“I am so sick of hearing about the answers to everything being in the stars.” I turn my head to stare out the passenger window, try crossing my legs, which brings on an unexpected sharp pain in my hip.
My mother mellifluous voice breaks into song: Twinkle twin-kle little star/How I wonder what you are.
I turn my head to see her lips upturned, dimples formed by the smile spread across her face. I join her, singing the lullaby she so often sang putting me to bed when I was a child. I join in: Up above the world so high/Like a diamond in the sky.
“What would you like for dinner, dear?”
I tell her that I’ll stay at her place only for the night. In the morning, I'll appear at the restraining-order hearing, then see Andrew in the lockup at the courthouse. Then I’ll go home and draft five-, ten-, and fifteen-year plans. But despite my desperate efforts to think, to plan, to strategize, that damned star tune – twinkle, twinkle – revolves in my mind like a carousel that can’t be stopped.
Though I know not what you are/Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
Getting ready for court the next morning, in the mirror I see my-self aged, anemic, skeletal. I could be a newly released prisoner of war, or a cancer victim, or both. I’d put on makeup, but my face is beyond repair. I cover the chopped-off hair that remains on my head with a Seminole scarf.
My mother wants to come with me to the hearing. “I want to see Andrew, too,” she says. I persuade her not to.
When I get to the courthouse, I find out that the presiding judge, Peter Lahat, has transferred Andrew’s case from Judge Zielinski to Judge Murray Rabin, the husband of my best friend, Misty. How is this possible? Murray had been a hard-hitting, give-no-quarter prosecutor. He’s loved in the State Attorney’s office, where he’s affectionately known as a hanging judge. Apparently, even though there are grounds, Andrew’s lawyers haven’t asked Murray to recuse himself. Is there no longer any supervision of junior lawyers at Collins, Dickens? But this is a stroke of luck. Murray would never separate me from my son, a fact that any experienced lawyer in Miami-Dade County would know.
Andrew’s prosecutor, Gnossos Poppodopulis, notorious for his ill-fitting toupees, greets me outside Murray’s courtroom. His wig du jour, a blond mullet, tilts to one side, making his head look pointy. Under other circumstances, I’d have to hold back laugh-ter. But since the rape, nothing seems funny.
“Estella,” he says, “how are you?”
“You tell me, Gnossos, how do I look?”
“I’ve seen you looking better.”
Two beefy white women deputy sheriffs, dragging a sobbing young black woman wearing a county-detention-center jump suit, her hands cuffed to a chain around her waist, come out of the courtroom, pushing aside a frail black man— 75-year-old Abraham Washington Lincoln, a legendary civil rights lawyer and an elder statesman of the criminal-defense bar. Abraham wobbles then falls against an unusually handsome man wearing a navy pinstripe silk suit, who looks as if he’s just stepped out of an ad in GQ.
The man, who has a rich shock of luster-black hair, helps Abe regain his balance and asks if he’s okay.
I expect the deputies to stop, to apologize, but they keep walking. And so I take quick steps toward them with Gnossos at my elbow.
“Officers!” I say.
Now the deputies stop, pivot with their prisoner, look at me with menace. “You got a problem?” one of them says.
Never has a law-enforcement officer treated me with disrespect.
“Dolores,” Gnossos says to the deputies. “This is Assistant United States Attorney Estella Verus.”
“Sorry, Ma’am,” Dolores says.
“And,” Gnossos says, “the attorney you collided with is
Abraham Lincoln.”
The deputies look back to where Abe still stands by the courtroom doors but say nothing.
Then frog-marching their prisoner in the direction they’d been heading, one of them says to the other without pretense of effecting a whisper, “Abraham Lincoln?”
We return to where Abe is waiting. The lawyer who’d steadied him has entered the courtroom with a younger lawyer, a woman I’d guess was about my age. The older lawyer Abraham was knocked into appeared to be in his early forties, but short. Five, eight at most. The woman wore a fashionable designer suit. Lucy in the Sky would have envied the diamonds on her wedding band. Her watch, shoes, and briefcase were Cartier.
“You okay?” I say to Abraham.
Abraham says. “Almighty Jesus. Estella, what happened to you?”
I don’t know why, but again I almost cry. Abraham puts his arms around me, pulls me to him in a lengthy warm hug. “May I pray for you?” he says.
I bite my lower lip to hold back the sobs and nod.
Abraham takes my hand, bows his head. “Dear Lord,” he says. His tone is reverential, but I can’t make out the rest of his words. He looks up at me, his eyes moist, and then he walks into the courtroom.
“Estella,” Gnossos says, “Peter Lahat—”
“I saw the order,” I say.
“Murray’s the new judge because every other county judge recused himself. If you challenge Murray—”
“I know the rules, Gnossos. Murray’s okay by me.”
“Andrew’s case will be transferred to Citrus County.”
“I see,” I say. “A county with no people of color.”
Inside the courtroom, paneled with a cheap veneer of faux light oak, I feel claustrophobic. I’d forgotten how much smaller the county courtrooms are than the cavernous federal courtrooms with their marble floors and walls.
Abraham’s client is charged with second-degree murder for stabbing a man during a bar fight. Abraham has filed a motion asking for discovery, information in the police files that the state attorney won’t give him. Murray hears this matter first and denies Abraham’s motion.
Then Andrew’s case is called. Gnossos, his assistant counsel, Lisa Margolis, and I approach the counsel table and – this was a shock—so does the lawyer who’d caught Abraham and the woman who’d walked into court with him.
“Gnossos Poppodopulis and Lisa Margolis for the State, Your Honor,” says Gnossos.
“Georges Bohem and Connie Knight of Dickens, Collins & Swift for defendant, Andrew Good-Eagle Godfrey,” says Bohem.
It’s more apparent to me than ever that my son needs me to help him find qualified counsel. The first thing I’ll explain to Andrew is that any jury will hate these slick lawyers, flaunting their wealth.
I stand next to the prosecutors. “Estella Verus,” I say, trying not to sound sarcastic, though I know I do. “The mother who’s been temporarily enjoined from talking to her son.”
“Ms. Verus and my wife are close friends,” Murray says for the record. He looks at papers on the bench. “Ms. Verus, has Mr. Poppodopulis talked to you about your right to have me recused from presiding over this case?”
“He has, Your Honor,” I say.
“If you ask me to recuse myself, I will. But if you don’t, then once I make any substantive ruling, your right to challenge me will have been waived. Do you understand?”
“I understand, Your Honor. I don’t challenge your juris-diction. Your Honor, where is the defendant? He has a right to be here.”
Connie Knight says, “Your Honor, the defendant waives his right to be present.”
Murray says, “Ms. Verus? You oppose the defendant’s motion?”
“Your Honor,” I say. “I’m going to give the defendant legal advice. What he tells me will be protected by the attorney-client privilege; His Fifth Amendment rights will be secure.” This strategy is foolproof.
“You will not be his attorney, Ms. Verus,” Murray says, silver hair slicked straight back, still looking at papers on the bench. “It would be a conflict of interest. The defendant’s motion for a preliminary injunction is granted. I’m entering a separate order disqualifying you as counsel, Ms. Verus.”
Bohem says, “Your honor, I further move for an order of se
questration, that Ms. Verus, since she is a witness, be excluded from all proceedings except when she’s called to testify or other-wise by court order.”
Before I can gather my thoughts, utter a word, Murray says, “Granted.”
“Your honor,” I say, “I oppose that motion. I’d like to be heard.”
“Ms. Verus,” Murray says, “the motion is routine. There’s nothing for you to say.”
“But your honor,” I say, “it’s routine for trial proceedings. I’ve never heard of it used in a pretrial proceeding. It’s unpreced-ented.”
Murray looks at me. His pock-marked face I loved because he loves Misty, I no longer love. “These orders are in the best interests of the victim and the defendant. Court is in recess.” Murray bangs his gavel.
The bailiff intones, “All rise.”
Murray gathers files and with them he leaves through the rear door in the courtroom, the entrance to his chambers.
Murray’s words, “the victim and the defendant,” hit me harder than the blow from the perp that broke my face.
Gnossos hands me a subpoena, ordering me to appear and testify at the preliminary hearing. Weakness in the back of my thighs, behind my knees. I grasp the counsel table, slide into a chair even though the hearing has just ended.
Bohem and his sidekick pack their briefcases. Gnossos walks around me to their side of the counsel table, congratulates Bohem, and offers a handshake. Bohem ignores the gesture and he and Knight turn their back on Gnossos and head toward the courtroom door. Gnossos says to their backs, “Hey, that’s uncalled for. Maybe that’s how you lawyers treat each other in Los Angeles but not here.” Then he looks at me. “The man needs a lesson in manners,” he says loudly. “We can see to that.”
The courtroom door shuts behind Connie Knight, who has followed Bohem out.
“Gnossos?” I say, managing to get back on my feet.
“Yeah, Estella?” he says, putting his file that was lying on the counsel table in his briefcase.
“Why were you kissing up to that snake-oil salesman?”
“Estella—” he says.
I’m in his face. “And why are you prosecuting my son? Serv-ing me with a subpoena?”
“I can’t expect you to be objective, Estella,” he says. “We’re prosecuting this case because we don’t want what happened to you to happen to my mother, my wife, my daughters, or any other woman.”
“That’s right!” Lisa Margolis pipes in gratuitously.
I’m stunned by her vehemence.
“You think your son, anyone’s son, could send a pervert to rape his mother?” I say.
Lisa Margolis gives me a haughty look.
“You think there are hordes of sons out there, roaming the county, conspiring to have their mothers raped?” I say. “Do you even have children?”
“Every perp we prosecute has a mother,” Lisa Margolis says. “Every one of those mothers tells us—”
“Enough,” Gnossos says. He gives Lisa Margolis a withering look. She gathers her things and heads for the courtroom door.
Gnossos says, “I’m sorry, Estella. May I refer you to a counselor, you know, someone who specializes in helping crime victims?”
I shake my head in frustration, rage, disbelief, denial, despair, profoundly sad.
Los Angeles? If Bohem and Knight are from L.A., then who’s their local counsel? I can’t get my head around it. My son is in jail, charged as an accomplice, aiding and abetting my rape, a matter of public record (though my name won’t be published), not unbridled conjecture. I won’t be able to look at him, hear him deny the allegations, provide explanations. I won’t have a clue about the strategy of his savvy-less lawyers. What if they won’t let him testify? How will I live with that, without knowing?
The bailiff hands me a note. Murray wants to see me in chambers.
When we’re alone I clench my fists. “Murray, you son of a bitch. I’ll appeal. And I’ll tell Misty. You can kiss off your sex life.”
Enfeebled, I sit on a dark-maroon button-pleated sofa, strugg-ling to maintain my composure, repeating in my mind: I will not cry. I will not cry.
Tan-and-red volumes of the Southeast Reporter, ochre-and-gold volumes of the Florida Statutes Annotated, and dark-blue treatises on evidence fill floor-to-ceiling dark-oak bookcases. Murray’s black robes hang behind his massive dark-oak desk. Sunrays striking vertical blinds drawn three-quarters shut cast shadows like prison bars on the law books. I breathe oxygen-depleted air in the shrinking room.
Murray takes me to lunch, tells me that the state attorney, Gnossos Poppodopulis’s boss, wants Andrew to serve five to eight years in the same sex-offender block where his father once lived.
“Based on? An out-of-court statement of a rapist?” I say.
He turns his palms upwards, shrugs.
“Gnossos Poppodopulis,” I say. “Do you find him to be . . . arrogant?”
“Self-righteous. He’s on a self-appointed mission to deliver Old Testament justice,” Murray says. “Not a bad character trait for a prosecutor.”
“Who are those lawyers? Bohem and what’s-her-name?”
“First I’ve heard of them,” Murray says. “Polished. Expensive. You could call Hank Smythe-Russell over at Collins, Dickens. Ask him.”
“I thought of that,” I say. “But it doesn’t matter. I won’t testify. You can hold me in contempt.”
“Estella, you deserve a long vacation—abroad. Misty practically has her bags packed. Come back after the preliminary hearing. Without a witness, the state may have to dismiss.”
“Have you talked to Aurora?”
I detect a restrained smile on his lips.
“I can’t discuss that,” he says.
Providence is dead.
I bury her in the rose garden, where I find skin shed by another snake. Providence must have had a mate. Call it sentimental. Call it whim. Call it sanity bent by combat fatigue.
I’m not as strong as I thought. I can’t walk into my bedroom without visualizing the rape. I’ll desensitize, spend the first night sleeping in the den, my shotgun close by.
Back in my living room, I throw open the French doors leading to my balcony, hoping a breeze will refresh the stale air.
I toss the subpoena onto the coffee table. Think of burning it.
Andrew would not, could not conspire to have me raped. But my testimony could send him to prison, brand him a sex offender. Gnossos Poppodopulis will distort my testimony, using it to argue that only Andrew could have told the rapist I was home alone, only Andrew could have told the rapist where to find my father’s gun, and only Andrew could have assured the rapist that our neighbor is a chicken-shit who wouldn’t call the police. I’ve seen juries put away defendants on evidence more tenuous and arguments more attenuated.
And what are Andrew’s elitist lawyers going to do about it? Maybe they can explain how an Assistant United States Attorney can disobey a subpoena, even if she is the victim and the mother of the defendant. I swore an oath to uphold the law. Can I allow that oath to destroy my son?
I play Beatles’ CDs, A Hard Day’s Night and Revolver, kick back with a daiquiri. Soon it comes to me – just about every lyric – working like a dog/sleeping like a log – is cliché or – I’ll make love to you/If you want me to – inane. How did the Fab Four peddle that? The music of my parents’ generation, a less sophisticated, less discerning time: the sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll of reckless self-indulgence. Taste in music must be generation skipping. The kids who made music popular in the sixties and seventies were probably too hopped-up to care about the lyrics.
But not all of them. Among those kids was my father, incinerated in a helicopter shot down in the Gulf War. There was no body, no good-bye. I try to picture him, but the only images I have are the photos my mother has framed or arranged in albums. Twenty-two-years ago he vanished. My actual memories of him are gone. I try remembering a day when I didn’t miss him. I can’t.
A glimpse of a large raptor,
the whoosh of its wings, an eagle. It alights on the wrought-iron railing of my balcony, tail feathers and back to the garden, beak and unblinking eyes facing me, its size astonishing.
I reach for my phone, wanting to photograph the bird. But before I can, Providence’s mate undulates into the room. He rises like a cobra poised to strike, then in a display of eukaryotic fission, he evolves into two snakes that coil in a double volute around a beam of brilliant transparent purple neon light. Andrew emerges from one of the snakes shedding his skin. He is naked, his own reddish-brown skin appears to be soft, flawless, shim-mering as if reflecting the ethereal purple light. His face a portrait of the anguish of birth.
The snake, still coiled around the purple light, divides again into entwined golden serpents, tongues flicking, tails twitching until one of them becomes my father emerging nude from shed-ding snake skin.
Soon Karl, the rapist – his blond ponytail and bright bucked teeth reflecting the volutes purple light – Billie Bower, Derek, Edgar, my neighbor who didn’t call the cops, the cops who burst into my bathroom, the cops who interrogated me, Abraham Washington Lincoln, Gnossos Poppodopulis, Georges Bohem, and Murray Rabin, all naked, crowd into the room. The rapist masturbates. I expect Derek or Andrew or my father or one of the cops to restrain him. Or Murray, a judge, for God’s sake. But they just watch.
If only my mother were here. Misty. Aurora. Any woman.
The rapist draws his lips into a rabid smile that exposes an expanse of diseased gums, his breath fetid like his odor that lingered on me after the rape.
“Burn it,” he says, hissing in his sickly sweet British accent, reaching for the subpoena.
But Andrew, quicker, snatches the subpoena, hands it to me.
Whether this is a vision from my subconscious, a glimpse of an alternative reality, or exhaustion-induced hallucination, it’s too much. I push my way through the throng of naked men, slip my .38 revolver into its shoulder harness, and leave for my mother’s place.
The Speed of Life Page 3
