Gordon imagined the Woburn debt as an immense pyramid. Each block of the pyramid represented a creditor, and there were hundreds of them. Keeping all the blocks in place, the pyramid intact, had become exhausting work. “The one day I don’t come in—if I get sick or I don’t have the energy—that’s the point it could all come down,” moaned Gordon.

Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action, loc. 2095