Week One, Part 4 - Cooperation

Students stream past me as I shutdown my laptop. There seems to be an equal number of males and females. Maybe it’s due to the hot summer, but all the guys wear their hair short. I don’t see any ponytails, dreadlocks, or beards. Nothing tinted. And most students look to be only a year or two out of undergrad. At 32, I feel like a grandpa.

I walk down the hallway and sit at a conference table outside Career Services. Not wanting to be late again, I fish out my schedule. In addition to the substantive classes that Professor Bauer mentioned, there are three others: Legal Writing, Research, and Ethics. It adds up to 16 hours. My only other class today is Criminal Procedure at 2:00 p.m.

A student in a wheelchair rolls up parallel to the table. With the sweep of his hand, he pushes the green chairs aside. Then he pops a mini-wheelie and pivots 90 degrees so he’s facing the table.

“John Edgar,” he says. His hands are large and meaty, stained the color of the tread on his wheelchair. He’s wearing a black polo shirt that bulges at the shoulders and arms. In contrast, his legs are skinny and secured to the chrome supports by a bungee cord.

I ask where he’s from.

“Twenty minutes over the border, Edwardsburg, Michigan. How ‘bout you?”

“I grew up in southern Minnesota and moved to South Bend about a year ago.”

“So now you’re a Bender.”

“I guess. Sounds strange though.”

He asks if I applied anywhere else for law school.

“Nope, just here.”

“Notre Dame or bust,” he says.

“Well, not quite. I took one class in the MFA program at Western Michigan, but will be dropping out.”

John says he did his undergrad at Western. As for law school, he applied to ND, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

“Wisconsin was my sure thing,” he says. “Got wait-listed at Michigan. I’ve been told that if I’d hung on, I would have gotten in. A top-ten school was kind of appealing.”

“Naah, you don’t want to go there,” I say. “The U of M gave us The Unabomber.”

He smiles. “And do we blame O.J. on USC ?”

“Absolutely!” I say. “If you like Notre Dame football, it makes perfect sense.”

He throws back his head and laughs. “You know, one of the nicest guys I ever met went to Michigan. Three years later he’s an absolute jerk. Struts around like he’s F. Lee Bailey.”

“Too bad.”

“Plus I’ve heard that Michigan is cut-throat, people stealing notes and tearing pages out of library books.”

“I guess here is the opposite.”

“No, kidding!” John says. “It all about cooperation. This morning some girl asked me if I wanted a Blakey Bible.”

“What’s that?”

“A student outline for Blakey’s class in Criminal Procedure. He’s the dude they always interview about the racketeering statute.”

“Wow. So did you take it?”

“Nope, told her I had Dutile. But she says, ‘Here, have one anyway.’”

“Might help,” I say.

“Doubt it, but I’ll put a copy in your box.” We make small talk for another ten minutes.

“Hey, I’ll see you in Crim this afternoon,” I say. “Need to go move my car. I’m in one-hour parking.”

“Yeah, I gotta shove off too.” John rolls backward from the table and pops another wheelie as he spins his chair toward the hallway.

“Don’t worry about getting a ticket this morning,” he calls over his shoulder. ”But I’ve heard that after the first day, the bike cops are Nazis.”

I laugh. “Sounds like they need a lesson in cooperation.”

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