Con Law Read Online Free PDF Page B

impressionable students?’
    ‘Because you’re not teaching over in the English department.’
    The entire class laughed and let out a collective sigh of relief when the bell rang. They rose as one and gathered their belongings. Book yelled over the noise.
    ‘Read
National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius
, aka Obamacare, for the next class.’
    The mass ofstudents parted like the Red Sea before Moses. Half rushed for the doors. The other half surged down to the front and around Book, peppering him with questions and pushing copies of his latest book,
Con Law: Why Constitutional Law is the Greatest Hoax Ever Perpetrated on the American People
, for him to sign. It was currently number one on the
New York Times
nonfiction print and digital bestseller lists.
    ‘Professor, would you sign your book for my mom? Her name’s Sherry.’
    He signed the book with a Sharpie. Another came forward.
    ‘Sign my book, for my dad. Ken.’
    He signed. Another hand came forward.
    ‘Sign my Kindle.’
    ‘Your Kindle?’
    ‘I have your e-book on it.’
    He signed her Kindle. She then stepped close and held out her cell phone in front of them.
    ‘Can I take a picture of us? For my dad? He said when you’re on the Supreme Court—’
    Book had made many shortlists of potential candidates.
    ‘—you’ll straighten those crazy bastards out.’
    She snapped a photo.
    ‘My dad never misses you on those Sunday morning talk shows. He loved that line yesterday on
Face the Nation
—’
    Book had participated via a satellite feed from the local Austin studio.
    ‘—when you told that senator that you were neither liberal nor conservative, Republican nor Democrat, but that instead you were the last known practicing Jeffersonian in America.’
    ‘It wasn’t a line.’
    The students drifted off. Book gathered his casebook and notes and walked out the door and down the narrow corridor crowded and noisy with aspiring lawyers chatting about their lucrativejob offers from large law firms. Thirteen years before, he had walked the corridors of Harvard law school, aiming to do something important with his life, perhaps even to change the world. But not to get rich. Money had never motivated him. He had found that he needed few material things in life. He lived in a small house near campus. He had acquired the Harley secondhand and made it his own. He had never owned a car, and he no longer owned a suit. Having things meant nothing to him. Doing things meant everything. And he did everything at a fast pace.
    Because he knew he didn’t have much time.

Chapter 2

    ‘Geta haircut, Bookman.’
    Book took the stairs two steps at a time, so he was quickly past the white-haired man dressed immaculately in a suit and tie walking down the stairs. He was the dean of the law school.
    ‘Right away, Roscoe.’
    Tenure had earned Book a fifteen-foot-by-twenty-foot office, a lifetime salary, a secretary, and the right to wear his hair long. He arrived at the fifth floor, turned a corner, ducked between students, and entered the front room of the two-room office suite where a middle-aged woman wearing reading glasses secured to her neck by a glittery strand of beads sat at a desk and held a phone to her ear.
    ‘Here he is,’ Myrna said into the phone. She covered the mouthpiece and whispered, ‘The police. Again.’
    Book put the phone to his ear. ‘John Bookman.’
    ‘Yeah, uh, Professor, this is Sergeant Taylor, Austin PD. We found your mother.’
    ‘She wandered off again?’
    ‘Yes, sir. She was at the mall. Victoria’s Secret. Walked out with an armful of lingerie, said she had a date tonight. They called us,we took her home. I called your sister. She’s on the way. I’ll stay till she gets here.’
    ‘Thanks, Sergeant.’
    ‘Don’t mention it. I worked with your dad.’ He paused. ‘Uh, Professor, I don’t mean to mind your business, but you should really consider putting your mom in a home. Folks in her condition, they wander