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convict someone of a crime. From sentiments that were part professional and part paternal, Tollison found himself about to voice an assessment he had uttered only once before—to a woman who had been and still was the wife of another man.
    â€œUnder the theory that those who are ignorant of history are condemned to repeat it,” he began, looking not at Dawkins but at the emptied jury box, “I offer my résumé. I grew up here in Altoona, went away to school and, for reasons that aren’t important anymore, came back a dozen years later. I’d spent seven years in Berkeley—the civil rights movement was in full swing, lawyers were going south in droves to integrate everything from beaches to buses, the antiwar movement was under way as well. Since I believed in those things, too, I came home determined to change Altoona the way some of my classmates were changing Jackson and Montgomery.”
    Dawkins was transfixed. “So what happened?”
    â€œI did what any ambitious lawyer does—I sued everyone in sight. I sued the welfare office over its hearing procedures. I sued the police department because its entrance requirements discriminated against blacks. I sued the jail because it was so crowded it was cruel and unusual punishment to keep someone in there overnight, and I sued the grade school for opening each session with the Lord’s Prayer. I even sued the city to let a girl play Little League baseball.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with that?”
    â€œNothing, in theory—I won most of those cases—but in reality it made me a stranger. I wasn’t that nice Tollison kid who’d gone off to college, the local boy making good. I was a troublemaker. I was naïve, of course—I thought people would eventually appreciate or at least respect what I was trying to do—but it turned out the only people who admired my efforts were drunk drivers and dope dealers and mental cases, since they were the only ones coming through the office door. People believed that because I defended my clients I was advocating their causes, when all I was advocating was their right to some civil liberties and a fair trial.”
    The courthouse clock chimed four funereal peals. Tollison paused, suddenly embarrassed. “So that’s why Mr. Mitchell and I showed up here this morning,” he concluded quickly, “and why I’ll be in here tomorrow with another one just like him.”
    In the sudden silence, Dawkins glanced at his watch and slid off the table. “Thanks for the history lesson. There are some things about the world I’d like to change, too. But maybe Altoona’s not the place to do it.”
    Tollison shrugged. “I never tried it anywhere else.”
    â€œWhy not? Why didn’t you move away?”
    â€œBecause I fell in love,” was the answer he stopped himself from uttering. Instead, he shook his head.
    Dawkins stuck out a hand. “I better run. Glad I got to know you better, even though I didn’t make much of an impression.”
    â€œTell the boys upstairs hello.”
    Dawkins moved off down the aisle, doubtlessly wondering how he was going to explain the dismissal to his boss, the press, and the local chapter of M.A.D.D.
    Tollison grabbed his briefcase and wandered out into the afternoon. Ordinarily, a successful trial produced an electric surge that boosted him through the rest of the week and kept him from taking his savings out of the local S&L and buying a cabin in the Sierras and fishing out his life. But not today. Today he could not escape the longing revived by his indulgence with young Dawkins or the regret sparked by what he had just accomplished in court.
    In what passed for social circles in the town, Tollison was considered an ogre. Altoonans weren’t disposed to forgive him for putting Larry Mitchell back on the streets, just as they weren’t disposed to forgive Larry Mitchell for being a drunk.