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know him, a man made angry by his own hopelessness and lack of education­ and the addictions he’d ultimately bowed to.
    Billy’s mother endured the violence his father visited on her, but never took her eye off the goal of making her only son the beneficiary of lessons learned. Billy had cocooned himself with books and chess and learning and the avoidance of the plague of the streets. He looked back on his own childhood as something endured and to rise above.
    My own upbringing as the son of a third-generation South Philly policeman had its own bitter taste. My father, too, was often a raging drunk, a wife beater who succumbed to his anger and need to glorify himself by lording over those he could, most often his family—those closest to him.
    Billy’s and my own mother had eventually, or maybe inevitably, found each other at a Center City church and borrowed each other’s strength to rid themselves of their tormentors. But both Billy and I carried an inevitable question into adulthood: Would I ever bring a child into this kind of world?
    Now, in his early forties, with the strength and connection and love of his wife, Billy had come to answer yes to the question.
    As I entered the federal courthouse and headed for Diane Manchester’s chambers, I cynically wondered if he’d made the wrong decision.
    A man dressed in a dark off-the-rack suit and wearing an audio plug in his ear stopped me outside the judge’s hallway door. I gave him my name as he eyeballed me. Federal security, I thought. He spoke into the wrist-cuff of his suit and then opened the door to let me enter.
    I’d been in Diane’s chambers a few times and knew the layout. This was the outer office, typically paneled in cheap government-issued wood and adorned only with the standard displays of the judge’s law degrees and official certificates on the walls. There was an equally plain, catalogue-purchased desk where her secretary usually sat taking myriad phone calls from lawyers, bailiffs, bureaucrats, prosecutors, and fellow judges.
    But today, her secretary was not in his usual chair. Martin Andrews was instead sitting in one of the waiting area chairs, staring at an empty wall as if transfixed by some minute flaw or stain or perhaps an image of the unthinkable. A man who could have been the outside guard’s twin was in the desk chair, working at Andrews’s computer, tapping and studying, tapping and studying.
    â€œMarty,” I said to Andrews, who had yet to look away from his wall despite my entrance. The look of recognition came late to his face.
    â€œOh, Mr. Freeman,” he said finally, and started to rise.
    I stepped to him instead and, closing the gap, forced him to stay seated.
    â€œYou OK?” I said, extending my hand. He shook it without vigor.
    â€œI’m afraid I’m quite useless,” he said, looking from my face to his own desk.
    I shared the glance over my shoulder. “They can do that to you,” I said with a touch of conspiracy in my voice. “Don’t take it personally, Marty. They’ll need you before long.”
    I started to turn, but Andrews reached out to touch my sleeve with his fingertips to stop me.
    â€œShe’ll be all right, won’t she, Mr. Freeman?”
    Even the sharp ones will plead for reassurance when they know it’s too early and too impossible to know yet.
    â€œYes, Marty. She’ll be all right,” I said, being equally cavalier with the unknown.
    When Andrews turned back to the wall, I asked the man at his desk to let Mr. Manchester know I was there. Then I turned to the unmarked and unadorned door to Diane’s inner chambers and waited. The man did not take his eyes from the computer display before him as he also spoke into his sleeve. The door opened and another suit motioned me inside.
    The judge’s chamber was essentially one huge room with three of the walls lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. There