The Right to Bare Ass

"Can you explain something to me?"

It's disarming when a stranger asks you this, especially when you're naked. I stopped drying off, pulled my towel up and wrapped it tightly under my armpits. There was nobody else in the locker room, so she was clearly talking to me.

"If there's a guy who swims in the pool in his underwear, should I approach him myself or should I report him to the front desk?" God's honest truth, I had been deep in thought, pondering the great mysteries of life and death, like how I could have been so fond of Justice Scalia, and why a President is a lame duck when he still has almost eleven months left in his term, or why, within the span of a month, a teenager, my friend's twenty-seven year old son, and a brilliant seventy-nine year old jurist all died, inexplicably, somewhere in the state of Texas. (Yes, I watch too many crime shows, and the news of the teenager arose out of a hunch and a Google search.)

I had even been reminiscing about law school, although I'm not sure how much reminiscing one can do about an experience she mostly slept through in the first place. First year. Constitutional Law. Professor Henry Monaghan always seemed angry (and a little hungover). His rants were soothing and predictable background noise to my daydreams: diatribes about his arch rival, Lawrence Tribe, a liberal constitutional scholar at Harvard who probably didn't know they were rivals -- probably didn't even know Henry; dismissive stage whispers about how pathetic and third rate we were, students at Boston University, across the river from people who mattered (no he wasn't bitter at all); tantrums about  something called "substantive due process" which seemed just a silly oxymoron to me but apparently drove Henry to drink.

It came back to me today as I read excerpts from some of Justice Scalia's opinions, smiling at his mastery of language and his capacity for eloquent ridicule. I rarely come across such quality entertainment in my social security disability appeals, except for occasional snippets of scathing sarcasm from a favorite Seventh Circuit judge. Scalia's writing was so good, his principles so consistent, his respect for the Constitution so unwavering, it was difficult to hate him, even though I generally disagreed with his result. I get why Ruth Bader Ginsburg chose him as a playmate. Smart with a sense of humor -- goes a lot farther than movie star good looks, even if he's not Jewish.

As much as the thought of his pivotal seat on the bench being handed off to some pinko liberal would make him spin in his grave, I think Justice Scalia would be appalled at the politics of his death. I don't think he'd necessarily be surprised that Republicans are so worked up that they've forgotten to even pretend to cry. I don't think he'd even be surprised about calls for Senate filibusters or whatever else they need to do to keep open the possibility that one of the buffoons seeking the Republican nomination will actually become President and place an avowed gun-slinging homophobe on the Supreme Court. But these calls for the President to ignore Constitutional language that he (or she?) "shall" nominate and, with the consent of the Senate, "shall" appoint a new Justice, ignore it because he is a "lame duck?" Has he been a lame duck for this entire second term? Just the second half of the second term? The last quarter? I wish I had paid more attention in Con Law.

I'm not smart or principled or consistent, so, in these uncertain times, at least I am certain I won't get nominated, no matter which duck does the nominating. And though I get the point of strict construction, I'm a little loose about it, since I know the Constitution was drafted by folks who believed the definition of "person" changed with skin color and who grew up in a time when nobody envisioned crazy people shooting up classrooms and movie theaters and learning how to make bombs on the Internet. The times, they are always a changin', and I am a firm believer in wiggle room.

I told the lady in the locker room she should let the front desk handle the guy swimming in his underwear, if it meant that much to her.  It was a no-brainer. I have a strict policy against approaching strange men in their underwear.