Ed knew himself well enough, and he understood that most people around him apprehended some of his motives, like his wife or his best friend, Jacob. In fact, he had a prosaic sense and a knowledge with every day affairs. However, his strength was the ability to present himself not as a liberated man, both in mind and action, but as a person who exercised other people's ideas and used them. He was devoted to some people and some things; however, his actions were without flattery when it suited him.
At that moment, when he felt the eyes of the others fixed on him, he felt this night's events could not have a more dreadful ending. He had feared for the last five years that one day his horrifying act of accepting five million dollars from John's father would come to haunt him. But his logic of accepting the money while knowing his client's guilt from John's own mouth when he practically told him that he killed the woman, had been that many other lawyers had done it, why not him!
To him, prejudice was not a difficult task to follow. He had been ready to obey the rule. He understood that he could abide by and respect himself at the same time. To him getting where he wanted to be was only happiness; but that was a mere subordinate existence. He wanted more; he had enough of being just an ordinary lawyer. He wanted power, position, name recognition; and the only way to achieve those were to win an unattainable case and to have money and to become famous. Money was power. To come across that much money without looking for it, suddenly had become the apex of his dreams.
Now he had a great chance of winning the election against his opponent, a woman, to become a judge. To him, women generally were about abstraction. They could not be a political reality. The money, blood money, had helped him to run his campaign. Soon he would be a district Judge. He would sit on the bench, people would stand for him, and he would have the ultimate power. The money had brought him the name recognition; therefore, he was getting a lot of small and big donation for his campaign. None of these were possible five years ago when he had been just an ordinary lawyer. That blood money had brought him power; the superiority which would attract people and would intimidate them at the same time.
Now his habitual and unruffled way of life was changed by this mad man and by his own anxiousness. This was no trivial trouble. He used to refuse having them. He had not distinguished them as such. He needed people, especially his friends. Jacob was his winning card, his best friend; but even to him or his wife, he never mentioned any of his malevolent actions especially that biggest disgrace of the five years prior.
He benefited himself of his animal right so he could feel no compassion for a name in the paper, or a person in the courtroom. A politician, he believe he was one, ought not to care. A politician was a proper man in his opinion and he should be obeyed. He knew this simple fact; if he did not want to be detested, he had to be abide. He liked that. A judge was always obeyed. Yet he knew ultimately that politics was not only a unscrupulous profession but it was also a hasty one. You got to grab it when it came your way, otherwise it would glide of your hands. Nonetheless, coming to that conclusion did not stop him of yearning to become one.
He knew that people with extreme talent, integrity, and artistry went into arts, teaching, and music. Politics got the second rate people. But that was the best he could do. he had convinced himself that politics was not a science but it was a form of art. That thought had made him happy.
Often times, he pretended that he enjoyed a classical music or opera or a master painting, specially when he was with Jacob. He would buy the season ticket for opera and would go with Jacob and Diana who always went to opera. He would go to see a symphony. But internally he did not understand them. However when it came to law and manipulation, he was always ahead.
Would he be elected to judgeship, the power of his position would be a hostage to his own ravenous craving for dominance, self- gratitude, and hunger for respect. However the threat of this night's dreadful events made him sickened to his stomach. To him this discovery was like a betrayal by a person he respected the most, Jacob. "How could he allow this?" This was just so unfair, so unjustified. He felt a tremendous pressure on his being; however, there was no physical evidence of how he felt. What it was or he felt was an anxiety of his soul. He knew it was there, a corrosive hopelessness that nothing in that moment would have anything for him but madness. To him, this madness was the law now.
To Be Continued
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