The Curve by Jeremy Blachman

Author:Jeremy Blachman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: American Bar Association
Published: 2016-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

14

The Bernie Madoff Bypass

THE EDITORS WERE IN A panic. They’d gotten a Snapchat from Asher telling them to meet at the office, along with a photo of his bloodied head and the cryptic command, “BURN IT ALL!” Although Asher was prone to hyperbole, the scratches on his face looked real, and the fear made his eyes—already lopsided—skew like a Dali nightmare.

Willow Summer was already in the office, hard at work. Not on articles, of course. She’d been nominated to handle the most important job—recruiting. Pay for an A wasn’t as simple as it sounded. The faculty couldn’t just advertise that grades were for sale. Instead, each current Law Review member was permitted to invite one new student onto Law Review at the end of every year. Willow was tasked with scanning through the financial aid statements of the first-year class to weed out students whose families were too poor to afford the added cost of Law Review membership. From the list that remained, she would strike troublemakers, hotheads, and do-gooders. Then, the editors would all go into the field and conduct in-depth interviews, probing for problem spots (“do you have trouble keeping a secret?”) and running credit checks. On the last Saturday in April, the entire Law Review (except for the Associate Editors) gathered to approve the selections with the assistance of Professor Rodriguez. The writing competition that followed was a complete sham, as fake as the school’s hiring statistics, but necessary to preserve the illusion of merit.

“What’s going on?” asked Raya Kurdle, who arrived breathless in black Lycra. She had been interrupted in the middle of her jog along the canal just before she would have passed out from the fumes.

“I don’t know,” said Willow. “He looked freaked.”

“That’s the way he always looks,” said John Tarantula, who followed Raya into the office and nearly decapitated himself on a book shelf because his gaze was fixed on Raya’s ass.

“Yeah, but there was blood.”

“He cut himself shaving,” said John.

“He doesn’t shave his forehead,” said Raya.

“How do you know?”

Charlie Spires arrived, martini shaker in hand. “Anyone have vermouth?” he asked.

“This is serious, Charlie!” said Willow.

“That’s why I’m drinking.”

Meanwhile, the object of their concern was only several hundred feet away, filling out paperwork in the basement of the law school. Asher had never been to the student health center before. As far as he knew, no one had. Rumor was that a few years earlier Prof. Ogden Templeton, born 1906, had died there, and the nurse, afraid she would be blamed, simply threw him in a file cabinet and pretended it never happened. At least that would explain the smell of formaldehyde that pervaded the place. But Asher’s health plan didn’t cover doctor’s visits or emergency rooms, and Asher—face scratched, fingers singed—was desperate, so into the bowels of Manhattan Law School he descended.

In the cold, empty waiting room, he was convinced he was dying. His life unspooled before his eyes like the damaged print of an old movie. The regrets, the lost chances,

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