Page 165 - A Little Life: A Novel

stack of which he kept in his jacket’s inside pocket, that read: Drayman
241. Drayman 241 was the philosophy department’s office.
Here, for example, is a hypothetical: A football team is going to an away

game when one of their vans breaks down. So they ask the mother of one of
the players if they can borrow her van to transport them. Sure, she says, but
I’m not going to drive. And so she asks the assistant coach to drive the team
for her. But then, as they’re driving along, something horrible happens: the
van skids off the road and flips over; everyone inside dies.
There is no criminal case here. The road was slippery, the driver wasn’t
intoxicated. It was an accident. But then the parents of the team, the

mothers and fathers of the dead players, sue the owner of the van. It was her
van, they argue, but more important, it was she who appointed the driver of
her van. He was only her agent, and therefore, it is she who bears the
responsibility. So: What happens? Should the plaintiffs win their suit?
Students don’t like this case. I don’t teach it that often—its extremity
makes it more flashy than it is instructive, I believe—but whenever I did, I

would always hear a voice in the auditorium say, “But it’s not fair!” And as
annoying as that word is—fair—it is important that students never forget
the concept. “Fair” is never an answer, I would tell them. But it is always a
consideration.
He never mentioned whether something was fair, however. Fairness itself
seemed to hold little interest for him, which I found fascinating, as people,
especially young people, are very interested in what’s fair. Fairness is a

concept taught to nice children: it is the governing principle of
kindergartens and summer camps and playgrounds and soccer fields. Jacob,
back when he was able to go to school and learn things and think and speak,
knew what fairness was and that it was important, something to be valued.
Fairness is for happy people, for people who have been lucky enough to
have lived a life defined more by certainties than by ambiguities.

Right and wrong, however, are for—well, not unhappy people, maybe,
but scarred people; scared people.
Or am I just thinking this now?
“So were the plaintiffs successful?” I asked. That year, his first year, I
had in fact taught that case.
“Yes,” he said, and he explained why: he knew instinctively why they
would have been. And then, right on cue, I heard the tiny “But it’s not fair!”

from the back of the room, and before I could begin my first lecture of the