"Melvin Riggs"--nor he said much about his mother's men friends or private life. "John keeps to himself, y'know? He don't ask questions neither," Orrie said. "Except John might w-worry about his mom, the way you do, y'know, if she ain't I -m-married," Clyde said, squinting at Trippe. "Y'know what I'm saying?" Both boys denied that John Reddy had a violent temper, as Dill had repeat. edly suggested--"No more than anybody else. Maybe John got in a fights, you wouldn't want to cross him, he can hit real hard and he's, like, fast, like a snake, y'know? But no more than anybody else." Like a snake. The words hovered in the courtroom, you could the vibrations.
Frank Farolino was a character witness for John Reddy, and so was Burnham of Burnham Nurseries for whom John Reddy had worked one summer--"Quiet kid. But sometimes impatient." There was, unexpectedly, Willowsville's mayor (this was a largely honorific position paying a token 1500 annually) Mr.. Diebold, for whom John Reddy had done chores and lawn work--"John had to grow up fast in that household.
wasn't a typical Willowsville child. He took on certain of the qualities of an adult, I think, at an early age. If he gets impatient sometimes it's because of being misjudged." There came Mrs.. Rhona Buhr, Orrie's mother, glamorously made-up redhead of about forty, who told the court a too assertively (you could see the women jurors disliked her, the mouths beneath their pinched nostrils) that John Reddy was the most considerate of her son's friends--"Like the time last spring my car got stuck in the mud in our driveway and it was mainly John Reddy who helped push it out. Hardly minding he got mud all over his nice-looking leather boots. And another time--" There were no Calvos in court. Not even Dino.
not Sasha. We were disappointed, we'd begun to doubt that Sasha returned from Brooklyn, or wherever the Calvos had sent her.
Honestly there is a baby! A little boy looking just like tohn Reddy Heart.
The girl Sasha is going to raise him in Milan, that's where the Calvos come from. Lots of Calvos there.
No they won't be married. No the Calvos hate his guts.
They'd had to send Dino away, too. So Dino wouldn't try to kill tohn Reddy Heart and wind up on trial for murder himself Years later, as adults, calmly discussing the mysterious saga of Reddy Heart over drinks in a dim-lit cocktail lounge of the Kenawka Minnesota, north of St.. Paul) Marriott, the novelist Evangeline Fesnacht would confide in the poet-professor Richard, once
"Ritchie" Eickhorn, old classmate, that she'd been so obsessed with the Heart trial, she'd hardly slept, couldn't concentrate on anything except the case, fasted from the time the jury began to deliberate until they announced their verdict nineteen exhausting hours later. "It seemed to me, in my madness, the least I could do for John Reddy." Evangeline confessed that she'd also brashly volunteered to be a character witness--"Fortunately, Trippe politely declined my offer. I was going to speak of John Reddy's killer eyes' and destiny'--I was going to quote D. H. Lawrence--'The American soul is hard, isolate, and a killer. My God, I might have gotten the poor kid sentenced to imprisonment. How crazy can love make you!" Evangeline sighed, and ran her brusquely through her short-cut mannish hair. Richard Eickhorn adulthood had become possible only by way of a continuous and reconstituting of the past, as if he himself were the "epic poem" he'd once determined to write, was amazed at such a disclosure. E. S. Fesnacht--the only writer of their WHS class to have achieved anything like a national reputation. He'd been aware of Evangeline's literary career since her first novel, Time Travel, was published, to generally reviews and modest sales, when they were in their mid-twenties, he'd read she'd published since then, envious of her talent, resentful of reputation, yet, he had to admit, proud of her, and happy for her, the homely girl certain of the boys in their class had called Frog Tits behind her back. Had it helped, Richard wondered, that Evangeline had been slightly loony in high school? With her fixation on John Reddy Heart, her voluminous Notebooks, or had it been Death Chronicles? Even now, so many later, speaking of her adolescent self with an air of pained embarrassment, Evangeline's small, lashless eyes shone. Richard confessed, "Evangeline, at least you went to John Reddy's trial. I'd wanted to, but I didn't dare.
I was such a meek kid--I read Dostoyevsky in high school, I identified with and the Underground Man'--but I took the truant officer threat seriously. I was afraid of being arrested." Evangeline laughed, and signaled round of drinks, they were both drinking vodka martinis. She said, wiping at her eyes, "We took everything seriously in those days, Ritchie.
fucking alive." I saw tohn Reddy his clothes stripped from him, naked and bleeding. His forehead, his hands and feet. They had impaled his body on iron spikes and these had been driven through a wooden cross of aged rotting boards. He was panting, groaning in pain. My eyes were seared with the wonder glory of his face! Who has done this to you, John Reddy? I cried. For cross hung crooked as if in mockery. And there was mocking laughter like thunder. Ugly angry laughter rolling from the underside of the earth. I approached tohn Reddy in horror, I could see the gaping wound in his side. The blood glistening like pearls. I could see the terrible spikes driven through tohn Reddy's hands and feet. I could see his ribs straining against his pale, tight-stretched skin. I could see the damp, dark hairs of his body. Between his legs his genitals at which I did not dare to look yet somehow saw gleaming with a fluid like tears, the flesh red-tinctured and smooth like something that has been skinned alive.
I understood that it was my task to save tohn Reddy from death. It was my task to bring him water to drink, but I had none. It was my task to bring his limp penis to life, to caress it between my fingers, but I could not reach him. I wasn't tall enough. I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't fierce enough. I to my knees, my hair hung in my face. I was crying, ashamed. I smelled the odor of my body. John Reddy! Forgive us! We never knew. These words were me, words I could not comprehend. I felt such helplessness, such sorrow. tohn Reddy's eyes opened and he fixed his bloodshot gaze on me in suffering, and pity--pity of me. Though John Reddy did not utter a word, I understood that he forgave me. He forgave me my weakness, my cowardice. He has forgiven us all. Like ftame a sensution of love swept through me. A sensation of warmth, inf nite joy. John Reddy! John Reddy! As my body is pierced and torn open like his nailed to the cross in mockery and humiliation, as one day I will give birth out of my pain-racked body, this would be my secret, tohn Reddy's and mine.
Katrina Olmsted. Katie. Such a dream, to have come to her.
We were astonished. We were in awe. We weren't jealous. (We we weren't jealous. ) During the long hours of our vigil. As John Reddy's fate was being decided by strangers. We fasted, we prayed. We were happiest on our knees praying for John Reddy like the good Christian girls we were. Katie Olmsted was the most feverish of us, it was the onset of her terrible illness perhaps, we would recall that night in Trish Elders's room and think Did it begin then.7--poor Katie but at the time of course we could not have known, we were astonished by the quivering passion in her voice, Katie's little-girl voice we'd known since grade school, we held her, we wept with her, prayed, "Heavenly Father, don't abandon John Reddy Heart in his hour of need," for such were the childlike prayers were uttered, Verrie pressed her gaunt hollow-eyed beautiful face against Katie's round burning face, Trish wrapped her arms around Katie and hid her face in Katie's neck, "Almost, I could believe in the devil, to make a deal with him--you know?"
whispered, we were shocked, yet sympathe ic, we wondered Is this how evil begins? out of desperation. Pattianne held and caressed Katie's fingers, none of us was jealous but perhaps we were envious, we yearned to be Katrina Olmsted that night, to have had Katie's amazing dream, we did doubt it was a dream-vision from God, on the eve of the verdict in Reddy Heart's murder trial, one of us cried, "Oh, Katie--what?
" for in her ecstasy Katie had dug her fingernails so deeply into the tender palms of her hands, both palms began to bleed.
"Why does it matter so much to you if that little bastard is found or not? What is he to you? What the hell is he to you? Or any of the Hearts, t
o us? What's going on here? Look at me, I'm talking to you.
at me, answer me, God damn you, I happen to be your father." Mr.. -was shouting at his daughter. For the nineteen hours of the jury's deliberations she'd refused to sit at the table with the family as she'd refused, in stubborn outrageous silence, to eat anything except liquids (fruit juice, skim milk, Tab and Diet Coke), nor had she shampooed her hair, or even brushed her hair in long loving strokes as ordinarily she was about doing. Don't touch me. Don't look at me. Don't speak to me.
You know nothing of me. This beautiful girl Mr.. Ioved. This beautiful Mr.. adored. Looking as if she'd been sleeping in her clothes, a patient, ashy-skinned, gaunt-eyed, her lips pale, she'd even to apply Hot Pink or Watermelon Gloss or Blackberry Wine lipstick, peevish as a martyr. Yet her serious error was, glancing disdainfully at Mr..
if he, the head of this costly and exhausting household, owner of house grounds assessed at $375, 000 in Willowsville's St.. Albans Hill district (which property would be assessed at beyond $1 million at the present time), a successful businessman in a frantically competitive field, the second-youngest trustee of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, had no more substance than a dissolving cloud of cigarette smoke or an actual bad smell.
And a sudden fury overcame him, and he rushed after her, gripping her by a shoulder and shaking her, his daughter who weighed only one hundred five scrupulously monitored pounds, and she screamed, and pushed at him, Mr.. who weighed one hundred ninety-six pounds, and Mr.. shoved her from him, even as he continued to grip her shoulder, shaking her, she would later claim striking her, with his fist, his closed fist, his face red and contorted as a demon's--"I was on the floor, and he was standing over me shouting.
I'd fallen hard I guess, I didn't know what had happened, the glass skim milk was broken on the floor, I was trying to crawl to get away from him, under the kitchen table, I was on my hands and knees trying to crawl, hide, to escape from him, I remember thinking I didn't know how to crawl longer, my legs were too long, I didn't realize that my wrist was sprained, I didn't feel any pain it was so weird, I had to vet awav from Daddv. r w. e in terror of my life." At 10,20 A. M. of the third day of deliberations in the trial of John Reddy Heart word came at last from the jury that they'd reached a unanimous decision. The trial's principals were hurriedly reassembled in the courtroom, Mr..
Dill and Mr.. Trippe and their assistants, Judge Schor and assistants, stenographer, bailiffs, Erie County sheriff's deputies escorting the defendant John Reddy Heart who was looking dazed as if he hadn't slept in a long time. It was observed that Heart had a man's face now, no longer a boy's.
His skin was coarsened, sallow, his jaws were bluish with stubble. He had habit of rubbing at his left eye, which watered. Though obviously aware of the jurors in their polished wooden box, he took care not to glance in their direction.
His hands might have been trembling. You can sit in judgment of me but you can't make me acknowledge you.
Just as Judge Schor commanded the defendant to rise to hear the jury's verdict, a door at the rear of the courtroom opened, and there Heart, hurrying, breathless, an unlit cigarette between her fingers. Mrs.. Heart was not dressed so stylishly as usual, though perhaps as conspicuously--a white scarf, dampened with snowflakes, covered her seemingly hair, she wore a cream-colored woolen cape over a white woolen suit, leather gloves and white leather boots disfigured by salt stains.
John Reddy did not glance back at her as she hurried into the room, then halted, as if she'd been forbidden to come farther, staring in frightened silence. (It was noted that Mr.. Trippe glanced back at Mrs.. Heart, with an unreadable look, anxiety? tenderness? concern? For it had been rumored for weeks Buffalo circles that the notorious Mrs.. Heart and the respected lawyer had become lovers, though Trippe was believed to be happily married, the father of two young children. ) Judge Schor was posing his question, "Mr.. Foreman, has the jury reached a decision?" and replied gravely, "We have, Your Honor. We find the defendant Heart--not guilty of the charges brought against him." There was a beat of startled silence.
Not guilty.
A woman cried faintly, "Oh Johnny. Oh my God." John Reddy's head snapped up as if he'd been struck. His eyes were clear, and alert, and he acknowledged the jury, now. Trippe was shaking his hand, grinning like a boy, congratulating him, Dill, stunned, turned in defeat, fumbling to thrust a sheaf of papers into his briefcase.
Several rows behind in the courtroom Dahlia Heart staggered and pressed the back of her hand against her eyes as if she'd become faint.
But John Reddy Heart, a prisoner for so many months, "in custody,remained where he stood, motionless, staring at the smiling jurors as if he hadn't heard the verdict clearly, or hadn't understood. His left eye brimmed with tears.
Not guilty?
If I am not guilty--who is?
America, I hear your heart breaking.
America, my soul is you.
America, you've betrayed me.
I adore you.
Richard Eickhorn, America I Hear Your Heart Breaking John Reddy Heart was declared NOT GUILTY--yet he spent the next twelve months in prison, and twelve months beyond that on probation.
John Reddy Heart was expected to be freed, and return to us--yet he spent the next twelve months behind bars in the Tomahawk Island Youth Camp.
We were shocked. We were incredulous. "Pissed as all hell." We we'd been cheated. It was shitty adult logic, adult vengeance.
hated it.
As soon as news of the acquittal came to us we rushed from our classes, drove in a horn-honking procession from school to Tug Hill Park, cars crammed with screaming kids--HEART ACQUITTAL CELEBRATED IN WILLVILLE, the Buffalo Evening News headline would read, above photo of Smoke Filer driving his T-Bird, our arms stuck out every like tentacles, fingers flashing the V-for-Victory sign. Tommy Nordstrom's notorious party was that weekend, at least sixty of us crowded around, and in, the Nordstroms' fantastic heated indoor swimming pool--where some of us, as we'd ruefully reminisce, first learned to drink seriously, to get smashed.
And six days later we learned John Reddy, instead of coming home, pleaded guilty to a catalogue of charges ("possession of a deadly weapon"-"leaving the scene of a crime"--"obstruction of justice"--"vehicular theft"--"two counts of breaking and entering"--"burglary"--"resisting arrest"--and more), and had been sentenced to twelve months in a maximumsecurity youth facility and twelve months' probation, to Tomahawk Island Youth Camp on a scrubby island in the Niagara associated in the minds of Willowsville residents with, as Dwayne Hewson's dad said scornfully, "Negro dope pushers, drunk Indians sticking gas stations and white trash blowing one another's brains out.
Broke Heart Blues Page 23
