Mickey - 19. Chapter 19

“When do we get to see you next?” his mother asked.

Hesitating, he glanced at Drew, who answered, “We’ll be back at Christmas, for sure,” before reaching into the back seat to clear space for Daisy.

“There’s your answer,” Mickey replied

Nate and Midori were going to leave early the next morning, but Mickey wanted to get a head start on the distance and the weather because of the 10-hour drive ahead of them.

“I’ll see you soon, mom, OK?” he said as he gave her a hug. “Christmas is only in a couple weeks away, so we’ll be back before you know it.” He knew the goodbyes were hard on her, so he always made sure to emphasize the future returns rather than the present departures.

“I’ll be ready, “she replied before stroking Mickey’s face. “And good luck in that competition,” she added. “I know that you'll do well.” Mickey had told her earlier that he had been selected to represent the school at a national moot court competition in Washington in the next few days.

“Whether I do or not, we’ll still be back for Christmas!” he emphasized, squeezing her hand.

She then turned to Drew, who said “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of him and bring him back in one piece.”

“I’m not worried about that,” she whispered as she pulled him close. “I know you will. Now, just take care of yourself. He needs you.”

“Me too,” he replied, returning her embrace.

“And you!” she said to Daisy a moment later, staring back at the two marbled eyes that were gazing at her. The eyes then fixed themselves on Mrs. Deringer’s hand as it slowly moved toward her pocket.

“And for being such a good girl, you get one of these.” as she took a piece of leftover turkey breast out of her pocket, unwrapped it, and offered it to her.

Daisy snapped up the turkey, then licked her hand to savor every last morsel.

As Mrs. Deringer and Midori watched Mickey maneuver Daisy into her now-usual perch behind the passenger seat, Nate pulled Drew aside.

“Drew, um..,” he began, hesitation in his voice, “I have to apologize to you for what I said when you got here last week. I should have just accepted Mickey’s judgment that you were a good guy and all, but, um…, you know, I’m a bit protective, I guess. But I’m really sorry that I said that,” he continued as he reached out to shake Drew’s hand.

Instead of returning the handshake, however, Drew pulled them close and hugged him. “I wish that I had a brother like you,” he whispered in his ear.

For a moment, Nate couldn’t speak.

“And I’m glad that he has someone like you,” he finally answered. “He needs discipline,” he said, chuckling.

“OK! Time to hit the road!” Mickey proclaimed after settling Daisy in the back seat, which meant providing her favorite braided chew toy. “I want get close to Washington before it gets dark, so we had better hustle if we’re going to make it.”

Drew drove as they pulled out of the driveway. Mickey sighed.

“What’s the matter?” Drew asked. as he shifted into drive, He glanced at Mickey as he accelerated.

Mickey exhaled again. “I just want to come home. I've had just about enough. I've been away for nearly half of my life. I just want to come home.

He continued, looking at Drew. “I know that it’s not home for you, babe, it’s all pretty new. But I hope that you do get used it, and, you know, maybe it gets to be something like home for you, too.”

“It already is,” Drew replied as the car picked up speed.

                                    ***

Sitting on the edge of the hotel bed, Mickey pulled off his socks and tossed them into the nearby makeshift hamper, just inside the closet. He had become accustomed over the past several weeks to how quickly it seemed to fill up when it captured dirty clothes of two people.

“What are you thinking,” Drew asked, kneeling down in front of him, planting his hands on Mickey’s lean runner’s legs.

“Does it look like I’m actually thinking?” he responded.

“Yes, it does. So what’s going on up there?” Drew asked, raising up his right hand and knocking on Mickey’s forehead.

Mickey raised up his own hand and hung on Drew’s outstretched arm. He lightly stroked the blond hair that coated Drew's skin.

“I like it at school. The classes are interesting, and we’ve got a great circle of friends. Even dog-sitters, like Andrew. That’s all good,” he said, a mild, calm tone to his voice. “But I want something better to happen with your family and all. That still bothers me, I wish we could do something.”

“I know,” Drew said. “There's not much anyone can do, “I know that you’re concerned, but I think that there’s something else on your mind,” he said as he gave his head another knock.

Mickey sighed. “I’m never going to be completely at peace because I know what all of that means to you,” he said, before pausing.

“Except for all that stuff, which is going to be hanging over us for a while, I really felt good going back home, seeing my mom, Nate and Midori and being there with you. It was great. I just hope that you’re happy there. That’s the only thing that would make us want to go somewhere else,” Mickey said.

“Well,” Drew responded, “I think you know that I had a really good time. I like your family; they really made me feel welcome. and seeing how happy it made you made it even better for me. So don’t ever worry about how I fit in. I think I fit in just fine.”

Mickey smiled at him. “I hope it helps that your land is lots closer to there than it is to New York,” he said.

“That’s just a bonus, OK?” he replied. It already feels like home,” he said as he leaned over and kissed him.

“My mom really likes you,” Mickey said. “And Nate does, too. I’m glad that we got him straightened out.”

“He didn’t need ‘straightening out,’ as you call it,” Drew countered. “He didn’t change at all. He is great the way he is,” he said, glad that the double entendre was getting a smile out of Mickey

“By the way, ready for tomorrow?” Drew asked.

“Uh huh” Mickey replied, his eyes’ looking far away, as he continued stroking his arm.

                                    ***

“Nervous?” Drew asked, his voice echoing in the lux public bathroom at the downtown hotel.

Mickey’s cheeks pillowed up before he exhaled. “I just hope that they aren’t all depending on me to carry the team. I don’t know some of this appellate stuff as well as I should. Parker and I work together well as teammates, and so do Akim and Maryam, but this is the big leagues, hardball,” he replied, his voice reverberating from the sparkling tile surfaces on the walls.

“I’ve never been here to DC before, so at least we got a nice free hotel out of it,” he said before looking at Drew. “But to be honest, I guess I miss home again already. I liked having everyone together at Thanksgiving so much.”

“Me too,” Drew said. He started to smooth out any conspicuous wrinkles on his suit, dragging both hands slowly over Mickey’s arms, finishing off with a tug on the end of the sleeves. Drew thought that the suit was an absolutely perfect fit, but it didn’t do much to soothe Mickey’s anxiety.

Despite their limited funds, they had bought Mickey this sharp new Brioni suit, especially for job interviews. It was clearly appropriate for this occasion as well and was the one expensive purchase the Drew had insisted on for Mickey, especially for the employment search. It was the kind of splurge for his partner that made selling his car well worth it.

“I know that you’re concerned,” Drew said, not wanting to use the word ‘nervous.’ “But this is the kind of stand-up stuff that you’ve always been good at, something that you really like.”

“The back and forth of ideas really is kind of fun, I like the way that opinions evolve, that a person says things as part of an argument and advocacy that really only jelled at that very moment. Spontaneous inspiration.! That’s kind of cool to me. But there’s a lot at stake here. I mean, this isn’t just me intellectually jerking off in class, but I’m now in front of an audience of important people. And there are three teammates that I can’t let down and we’re representing the school. I guess that’s where I feel the pressure.”

“The faculty selected all of you to represent the school in this Moot Cort competition. Someone believes in you,” Drew said, moving his hands up around Mickey’s neck to unruffle the bright, white collar of the button-down shirt. Like many of his clothes, it was something that he had carefully preserved from Middlefield, though Drew could see that it was wearing out.

“Well, you’ll at least be the best looking one up there,” he continued, now moving his hands down Mickey's back to stretch out any final wrinkles and occasionally reaching down and subtly pinching his butt.

“Oh gosh, not now!” Mickey pleaded. “I don’t want to squirt in these nice new pants,” he whispered.

“Sorry, it’s just hard to keep my hands off you,” Drew replied softly. “But from now on, all business,” Drew said before stepping back and looking at his formally attired man.

In terms of Mickey's image, Drew felt that it was just right. And he couldn’t help feeling that Mickey looked smashing in it. His Mom had once remarked about how good his dad looked in a suit because the dark, warm gray wool had matched his eyes. That became Drew's standard for suit selection. So, whether that was truly the right criterion, he couldn’t help felling that the dark suit brought out the best in Mickey's hair color and eyes.

Mickey deliberately breathed in and out as he nervously pulled at the bottom edge of the suit, gently crunching the material in his hands. With all that was happening around him, he couldn’t help but notice how soft the material was. ‘This is what nice clothes feel like’ he said to himself. It reminded him of the many lifestyle discoveries he had made at Middlefield, where a whole new world had opened up. 'And look where you are today,' he said to himself.

“I guess it’s now or never, let’s go,” he said before Drew gently grabbed his shoulders and aimed him at the bathroom exit door.

“Just do your best!” were the last words he heard before being thrust into the crowded corridor.

                                    ***

The national moot court competition would soon begin. As in past years, some of the nation's most prominent jurists were in attendance including the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. If that wasn’t intimidating enough, Mickey had seen a video of last year’s competition and was more than awed with the entire event. He smiled to himself, recalling how he had pictured one of last year’s students as a Christian being thrown to the lions in a roman circus and now he was one of the ‘Christians.’

After the first round of debates, Drew thought that the questioning was brutal, at least from his perspective as an outsider. The arguments of each team were torn apart by the judges, including the other pair from Mickey’s school. Their score was only slightly above the cut, and if Mickey and Parker couldn’t give a stellar performance the entire team could be quickly eliminated from championship consideration.

Glancing up at the audience, Mickey could make eye contact with Drew, even though he was halfway up the seats in the large auditorium. ‘Just do your best,’ he imagined hearing him say again.

Parker went first. He seemed to parry the challenges well, and stuck to the strategy that the team had agreed on. In spite of his own trepidation about being on stage, he seemed to be holding up well.

But then, suddenly, he started to unravel.

Parker was asked a question about an arcane case in international law. “Why wouldn't the holding in that case be applied to your client's case,' the judge asked? The thrust of the question being, of course, was that their clients had no case.

Before Parker could answer, another judge added a twist to the question, positing a hypothetical situation that demanded both a command of law and the ability to quickly work up a cogent argument. Mickey remembered the case vaguely, enough to fake an answer, he told himself. But being on stage in front of the entire academic legal world, including a Supreme Court member, could cause anyone to freeze up.

After several more rapid-fire questions from the judges it was time for Parker to step up with an answer. But whether from inexperience, anxiety or stage fright, or a combination of them all, he slowly, laboriously replied with an almost apologetic response. And he seemed to abandon some of their team’s major arguments.

Mickey watched the debacle with dread, like observing a car accident unfold before his eyes. With every word that came out of Parker’s mouth Mickey could see their case crumbling. And he not only had to follow up this disaster with a hostile court that put them on the defensive, but most of their arguments had now been surrendered. None the less, he couldn’t let his team down and this was their last chance.

Mickey put his hand on Parker's shoulder before he stepped up to the podium.

“Sorry,” Parker said quietly. “I’ve thrown you to the wolves.”

“Lions,” Mickey replied, getting a quizzical look from Parker.

Mickey pulled on the bottom of the suit jacket as he started to step toward the podium.

He had barely positioned himself, trying to adjust the height of the mike from the much shorter Parker when the judges started bombarding him with questions.

In reply, he could stretch out what little he knew about the case into almost a minute’s worth of speaking. And, in contrast to most of the other participants, he didn’t always stop or become deferential when one judge or another tried jump in with a new question. He knew that they were just testing him, seeing if they could throw him off balance. His only hope was to create at least one coherent argument that he could push back with.

His aggressive strategy was almost on the edge of a breach of protocol. But he relied on the old sports adage, THE BEST DEFENSE IS A GOOD OFFENSE. Not only had Mickey determined not to give up, but he also began to see an angle to recover their team's argument. And even though he may not have thought of himself as the best advocate in a spontaneous situation, Mickey had recognized the clarity and strength of the case that Parker had been able to make in the written briefs.

“What about this?” the famous appellate judge asked him before making what he thought was a particularly cutting remark, seeming to demolish Mickey’s position.

“In that case, I would refer to ….” Mickey responded. He wasn’t even exactly sure what case he was going to cite when he started the sentence, but in the last split second an example popped into his head.

“But in Smith V. Maersk Shipping,” Mickey said, referring to a famous case that, though not perhaps the best answer, got him into a case that he knew well from one of his seminars and was on much firmer footing. All he could hope for was that the Judge would go for the bait.

The other judges looked at the inquisitor with wry smiles while the attacking judge sat back in his chair, arms crossed. He then looked down at Mickey and suddenly stretched his bald head over the bench.

“Sounds plausible, but you forget that…,” he retorted, citing a point that he thought would bring Mickey down.

Then he did a curious thing. As he was finishing, he looked at Mickey, then seemed to look up at the audience, about where Drew was sitting. Then he looked back at Mickey with what seemed like a wicked smile.

‘Damn!’ Mickey thought to himself. He realized that this guy was tight with Drew’s stepmother. She had contributed to his elections when he was a state judge and they were both well-known anti-gay marriage advocates. Mickey's jaw clenched.

As the Chief Justice rolled her eyes, Mickey’s antagonist was drawn into the case. And while the justice, with his long experience, could certainly outmaneuver Mickey with general case law, he was continually thwarted as Mickey could cite this particular case’s arguments almost line-by-line.

As he continually hogged the questioning amongst the judges, it seemed that he had become almost obsessed with taking Mickey down. A few of the other judges seemed to be getting annoyed or irritated, tapping their fingers on the bench, or looking out the windows. Another appellate Court justice was just about to speak when suddenly there was a long buzzer.

Time had expired.

Mickey gulped. So many thoughts ran through his mind. ‘Did his arguments actually make sense? Did he do his team any good? Would these judges think he was too combative?’ And: ‘Did he just piss-off one of the most important legal figures in the country?’

He was the last of their team to present, and, after the entire squad thanked the judges, they stepped off stage and back into their seats to watch the other teams perform. And wait.

                                    ***

At the end of the evening, while the judges withdrew to a makeshift Judge’s chamber to confer and tally up the scores, Mickey and his teammates sat despondently on the edge of the stage.

“You did the best you could, Parker. That happens to everyone. You wrote the best brief by far, and that’s the biggest reason that we’re here,” Mickey said

“That’s right! Maryam, added. “You had the best written brief at the regionals so we wouldn’t be here without you.”

“Thanks, everyone,” Parker responded, his eyes red. “But I’m really not sure I should be a litigator, at least in the courtroom,” he joked. “I like being behind a desk and writing and strategizing. But I guess I just have a hard time in front of a group and being spur-of-the-moment. I like to mull things over but maybe too much.”

“You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of!!” Maryam contradicted. “Like I said, we wouldn’t be here without you,” she added, pulling him close as they formed a circle with each other.

                                    ***

During the awards ceremony, they all forced smiles and gave congratulations to their arch-rival school from the north, who took home the winner’s trophy. Surprisingly, they finished third out of the 12 teams, a miraculous finish considering their major stumble.

All of them gave Parker hugs and pats on the back when he won third place for Best Brief. Mickey and the rest of them hoped that it would be something of a salve to his wounds. 'He really was a talented writer and strategist,' Mickey thought to himself. 'But maybe they had all asked too much of him for what this competition was about.'

After a few more awards, the row of judges then turned toward the crowd as the Supreme Court Justice pulled the microphone stand toward her face.

“Finally, last but not least, we would like to announce the awards for best oral presentation,” she said. As was tradition, she was exercising her prerogative as the senior judge to give out the award of her choosing.

After compliments to all the participants for their stellar efforts, she announced the winner of second place, who happened to be a member of the winning team. Her teammates cheered her wildly, and it took all the Justice’s firm courtroom manner to regain control.

“Every year I do this there are surprises, which is what I enjoy the most about this event,” she stated, looking at the crowd. The students hung on her every word.

“This year was especially rewarding. I hate to use the analogy, but, as far as the competitive aspect goes, this was a real horse race. When we read the briefs, I thought that many of them were unusually well argued, which made me really anticipate the oral arguments. And I wasn’t disappointed. The competition was fierce and strong, and I want to again congratulate the winning team,” she said, stepping back and raising her hand to the four winners standing by her side.

There was another round of applause as the victors savored their triumph yet again. Mickey’s team gave them their due and clapped just as enthusiastically as everyone else, as painful as it was to not be on the dais themselves.

As the applause began to subside, she again surveyed the crowd and stepped back up to the microphone.

“And as I was saying, it’s now time for, what to me, is one of the most important awards for gauging young talent. The ability to think on your feet, especially in front of a crowd, is a critical skill for all lawyers, especially in a courtroom setting,” she said. “All sorts of talents are necessary to be successful, but I have to admit, this one has a special place in my heart,” she continued, alluding to her own long career as a courtroom prosecutor and a judge.

“So, without further delay, I’m proud to announce, that, by unanimous decision, except one,” she said, glancing at the glowering appellate judge only a few steps away, “the winner of the prize for Best Oral Presentation goes to Mickey Deringer.”

He couldn’t believe his ears. But before he could even react he was mobbed by his teammates.

“Congratulations!” “Great job!” he heard repeatedly. The nice words seemed to echo around him, but they didn’t seem to make any sense.

“Um…. thanks!” was all he could say as he felt hands all over his shoulders and arms, jostling him back and forth until he almost lost his balance and had to step back.

“Go! Go!” Maryam finally said to him, pushing Mickey toward the stage. He just looked around, disoriented, until he finally figured out which direction to go and made his way toward the stairs and the bright lights.

                                    ***

The recognition was unexpected, to say the least, especially the opportunity to shake the hand of a Supreme Court Justice. Mickey practically leapt off the stage to meet Drew, who was waiting for him in front of the first row of seats.

Although it was their pattern to be circumspect in public, meaning no PDAs, Drew couldn’t help but give Mickey more than just friendly hug. Running his fingers through Mickey’s hair (and feeling the sweat that soaked the edges) was a lot more of a reward than any of his teammates could give him.

As they separated, Mickey suddenly froze in place and stared at him.

“What’s the matter?” Drew asked.

Mickey’s head turned and he gave Drew almost the strangest look he’d even seen from him.

“Are you OK?” Drew asked again.

Shaking his head like he was coming out of a trance, he nearly stumbled as he let go of Drew.

“I…” Mickey started.

“You…?”

Mickey looked at Drew. His mouth seemed dry, but he licked his lips for a moment.

“She asked me if I might like to clerk for her.”

“That’s fantastic! Drew answered. Even though he wasn’t a law student himself, it was common knowledge that clerking for a Supreme Court Justice was the pinnacle of academic achievement.

The dazed look on his face was understandable, Drew thought. But this was not a look of surprise and anticipation. It was almost dread.

“What’s the matter?” Drew asked.

“I just thanked her and all, but I didn’t make any commitment, I mean how could I. But…” he paused, and to Drew looked shaken.

“This is the top of the profession, Mickey. I mean, I don’t have to tell you that. It seems like you’d be overjoyed to hear it, but you don’t look that way- you look…”

Drew moved toward Mickey, who was standing stiffly. His only reaction was to rest his head on Drew’s shoulder.

“I turned down three ivy league schools to go to Wes because I could do it in three years. It was a great place, but I just wanted to get done. If I could have done law school in two years, I would have done that, too”

He continued. “I don’t know one law student who wouldn’t kill for this. I feel like maybe I’m crazy, but honestly…

“You want to go home.” Drew said, completing his sentence.

“I do.”

As Mickey’s head was on his shoulder, Drew looked up and saw what seemed to be an almost familiar figure leaving the auditorium. A large hat was on this head, and his collar was turned up, so he couldn’t see the guy’s face. But he almost looked like…