The Fall-Down Artist (6 page)

His mother had died when he was in the sixth grade, his first year of organized basketball, the type of milestone an old jock uses to mark the passage of time. At times Dorsey had thought that if she had to die it was best she had done it then, when he was tall and awkwardly uncoordinated, an embarrassment on the court. Dorsey had figured his performances to be humiliations; after all, his father never came to watch. His father's failure to attend his games became more of an issue than his mother's passing. Two more reasons to hate the old man.

Dorsey's prowess on the court increased in spurts. By eighth grade he had an unreliable jump shot, but his strong rebounding kept him off the bench. It was his junior year at Central Catholic when it all came together, when the hook shot was perfected, not only from a low post setup but also on the run, sweeping through the key, arching the ball over the defender's reach to end in a sweet glide through the net. After a forty-two-point effort against Bishop Serra, he came to the attention of Columnist Phil Musick, who referred to Dorsey as the best possible combination of Bill Sharman and Dave DeBusschere.

With fame came his father's interest. Throughout his senior year Dorsey watched his father, just before the game, shaking hands with innumerable priests as he strolled through the gym. When the team fell two victories short of the state finals, the local papers carried a photo of Martin Dorsey with his arm around his son's bare shoulders, whispering words of condolence in his ear.

At Duquesne—his father and the clergy at Central Catholic had insisted he attend a Catholic university—Dorsey continued to gather press clippings. Twice he led the team into the NCAA tournament and once to the NIT. For two years straight he beat crosstown rival Pitt with soft hook shots at the buzzer. And his father's interest continued to grow. Martin Dorsey attended all the home games, normally seated with several priests two rows behind the bench. On several occasions he took the coaches and players to dinner afterward. And when the team couldn't go he treated the local sportswriters, ensuring that his son's name would be mentioned in their columns.

Early in his senior year, Dorsey was introduced by his father to Dorothy Madigan, whose family had been political in Pittsburgh ever since there had been a city and county to run. They dated occasionally, but Dorsey never saw a future for them. Also at that time Dorsey began to receive repeated lectures from his father about the benefits of a law school education.

“Basketball is fleeting,” Martin Dorsey had told his son,
seated in the study of his Point Breeze home. “The NBA is an outside possibility but not a very realistic one. You're no guard, and you're too short to last at forward. Even if you should squeak by, it'd only be for a year or two. Law school will give you a profession. For life.” At age twenty-two and looking toward his last collegiate season, Dorsey had let his father's words blow past him.

Early in that last season, on a snowy night in Morgan-town, Dorsey's life changed. Three minutes into the second half against West Virginia, Dorsey moved up from his forward's position to double-team the WVU guard. The guard had his back to the Duquesne defender, dribbling the ball with his arm dangerously extended far away from his side. Dorsey moved for it, sure of a breakaway basket.

Whether the WVU guard had spotted him in the corner of his eye or had just coincidentally chosen to change direction Dorsey would never know, but as he closed in on the ball it began to move away, the guard twirling to his right. Dorsey dove for the ball, his right hand and fingers extended, and missed. As his hand was driven into the court's wooden floor, the three fractures sounded like one ugly snap.

At the university hospital, while being prepped for surgery, it finally occurred to Dorsey that attending law school might be the thing to do. He finished his undergraduate work and prepared for the LSAT examination, and in between he continued to date Dorothy Madigan, along with a handful of other women. Several times during the summer that followed he went with Dorothy to her family's summer place in the mountains near Ligonier. Dorsey found Dorothy sensual, with her raven-black hair and dark eyes, and sex with her was like comingling with the gods, but he could not commit to her. And each time he let his father know this, he suffered the hard disapproval of his father's steely look.

On Friday, May 29, 1970, Dorsey completed his first year at Duquesne Law School. He was living in a small apartment in the Squirrel Hill section of the city, and his
father had asked him to dinner. With the after-dinner coffee, his father had his say.

“I think a wedding in June, next year, would be best.” Martin Dorsey set his cup on its saucer and stared at his son.

Dorsey knew what he meant but tried to play off it. “You've met someone new?” he laughed. “Hadn't heard about it. I hope you'll be happy together.”

“No joking, please.” Martin Dorsey was all business. “I won't have you laughing about your future, not after so many plans have been made.”

“Plans? I've got some vague ones,” Dorsey said slowly, his eyes digging at his father. “Sounds as though you've gone ahead and finished them for me. Let's hear how my life is to unfold.”

Martin maintained his composure, appearing to consider his son's request. “This is as good a time as any. Your contribution will be to finish law school and pass the bar. And marry Dorothy, of course. That's the key. Arrangements will be made for you to join one of the midsized law firms in town. You'll spend a few years making a lot of friends and doing very little work; then you run for office: city council or one of the county row offices, whichever. Then you start the climb. End as governor, maybe senator.”

“All laid out for me, right?”

“Yes,” Martin Dorsey said. “All laid out for you. Despite yourself.”

Dorsey's first instinct was to run, and that's the one he followed: he ran to an army recruiting station and enlisted the following morning. He knew a simple no wouldn't cut it with his father so he asked for immediate induction.

Basic training was a merciless grind of pushups, obstacle courses, and firing ranges, but for all its confinements, Dorsey was enraptured by the sense of being where his father couldn't touch him. After basic he was accepted into Ranger school; he washed out just three days short of graduation. Even though the completion of training would have earmarked him for Vietnam, Dorsey was discouraged by
the dismissal, which he found surprising and unexplained. Dumped into a Military Police unit, he spent the remainder of his hitch chasing drunken soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

Following his separation from the army in 1973, feeling his oats and wanting to send a little spittle into his father's face, Dorsey joined the county DA's office as an investigator. He did so by relying on his MP experience and his father's name. He had used his father's influence, but not as his father planned. The old man, Dorsey thought, wanted to put you in a row office, but you used his pull to get a job far down the ladder. Turned the tables on him.

The end of the DA job and the end of Dorsey's satisfaction came with the election of two reform candidates to the three-member board of commissioners of Allegheny County. This latest demand to throw the bums out resulted in drastic cuts in manpower and spending. The DA's staff was sliced in half, but Dorsey stayed on, while men with more seniority went looking elsewhere. One assistant DA assured him he'd been kept on because of his ability. But at a going-away party for one of the departing investigators, a second assistant DA, falling-down drunk, asked Dorsey to give him a fuckin' break, “You're here because the DA owes his job to your old man, and the old man owns his future too.” Three days later, after two days of unexplained absence from work, Dorsey called in his resignation and applied for his investigator's license.

His father's home was much smaller than many of the lavish homes near it along Wilkins Avenue in Point Breeze, but the pointed brick of the wall surrounding the front garden lent it an elegant touch. As Dorsey drove the Buick through the wrought-iron gate, he admired this expensive enclave in the midst of the city's decaying east end. He wondered just how badly the blacks who lived a few blocks away on the wrong side of Thomas Boulevard ached to get their hands on this old mick and his fellow landholders.
Parking the car in the short circular drive, Dorsey took the garden path to the front door.

“Ah, very good; you came,” Mrs. Boyle said as she answered the door.

“Called me, didn't you? Gave me my orders?”

“But you didn't call to confirm.” Mrs. Boyle had just a trace of reprimand in her voice. Perfect, Dorsey thought, grinning. Perfect old hard-ass. Battleship-gray hair and matching skin wrapped in a plaid wool suit.

Leading him as if he were a stranger to the house, just another favor seeker here for his interview, Mrs. Boyle walked through a living room filled with antique furniture and adorned with Belleek china to a pair of cherrywood double doors. Gently and without knocking, she held one door slightly ajar but did not look in.

“Carroll's here. He just arrived.”

“Please, Mrs. Boyle,” the voice on the far side of the door said, “have him come in now. No need to have him mill about the house.”

Avoiding her eyes, Dorsey passed Mrs. Boyle and looked upon a cherry desk with his father sitting behind it; when he was a boy he was never sure where the desk ended and his father began. Martin Dermott Dorsey, bald with only wisps of hair behind each ear, reminded his son of history-book pictures of William Jennings Bryan, staunch and purposeful, protecting the country from a threatening cross of gold. Wearing a navy wool suit and red bow tie, the older Dorsey smiled and gestured for his son to take one of the two wing chairs facing his desk. Behind his head and broad shoulders, mounted on the wall, were clusters of photos of then Commissioner Dorsey with every notable or celebrity who had passed through the area during his terms in office. The other walls were lined in bookshelves, and from a corner a console stereo gave out the soft tones of “Moonlight Serenade.”

“Glenn Miller. You still like him, Carroll?”

“My preference is for Ellington and Basie, but I like
Miller.” Dorsey settled into the chair. “Some things stay with you.”

“Thank you for coming, especially on such short notice,” Martin Dorsey said. “A drink? How about it? You're home, you know.”

“Beer, please,” Dorsey said, watching his father rise from his seat and cross the room to the liquor cabinet concealed in one of the wall units. “Beer's okay.”

“Beer I have,” his father said, taking a can from an ice bucket that Dorsey knew had been filled in preparation for his visit. “I knew the answer, Carroll. I haven't seen a real drink in your hand in ten years, at least.”

“Didn't see me in Georgia, those first couple of months in the service.” Dorsey took the green can from his father. “Had all the moonshine I could hold down, which ain't much. Puked blood for two days after the stuff burned the lining of my stomach. Almost got a medical discharge, as you may recall.”

“You must have truly been a mess,” his father said, retaking his seat.

“Mrs. Boyle's call,” Dorsey said, after a long pull on his beer. “She said something about you having a social gathering tonight.”

The older Dorsey contemplated the glass of whisky he had poured himself and spoke as if reading his words from the gold-plated rim. “Little get-together for Danny Weitz; he's the fellow running for district magistrate over your way in South Side. Final stretch, you know; elections are only a few weeks away. Danny gets the shakes, like someone is going to find a Republican in South Side to challenge him and make it interesting. It's crap, but Danny always came through for me. So even if I don't like him, which I don't, I show my face over there a couple of times per year. Still, this magistrate's job, it could've been yours. Not a bad deal, really.”

“What, sitting in some storefront on Carson Street dressed like the asshole on ‘People's Court'?” Dorsey shook his head. “Listening to cops from the boroughs call
drunk drivers and flashers ‘the perpetrator'? Please, give me a break. Besides, nobody would listen to a district attorney dropout. I'm not popular in law-enforcement circles.”

“Your true talent may lie in being unpopular,” Martin Dorsey said. “But arrangements and compromises and understandings are reached every day by reasonable men. You want in, you're in. Tomorrow, if you like. You like?”

“No,” Dorsey said. “I'm just not ready to wage the war against crime and solicit campaign contributions at the same time. Don't have the energy level for it. Besides, as Mrs. Boyle no doubt told you, I'm busy enough these days to have a machine taking my calls.”

“Business is good, huh?” Martin Dorsey rested his glass on the desk blotter and then removed it, inspecting the wet ring it left behind. “Glad to hear it. Maybe it makes the reason I asked you to stop by null and void.”

“Suppose you reveal your reasons, allow my input, and we'll see.” Dorsey grinned. “Picked that one up in a meeting between two lawyers. They were hoping to settle a domestic dispute by using my input—videotapes.”

“Carroll, please.” His father had his hands out in supplication. “No more cute shit for a few minutes?”

“Fine, let's get to it.”