Big Hark

Christmas Eve, 2015. I’m watching the Popeyes Bahamas Bullshit Bowl—Western Michigan v. Middle Tennessee—when I answer a two-one-nine call (Indiana) thinking it’s one of my in-laws. It isn’t. On the line is a mysterious man who says he works with my father. Doesn’t say cop. Doesn’t say attorney. Just says he knows the judge and I had been estranged for years and hadn’t spoken since the death of his third wife. Mystery Man also knows I am the judge’s eldest son, one of three. Says he tried the other two already, sorry about the hour. He stammers. Says my father isn’t well. Says he wears the same jeans and dirty gray Papa Hemingway sweatshirt under his judicial robes every day, and that’s a no-no on the bench. Maybe it’s the sore foot that’s been bothering him? Says the old man’s probably sleeping on a sofa, too sore to climb stairs. In any case, his docket’s a mess and people are talking. Absenteeism. Sloppy judgments. The mayor, a political enemy, wants him out and pronto. Mystery Man suggests the possibility of people going through the old man’s trash looking for scandal. Abolishing his court is on the table. Can I do something? I can tell Mystery Man’s at the end of his rope. He cares about my father for some reason, and that touches me. I lie and say I’ll do my best.