If Judge Kramer had known this would be the result, he never would have agreed to drive. Pervis, the bailiff, warned him. “We’re taking fast-fingers Lily, judge, you’re gonna want to be in the back with your ear buds.” Kramer knew Lily, but not the nickname. Her fingers moved like lightening on the stenography machine, and he wondered why they’d never before taken her to the Euclid courthouse.
Kramer prided himself as hoi polloi, enjoying the circuit ride with Pervis, Marshall, his clerk, and someone from the steno pool. If he could more than tolerate the combination of flatulence, fetor oris, and voluntary (so it seemed) belching that Pervis and Marshall displayed with all but apparent pride, he doubted that Lily would pose any sort of real challenge.
But the sixtyish stenographer supreme would surprise him. Lily’s mind worked incredibly hard to translate voice to steno more rapidly and accurately than anyone in the pool. The electrical impulses that flowed so efficiently from neuron to finger muscles weren’t easily turned off. Apparently, she needed a constant outlet to communicate information or her brain would electrocute itself.
Kramer knew something was up when Pervis and Marshall climbed into the back seat with iPods. The P&M boys were old school radiomen who liked to laugh at the right-wing talkers. Kramer enjoyed their working-class banter. Why were they sealing themselves off in the back seat?
At first, he assumed that she was nervous, traveling on circuit for the first time and sitting up front with the judge no less. But it didn’t take long for Kramer to realize that it wasn’t going to stop. As he glanced over his shoulder he caught Pervis’s smile, but not his eye. Still, it spoke as clearly as any glance could, “I told you so.”
