  And what
about this Lustig person?  He’s a homosexual.  And he has an
incurable disease.  I don’t want Ned exposed to him.”
Sound arguments, thought I.  But the old man was more
determined than I would have expected.  He had his arguments ready.
He marshalled them now and pushed ahead.
“Yes, Karen, Dennis Lustig is gay.  But he isn’t flagrant about
it.  He wouldn’t try to seduce Ned.”  Claire giggled at this,
winning warning looks from both our parents at once.
“Second, he isn’t ill.  That is, not in any way you would
recognize to look at him.  Yes, he is carrying HIV in his
bloodstream.  But you can’t contract it from casual contact.”
Mom looked skeptically at Archie, but didn’t interrupt him.
“That’s the whole point of this lawsuit.  Even working with the
food at the restaurant, he can’t pass the virus on to any co™workers or customers.  He should never have been fired.  We’re
moving for an order to reinstate him.  That’s why the case is
coming up so quickly.”
At this point, Mom made one of her very few fatal blunders in
her many years of dealing with my Dad.  And her misstep cost me a
summer on the beach in Wildwood, New Jersey.‘     Ä%*         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘å     “Archie, even if all that is true, that man is a complete
stranger… to me and to Ned.”
At the distance of a decade I could swear that a smile ©©©
only a real small one, mind you ©©© crossed Archie’s face in that
instant. “I gotcha.” it seemed to say.
“I thought about that, honey,” he replied.  “That’s why I’ve
invited Denny over for dinner next Saturday.”
“You did what?” Mom alsmost shouted.  At this point Claire
flashed me a quick glance that said eloquently “I’m oughta here,”
and slipped from the table without even pushing her chair back.
A pause… then, “Don’t think I’m cooking.”
But Archie was as prepared as any good attorney in a court of
law.  “No problem,” he responded.  “I’m going to do a barbeque in
the back yard.  Larry Berger will be here too.  You’ll love his
wife, Ina, and they have a couple of kids who are pretty close to
Claire and Ned’s ages.”
Now it was Mom’s turn to leave the table, but much less quietly
than Claire had gone.  Her huffy departure left Archie and me
together in the kitchen.  Pop looked down at the cards which he
still held in his right hand and then up at me.
The small, sly smile of a winner returned to his big moon face.
“I guess we can just call it a draw, Ned.  What do you think?”
Chapter Nine
Mom was true to her word.  During the following week she said
nary a word about the upcoming barbeque feast.  Neither did the old
man.  At meals and other times that Mom and Pop had to be together‘      ‘+         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘
in the house they circled each other warily, like two wolves,
destined to be mates but each appreciating the other’s potential
for suddenly snapping the tip off of an ear or a tail.
As for me and Claire, like two wolf cubs instinctively aware
of the tension between their parents, we steered clear of them both
so far as we could.  The weather that mid©June week was balmy and
inviting to two teenagers.  Most days we biked together to the
Hilltop Swim Club and spent our days hanging with our respective
cliques of friends and working on our summer tans.  I feared it
might be my only uninterrupted opportunity to develop the kind of
bronzing every sixteen year old boy desires.
Big Will Hadden’s family didn’t belong to Hilltop.  His Dad was
a member of the more prstigious Llanerch Country Club, which had
its own indoor and outdoor pools.  But a couple of Hadden’s best
buddies did belong to our pool club.  They, too, were on the scene
that week, which resulted in a second instance of careful circling,
as if young male wolves were vying for primacy in their pack.
Fortunately, Big Will’s buddies didn’t realize just how scared
of them I really was.  My attack on their leader in the high school
cafeteria back in January, and my great good luck in disabling my
opponent, were not events I had any hope or wish
of repeating.  I was careful not to be alone in the men’s shower
room or in the deep end of the pool when “the boys”, as I began to
think of them, were around.
From Monday through Thursday of the week of the ‘Big
Barbeque’, as I now like to remember it, there was a sameness to‘      ‘,         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘
everything.   The weather was a balmy 80 degrees, the skies clear
and blue, the pool water almost as blue.  Archie and Mom steered
clear of each other, and the one time we McAdoos all got together,
dinnertime, the topic of the barbeque was carefully avoided.  In
fact, conversation was kept to a minimum.  After dinner, Mom,
Claire and I all retreated to our respective rooms while Archie
went into his study, ostensibly to work.
By Friday evening Claire and I shared an unspoken need to
break the tension.  In my memory Claire was the one to suggest that
we try our long©neglected gambit ©©© our lawyer jokes.  It’s no fun
being in an uncommunicative family, especially when that family
seems headed for an imminent disaster.  Desperate times called for
desparate acts and so I agreed.  Claire and I reviewed and
rehearsed a few of our old favorites in her room.
“How do you keep a lawyer from chasing ambulences?”
“Retirement.”
“Why have all the research labs switched from white rats to
lawyers?”
“The scientists tend to develop some affection for the rats.”
“What do jackels and lawyers have in common?”
“They both eat what they kill.”
“Whew… that one’s really a low blow. It’s what Dad used to
say before he took the ‘you know who’ case.”
“Yeh, we’re ready.  Let’s go!”
As quietly as possible we slipped out of Claire’s room and
past Mom’s partly opened door.  She was watching TV and reading a‘      ‘-         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘
paperback book, something Mom liked to do simultaneously.  She
never noticed us shuffle by and head down the front stairs.
We tiptoed up to Archie’s closed door.  Claire was already
stifling nervous giggles in anticipation.  I myself was in a
vengeful mood.  We took our positions up close to the door and were
about to launch into our routine, when we heard an un©
characteristic clanging sound come from inside the sanctum
sanctorum.  This was followed by a series of four©letter words,
just as uncharacteristic where our father was concerned.
Claire and I looked at one another in shared bewilderment.
Another clang was followed by another string of naughty words.
“What the heck’s going on in there,” Claire asked in a high,
squeaky voice.
“Shh… not so loud,” I commanded, then, “Beats me.”
We must have had the same idea at the same time again,
because we looked into each other’s eyes, then turned our heads and
simultaneously stared at the door knob.  I was the one to gently
reach out and turn it just enough to be able to open the door a
mere crack.  Claire and I almost bumped heads as we turned and bent
down to peek into Archie’s study.
Our Dad was sitting on the small, round Oriental carpet in the
middle of the floor.  In one hand he held a pair of pliers, in the
other a screw driver.  He mumbled incessantly to himself, so that
he would have been unlikely to have heard even our lawyer jokes,
had we proceeded with them.  Plans and booklets were strewn around
him, together with screws and bolts of all sizes and a number of‘      ‘.         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘
oddly©shaped metal parts.  Half assembled in the very center of the
rug was a strange black creation.
“What…?” Claire began in a shrill whisper.
I put my finger to my lips, signaling silence.  I looked at
the strange concoction, then at the remaining parts scattered
around it and my Dad.  It hit me.
I carefully closed the door and motioned for Claire to follow
me into the living room.  She was just about bursting.
“What is it?  What’s he doing, Neddy?”
“It’s a new propane grill, Sis,” I responded.
“Holy cow.  Dad’s really going ahead with the ‘Big Barbeque’.”
“Yeh,” I said with a lot less enthusiasm than Claire was
projecting.  “It sure looks as if he is.”
“Well, it ought to be interesting,” said Claire.
“Oh, I have no doubt about that,” I replied.  My wistful hope
that the past week’s stalemate signaled Archie’s abandonment of the
‘Big B’, and perhaps even his plan to employ me for the summer,
evaporated like one of the little puddles left by our wet feet on
the concrete pavements beside the Hilltop pool.

‘      ‘/         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘åôChapter Ten
The next day was a study in role reversals.  Although Mom had
almost always worked, like many working mothers she also got stuck
with shouldering most of the household chores.  The kitchen was, as
a matter of McAdoo rule and custom, a part of Mom’s domain.  But
this Saturday morning Mom was nowhere in evidence.
“Mom had to go in to the office,” Archie announced to Claire
and me when we walked into the kitchen at around 10 in the morning,
encountering him hard at work on some sort of chicken, which he
seemed to be cleaning in the sink.
Unlike Mom, the old man didn’t inquire about what we’d like
for breakfast or offer us any orange juice.  He just continued with
his labors, which turned to some kind of sausages which were so fat
and red that they reminded me of bruised appendages of some sort in
a horror movie lab.  He was mummbling softly to himself again, just
as we had caught him doing in his study the night before.
Claire and I exchanged wary glances and got our own orange
juice and raisin bran, ate up and slinked off.
More precisely, we got our bikes from the garage and rode off
together with no particular destination in mind.  We wound up at
the swim club.  Lacking suits and towels, we played some
shuffleboard and Claire watched as I held my own in a pick©up game
of hoops on one of the club’s three basketball courts.
The whole family had been so circumspect all week about
Archie’s infamous barbeque that Claire and I really weren’t too
clear about when the guests were arriving or whether we were‘      ’0         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘
expected to be in attendance.  Mom’s intentions remained a complete
mystery to the two of us.
After spending a couple of hours at the swim club we biked
back toward home but stopped off at the Manoa Shopping Center,
where we slipped into a booth at the Deli and had two chocolate
malts each.  We checked out new arrivals at the book and record
stores, and fiddled with the latest computer games and gadgets at
Radio Shack until the clerk asked us to leave if we weren’t
intending to buy anything.  By that time it was two o’clock.  We
had just about run out of diversions and excuses, and besides, our
curiosity had just about overcome our caution.  And so Claire and
I cruised back home.
Coasting down our street we spotted a couple of strange cars,
one a Jaguar, the other a ’56 Chevy, parked in our driveway.
Claire and I exchanged glances and started pedaling.  We scooted
past the cars in the driveway and leaned our bikes against the side
of the house.  Cautiously rounding the back corner of the garage
and peeking into the backyard we saw Dad and Mom talking to four
people Claire and I didn’t know.
Pulling our heads back before anybody spotted us, Claire and
I exchanged another cautious glance.
“I think we better get changed and put in an appearance, Sis,”
I said softly.
“I can’t believe Mom is back,” she replied, raising her
eyebrows to emphasize her sense of surprise.  That caused Claire’s‘     Ä%1         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘
forehead to wrinkle in a way that I thought was cute even way back
then.
“Yeh, that’s a shocker, alright,” I observed.  “Well, if she’s
partying, I guess we have to party too.”  Claire nodded in
agreement and we simultaneously turned and walked round to the
front of the house, went inside and upstairs to change from our
cutoff jeans and t©shirts into some more suitable clothes.

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‘      ’2         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘å

‘      ‘          0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘åChapter four
Just how bad the year ahead was going to be was brought home to
me that very first day at the high school.  The morning went by
uneventfully.  In fact, I forgot all about Archie and his new case.
A little before noon my homeroom class went down to the cafeteria
for lunch.  I had hardly sat down at one of the long lunchroom
tables with my tray when I heard a voice say from the table behind
me,
“Hey, McAdoo, how do you like it that your old man has a
diseased queer for a client?”
As I turned round on the little round stool that was bolted
right onto the table, the lunchtime chattering around me came to an
abrupt halt.  Grinning at me from the other side of the table
behind mine was Will Hadden… all 200 offensive tackle, unlimited
weight class wrestler, pounds of him.  The spaces between his teeth
were crammed with fragments of the Phillie cheesesteak he was
demolishing.
Huge and powerful as he was, Will Hadden fooled the
uninitiated.  His baby face, fair skinned and freckled, made him
seem to be ©©© at worst ©©© a big friendly young Kodiak bear.  But
those of us who had followed Will Hadden’s career on and off the
playing fields and wrestling mats of Haverford High for the past
four years knew that the big friendly bear could (and gladly would)
smash in the side of your face with one of his great paws and never
alter the foolish grin during the exercise.
Consequently, when I saw the source of the remark I became as‘      ‘          0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘
thoroughly panicked as was Archie when trying to reply to one of
Mom’s more caustic and challenging jibes.  The panic I, like most
of my classmates, normally experienced when even approached by ‘Big
Bill’ Hadden was intensified by the fact that I didn’t really
understand his question.
Under such confusing and frightening circumstances… and
still almost five years away from the start of the legal training
which hopefully one day will enable me to fashion a crushing retort
to any bully’s challenge … “I beg your pardon,” was the best I
could come back with.  I phrased the words in the finest tradition
of top©track Haverford High students expressing their disdain for
the school’s jocks.  But the patronizing tone rolled off Big Will’s
back like so much rain off of the Kodiak he was.
“You heard, Ar© chee© bald,” he replied, the food©filled
grin as intense and menacing as ever it was.  “I want to know, Mr.
Hot©shot Honor Student, whether you’re happy that your old man is
the lawyer for that faggot up in Bucks County.  Are you proud your
old man represents perverts or what?”
Suddenly it hit me: the Lustig case!  He was referring to the
Lustig case.  I had put the morning’s news story so thoroughly out
of my mind since arriving at school that having it thrown back in
my face, and by no less a villain than Big Will Hadden was as close
to a genuine moment of pure misery as I had come since striking out
in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded during a little
league playoff game when I was just twelve.
‘      ‘          0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘å      My response was even more lame than the one before it.
“Uh, I don’t really know any more about the case than what was in
this morning’s paper,” I said, the patronizing tone now completely
absent from my voice.  I vaguely hoped against all hope that this
functional equivalent of “no comment” would stall Big Will’s
attack.
It didn’t even slow him down.
“Okay, Dork,” he pressed on, as he was justly famous for
pressing forward on the football field behind our high school
building when he cleared a path for one of our running backs.
“Maybe you can tell all of us this:  Has your old man always been
a fag©lover?  Or is this something new for him, representing
fruiters against honest, hard©working business people?”
Whatever else Big Will was, he was not the kind of kid to use
turn phrases like “honest, hard©working business people.” And he
certainly wasn’t the type to scan over the business section of the
morning’s Inquirer before catching the school bus.  No, the ideas
he was spouting with such venal pleasure now had to have originated
with √
√hisƒ
ƒ old man, the infamous Henry P. Hadden, owner of Manoa
Candy Convections, a/k/a the bubble gum factory on Eagle Road, and
a past©president of the Haverford Township School Board.
Realizing this, however, did not help me much with my dilemma,
which was to say something… real soon… that would prevent me
from being humiliated in front of my friends ©©©who sat in silence
around my table, watching this unexpected confrontation run its
course ©©© on the one hand, and avoid my getting my lights punched‘      ‘          0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘
out on the other.  This would be no small feat, even for the
president of the “Future Lawyers of America” club… which, by the
way, I was not.
“My dad is just trying to help a guy who’s in trouble and
can’t afford a lawyer,” I finally responded without very much
conviction.√
√ƒ
ƒ  “Lawyers do what he’s doing all the time.  It’s called
pro bono publico … for the good of the public,” I added, trying
to recapture a little of my top©academic©track sense of
superiority.
“That’s bull, Ar©chee©bald,” Hadden shot back, a morsel of
greasy©looking salami clinging to the corner of his sneering lower
lip.  “My dad says your old man is probably some kind of closet
queer himself, on top of being a crappy lawyer.”
Well, if Big Will Hadden had achieved nothing else with those
remarks, he had certainly succeeded in solving my dilemma.  He
left me with no choice.  There was only one thing for me to do,
unless I wanted to drop out of high school and take a job flipping
burgers at the MacDonald’s three blocks from our house.
Like a man going to his execution, and with no greater choice
in the matter, I jumped up, scrammbled clumsily over the trays of
half©eaten spaghetti and half©drunk milk and juice cartons on the
table in front of my nemisis, and leaped onto Big Will with all the
momentum I could muster from that awkward position.
So startled must the point man of Haverford High’s football
juggernaut have been that he didn’t even get his arms up as he‘     Ä%          0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘
tumbled off his stool and landed with a mushy ‘thump’ on the
linoleum floor, my 132 pounds right on top of him.
But if my fatalistic act of courage had taken Big Will by
surprise, his shock gave way to rage real fast.  For once the
menacing grin was gone, as he wordlessly raised his big right fist
and clouted me soundly on my left eye.  The blow sent me rolling
off of him and into the lower legs of some of the students who had
instantaneously crowded round the two of us to watch what all
anticipated … as did I … would be my imminent execution.
A few cries of “Let the little faggot have it, Will,” and such
other sporting sentiments were voiced by the friends and pig skin
colleagues of Big Will.  I didn’t hear any words of encouragement
from my fellow members of the Haverford High Honor Society as I
reflexively covered my throbbing left eye with both hands and
waited for the rest of Hadden’s inevitable retribution.
Being half blind and wholly terrified, I was perhaps the last
person in Big Will’s general vicinity to comprehend that he wasn’t
coming at me to finish the job of pulverizing my face.  I
distinctly heard deep moaning sounds, which in my confused and
painful condition, I at first assumed were coming from me.  It took
a couple of seconds for me to figure out that the moans were coming
from somewhere really close to me on my right.
At the same time it began to sink into my throbbing skull that
the shouts of encouragement to finish off another Haverford honor
student had been replaced by a barrage of incredulous questions and
comments coming from those kids closest to Hadden and myself.‘      ‘          0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘å     “Will, what’s the matter?”
“Hey, come on, man.  Get up.”
“He’s not getting up.”
I rolled over onto my right side and looked at Big Will Hadden
through my tear©filled right eye.  I saw to my shock and surprise
the blurry image of Hadden’s big, beefy face contorted in pain.
His mouth, so recently set in his trademark grin, now was cotorted.
Moans were all that came forth from those full lips that had been
sneering at me just moments earlier.
I more sensed than saw the mob of students surrounding us
spread apart, as a pair of grey flannel trousers above black, wing™tip shoes approached from Big Will’s right.  I looked up with my
one good eye and saw Mr. John Brennan, Haverford High’s assistant
principal bend down and peer quizzickly at the moaning and groaning
star lineman.

‘      ‘          0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘åôChapter five
The day that had turned sour by lunchtime proved itself to be
a complete, and seemingly unredeemable, disaster before the school
day was ended. John Brennan’s hasty interrogation and cursory
examination of Big Will Hadden resulted in a decision to call
Havertown’s volunteer ambulance company and have Will transported
to the community hospital on West Chester Pike.  And since I was
still sitting there on the floor next to my adversary, covering my
left eye with both hands, the emergency response team dragged me
along to the emergency room too.
Once there I received quick treatment and was told to contact
a family member to come and drive me home.  The head nurse in the
ER let me use her phone.  I dialed Archie’s private line into his
study and caught him working at his desk.  I explained the
situation as concisely as I possibly could and he agreed to come
right over for me.
Sure enough, he arrived quickly, although not quickly enough
to save  me from learning the crushing news that Big Will had
suffered some sort of back sprain which would have him on his back
and out of action for the next week or so.  This would mean just
one thing to every jock and coach at Haverford High:  Hadden would
not be weighing in as the Big Red’s heavyweight hero in tomorrow
night’s crucial match against our arch rivals, Lower Merion High
School.  Haverford kids hated their tonier rivals from
Philadelphia’s Main Line and loved being able to hand them a defeat
in any sport, even a relatively minor one like wrestling.  And Big‘      ‘          0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘
Will, so crucial to our gridiron offense, was usually a sure thing
in his ‘unlimited’ weight class in our once©yearly meet with Lower
Merion as well.
And I, Archibold Edwin (a/k/a Ned) McAdoo IV, had not only been
publicly branded a homosexual in front of most of my best friends,
but I had insured my status of personna non grata by taking Big
Will out of the Saturday night wrestling lineup.  Black Friday it
was for me, and I made the ten minute ride home in Archie’s Honda
Accord in absolute, destitute silence.  I ignored all the old man’s
inquiries, and when we reached our driveway, I hopped out of the
car and went straight into the house, upstairs and into my room,
locking the door behind me.
I threw myself onto the bed and did something I had not done
for at least a couple or three years.  I sobbed into my pillow, and
when I could cry no more, I just lay there with my good eye
squeezed tightly shut against the twilight coming in through the
west facing window.  My blackened left eye was swollen shut.  In
the darkness I unsuccessfully tried to block out the even blacker
thoughts that crowded in on me.
I’m not sure how long I lay there like that, before I was
roused from the depths by a light tap©tap©tap©tap on my door.
I rolled over onto my back.  Tap©tap©tap, again.
“Yeah, who’s there? ” I inquired in a tone which really
translated as “Go away and leave me be.”
“It’s your father,” came the soft reply.  “Can we talk…
please?” ‘      ‘          0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘å     I got up onto my elbows.  This wasn’t what I wanted right now,
but I didn’t see much choice.  I got up off the bed, walked to the
door and unlocked it.  Archie came in and sat down in the black
vinyl chair next to my desk.  I went back and sat on the edge of my
bed.  The atmosphere of unspoken emotions in the room was as thick
as a London fog (something I wouldn’t experience until my junior
year in college).
Archie engaged in his usual ritual of throat clearing.  Pop was
a pathetic disciplinarian.  Mom usually administered the
punishments when we were growing up.  Even a good tongue©lashing
was a tough act for Arch to put on.  But here it comes, I
thought… the perfect finale to a perfect day.
“Ned,” he began in a voice which actually trembled a little.
“Ned, I just got off the phone with the assistant principal, Mr.
Brennan.”
Archie paused and rubbed one big, meaty hand over his face,
which I suddenly realized was wet with sweat… or something.
He resumed, “Ned, from what Mr. Brennan told me, well, it sounds
like I’m responsible for that black eye of yours.”
I was shocked.  I realized that, unbelievably, the old man had
come not to punish but to apologize.  He was staring down at his
size twelve©and©a©half, scuffed brown wingtips and nervously
rubbing his hands on his trouser legs.
“Ned… son…”  He was actually choked up. “I… I never
meant for this Lustig thing to cause you or Claire or your mother
any grief.  Oh, I knew it would make your Mom a little upset.‘      ‘          0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘åBut I really didn’t know the case would have this kind of effect in
the community, or… or certainly not on your life.
“Son,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

‘      ‘          0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘åôChapter Six
Looking back from the perspective of more than a decade, I see
a comical pair of guys facing each other across the few feet which
separated the desk chair from the foot of my bed.  In my mind’s eye
my dad is a Buddha in a business suit:  large and round of face and
belly and thighs, his feet tucked beneath the chair’s seat, crossed
at the ankles, beefy hands resting in his lap, his whole great
carcass seeming to be on the verge of a melt©down into a huge blob
on the floor.
And I am a sorry looking sixteen©year©old, hair dishevelled,
left eye swollen shut and surrounded by a mixture of putrid colors,
about half of Archie’s weight and still several inches shorter than
he was.
I favored Mom in her thinness, and the length and straightness
of her nose.  Unfortunately I favored my father in that my face was
sprinkled with half a dozen zits in various stages of development
or decline.
Staring at the carpet near my sneakered feet, Archie continued
talking softly, deliberately, as if considering every word.
“Ned, I’ve spent my whole life ©©© 45 years ©©© feeling
different.  In school I was always the fattest kid in the class.”
He shuffled his large buttocks on the vinyl seat, which was smaller
than they were, as if he was anxious about tipping off the chair.
“In high school and college I was the guy with the biggest and
nastiest©looking pimples.  The Haverford High bully used to lay for
me, too. His name was Herman Hilderbrand, incidentally.  He used to‘      ‘          0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘
call me ‘Ol’ King Clearasil.’  He once told me I was nothing but a
200©pound sack of pus.’  In college I stayed a virgin longer than
any other guy in my fraternity.”
At that point he looked up and his eyes met mine.  We both
blushed a little and found ourselves smiling at one another.
“I guess I went to law school because I thought being a
lawyer would give me the self©confidence and the weapons to fight
back a little better against a hostile world.  Instead I discovered
that under extreme pressure ©©© such as in a courtroom ©©© I break
into a stutter.
“That little surprise came during my second semester at
Temple Law, when we all had to finish off our first year with an
oral argument for moot court.  I barely got through it.  After that
I thought about dropping out.  But I stayed with it, though I
didn’t study very hard after that.”
Archie reached into his back pocket and dragged a handkerchief
out.  He blew his big, red nose really hard, then opened the
handkerchief to inspect the results… a habit of his that had
always disgusted me.  Seemingly satisfied with the results, he
rolled the end product up in the hanky and jammed it back into his
pants pocket.
“A two©three GPA from Temple didn’t get you many job offers
back then, anymore than it would today I guess.  Anyway, that’s why
I ended up in a solo practice right back here in my home town.  I
was lucky that a working girl ©©© your Mom ©©© would have me. ‘     Ä%¬         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘
Otherwise I probably would never have been able to afford a house
and a family.”
Archie reached back toward the pocket where he kept his hanky
and I thought, “Oh, no, he’s gonna blow it again.”  But this time
he just readjusted the handkerchief, and then shifted his rear end
a little on the shiny black vinyl seat, his buttocks making a
squeaking noise on the seat.  He looked at me a little embarrassed,
as if fearful that I thought the sound was him breaking wind…
another nasty habit of Archie’s, when he thought no one was paying
any attention.
As for me, I seemed to be noticing all these little details of
my Dad’s behaviour… in fact, can see them clearly still across
the gap of a dozen very busy years… as if the day’s traumatic
events had left me with new found powers of concentration.  I can’t
recall shuffling my feet or interrupting Archie’s monologue even
once.
“Ned, I know your Mother thinks this Lustig case is just one
more of my follies, like the time I took three months off from the
practice to try and write that mystery novel.”  He paused a second,
as if considering his opponent’s argument, and perhaps finding it
to have merit.  “And I have to admit there are some similarities.
What I mean is, part of this is another try at amounting to
something better than just a small town attorney.  I have to admit
that.”  He was staring at that spot on the carpet just in front of
my feet again, shaking his head back and forth ever so slightly.‘     Ä%          0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘å     Suddenly he raised his head and caught my eyes with his big,
watery blue ones.  The intensity of his gaze startled me a little
bit.
“But, Ned, there’s a lot more to it than that.  Ned, son,
Dennis Lustig is in his special way different, the way I’ve always
felt a little different in mine.  First of all he’s gay…
not a ‘queer’ or a ‘faggot’, by the way, no matter what that Hadden
kid or his neo©Nazi father may want to call him.”  Was this passion
I was seeing in Pop’s face, hearing in his voice?  I straightened
up and returned his stare with my one open eye.
“Additionally, son, Lustig is sick.  He’s HIV positive.  Do you
understand what that means.”
Trying to reply, I realized I had been listening silently all
this time and had never cleared the phlegm that had accumulated on
my throat when I had been sobbing on my pillow a few minutes
earlier.  I cleared it now.
“Sure, Dad.  I know.  Everybody knows about HIV and AIDS.
They teach us about them at school.”
“You say that with such certainty, Ned.  But, you know, just
four or five years ago, not one American in a hundred could have
told you what either one of those conditions was.  Even today,
about all that’s known is that its usually sexually transmitted,
there’s no cure, and so if you get it, it’ll eventually kill you.”
Another pause, then, “That’s what Denny Lustig lives with
every day now.  It’s what’s waiting for him when he wakes up in the‘     Ä%!         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘
morning.  And now he’s been denied the dignity of even holding a
job.
“That’s the other reason I took this case, Ned.  Just once I
want to do something that really matters in the scheme of things.
This disease, this AIDS thing, is gonna be around for a long time.
It’s gonna hurt a lot of people.  People, such as their employers,
can make things better for these victims, or like Freeman’s Dairy
Bar, they can make it much, much worse.  The law should protect the
Dennis Lustigs.  That’s part of why I became a lawyer in the first
place.  I sort of lost sight of that for… “
He smiled a little, at himself I guess. “…for the past 19
years.  Can you understand what I’m trying to say, son?”
This time it was my turn to shift my bottom around a little
nervously, and to clear my throat again.  A swirling mixture of
images and emotions filled my head.  I felt both anger and
something new… respect? …
“Yeh, Pop, I understand.  But…”
“But, like your Mom, you didn’t bargain for all the flack
that’s apparently coming your way because of my decision. Right?”
Now it was my turn to look him in the face with my one good
eye.  “Yeh, Dad, that’s right.  Look, I’m a little bit of an
outsider at school, myself.  You know?  And I don’t need Will
Hadden and his merry band of apes stalking me in the hallways.
Okay?  I mean…”  I dropped my head, my righteous anger suddenly
dissipated, feeling as if I might start bawling again.  “Look, Pop,‘     Ä%”         0*†(†(∞ ∞    ‘
I don’t need to be a one©man leper colony.  I don’t think I can
handle it.”
Quicker than I thought my old man could move his 290 or 300
pounds, Archie was on his knees in front of me, drawing me towards
him with his big, beefy arms, and hugging me like I was about to
drop off the edge of the earth and he was hanging on to keep me
from going.  He seemed to be sniffling.  And, just as if I were six
or seven again, I put my head on his broad right shoulder and tears
streamed again from my good right eye.

Buy this novel at www.lulu.com

åChapter Two    
     The first clue that Claire and Mom and I had that Dennis J,

Lustig was about to become a character in our little family drama

came during the after©dinner conversation that occurred around our

small oak kitchen table one rainy and raw evening in late January

1985.  Dinner had been chicken, mashed potatoes and peas that Mom

had picked up from a new place that had just opened in the Lawrence

Park Shopping Center called Boston Chicken,  She had stopped there

on her way home from work, then warmed the meal up in our microwave

oven when she got home.  She had been the last one home that

evening and her silence through most of the meal was a sure sign

that she was tired.  I think it was a Thursday.  That late in the

week Mom usually was just hanging on and hoping for a quiet

weekend.
      Desert was Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream, Archie’s

personal favorite.  A half gallon had been his contribution to the

meal.  He had picked it up on his was home from a meeting in New

Hope, a tourist town in southern Bucks County, not very many miles

up the Delaware River to the northeast of Philadelphia.
      Archie carefully scooped the last residue of melted ice cream

from the bottom of his bowl, followed it with a sip of coffee from

the mug that he lifted to his full, pink lips and then placed back

on the table.  Then he cleared his throat.  I was too young and

self©absorbed back then to recognize this as Pop’s little ritual

before making some kind of momentous‘Ä%0*†(†(∞

went through the same routine before announcing that we were moving

to San Diego, thus ruining my senior year in high school, I at

least was forewarned by the same little routine, which by then I

was attuned to.)  Mom, as I say, was beat and so wasn’t picking up

on Archie’s body language either.
    Seeing that Claire and I had just continued chatting about the

latest middle school and high school gossip, while Mom remained

quietly in her own little world ©©© probably mulling over some

problem she should have left back at the office ©©© Arch cleared

his throat again, a little louder this time.
     Satisfied that he finally had our attention, he said,”Your

Dad’s going to be in the √
√Inquirerƒ
ƒ tomorrow morning.”  Saying ‘your

dad’ made this piece of news sound as if it was directed to Claire

and me.  But I noticed Pop cast a nervous glance in Mom’s

direction.  The sheepishness of that glance tipped me to anticipate

that Mom was not going to welcome with open arms the old man’s

apparent run at middle©aged celebrityship.
      Archie didn’t say anything more for the moment.  I guess he

was waiting for one of us to rise to the bait.  But Mom just stared

at him from behind the rim of her own mug, which was poised in

front of her mouth.  As I said, I was on my guard because of the

way Arch was looking at Mom.  I guess maybe Claire had picked up

the same storm signals I had.  And so we both sat quietly, waiting

for the second shoe to fall.
‘’0*†(†(∞

comment was directed at its true target… Mom.  Claire and I were

just being used by Archie the way he often used us in those days,

as shields to hide behind, when he knew that if he and Mom were

having the same conversation alone in their bedroom, she’d rip into

him.
     Mom put down her mug ever so slowly and wearily, and let out

a long sigh.  For a couple more seconds I think we all thought she

again was going to remain silent.  In those seconds, old Arch must

have been casting about in that big cantelope©head of his for his

next line.
     But at last she said, looking him squarely in the eyes, “I

thought we agreed that you’re too busy to take on any charity

work.”
     Breaking the hold Mom’s eyes had on his own, Archie looked

down into the depths of his coffee mug… the one that read “Life

should be led like a cavalry charge.”  A little more throat

clearing ensued.
     “Karen, I know.  But Larry Berger called again yesterday and

asked me to just drive up to his office and meet the client and

confer on the matter.  Just give him my views on it.”
     Archie gently touched the handle of the white porcelain mug

with his pudgy forefinger, nudging it slowly, absent©mindedly away

from him.‘Ä%     0*†(†(∞

deliberately, and nervously.  “I liked Lustig.  And I owe Larry.

Anyway, I stayed for lunch.  And then when we got back to Larry’s

office, there was this reporter waiting for us from the √
√Inquirerƒ
ƒ

and she wanted to know if we were the attorneys who were

representing Lustig in what would be the first AIDS discrimination

case in Bucks County… heck, even in Greater Philadelphia,” he

added with emphasis, defensively.
    Mom interrupted.  “So let me guess:  good ol’ Larry looked at

you and you looked at that reporter and said, ‘Oh, yes, that’s us.’

That about it, Arch?”
     If Mom had brought a balloon out from behind her chair at that

moment and slowly let the air hiss out of it, the effect could not

have been more graphic.  You could almost hear the little fella

that lives inside the old man’s great big round head scrambling

around in there, frantically searching for the right response.  One

choice, I guess, was self©righteous anger.. maybe even the old push

back from the table followed by the trusty stomp out of the room

and into the study, capped by the resolute door slam.  The trouble

with that one was that, not only was it out of character for Archie

©©© whose mediocrity as a lawyer stemmed not from any lack of

brains or knowledge, but from a natural timidity that ill©suited

him for his chosen profession ©©© but also it left him trapped in

his own fortress later on in the evening, when he would really want

to be up in bed with a beer and a sandwich.‘Ä%
0*†(†(∞

sympathetic option.  “Karen, if you only could have been there and

met Denny Lustig.  Then you’d know this is the right thing to do.

It’s what any decent, caring attorney in this town ought to do.”

Well, there it was… the old man’s recent obscession with the

declining integrity and social standing of his profession was on

the table. The lawyer jokes that Claire and I so cherished, all the

bad press about attorneys which was to get so much worse in the

decade that lay ahead, plus Archie’s own struggle to gain a small

measure of recognition in his community and, yes, in his own house

I suppose, had combined and led him to take the plunge into the

Lustig case that rainy winter day.    
      Then Mom said something that came of her fatigue and

frustration, the first built up over the past week, the second

built up over the 18 years she and Dad had been married by then.

“Every caring attorney in this town isn’t struggling to barely make

$30,000 in a good year, Archie.  But you are.  How many hours will

this tilting at your personal little windmill cost us?  Look, we

talked about this.  We said we wanted Claire in Episcopal this

fall.  Where did all that go after lunch today? 
What happened to caring about your own family?” 
     Mom’s voice shook a little, though she never raised it during

that little speech.  She had never before raised the issue of

Archie being a poor provider in front of us kids before, and I

could see from the look on her face that she regretted it as soon

as she said it.‘’
[1]0*†(†(∞

nearly in a whisper.
      In the end it was Mom who pushed back her chair, not angrily

but wearily, and walked away from the table, leaving the rest of us

just sitting there in silence. 
      It was Pop who broke the silence, looking very deliberately

first at Claire and then at me.  “I do care about you guys,” he

said, a hook of emotion catching the words in his throat.  “This

case will actually help my practice.  I just wish I could make your

Mom see that.”  He seemed to be waiting for a response, some word

of approval or encouragement from his kids, but we were a little

too startled by all that had happened in the past sixty seconds to

say anything. So he too got up and left the table, retreating to

his ‘sanctum sanctorum.’  Claire and I heard the door close quietly

behind him. 
      Claire and I cleared the table, rinsed the dishes and put

them into the dishwasher, all the while being uncharacteristically

unconversational for two teenagers. 
    Then we went up to our rooms.  Later that evening, when I made

my last trip to the bathroom before hitting the sack, I saw that

the door of the master bedroom was open only a couple of inches. 

I glimpsed Mom, sound asleep in the flickering glow of the TV tube.

She was alone in the bed.

‘’
0*†(†(∞

out of bed half an hour sooner than usual.  I slipped downstairs as

quietly as I could and out the front door.  The rain had stopped

sometime during the night and the temperature had dropped, so that

a bitter wind waited to wish me good morning.  I gritted my teeth

and darted down the steps and onto the black macadam driveway, only

to discover, too late to spare my bedroom slippers from the puddles

that hadn’t quite iced over, that the newspaper wasn’t there

waiting for me.
     I looked at the front lawn and down the drive into the street,

my eyes squinting against the knifing winter wind.  My old

terrycloth robe flapped above and below its cloth belt.  There was

no Inquirer to be seen on our property, though I noted that both

our neighbors had received theirs.  For a furtive instant I thought

to tiptoe over to one or another of their drives and ‘borrow’ a

paper.  But, thinking quickly that I might be spotted (or at the

very least, suspected), I turned and hustled back into our house.
     I closed the heavy oak door behind me and then heard the soft

shuffling of feet coming from the kitchen.  My own feet squished a

little as I padded out there myself, rounding the corner into the

doorway in time to see Archie’s back disappear onto the enclosed

back porch Mom called our ‘sun room.’
     I walked across the kitchen, passed the round oak table where

we McAdoos ate most of our meals together, and stepped ‘Ä%

0*†(†(∞

little cast iron and glass coffee table a few feet away with the

morning paper spread out in front of him.  He sipped steaming

coffee from his big white mug with the cavalry charge motto as he

gazed intently at the right hand page of the paper lying in front

of him.  He had a sort of contented smile on his face, his lips

moved ever so slightly as he read, and he never even noticed me

enter the room.
     Tiptoeing around behind the rattan sofa where Pop was sitting,

I bent over and read from over his right shoulder.  The article was

at the top of page B1, which made it the lead article in the

Inquirer’s business section.  The headline, which covered the two

columns on the right hand side of the page, read “Former Night

Manager Sues Popular Bucks County Restaurant for AIDS

Discrimination.”  The byline said “Jane Putnam, Inquirer Staff

Reporter.”
     The piece explained how Dennis Lustig of New Hope, who had

been first a cook for two years, then night manager of Freeman’s

Farm Dairy Bar and Restaurant for another three and a half, claimed

that he had been fired in early December, after he reported to the

owners  of the restaurant that his three©day absence was HIV

related. The article went on to quote “Philadelphia attorney

Archibald McAdoo” to the effect that, “This isn’t exactly a

lawsuit.  The Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, under which we are

initiating this charge of discrimination, requires that Mr. Lustig‘Ä%
0*†(†(∞

for investigation. 
     “However, unless the agency acts promptly to remedy this clear

injustice, Mr. Berger and I intend to request a ‘right to sue’

letter and take our client’s case into the Bucks County Court of

Common Pleas by late summer.”
     The story pointed out that “Attorneys Berger and McAdoo have

agreed to represent Lustig for free at the request of the AIDS Law

Project of Philadelphia, which organization will provide co©counsel

for the case.  The project’s executive director, Marsha Milhouse,

added, ‘This is a test case… a case of first impression for the

PHRC and ultimately, as we expect, for the courts.  Therefore, we

are girding ourselves for a long fight.  In the end, we expect to

win and to make important new law in the process.”
      “A long fight”, I thought.  “Just what Mom wants to hear.”
      I must have mumbled the thought out loud, because Archie
jumped a little and turned around so swiftly that he spilled coffee

onto the newspaper, spattering the bottom half of his precious

claim to immortality.
     “Ned, what the devil are you doing there?” he squawked at me

in the near©falsetto his voice rose to when he was excited or

upset.
     “Sorry, Pop,” I quickly replied. “I just didn’t want to

disturb you.”  I shuffled to my left and out from behind the couch.

Archie turned back to his newspaper to find the litle puddles of‘Ä%0*†(†(∞

newsprint. 
      “Look what you made me do, Ned,” he said in a voice about an

octave lower, looking across his left shoulder at me as I continued

my retreat out of the room and back to the kitchen.
     “Hey, Pop,” I replied, plucking up a teenager’s smart©mouthed

courage, “you might be better off covering that whole article with

coffee.  Especially that part about a long fight ahead.”
     The best defense really is a good offense, as I’ve confirmed

in my own legal practice a couple of times already.  Archie’s voice

immediately lost its angry edge.  “What do you mean?” he asked, but

I think he already knew.  He was just hoping against hope that the

problem with Mom wasn’t so serious that even his 16©year©old whelp

recognized it so plainly.
     “Mom’s not going to like that part of it,” I responded,

confirming Archie’s own fear.
     His whole round face, pock marked like a cantelope skin from

teenage acne, seemed to droop slightly, especially his round,

watery blue eyes, confessing his concern about how he was going to

see his new commitment through and continue to live in reasonable

harmony with his wife, my mother.
     He turned back to the article and I fancied he was considering

my suggestion of dumping the rest of his coffee onto the newspaper.
     I turned round and stepped through the doorway into the

kitchen, almost bumping into Mom.  I was as tall as she was already

back then, even though she was of above average height for a woman.‘’[1]0*†(†(∞

pretty much was.)  Our eyes met and hers seemed as tired as they

had seemed the evening before, as if she had not slept, or at least

not very well.  Her curly red hair was a little wild looking, like

she hadn’t combed it yet.  Without a word she squeezed past me in

the doorway and joined Archie out in the sun room.
     I went back to the center hall, up the stairs and headed for

the bathroom.  I was about to go into the bathroom when Claire’s

door opened and she said, “Hey, Ned.”  It was my turn to be a

little startled.  I turned round and saw her head, the hair every

bit as red and curly as Mom’s, poking out of her doorway.
    “Ned, what’s up?  Did Dad make the paper?”
    “Oh, yeah,” I replied.  “He’s in there, alright.  Page one of

the business section.  I’d say he made it big time.”
    “What do you think Mom’s gonna do?” she inquired, opening her

bedroom door a little bit wider, so that I could see she was

wearing the new pink robe she’d received for Christmas.
     “Don’t know,” I said.  “But she’s down in the sun room with

ol’ Arch right now.  I guess she’s just about had time to read the

article.”
     At that instant we heard a loud bang, which we both had come

to recognize as the sun room door slamming shut, as it sometimes

did in the summertime, when all the room’s windows would be wide

open and a sudden summer breeze might bang it closed.  The next

sounds were footsteps coming quickly through the center hall and‘Ä%0*†(†(∞

Archie’s.  Mom was headed back upstairs.
     The last thing I saw, before I closed and locked the bathroom

door, was Claire quickly closing her bedroom door.  From inside the

bathroom, just a wall away from the master bedroom, I heard Mom

enter that chamber and slam that door behind her, too.
     I busied myself with showering and brushing my teeth and blow©

drying my hair.  Oddly, unlike most school days, nobody banged on

the door, trying to rush me along in order to take a turn in the

only bathroom on the second floor of our three bedroom colonial.
     When I was all through with my morning ‘toilet’, as they used

to say in olden days, I poked my head out of the bathroom,

ascertained that the coast was clear and scooted down the hall and

into my bedroom  to get dressed.  Then I walked quietly downstairs

and back to the kitchen, where I encounterd Claire for the second

time.  She pointed toward the sunroom.  Looking through the glass

of the still©closed door, I saw Archie sitting by himself on the

sofa, turned slightly to the right, so that his face wasn’t visible

from where Claire and I stood.  I went to the refrigerator and

looked for the brown bag with my lunch in it.
    “No lunches,” Claire declared quietly.
    “Guess we’re buying today, huh?” I responded.
    “Yeh, guess so,” she said.  “Mom’s already gone.  She must have

forgot to make them.”
     “Think we ought to say goodbye to Dad?” she inquired.‘Ä%0*†(†(∞

leave him alone.  You got lunch money, Sis?”
     “I’m okay,” she said.  “Thanks.”
      We shouldered our backpacks and headed for the front door.
I don’t know what Claire’s thoughts were.  But I was thinking,

“This is gonna be a long year.”

     My Father is a lawyer.  And so am I.  We both are proud of

what we do for a living.  We refer to it as a profession, never as

a business.  With us it’s always “the profession of law,” and never

“the legal business.”
     But there was a time, about a dozen years ago (and nearly a

decade before I graduated from law school and passed the

Pennsylvania bar), when the old man temporarily lost his faith in

his chosen profession.  That loss of faith first became apparent to

the rest of the family when he started making observations such as,

“The times sure have changed since I started practicing law,” and

“Now, we lawyers eat what we kill.”
     And that’s why, when Claire and I wanted to get even with Dad,

let’s say for not letting us go to a new film we wanted to see,‘x‑ò0*0*0*∞

doing it.
     What we did in those days was to wait until after dinner, when

Archie (that’s our Dad) was in his study doing a little of his

endless paperwork, before he moved to the bedroom and watched TV

with Mom.  Then we stood in the center hall outside the door of the

study and carried on a conversation, just as if we didn’t even know

that he was only a few feet away at his desk.  The conversation

might start out being about almost anything.  But very quickly, it

turned to lawyer jokes.
     For instance, I’d say to Claire, “What do you have, if you

have 200 lawyers up to their necks in sand?”  And Claire would

answer, “Not enough sand.”
     Then she’d come back with, “Did you hear they’re using lawyers

instead of laboratory rats now?”
     And my reply was, “Yeh, they found out that there are some

things even rats won’t do.”
     The only clue we’d have at this point that old Arch heard us

at all was that the slight squeaking, which his desk chair made

when he rocked back and forth, had stopped.  In fact, no sound, no

sign of movement, came from the study after our first joke or two.
     Next I might say to Claire,  “What’s the difference between

somebody running over a snake and running over a lawyer?”  By now

Claire would have started giggling a little and her voice always

came out a little bit higher. “Skid marks in front of the snake,”

she’d reply in near©falsetto tones.‘’[1][1]0*†(†(∞

sanctorum”, as Mom had (somewhat sarcastically) dubbed the room,

perhaps always resenting a little that his demand for a home office

deprived her of a formal dining room.
     Claire’s giggling was now almost uncontrollable, as I pushed

forward without mercy.  “Why won’t a shark eat a lawyer who’s

swimming past it?”  Claire had to fight for control, barely able to

blurt between giggles, “Professional courtesy.”
     Then a new kind of squeak was heard from within the inner

sanctum, as the old man pushed his chair back from the rolltop desk

and the old leather chair’s little brass wheels let out their

distinctive whistling sound.  This was the signal for Claire and me

to cut and run for our rooms.  Archie never hollered anything after

us as we scrambled up the stairs and headed for our own sanctum

sanctorums (sanctori?  They don’t teach much Latin in law schools

anymore).  Usually, seeing that we’d made another clean getaway, he

just waddled off to the kitchen, made himself a sandwich, grabbed

a beer and joined Mom on their bed for some prime time viewing

pleasure.  At last when I finally ventured out a half hour or so

later, usually to make a furtive trip to the second floor bathroom,

that was where I spotted him out of the corner of my eye.  The

empty beer bottle and plate on his nightstand and his round melon

face settled into a contented expression visible in the glow of the

boob tube were the eloquent evidence that my deductions were at

least approximately accurate.‘Ä%

old man was fat…still is, though at 57 he actually looks trimmer

and healthier than he did a decade or so earlier, when this little

memoir was taking place.  Then he was in truth a fat slob.  I don’t

say that because I hated my dad or anything like that.  I’ve always

loved Archie, as long as I can remember, and adolescence was no

exception.  For me that was 16 years of love at the time the

following events began unfolding in and around the environs of our

little household in Havertown, Pennsylvania, one of Philadelphia’s

many northwestern suburbs.  But no matter how much you loved

Archie, and we all did ©©© Mom, Claire, me, even Ralphie, our

doberman ©©© no one of us could ever pretend we thought he was

anything but fat.  Plump just didn’t describe my Pop.
     And I guess I have to add that, even though I loved him a lot,

and liked him pretty well too ©©© he’s always been a terrific

playmate ©©© I never really respected my Dad up to that time.  He

was always a hard guy to take seriously.  I think Dr. Swenson, the

school psychologist would have said, if anybody had asked her, that

Archie had “a poor self©image.”  He weighed about 275 pounds, and

that was before the football season, which meant lots of beer and

hoagies and stuff, followed hopelessly by the holiday season:

turkeys, pies, cookies, candy.  Then 300 pounds might be

approached, and maybe even surpassed.  The old man was like that.
   Mom still loved him though.  He said once that she was the only

girl he ever had.  I believed him.  He wasn’t exactly cholesterol’s‘Ä%

lawyer.
    That’s why even after us kids were born, she had kept right on

working as an accountant, eventually working her way up to

Controller at a company called Regional Econometric Forecasting

Associates, a fairly prestigious consulting firm in nearby Bala

Cynwyd on Philadelphia’s Main Line.
     And that’s why I’ve always to this day found it kind of

strange that my Pop, Archibald Edwin McAdoo III, should have

decided at that point in his life ©©© in the midst of a career

slump and the onslaught of an obese middle age ©©© to become a

crusader for the integrity of the legal profession, which afterall

had rewarded him only very modestly and grudgingly.  How much our

little charade outside his office door, which Claire and I pulled

on him maybe half a dozen times in perhaps as many weeks toward the

tail end of the calendar year (which happened to be 1984) helped to

push him over the brink and into his fateful decision, I really

don’t know.  Archie probably would have taken the Dennis Lustig

case anyway.  Or maybe not.  Since lawyer jokes  still hit a sore

spot in his psyche, I’ve never asked my old man how much our pranks

figured into the undoubtedly©complex mix of circumstances and

events which led to him taking on the first pro bono (a/k/a free)

legal representation of his near©twenty©year career as a solo

practitioner.  Maybe someday I will.
     No matter… as miserable as our year of living with √
√Lustig v.

Freeman’s Dairy Bar & Restaurantƒ
ƒ, was, somehow it did Archie’s‘’[1]0*†(†(∞

Archibald McAdoo became the Main Line’s leading legal eagle. Nor is

it the legendary recounting of how one lonely and embattled

attorney in a Phillie suburb single©handedly resuscitated the

flagging reputation of a profession grown fat and greedy.  Neither

of those things happened in 1985 and 1986, when this story

unfolded.  But it is the tale of how one fat, middle©aged, and

seemingly mediocre attorney discovered in himself the courage and

devotion he needed not only to see a bad situation through to its

end, but also to face middle age, and perhaps even old age, with

the smile of a man who is content with the fate the gods have

chosen for him.
   The case also did Archie’s bulbous body some good, I believe,

because by the time it was all over, Dad apparently had lost his

taste for ice cream… a lifestyle change that has perhaps

prevented his overtaxed arteries from clogging up completely with

fat… at least so far.