299 Days: The Preparation Part 3

Now it was time to get married. It wasn't even a "decision"; they both knew it was going to happen. Grant proposed to Lisa by getting on his knee. She said "Of course, Mr. Pickle Lover." They were ecstatic.

Next came the first year of law school and med school. This was the year of homework; crazy amounts of homework. Both were doing well in school. Lisa really liked medical school, and she was thinking about being an emergency room doctor. She was compet.i.tive and loved the challenge of making life and death decisions.

Grant loved the law, which wasn't a surprise, but he really disliked most of the people in law school. They were mostly arrogant. Grant wasn't sure why they were that way, because he was as smart as or smarter than they were. They were so impractical. These future lawyers couldn't do anything other than spout off theories. They were like an exotic flower grown in perfect greenhouse conditions; these impractical idiots couldn't survive a day out in the countryside. None of them had ever worked a day in their lives. Most were spoiled little brats. What happened in cla.s.s one day ill.u.s.trated it all.

Grant was in Trial Advocacy cla.s.s, which is where students learn how to do a trial. It included examining witnesses, opening and closing arguments, that kind of thing. They used a made up case for their trial. Grant was a.s.signed to defend an alleged gunman who held up a liquor store. The evidence showed that the defendant held a semiautomatic pistol in his left hand, clicked off the safety, and shot the victim. Grant knew something was wrong. He asked the witness (played by someone in his cla.s.s) if she was absolutely sure that the gunman did this with his left hand. She was; it was definitely his left hand. She was left handed herself and recognized a fellow lefty.

"Handing you what's been marked Exhibit 23," Grant said in the mock trial to the witness, "can you identify this?"

"It's a drawing of the gun," the witness said. It was a lowbudget mock trial so instead of a real gun for an exhibit, they just had a drawing of it.

"Can you look at the drawing of the right side of the gun?" he asked.

"Yes," the witness said.

"Now please look at the left side," Grant said to the witness.

"Do you see anything that looks like a little lever?"

"Yes," the witness said.

"In the picture, do you see that little lever on the right side of the gun?" Grant asked.

"No," the witness said. "It's only on the left side."

"Thank you," Grant said with a grin. "No further questions."

Everyone looked surprised. Was that the end of the questions?

He hadn't proven anything.

Grant then said to the "judge" (played by the professor), "Your honor, I move to dismiss the charges because I can prove the defendant is innocent."

"Please do," said the judge, with disbelief in her eyes. Grant was enjoying this. "Your honor, the safety is a little lever," he explained since this professor had probably never touched a gun in her life.

"It is on the left side of the gun," Grant said. "It is impossible to click off the safety on the left side with your left hand. A person's left thumb can't get over the frame of the gun to click it off. It can only be done with your right hand." He demonstrated with his hand.

The gunman could not have used that gun with his left hand.

Either the witness was lying or that gun wasn't the one used in the crime. Regardless, that was a reasonable doubt and it meant that his client would not be convicted.

Grant was so proud of himself. An innocent man was set free in this mock trial. Grant, the hillbilly from Forks, had outsmarted all the smart people from places like Bellevue. All because Grant had actually shot guns and knew that you could only use your right thumb to click off the safety on a Smith and Wesson semiauto.

The professor thought about it and agreed that the defendant was innocent. Grant expected a discussion about how important it was to review the evidence and to think on your feet. However, what came next shocked Grant.

"What are some reasons why handguns should be banned?" the professor asked the cla.s.s. What?

A discussion of gun control-a one-sided discussion of the entire cla.s.s versus Grant-went on for the rest of cla.s.s. No one said, "Hey, Grant, way to go on solving the mystery. Glad your life experience led to an innocent man not going to prison."

Grant could not believe it. What a bunch of impractical p.r.i.c.ks.

That about summed up his view of law students.

There was one exception-Bill Owens. Grant first noticed him because he heard something from him that no one else had at the UW Law School: a Southern accent. Grant got to know him and found out he was an Army officer attending law school part-time. Military and from Texas-two cool points in Grant's book. But, they were two definitely uncool points in the book of everyone else at the University of Washington Law School.

Bill Owens was the only friend Grant had in law school. They hung out a lot because, well, they were the only ones who would hang out with hillbillies like them.

Bill and Grant were different than most students in another way: they worked. Bill was in the Army full time. Grant worked at the state Attorney General's Office all during law school. Good resume material. It was part of his plan to be a successful lawyer; to be the exact opposite of the Forks loser. Grant worked about twenty hours a week and had a full course load. He was used to it. In fact, not working would have seemed weird to him. He learned a lot of practical skills as a law clerk at the Attorney General's Office. He was learning how a government agency made decisions and what motivated them.

Grant's favorite cla.s.s, in one sense, was Const.i.tutional Law. He loved the Const.i.tution. What a magnificent and brilliant doc.u.ment. He didn't know why, but he innately understood the Const.i.tution. It made absolute sense to him.

But Const.i.tutional Law was taught by a socialist; a female professor who really seemed to hate men, especially men who disagreed with her. G.o.d forbid someone challenge her; that would lead to viciousness as Bill found out one day.

"Mr. Owens," the professor said in a condescending tone, "please describe the holding in City of Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co."

This was a case that held that reverse discrimination-in that case, a mostly black city council pa.s.sing an ordinance giving racial preferences to minorities based on past racial discrimination-was unconst.i.tutional. It seemed that a group of black politicians was enriching some black-owned businesses. White politicians had been doing the same for white-owned businesses for years, but that didn't make it right. Racism was racism.

Bill explained in a matter-of-fact tone, "Croson held that racial preferences based on past discrimination can instead be unconst.i.tutional race discrimination when there is evidence that past racial discrimination is no longer present. The court held that government must be color-blind, neither against racial minorities nor for them. Just neutral." That was exactly what the case held.

"Oh, color-blind," the professor said, dripping with sarcasm. "I notice you seem to have a Southern accent, Mr. Owens. It doesn't surprise me that you think *color-blind' means taking away opportunities for racial minorities."

The message was received by the whole cla.s.s. The professor was a hater and it was easier to just let her do her thing. She had the power, and one better not get in her way. It was pretty obvious that she picked out the one Southerner in the cla.s.s for her demonstration of power.

Bill was unfazed. He went on to give a great defense of how the Const.i.tution required color-blindness. But it didn't matter. His "cla.s.s partic.i.p.ation" grade, which was a third of his grade, was zero and he got a mediocre grade in the cla.s.s, despite doing very well on the written test (which was graded anonymously).

This demonstrated to Grant that the left-wing people running everything were intolerant bullies who had some deep hatred of people like Bill and Grant.

Then it hit Grant. He wanted to be a lawyer to fight bullies. Lawyers could sue the government when they hurt people. Lawyers could sue big business, big labor, big anything on behalf of the little guy. In that moment, Grant knew exactly what he was going to do with his law degree.

This was reinforced when a federal judge gave a speech at an event Grant attended. The judge, who was appointed by Reagan, was not invited to speak by the law school. A private group, the conservative and libertarian Federalist Society, invited him to speak.

The judge's speech was on how lawyers can fight bullies. The judge said, "When you boil it down, the law is about protecting people from other people trying to take advantage of them. The law is about protecting people's liberties and rights." This made complete sense to Grant; it explained everything about the law.

This is what he was supposed to do. Grant had found his purpose. He wanted to be a judge; or at least a lawyer who fought bullies.

Chapter 7.

Olympia Grant and Lisa had opportunities to relocate just about anywhere in the U.S., but they wanted to stay in Washington State. They loved it there; the beauty of it, and the generally laid back people.

Lisa quickly found a job at a Tacoma hospital. Grant needed to find a lawyer job in Tacoma or nearby Olympia, which would be hard for him. Not because he had a bad resume, but because he was "conservative." Washington was not a hospitable environment for conservatives.

The State of Washington had a very large government. Per capita, Washington's government was much larger than most states. For the most part, people in Washington State were liberals, at least in Western Washington around Seattle. In Eastern Washington, which looks a lot more like Idaho, people were largely conservative. The rural areas in Western Washington outside of the Seattle metropolitan area were largely conservative, too. Most people lived in the Seattle area. They had all the votes in the state that were needed to run the more conservative areas like their little parks and nature preserves. People in Washington State, just like the rest of the country, had been taught for generations that government was there to help the little guy and prevent evil corporations from exploiting them. Everything good came from government; everything bad came from a lack of government. Kids doing well on standardized tests? That came from government spending money on education. Kids not doing well on standardized tests? That came from a lack of government spending on education. Everything in life could be explained by the "fact" that government needed to do it, and needed to do more.

Of course, most people in Washington State didn't really think of it this way. They didn't think about it at all. They were happy to have a politician or bureaucrat or the media explain that every issue can be resolved through government action. They didn't think about what this really meant; they were just happy to have it taken care of.

Running a business in Washington State was not easy. Taxes were very high and could be "interpreted" by the taxing authorities to mean that a person always owed more. Labor laws meant that firing an employee, even one who is stealing from the company, was very difficult. As for building on one's land, the environmental impact studies and permits made their land the government's land that they may get to use if Big Brother said so.

A group known as the Washington a.s.sociation of Business was formed to represent businesses and to fight against government abuses. They were similar to a statewide chamber of commerce, except they had more b.a.l.l.s than any chamber of commerce. WAB was an a.s.sociation of small business only; big businesses, which usually went along with government and received special breaks as a result, were not allowed into WAB.

WAB was run by a real character, Ted Foster. He was in his early forties and looked like a weathered Detroit factory worker, because that's where he came from.

He was a fighter, and was very effective. He was hated by bureaucrats and politicians. WAB and Ted Foster became a semi- household name in Washington State because they were regularly demonized in the newspapers and by the politicians.

WAB was located in Olympia, the state capitol of Washington, which was the town where Grant needed to find a job.

WAB was looking for an in-house lawyer to sue the government on behalf of members being terrorized by absurd regulations. Their current lawyer, Julie Ramirez, was moving to Texas to get married and, as she put it, "live in a state that is still free."

Julie's husband was in the Army at nearby Ft. Lewis and was friends with Bill Owens, who promptly told Grant about the opening at WAB in Olympia before the position was advertised.

Grant applied and nailed the interview. Ted loved the fact that Grant was from sc.r.a.ppy Forks and had experience from the Attorney General's Office. Grant's confidence from all the things he'd been through and conquered was appealing to Ted. The interview was supposed to be twenty minutes, but it ended up lasting two hours. Grant got the job.

Olympia was about an hour and a half south of Seattle. It was a beautiful town, right on the water; the southernmost end of the Puget Sound. It was an easy walk from the state capitol, which was breathtakingly beautiful with its grand rotunda, down to the waterfront of the Pacific Ocean. Mountains only a few miles away jutted out. Mountains and the ocean in one package-it can't be beat.

There was one downside to Olympia, however. Almost everyone worked for government in Olympia. They were mostly state employees; mid- to high-ranking bureaucrats who staffed the headquarters of the zillions of state agencies. They said that Olympia was a "company" town and the company was government.

But Grant was not complaining. He got his dream job that allowed him to carry out his purpose in life. Lisa had a great job, too. Life was good.

He had almost thoroughly transformed himself from hillbilly to lawyer. He was very proud of that. This had been the plan. The only residual vestiges of Forks were his love of fried foods and other unhealthy things, like drinking too much on occasion. However, having a bucket of fried chicken and a half rack of beer was getting less and less common for him. He was eating food that young professionals eat. He even started to eat sushi. He traded the Pabst Blue Ribbon for microbrews.

Grant and Lisa finally had a little money for the first time in their marriage. They did all the things that people in America do when they have a little money they bought things. And more things.

Grant started wearing Dockers and polo shirts. He even took up golf. He wanted to be the typical American white-collar professional. Lisa was happy to resume her former life of plenty, which had been put on hold by medical school, and she filled up her closet with clothes and shoes. They took vacations. Nothing extravagant, but they were living very, very comfortable lives of American professionals. Looking back at this time, Grant called it the "Dockers years."

The Matsons got to know the other WAB families. They spent time with Ted Foster and his wife, Joyce. There was also Brian and Karen Jenkins. Brian, who was in his forties and looked very distinguished, was WAB's chief lobbyist. Brian was a great guy who worked hard for the small businesses in WAB; he was not the typical lobbyist that lines the halls of the capitol building. He was a genius at legislative strategy. His wife, Karen, was great. She was beautiful and about a foot shorter than Brian. Karen and Lisa really got along well because Karen came from a wealthy family. Karen wasn't spoiled, but she was used to nice things.

Another of the three WAB senior staff families were Ben and Laura Trenton. Ben was the WAB political director. He got people elected to the extent it was possible to elect decent people in Washington State. He raised lots and lots of money for candidates. He knew all the rich Republicans in the state, and with a few phone calls, could raise buckets of money. Ben was dedicated to his "guys," the small businesses of WAB. He constantly chose conflict with squishy moderate Republicans over the comfort of being a "money guy" on the Hill, as the state legislative building was called.

Ben was destined to be a politician himself, if the voters in Washington State ever wanted a change from big government. He was a very handsome guy, who at age thirty already looked like a future elected official.

His wife, Laura, complemented the future elected official by being a very beautiful wife. At first, Grant (and probably most other people) found it hard to relate to her because she was so attractive. People a.s.sumed she would be b.i.t.c.hy and unintelligent. She was neither. She was genuinely nice to people and smart as a whip.

The Fosters, Jenkins, and Trentons were the only conservatives the Matsons knew. These four families were like pilgrims from a far off country who settled in a new and different land. They had a bond because they were so different than those around them. They would get together every year for a giant Super Bowl party and, a few months later, a Fourth of July party with all their kids playing together.

These parties were joyous during this high point of the easy times when everyone was making a ton of money and Grant and the WAB guys' careers were going great. They were climbing the ladder. They were the only thing close to a conservative "government in waiting" as they were often called. Everyone knew if a Republican somehow managed to get elected, that WAB would be staffing the new administration. It felt great, even though they knew that the odds of a Republican winning were so remote. They could dream.

At one Super Bowl party when Grant and Ben drank about a thousand beers, they went outside during half time to get some air. The kids were running around and it was getting loud.

Grant handed Ben a beer and said, "Here you go, Governor." Ben laughed and then said, "You think that's possible? You know, someday?" Ben seemed serious. Or drunk. Or both.

Grant was feeling particularly honest, given the many beers. He said to Ben, "h.e.l.l, yes it's possible. If this state ever gets its head out of its a.s.s... oh wait, that will never happen. So, no, man, I don't think it's possible."

Grant could tell that Ben was a little hurt, "No, I don't mean you'd suck as a governor," Grant explained. "You would be great. It's just that..."

"It would be insane to think I could ever be governor," Ben said, after snapping back into reality. "I was just playing with you."

Ben was in a part of the yard that the neighbors couldn't see, and he took a big p.i.s.s. "Hey, look, the Governor is p.i.s.sing in his yard!" Ben yelled. They laughed so hard it hurt.

Grant would remember "Governor Ben" p.i.s.sing in his yard for years. There was something about it that he couldn't get out of his mind. It was like the path. It was like he was seeing the future, but he wasn't. It was hard to explain.

Grant's job at WAB was great. In addition to traditional legal work, he also lobbied. He saw how laws were pa.s.sed. It was ugly.

He witnessed no outright bribery, but legislators were typically not very bright. They did what lobbyists said, especially lobbyists for government, unions, environmentalists, and big business. The Republicans usually listened to WAB, but listening was about all they could do.

The Republicans weren't exactly pure and wonderful. They had no power so everything they did was designed to try and achieve some power. There was no plan to do anything good once they got power; they just wanted it. Even in the past, when the Republicans controlled the state House and Senate, they still managed to pile up more government. A little less growth in government, but a net increase, nonetheless. Republicans were more interested in getting re-elected than in actually decreasing the size of government. Getting re-elected in Washington State meant promising "more funding for our schools," "protecting the environment" and all that. Just a little less than the Democrats.

Republicans spent much of their time on social issues, which meant they alienated most of the voters in liberal Washington State. It was pretty sad. Grant saw firsthand the reasons those in political circles said that the Democrats were the "evil" party and the Republicans were the "stupid" party.

Most of Grant's work was representing WAB members in lawsuits against the government. His first case was for Big Sam's Plumbing. Big Sam, who fit the name at six feet four inches, installed a water heater for a customer in some typical mildly corrupt mediumsized city in Washington State. It turned out that the customer was a city council member who was despised by the mayor. Big Sam didn't get a permit to install a water heater, because no one ever did, although the building code technically required one. So the Mayor announced his concern that the council member had broken such an important safety law. Big Sam, who was a very bright guy, wrote an extremely elegant letter to the editor of the newspaper about how stupid it was to require a permit to do something that people did all the time. The newspaper published it and the mayor looked like an idiot.

The mayor had the city attorney convene a special grand jury and charge Big Sam and the council member with the crime of installing a water heater without a permit. It was a gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail. Conveniently enough, they announced the charges two days after the election. Big Sam was terrified about going to jail for installing a water heater. He was a WAB member so he called them.

Grant made a public records request to the city for all the water heater permits ever issued. It turned out that in a city of 90,000, exactly two water heater permits had been issued in the past ten years. A few thousand hot water heaters had been installed without permits, or criminal prosecution.

By the time Grant got the records from the reluctant city, Big Sam's trial was in a few days. He started the case on the day before Thanksgiving. This was exactly what he loved. Big Sam was being bullied and Grant had some special skills that could beat the bully. He took Thanksgiving Day off, but worked the next day and all weekend on the case. He found a very obscure legal doctrine called "procedural equal protection" that stated it was unconst.i.tutional if a person exercises a const.i.tutional right like free speech (such as writing a letter to the editor) and then is the only person prosecuted for a particular crime. Grant wrote a brief on this that was amazing. He put it on Tom's desk.

On Monday morning, Tom called Grant into his office. "You wrote this?" He asked Grant. "Over the weekend?"

"Yep," Grant answered. "Why, is it bad?"

"No, it's magnificent," Tom said. "I found the right lawyer for this job."

Grant filed the brief. The judge not only dismissed the charges, but also sternly lectured the city attorney and mayor on procedural equal protection. "What's wrong with you people?" the judge asked the city attorney to loud applause by the audience. The headline in the paper was "What's wrong with you people?"

Big Sam cried when the judge dismissed the case. He shook Grant's hand and said, "I thought I was going to jail and would lose my business. Thanks, man." They had a celebration lunch that included many beers. Grant was in his glory.

Big Sam's case ill.u.s.trated how government seemed to act in Washington State during that time. There were isolated jacka.s.ses like the mayor and city attorney, but the courts generally could be trusted to right a wrong. It took some work from a motivated attorney, but it could be done. When Grant later looked back at Big Sam's case, being charged with a crime for installing a hot water heater seemed like the good old days. Back then, the corruption and government lawlessness were just isolated incidents instead of the norm. That would change.

Chapter 8.

The Docker Years Grant was headed out to a big New Year's party. He walked by the mirror in the hallway of his house. Who the h.e.l.l was that? This guy had on Dockers, a polo shirt, a gut, and Acura keys in his hand. Seriously, who was that? The sc.r.a.ppy kid from Forks was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the mirror reflected some lame suburban guy.

Grant was in his thirties now, and a father of two children. Their girl, Amanda, was five and their boy, Cole, was two.

Grant loved being a dad. He constantly thought about all things he would do differently than his parents did. He realized how many bad things had been taught to him during his upbringing. When one of the kids cried, for example, Grant would start to get mad but then would catch himself. For a split second, he would think that he had a right to resent all the stuff he had to do for the kids. But then would realize that normal parents love their kids. And he definitely did love those kids. But he had to constantly fight against what he had learned from his childhood. It was hard because Grant and Lisa had such radically different childhoods.

Grant worked nearly all the time. He loved his job and he was continually trying to improve his resume. He wasn't doing anything around the house like repairing simple little things. Instead, he spent his time writing articles, giving presentations, volunteering for bar a.s.sociation committees, working on campaigns. He thought his time was so valuable that someone else should do the work around the house.