The Pillow Incident

The Pillow Incident Connie Wanek My father, Judge Wanek, was in possession of a handgun. He accepted it, he explained, in lieu ofa legal fee. The gun surprised me, but not the manner of acquisition, for I had grown up accustomed to the ancient tradition among lawyers to accept as compensation practicaUy anything of value from chents who needed help but had no money—had only, for example, chickens, a trombone, purebred Pomeranian puppies, grandmother 's gold teeth, or perhaps a tennis racket stringing machine. Someone had painted our house once, rather badly, to setde a debt. And for months we had a line of credit at a fresh fruit stand. But a gun . . . was it the same one used in the robbery, I wondered? It's in the bedroom, Father said, and he led us there, my husband and me, into the stuffy gloom where shades were always drawn. The darkness seemed to rise rather than faU in that room, gathering at the taU ceiling like smoke. I had the sense that if I feU on my hands and knees the air near the floor would be cooler and easier to breathe. He opened the cabinet at his bedside and drew the gun out; its sudden weight made his wrist bend, and he held it carelessly, with a completely uncharacteristic bravado. It had a strange, oil-saturated gleam, even in the dark. I'd Uke you to take this to the pawn shop and see what you can get for it, Father said. Or if they won't give you cash, just leave it there on consignment . Talk to Manny. He knows me. He's been to court on a number of occasions. Perhaps it was an errand best undertaken by someone other than the judge. My father, although just a municipal judge, was careful of his position in the community, though he was in no sense vainglorious. He had the power to infuriate people, or to calm them, as he chose. He never abused this power, and in fact found it amusing that he had ended up on the bench, 91 92Fourth Genre when he could, he claimed, just as easily have been one of those standing before it. He used to teU us of his young days in Marinette, Wisconsin, skipping school, hanging out at the bowUng alley, setting pins for a few cents a line. He was such a late baby, the last oftwelve chüdren, and his father was in his fifties, his mother in her mid-forties, when he was born. Perhaps they hadn 't the energy to manage him as they did the first few—though to be honest , I have the impression that aU the Wanek boys inherited a kind of Bohemian savvy, and a set of ethics that were almost purely situational. He described a late night when he and his buddies crossed the bridge to Menominee, Michigan, and what they were doing there he didn't say. But it attracted the notice ofa certain policeman, notorious for his vigüance and for his left arm, which was withered—one of those curiosities that fascinate boys particularly. A chase ensued, the boys dashing for the bridge and the safety of their home town, across the state Une. Close behind was the policeman, roaring and threatening. As they crossed the bridge, they turned to see their pursuer stop and shake his good fist at them. Inspired, my father shouted, "Beware the short arm of the law!" So it was ironic, he felt, that he was now a judge. And I think what made him such a good and worthyjudge, re-elected again and again, is that when he looked at the defendants, the law breakers, he saw human beings. He saw people not so very different from himself, apart, ofcourse, from the rare, truly evü, brutal soul who surfaced now and then, the genuine danger to others. But back to the gun. I took it from my father for a moment before passing it on to my husband. It was greasy, like a Brazü nut, and was sUghdy warmer than my hands. It had a strange smeU, the cumulative odor ofaU the...