“Well, funny you ask. She is the worst. Get this. The judge has somebody who drops him off at the building. He then requires one of his clerks to retrieve him at the elevator with the scooter. THIS MEANS THAT I HAVE TO RIDE THE ELECTRIC SCOOTER FROM CHAMBERS TO THE ELEVATOR. Do you even know how embarrassing that is? Do you?!!!” The problem was I didn’t, only because I’d never seen, let alone ridden, an electric Huffy. But I could imagine. “Anyway, I assure you it sucks. This morning, I showed up. Looking spiffy in this new Hickey Freeman suit. After introducing myself to the secretary, I was introduced to Rebecca, who said, and I quote, ‘Um. Hi. The judge is waiting for you downstairs. There’s the scooter. You better go get him.’” I hate when guys mimick girls because it’s always the same nasal, bitchy voice and pouted lips. “Anyway, I will cut to the chase. I found myself riding this thing, having to lift the judge from his caretaker’s car—the caretaker is another story, for later—and place him into the scooter. There was a snafu. And I dropped him. I dropped the judge right on the ground. In front of the Camden courthouse.” (Chug.)

I laughed out loud. I knew it was the wrong thing to do, but my mouth was tired of the open position it had taken since James’s arrival. The image of James carrying his judge was one thing, dropping him was another. James got up, grabbed another beer from his pocket, and continued.

This was definitely as weird as Helga Friedman’s joint. James had graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth and had worked at the Brookings Institute in Washington DC, where he hobnobbed with some of the premiere thinkers of our day before attending Columbia Law School, where he served as an editor on the Law Review. All of this, of course, in preparation for the biggest job of his life. It was a good thing he’d studied and worked his little pinstriped ass off for over a decade. Otherwise, he probably wouldn’t have been ready to bench-press a federal judge.

“Sheila. Are you registering this? I dropped the judge. I dropped the judge. I thought that I may have killed him. He didn’t move for a whole minute, then simply ordered, ‘Hey Jim. Jimboy. Pick me up, kiddo. We have a very busy day.’ I don’t know how I did it, but the next thing I know is he was scooting himself into chambers, with me walking a few steps behind. Rebecca scowled and said, ‘I won’t be doing that. I’m a girl. You’re a boy. You’re strong. I’m not. Good luck with that.’”

The trials and tribulations of my day seemed trivial in comparison.