“I-I,” his teeth chattered. “Oh Sheila.” And he started to cry. It was the second time in as many months that I found myself cradling Evan, strange considering we barely spoke to each other.

“Evan, listen, I live right down the street—why don’t you come home with me?” He didn’t attempt to resist.

This was one sorry Christmas tale. Evan’s brother had been killed in a car accident six years earlier. Unable to deal with the loss, his parents divorced shortly thereafter. His father moved to Paris and Evan hadn’t heard from him since. His mother, already a diabetic, had taken to drink and was drinking herself to a quick death. She’d recently been hospitalized. (The good news was that judging from Evan’s mother’s symptoms, I certainly didn’t have diabetes).

Studying let him get away from it all—or, studying and crystal meth did. It was at Harvard Law that he’d discovered the stuff. He and his roommates at first did it only occasionally, and suddenly he couldn’t get through Corporations and Evidence without it. He’d started working part-time at a local Boston law firm on the weekends to subsidize his habit. Once he’d even stolen some cash from the office. He hated himself for that and a million other things. Nevertheless, Evan had graduated at the top of his law school class, was an editor on the Harvard Law Review, and had landed a federal court of appeals clerkship.

He’d promised himself that he’d lay off the drugs. Philadelphia was a new start and all was going according to plan. He’d even gone out on a few furtive dates with a cute, blond district court clerk. Other clerks seemed to like him even though everyone in his own chambers—the judge included—thought he was a jerk. Then he failed the bar.

That night at the Vegas Lounge, the cute blond district court clerk ignored him at first and later told him that they “should just be friends.” Brian and his minions kept saying, “You shouldn’t think that you’re stupid or anything.” He hadn’t until they said it. After all, he’d never gotten below a B on anything in his life, let alone failed a test.

The problem was, his mother had been very sick during the “bar summer” and instead of spending his afternoons studying, he’d spent them taking care of her. In the end, it didn’t matter. The doctors told him they’d be surprised if she lasted through the year. Walking home from the Vegas Lounge that night, he’d remembered the judge saying that the corner of Spruce and 12th was a place for drug activity. “You know, the time she drove us home.”