After the Fact: Justin's Adventures in Charlotte

I, Justin, spent a couple weeks in Charlotte in early June, interloping at the firm's newly opened office in that great American city. When I agreed to go, I thought Lia would be going with me. As it happened, Lia stayed in D.C. where her sister, Chari (15), came out for a two-week visit. With an excess of time on my hands, I kept a detailed diary in Charlotte--at least for the first week; after that I lost resolve as my entries became progressively prolonged apostrophes declaring how desperately I missed Lia. I include excerpts from the first week here, mostly for the sake of completeness in the record. I expect no one to read them.



June 8, 2008

After church I packed my bags for the first genuine "business trip" of my life. I'm spending two weeks in North Carolina at the newly opened Charlotte office of Winston & Strawn. Because the Charlotte office had no chance to recruit summer associates last fall, the firm offered the summer associates in the Washington D.C. office the chance to come to Charlotte for two or three weeks. I and five others accepted.

My trip to Charlotte went smoothly. I am always amazed, on those blessedly rare occasions when I travel alone, how easy it is to travel without children.

Easy but lonely. When I was settled in my hotel room on the eighteenth floor of the Charlotte Westin, I called Lia and the girls. Julia, who wept inconsolably when I left our apartment in Silver Spring, now cried only softly as she told me that she missed and loved me. Eli showed less emotion but proffered a sweet, "I love you Daddy," when prompted by her mother to do so. I am glad I almost never take business trips.


. . .


As I sit in this quiet room, which still seems a tad dark even after I've turned on every lamp and light I can find, I wonder what strange fate has brought me here—what I, a student of law and history at one of the high citadels of New England academia, is doing below the Mason-Dixon line about to embark on the practice of corporate law in one of the leading banking cities of the world. I have no good answer but feel a strange peace and contentment. Life and Providence have treated me well.

June 9, 2008

Monday. I felt surprisingly sprightly as I took leave of my bed this morning. It was 6 a.m., and I had stayed awake past midnight reading. I submitted myself to a brisk routine of push-ups, sit-ups, and stair-steps, for the last of which exercise I made creative use of the armchair in my hotel room. Finished this callisthenic ritual, I shaved and showered.

My shaving was the occasion of a minor tragedy. The electric shaver that has served me faithfully and well for nearly nine years—whose blades I have worn dull and never replaced through high school, mission, university, and much of law school—was irreparably broken. The plastic casement that holds in place one of the shaver's three spinning heads came irreplaceably dislodged. I was crestfallen, though I later discovered I could still make the contraption serviceable by making deft use of the two remaining heads. At some point in the near future, however, I shall be reduced to the extremity of purchasing a new shaver.

I composed myself in the aftermath of my shaver's partial demise and read the Book of Mormon for thirty minutes. I read aloud—as I prefer to read scripture, though the parlous enterprise of not waking my daughters rarely permits this—the eleventh and twelfth chapters of Alma. I love the account of Alma and Amulek above all other missionary stories in the Book of Mormon. This morning I finally realized why Mormon included a lengthy digression outlining the Nephite monetary system in the early versus of Alma chapter 11. I usually skip these verses, puzzled as to why precious space on finite plates should be devoted to the arcane mysteries of the limnah, the ezrom, and the onti. Reading the verses aloud, however, I recognized them for the literary device that they are. Mormon notes in verse three that the Nephite judges and lawyers—like those among whom I labor—billed by the hour. There follows a sixteen verse incantation of monetary measurements. We can hear the metals jangling in the coffers as attorneys look on with greedy eyes: senines and seons and limnahs and shums; amnors and ezroms and leahs and ontis—dollars and deutschmarks and euros and pounds. . . . Then comes the hammer in verse 20: "[I]t was [all] for the sole purpose to get gain." The effect is chilling rather than soporific, and when Zeezrom—introduced at the close of chapter 10—comes on stage, we know precisely with what sort of character Amulek now has to deal. A remarkable book!

. . .

Then off to work. Ralph Pantony, a colleague, and I walked eight minutes or so through oppressive Charlottean heat to get to our office in the Hearst Tower, Charlotte's highest structure so far as I can tell. We were immediately struck by the warm and genial atmosphere of the office. Winston's Charlotte crew came over en masse from the financial services section of Kennedy & Covington, a mid-sized firm based in Charlotte. The cast obviously stuck together because they like one another, and I appreciated the welcoming aura of informality as we were made acquainted with our colleagues for the next two weeks. The office is also small—thirty attorneys or so—and when these people talk about collegiality they mean something more than run-of-the-mill politeness.

I was set to work on a mergers and acquisitions research assignment and was relieved that I understood the assignment's terminology. It seems I learned something in Business Organizations after all.

The highlights of the working day, of course, were lunch and dinner. The former was had at La Torre's, a restaurant that, like so many trendy languages, describes itself as "Latin-based." I ate and enjoyed a sandwich called "The Cubano." La Torre's also features a glass ceiling—quite literally—which doubles on the other side as a dance floor for more exotic festivities in the evening. I spent a good deal of lunch looking at this ceiling and conjuring imaginative movie scenes involving heroes (or villains) crashing through the glass and repelling to the floor in search of further exploits. In between conjurations I fielded my hosts' inquiries about what attracted me to Charlotte and the legal realm of financial lending.

Dinner was a singular experience. The four Washingtonian interlopers in the Charlotte office were taken by a hearty pair of male associates to The Penguin, a Southern establishment from Central Casting whose menu featured such elegantly-styled fare as "The King Pig Pork" and "The Boss-Hogg Ham." We ordered an array of hotdogs, corndogs, sandwiches, and burgers, preceded and complemented by a dish of deep-fried pickles. I tried a pickle slice. I did not try a second.

Perhaps even more colorful than The Penguin itself was the abrupt appearance of what can only be described as a belly dancer, a mysterious damsel who had, we surmised, lost a bet, and who consequently entered The Penguin garishly attired, danced a turn about the tables, and exited to the howls and laughter of her awaiting companions. My hosts asked if I ever imagined my humble beginnings at the Yale Law School would lead to such august surroundings as this. I answered that I had never dared hope so high.

Even the Penguin, however, was outshone and forgotten when Ralph and I returned to our hotel and saw a certain VIP checking in at the Charlotte Westin. Back in D.C. one might have spotted a political rock star or two—a Justice, a Senator, perhaps even a presidential candidate. But one never would have seen what we saw here. There, standing alone with all the aureole of retired majesty, was the unmistakable figure of Michael Jordan.

I nearly fainted. I wished with all my heart to fly at him, to seize his hand, profess my endless admiration, to beg an autograph for my library copy of Italy: A Modern History, to squeal and chant like a lunatic. I did none of these. The man looked weary and angry and eager for bed. We dared not intrude upon his privacy. For a few moments we stared, able neither to believe our eyes nor to avert them. Convinced it truly was he, we went about our business and left His Airness to his. We then raced to our rooms and fired off gloating emails to our fellow summer associates, defying one and all to disbelieve our tale. In Washington, it may be who you know that counts; but in Charlotte, it is whom you see.

June 10, 2008

Tuesday. A less colorful day than its immediate predecessor. I began the day with my now usual routine: exercise, shower and dress, the Book of Mormon, and the newspaper. The last of these is The USA Today, which is hung each morning on the outside handle of my hotel room. I have never read this particular journal before; it is emphatically not The New York Times or The Economist.

At work I plodded along contentedly, finishing the research for one project and being assigned another. We got another free lunch in connection with a video conference involving the financial services sections of Winston's New York, Chicago, and Charlotte offices (our West-Coast colleagues were afforded a square on the big screen but didn't show up).

For dinner I bought a Caesar salad with chicken from a take-out establishment uptown. The fare was dear, but less than it would have been at one of the many restaurants within walking distance. And I have been craving a salad after so much Southern deep-fry. I ate dinner alone at an elevated table, with Denis Mack Smith's Italy: A Modern History in hand—a volume, alas, unsigned by Michael Jordan.

I then returned to my hotel and read, calling Lia every thirty minutes until she finally answered at 9:30 or so. My sister-in-law, Chari Suttner, has gone to Washington D.C. to be with Lia and the girls while I'm gone, and they all spent the evening at the Summit Hills pool in the hopes of evading the oppressive heat that has enveloped the whole of the Atlantic coast.

After talking to Lia for thirty minutes or so, I returned to my reading and finished Paul Ginsborg's A History of Contemporary Italy at around twenty to eleven. It is a fine book—my Metro companion during my first two weeks in D.C.—though the portrait it paints of the land I love in the four decades following the Second World War is relentlessly dispiriting. So, of course, is most of Italian history, though I wish Ginsborg would have done more to highlight Italy's cultural history and thus interrupt the somber procession of her sociopolitical woes.

. . .

June 11, 2008

Wednesday. Began the day as usual. I spent the morning at work writing a memo summarizing a research project I've completed. The work time I spend writing passes more swiftly than any other—a fine indicator that, were I ever to practice law, I should do so as an appellate advocate, not a transactional engineer.

I had lunch with Kent Walker, a partner, and Jason Bennett, an associate, at the Charlotte Country Club. This was the very apotheosis of an Old Boys Club. We dined in a hall reserved, during the lunch hour if not at dinnertime, for gentleman only. I need hardly add that all of the gentleman were white. Kent is a good talker, and I ate a magnificent burger, but this was not the place for me. Kent's wife, by the way, had lunch in an adjacent hall, where Kent was allowed to visit her, though not she us. Ah, the South.

The afternoon was a bit of a struggle. I was given a hefty indenture document to slog through. I could barely make head or tail of the document and certainly struggled to identify what I was asked to identify. I also got a call from Jason, gently informing that an uncomplicated task he had asked me to perform had been performed by me in an incompetent way. I miss Yale.

As the work day ended (around 6:30) we heard rumbles in the distance as gray clouds encircled and overwhelmed Mecklenberg County. Soon the tempest erupted, and we watched from our windows a dazzling display of rain and flash and thunder. I love storms, and have always felt a fascination, if not a kinship, with the heroic figure of Lear on the heath, bidding defiance—but in a wild way also sounding praise—to the menace of the skies.

Ralph Pantony and I walked back to our hotel via an indoor walkway that connects many of the towers of uptown Charlotte. We were not too wet when we reentered the safe haven of the Westin.

. . .

I also talked to Lia and the girls for maybe forty minutes. Julia's voice is always cute, but trebly so over the phone. Eli didn't talk much, but she did manage a melting, "I love you, Daddy." I gather that, with Aunt Chari in town, my household has become in my absence a fearsome foursome of indomitable females, poised to conquer the capital and paint it blue. They really sound like they're having a good time. I'm very grateful that Chari could come out.


June 12, 2008

Thursday. I've been running on about six hours of sleep each night this week. This morning my double-ended wicker burning caught up with me, and after dousing my BlackBerry alarm at 6 I rolled over and blinked to see the clock read 7:30. So my morning ritual was abbreviated to include only scripture study. I've been reading the Book of Mormon aloud thirty minutes each morning since I've come to Charlotte, and I have enjoyed the practice thoroughly.

Today was a rather tedious day at work. I suppose at a financial lending law firm most days are. We had lunch at a place called "Stool Pigeon," and for all my efforts to listen to the expatiations of a junior associate I found myself watching the Euro Cup on the big screen before me (Croatia beat Germany 2-1).

This evening we summers went out with the full posse of the office's associates. Because nothing proclaims the virtue of a law firm like the consumption of beer, most of the evening's festivities centered on establishments that serve alcohol. Thankfully, Connie Sawyer, an associate with a strong personality, is also a non-drinker, and he kindly took me under his wing to help make the evening as little awkward as possible for me.

We began by attending "Alive at 5," an outdoor performance of live music on the large patio of an uptown plaza. Most attendees gathered up bottles of Bud Light, vended by buxom babes in various stages of undress. I was appalled, perhaps less by such crass immodesty than by our pretensions as a nation to have emancipated women in the face of this showing at a gathering of upwardly mobile young professionals.

I tried engaging coworkers in conversation, but the music was generally too loud for words to be exchanged intelligibly. At one point, I was accosted by a not unpleasant-looking fellow about my age—an entire stranger—who proceeded to relate to me, as near as I can recall, the following torrent of verbosity:

"These parties really get going when you get a whole bunch of people up there who are all drunk as hell in a great big old mosh pit and they start pushing each other and it doesn't matter what the music is playing—the band could be playing Jack Johnson for all they care—and they just start going crazy and the band gets fired up and starts rocking out and really playing stuff and soon you have a huge crowd around the mosh pit and everything and it's fun to watch."

Here he paused for a sip of his beer, and then a new sentence: "One time—it was probably in '98 or '99—there was this concert and it was one of those really hard rock bands—Rage or Korn or something like that, I don't really remember—and people started moshing and there was this kid—a pretty big, pretty cut, athletic-looking kid—and these three or four teenagers start surrounding him and pushing him and trying to get a mosh pit going and this kid is getting pushed and finally one kid comes right up and pushes him in the face and he tries to plant his foot but he goes down and then he tries to get up but as he gets up you can see that his calf-bone is sticking out of his leg and he just crumbles to the ground—and by this time there's a huge crowd and they're all moshing but when they see he's hurt everybody stops and for a while they're all nice while some people help him up and carry him up to the front so he can get medical attention and all that and after that I decided that I would just keep my distance from mosh pits and just watch, you know, from twenty or thirty feet away with my beer and just watch."

Here he thought it appropriate to engage me, hitherto silent. "Did you ever see anything crazy like that?" I replied that I couldn't say that I had, upon which my interlocutor, happy as ever, returned to his original circle of associates. It wasn't yet 7 o'clock, so I doubt the man was quite drunk. Perhaps telling random tales to total strangers is just another element of southern hospitality.

Mercifully, we soon left the "concert" to head to "Brixx" for dinner. Brixx is an Italian-style, wooden-oven pizza restaurant, so I should have loved it. Unfortunately, I ordered a wild mushroom pizza—expecting a serving with juicy mushrooms buried in mozzarella. What I got instead was a pizza crust upon which a mushroom salad had been dumped without dressing.

During dinner, one of the associates—a married man and father of three—held forth at some length about the physical features of the many young women he had seen out and about that evening. Scripture declares the nature of the natural man in vivid colors, but it is always dispiriting to hear the natural man speak for himself.

After dinner we then went to "Whisky River" where two of my co-workers essayed to mount and ride a mechanical bull. They made a game effort of it and it was entertaining to watch them. But I had had enough—more than enough—and bid my peers good evening and headed back to the hotel, where I arrived in my room at a quarter to ten.

Feeling unsettled in spirit, I settled into the armchair after fetching the Gideon's Bible from a bedside drawer. I read aloud from the psalms for forty minutes or so. It was a soothing, stirring experience. I worship a mighty, merciful God whose word is quick and powerful. I put the book down, very much consoled and uplifted.

***

June 13, 2008

Another dull day at work, brightened by the undimmed hope of Sweet Friday, before which spreads the weekend in its splendor. We had lunch at a place called Johnny Burrito today—much less fancy and much more to my liking than many other establishments I've frequented this summer. I might as well put down for posterity that I dislike restaurants—dislike their ritual, dislike their commerciality, dislike their absence of warmth and love and family. I like holding court at my dining room table, surrounded by my children and my bride. No chef in all the world can hold a candle to my Lia.

After work I went to a BBQ hosted by Zach and Trisha Champlin—whose Silver Spring apartment we are subletting for the summer—and attended by their children, Naomi (2) and James (3 mos.), and their friends, Rob and (TK) Jenson, together with their daughter Clare (2). It was great to be among Latter-day Saints again. I admire and love many friends who are not members of the Church, but I always rejoice in the society of the saints. May I always live worthy of that society.

I came back to the hotel and called Lia. She didn't answer, but as a message I sang as much of Andrea Boccelli's "Canto della terra"for as long the answering machine would let me. She called me back not long after that, but I told her to listen to my message first and then call again, which she did. Today was a better day for them than yesterday. Eli, a terror yesterday, was cherubic and adorable today. They went to the beach and Lia later made cinnamon rolls which she entered in a bake-off as part of a ward talent show. I miss her terribly.


June 14, 2008

Saturday. Relaxing and delightful, though I pine away for Lia and the girls. I really can't wait to return to D.C. I spent most of the day at the Mecklenburg County library, where I read the better part of Sense and Sensibility, as well as an essay on Primo Levi in Tony Judt's recent book, Reappraisals. I had forgotten just how delightful Jane Austen is—especially when one comes to her on the tail of a tedious week in a law office.

In the evening I went to the apartment of Stan Kostov and Will Stewart—fellow summer associates from D.C.—where I did a load of laundry before we three went to dinner together. We ate at an Italian place called Carraba's. Too expensive for my taste (most things are) but not bad food. Our waitress had a terrible time with the three bills, first charging Stan's drink on my bill and then, having remedied that, charging Stan's bill to my credit card. I tend to feel sorry, rather than irked, for waitresses who blunder—and sometimes tip with the blunderer with greater liberality as a gesture of consolation and goodwill. This, no doubt, creates perverse incentives toward irresponsibility.

I am really astonished at how much law students, law interns, and lawyers drink. During the academic year I can usually shield myself from this unpleasant phenomenon by retiring at the end of the work day to the haven of my family. I cannot do so here, and so I can't help but notice how my colleagues devote their weekends to "going out"—by which they mean proceeding from one bar to another, ingesting a week's ration of alcohol at each of them. It all seems so mindless and carnal. I couldn't be more grateful for the Word of Wisdom and for the soaring theology that teaches that God has something better in store for his children than the filling of bellies and the clouding of minds.

I tried going to bed at 11 but since I slept in so recklessly this morning (not fully up until after 9) I was insufficiently tired. So I spent some time reading news on line and otherwise surfing idly. Finally, in a fit of homesickness, I went to our own family blog and looked at pictures of Lia and the girls. Then, I clicked randomly on an archive link and happened upon a eulogy I wrote for President Hinckley in January. I don't know what it says about me that I am so easily moved by my own words, but it was touching to read them and more touching still to experience anew the sentiments by which they were animated.

June 15, 2008

The Champlins gave me a ride to Church this morning, and kindly hosted me for lunch and dinner thereafter. Church in Charlotte was an interesting experience. Our Sunday School lesson covered Mosiah 29 through Alma 4 and focused mainly on politics—on the necessity of seeking out good and honorable leaders who will make and apply laws with justice and impartiality. Such a need is undoubtedly great. But I think the real lesson of the chapters is that the need to live the gospel and to declare it is immeasurably greater. After all, Chapter 4 ends with Alma—who has found politics impotent and war detrimental to the effectuation of a truly good society—abandoning public life for the private ministry. We have a duty to be honest, educated, deliberative, and engaged citizens, but this will never be enough. And we are kidding ourselves if we think we are doing the work of the Lord by achieving public office or accessing political power. God does not need Mormon senators; he needs faithful home teachers and, a fortiori, good fathers.

Elders quorum was a different beast altogether. The hapless young man who "taught" the "lesson" appeared never to have addressed an audience of any size at any time in his life. And I could only hope, as he struggled over the pronunciation of "Palmyra," that he is quite new to the Church. In any case, the lesson consisted of the young man's reading a lengthy passage from the manual, then asking a member of the class to read an equally lengthy section from where he left off, then himself picking up where the class member left off and reading onward. We so progressed through the whole of the eleventh chapter of Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith.

At one point helpful members of the class interrupted this literal lecture to make comments and observations, or to foment discussion. This our instructor squelched almost immediately with further oral reading. After reading the lesson's final paragraph, our instructor checked the time on his cell phone and, observing that our time was up, closed the lesson in the name of the Lord without further comment.

I had a lot of fun playing with Naomi (2) after Church. This was my consolation for being away from my own dear ones on Father's Day. For her part, Naomi rejoiced at having a new and admiring audience. I was, as Trisha observed, even better than a peer her own age—I did her bidding and fought for the possession of her toys.

In between lunch and dinner I returned to my hotel, promising Naomi I would return for dinner if she took a nap. I found a message on my answering machine from Lia and the girls, wishing me a happy father's day. Eli's message was particularly cute: "Happy father's day from Eli," with the emphasis placed endearingly on her own sweet name. I called them back, received their live solicitations, and heard all about their morning. I then read for a while and took a power nap—meaning I lay lazily on my bed, face down, and fell asleep for thirty minutes or so. When I woke up it was time to go back to the Champlins for dinner.

For dinner we had a lovely (and tasty) meal of pork chops, rice, broccoli, sweet potatoes, watermelon, and bread (complete with butter and jam). After dinner we took a drive together to visit the Calvary, a mega-church on the outskirts of Charlotte. Hardly a paragon of architectural elegance, the Calvary is nonetheless impressive for its size and for its rising in random, crown-like bigness next to a local highway. We stopped to look at this behemoth and to allow Naomi to explore the grounds. She insisted on holding my hand in the parking lot as we walked from and to the car.

I spent the evening reading scripture, history and Sense and Sensibility. I also called my dad and, later, called Lia again. My conversation with Lia was marred by Julia's wickedly and repeatedly coming out of her bedroom on one delaying pretense after another. Julia still wasn't asleep at 10:30, when we ended our call. I'm sure Lia misses me too.

One week more!