A fine mess

Judge Forrest T. Foxtower stood, naked and alone, in front of a full-length mirror. Behind the locked doors of his chambers, he studied the body he'd sculpted. His guiding authority was an article in Muscles magazine titled "How to be an Adonis in six weeks."

Like a jeweler assessing the quality of a diamond, he turned, first to his left side, then to his right, flexing his biceps at each turn. Then he turned to face the mirror head on.

With his hands wrapped around his waist, he spread his legs apart and admired the magnificence of his manliness. A twinkle came to his eyes. At forty-five, he once again had the body of the middle linebacker he once was at Lakeview Academy High School.
 
He could have let out a roar at that moment, but instead he dressed himself, making sure that every minute detail was right, from the Joseph Abboud white dress shirt and the red silk Armani tie, down to the matching gold Cartier wristwatch and cufflinks.

Donning his black robe, he stood before the mirror again, adjusted the tie and combed his Just for Men “Natural Darkest Brown”-dyed mustache with the tip of his left index finger.

Satisfied, he sat down in his padded, mahogany brown leather chair at his cherry wood desk, withdrew a key from beneath his Tiffany lamp, and inserted it into the bottom drawer of the desk. After opening the drawer and eying the files inside, he put the index finger of his right hand on the divider marked “N” and
flipped past two files before stopping at a file marked NEWS CLIPPINGS. He pulled out the file and sifted through several clippings until he found the one he was looking for, from the Northside Beat, dated October 16, 1993, with the byline of Charley Hubbs, and the headline JUDGE FREES ACCUSED RAPIST ON I-BOND.
 
A single story, but it had sealed Charley’s fate. Foxtower had gone from being the Democratic party’s darling, the presumptive nominee for the 3rd House congressional district–-an almost certain ticket to the Hill, given Chicago’s party politics–-to being a political pariah, resigned to a life in which he’d never escape the dark, dirty halls of the Cook County Criminal Courthouse, where he’d languished far too long.
 
So it was with a bitter taste in his mouth that he withdrew from the desk his diary and silver Cross pen, inscribed with his initials and DePaul Law Class of 1973. He clutched the pen with a strangling force, until it snapped in his hand. For a moment he gaped at the remnants of what had been his favorite pen. Then he let them roll out of his hand, withdrew another pen from his desk, and scrawled into the diary, Revenge is sweet.
 
A sly, wicked smile crossed his dark, chiseled face as he closed the diary, which, along with the news clippings, he returned to the bottom drawer of his desk. After he locked the drawer, he sat there stroking his mustache for a few seconds. This was the day he’d dreamed would come. The smile faded as he pushed the intercom on his phone for Gladys Bishop, his faithful court clerk.
 
“Gladys, is the name Charley Hubbs on this morning’s bond court call?”

“Yes, that’s quite a shocker, isn’t it, Judge?” she asked in her shrill voice.

That sadistic smile returned. “Yes, it sure is." A cool air seemed to blow into the chambers. “Can you make sure that he’s the first to be called? There’ll be a lot of people here for that, so I’d like to clear it first thing.”
 
“Of course, Judge. Will you be taking this one?"
 
Her obedience came with a price. As loyal and trustworthy as she’d been to him, she could still manage to annoy the hell out of him with nosy questions about things that were none of her business--like this one. He knew why she wanted to know and it had nothing to do with the administration of the courtroom. She just wanted to be in on the scoop, the juicy gossip, which she would pass on to every other clerk in the building. The clerks would pass it on to the judges, who would pass it on to the attorneys. From there, it would reach the reporters, each of whom would soon be calling him, asking him questions he didn’t care to answer. This vicious cycle he’d seen played out far too often. But he also knew how to handle her.
 
“You’ll find out in the courtroom, just like everybody else.” He pressed the intercom OFF button. As he did this, he gazed across his desk at the bronze statue of Lady Justice, standing there so majestically in her robe, a blindfold over her eyes, holding in her left hand those balanced scales.

The sight of that statue, at that moment, raised in him a devilish feeling. Reaching across the length of his desk, he tapped one of the scales with the index finger of his right hand. His eyes followed the movement of the scales as they rocked up and down, up and down, and eventually came to a stop right where they’d started, in balance again. So naïve. So naïve.