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Fenno was sitting in the library playing chess with himself. “Boy, these chess tables sure are useless,” thought Fenno, “I mean, nobody ever plays with them. Am I right?”
Fenno knew that nobody came to the library to play chess. People just came to subcite for their journals. “And what’s the deal with journals?” thought Fenno. “I get to write on my resume that I’m somehow better at anything because I can follow the bluebook? I could train 4th graders to follow the bluebook. I swear, 97% of lawyers would be replaced with robots tomorrow if lawyers weren’t the people in charge of making the rules for who can be replaced by robots.”
Fenno was avoiding the reading for his class taught by Bruce Hay, director of Wit, a Bruce Hay production. He knew he wouldn’t have to do any work for the next week; Hay was too busy with his play to prepare a lesson, and he was showing Anatomy of a Murder during class. “Why on Earth does Bruce Hay have to do all those plays,” wondered Fenno, who immediately recanted the thought upon realizing it would mean fewer movies in class.
Fenno moved king’s pawn to king’s pawn 4. His thoughts drifted without being able to focus for more than a few minutes. It made no sense to him that he would be leaving this school for good in less than two months. “What will that feel like? When will I finally wake up and not think ‘I’m a Harvard Law School student.’ That feeling has been with me every day of my life for the past 3 years. It has shaped and affected every waking moment. Will I continue to feel it? Am I stuck with this feeling forever?”
It made Fenno wonder about the statue in front of Hemenway. Why are statues so fleeting at this school? “Discus Guy” had been a part of Fenno’s life since 1L year. Fenno had thought he would always be here, but now he was gone. The tree of liberty jungle gym was now on the whole other side of the field. And those two wooden triangles covering the ugly vent by Griswold were sure to rot away any day now.
“Why did they take away Discus Guy?” thought Fenno, “Was it a copyright issue? Maybe they made a mistake back at the factory, and accidentally sent us the original. Maybe they just took him out to get cleaned. Maybe he was never intended to be permanent, they just had a place that needed a statue, and they were like ‘aw man, it’ll take at least a year to commission a statue,’ and this guy was like ‘We could make more wooden triangles with 2x4s,’ and the other guy was like ‘No! We need something with class! Something that says IVY LEAGUE!’ and this third guy was like ‘Well, my cousin has this discus guy statute. We could use that.”
“It’s all part of Kagan’s agenda,” thought Fenno, “Just like slowing turning the Hark into a Starbucks and the field behind it into a mud-wrestling pit. She’s probably going to replace discus guy with a giant $3 million platinum geometric wind sculpture. And it’ll be really impressive and kind of a bit over the top in a New York Donald Trump kind of way, and it’ll make us all feel like we go to a real first class university.”
“And we’ll wake up with that feeling every day for the rest of our lives.”