(1969) The Seven Minutes

by Irving Wallace

  When the jurors asked themselves whether The Seven Minutes was obscene, Barrett knew that they must ask themselves these questions also.

  Now the court had been reconvened, and the jurors were filing back into the room and taking their places in the jury box.

  Judge Upshaw peered at the foreman of the jury. ‘Have you reached a verdict?’

  ‘We have, Your Honor.’

  ‘Please hand your verdict to the bailiff.’

  The bailiff had received the piece of paper, and now he took it to the bench and handed it to the magistrate. Judge Upshaw glanced at it, then handed it back to the bailiff.

  The bailiff marched to center stage, drew himself up to his full height, and then, in a great stentorian roar, he announced the verdict:

  ‘We, the jury, in the People versus Ben Fremont, do hereby find the defendant not guilty of distributing or purveying obscene matter!’

  ‘Is that your unanimous verdict?’ Judge Upshaw called down from the bench.

  In unison, the twelve jurors chorused back, ‘Yes, Your Honor.’

  But by now they could not be heard above the thunder in the room.

  A half hour later, after the tumult and shouting had ceased, and the jury had been thanked and discharged, and Zelkin and Sanford and Kimura and Fremont had embraced Barrett, and reporters with notepads had swarmed around Barrett, Courtroom 803 of the Superior Court of Los Angeles was finally empty of ail but two persons.

  Mike Barrett was alone at the defense table, slowly gathering up his papers and putting them into his briefcase. The milling crowd had moved out into the corridor of the Hall of Justice, where Jad-way - Bainbridge - had agreed to hold a press conference before television cameras, which had not been admitted into the courtroom. Barrett could barely hear the din and chaos outside the courtroom doors, and he was unable yet to exult in his triumph. The sudden turn of events, the electrifying appearance of Bainbridge, the smashing victory that had replaced certain defeat, had been too much for his mind and body to assimilate.

  It was as if he were still on the quest, taut and hunting. For, now closing his briefcase, he realized that there remained small mysteries. Bainbridge’s sensational testimony had solved much, and the reappearance in court of Jerry Griffith, followed by the appearances of the convalescing Darlene Nelson and the bereaved Howard Moore, had solved more, enough to gain a verdict of complete acquittal for Ben Fremont and total freedom for The Seven Minutes. But for Mike Barrett there were still ‘dark patches’ that continued to be ‘held over all reality.’

  He heard his name spoken, and he wheeled around. He had thought that he was alone, but he was not, and he was grateful. Maggie Russell was hurrying down the aisle toward him.

  She was in his arms. ‘Mike, you were magnificent. It’s over and you won. I’m so proud of you, and so happy.’

  ‘Thanks to you, darling.’

  ‘I was in there at the end but it was you all the way. These last weeks the world seemed to be standing still. Now it’s turning again, sunrises, sunsets, life, hope.’

  He released her. ‘Maggie, what happened?’

  ‘You know what happened. You heard it in this room.’

  ‘But how did it get to this room? I want the answers, before we go ahead. Tell me.’

  He drew her down to a chair at the defense table and sat next to her, and he waited.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure where to - to -‘ she said.

  To begin ? Begin with the one thing most of us didn’t know about - Jerry’s impotence.’

  ‘Yes.’ She was lost in thought a moment. ‘Jerry had so many problems. Too many to go into now. But one of his major problems was with girls. With them he was shy, afraid, uncertain. I used to talk to him about this. There were months of heart-to-heart talks. I did my best to instill in him some sense of his own value and identity. To make him feel as attractive as he really was. Well, finally, gradually, he began dating. He was surprised at how easy it was, how easily girls were attracted not merely by his car and money, but by his own person.’

  Pouring a glass of water for Maggie, and one for himself, Barrett asked, ‘Did Jerry go to bed with any of those girls ? Or even before, had he ever - ?’

  ‘No, never,’ she said flatly. ‘He was a virgin. 1 didn’t know it at first. That came out later. Right after he began dating, he found out that the kiss at the door was not the end of an evening but the beginning. Poor kid. Because he was afraid. Yet, afraid or not, he had to go through with it. From the kiss at the door to the thing in the bed. Yes, he joined his dates in their beds. One girl, a second girl, a third girl, and each time he failed to consummate the sexual act. It wasn’t merely premature ejaculation. It was - well, you know - flaccid impotence. Yet somehow Jerry survived those failures because, I gather, the girls had been kind. But then there was another date, another type of girl, and she was less kind. In fact, she was cruel. And Jerry - he returned home frenzied, ill with despair, determined that he couldn’t live on any longer as a virtual eunuch.’

  Maggie had halted, absently sipping at her glass of water.

  Barrett quietly prompted her. ‘And that led to his first suicide attempt?’

  ‘That led to the first,’ she said. ‘Luckily, I discovered him in time and saved him. That was when I learned the truth. While he was still hung over from the drugs and his shame - in his room, morose and babbling, he spilled out his secret to me. From that time on, except for the girls he had dated, I was the only person in the world who shared his secret - until today.’

  ‘Was it then that you thought of San Francisco?’

  ‘Well, I saw something had to be done, Mike. There was no one to consult. Certainly not Uncle Frank or Aunt Ethel, God forbid. It was a secret, and Jerry was dependent upon me. So I took matters into my own hands. I did some investigating and learned the names of two reliable doctors up north, one a physician, the other a psychoanalyst, and I made appointments for Jerry with them. Then, on some pretext or other -I forget what, and anyway, Uncle Frank was on a business trip, and that made it easier -I got Jerry out of the house for a week and accompanied him to San Francisco. First the physician. Thorough examination. Absolute assurance that the impotence was not physical but psychic. Next, two long sessions with the psychoanalyst, who confirmed the physician’s diagnosis. Jerry’s condition was psychic - and curable with time and therapy. The facts were made clear to Jerry. Neither hormone shots nor medicine would help. Only treatment by a dependable analyst could assist him in overcoming his feelings of inferiority and guilt, could make him understand his hostilities and somehow guide him to finding his own identity.’

  “Then back to Los Angeles,’ said Barrett. ‘One point I’ve wondered about. Did you try to get long-range help for Jerry from some analyst down here?’

  ‘Mike, it isn’t a question of whether or not I tried. Jerry was on his feet again, and it was up to him. I encouraged him, of course, but I could only go so far without alienating him. So the next move was his. He had had good advice, the best. What he didn’t have was the will, the courage and confidence to act on it. He knew perfectly well what his first step should be, but he simply wasn’t able to bring himself to move out of his parents’ house and go off on his own. Oh, in a roundabout way he broached the subject of analysis to his father - and what did he get back ? A long tirade, a denunciation of Freud and other head-shrinkers, so that was that, and Jerry never brought up the subject again. For Jerry, there was only one logical thing left to do - try to be normal.’

  Barrett shook his head. ‘Christ. Try to be an Olympic hero when you’ve got no legs. Okay, Maggie. Go on. There we have Jerry about to walk in front of a truck, so to speak. What happened on the way?’

  ‘On the way ?’ she repeated vaguely. ‘Well, for one thing, trying to be normal means attempting to have normal friends. Jerry latched onto an acquaintance, George Perkins, tried to make him into a friend, because George was natural, no obvious hang-ups, and he had an easy way with women. I suppose Jerry hoped to
become normal by osmosis. One night, with George taking the lead, they picked up - well, it was Sheri Moore, and they took her to her apartment.’

  ‘And she turned out to be a little swinger,’ said Barrett. ‘You know, I suspected it when I first started asking about her. I had a hunch she was permissive, liked to make the boys happy. I don’t know why I didn’t follow through on the hunch. I guess I allowed myself to be propagandized by everyone.’

  ‘You propagandized yourself,’ Maggie said with a slight smile. ‘You come from a generation that was taught to believe that all girls are - or should be - innocents. You wanted to believe little Sheri was sweetness and light, like your own mother had been, and your mother’s mother had been. I’m not speaking of the intellectual you. I mean, the son you.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Barrett with an answering smile. ‘We’ll explore that when we’re on a couch together. Okay, Sheri’s bed a welcome mat. George went first. Token resistance. But no problem. He and Sheri made out. Then Jerry’s turn. We didn’t get it all from the stand, Maggie. What actually took place?’

  Maggie resumed slowly. Listening, Barrett closed his eyes, and her recital was transformed into a series of vivid stereopticon slides inside his head.

  Well, Mike…

  Maggie’s low voice, and the colorful slides.

  Jerry had gone into Sheri’s bedroom after George had left it, and he had undressed and crawled into bed with her. But it had not been Jerry who entered her. He had been incapable, impotent. And Sheri, brainless child of hedonism, at first amused, was soon challenged. She’d had her boys and men, and this had never happened to her before. When they got on Sheri, they got it big. They always made it big with Sheri, because Sheri was a femme fatale. Jerry wasn’t making it at all, and this was a rebuke to her own ego and talents. She worked on Jerry, a circus of foreplay, with no result. And soon there was no longer challenge for the girl, only impatience, irritation, annoyance, and finally anger. This was a put-down to her sexuality. This was the ultimate insult. Perhaps she thought the failure was primarily her own, not his, and she would not have it. She had begun to tease him, to mock him, to ridicule him.

  Blinded by rage and tears, Jerry had tried to escape, to dress and escape. She would not let him off so easily. She had followed him from the bed, and he had tried to push her away, be rid of her, until her taunts had become filthy and vicious. When he’d tried to answer back, she had struck at him, and missed, and slipped on the throw rug, and fallen, and her head had gone down against the knifing corner of the table and it had cracked her skull like an eggshell, and she was unconscious. Jerry had wanted to summon help, but George Perkins had wanted them to have no part of that mess.

  Shortly afterward, Darlene Nelson had come back to the apartment, to find her roommate struggling briefly to hold on to consciousness. Darlene had kneeled over Sheri, trying to discover what had happened. Sheri had whispered the truth, but begged for only one thing. Her father must not know of her behavior, how she was with the boys. Tell them anything, Darlene, anything, she had pleaded, tell them rape. And when the police came and the ambulance came and Howard Moore came, Darlene had told them rape.

  Then there was Jerry, caught and arrested. There was the code. No squealing on friends, especially a friend like George who had balls. And rape, yes, rape was a way to hide the ultimate shame of exposure and disgrace, and escape the laughter of all you knew. Forcible entry had a manly ring to it. It was one way to prove you could get an erection, make it big. There was even black humor in it, the sick joke: rape is assault with a friendly weapon. At least a weapon, a potent weapon. With rape you were a criminal, but you were a man. With the truth, you were sentenced to impotence and ridicule forever.

  Mike Barrett had opened his eyes, and the slides had disappeared, and there was Maggie speaking.

  ‘So it was rape,’ she was saying.

  ‘And suddenly it was the book that made him do it,’ Barrett interrupted. ‘Overnight, The Seven Minutes was the criminal. But one fact never came out in court, Maggie. Where did Jerry get the book?’

  She did not reply. She looked down at her fingers.

  ‘Well, Maggie?’

  ‘Is it important now?’

  ‘I want to know,’ he said firmly. ‘Where did he get the book?’

  ‘From me.’

  His eyes widened. From me. Zap. Had he heard her right? ‘From you, Maggie?’

  She held her head high. ‘Yes. I bought it for myself, because I wanted to read it, and I bought it for Aunt Ethel also, because I knew she’d wanted to read it.’

  He listened incredulously, then less so as Maggie went on.

  Maggie had learned that Aunt Ethel liked those novels, actually craved them, found a world in them that she had never been permitted to know. So the game was always that Maggie acquired the books for her own reading, and then, when Uncle Frank was not home, she passed them on to Aunt Ethel to read.

  But Aunt Ethel had never got to read The Seven Minutes, because once Maggie had read it she had passed it on to Jerry instead. He had said that he had no interest in the book, but Maggie had insisted that he read it. She knew Jerry’s problem, since she had been to San Francisco with him, and she had wanted him to know that others who had suffered the same problem had been helped and had even been able to write about it openly and frankly. For, in the fiction, as Cathleen lay on her bed enjoying the man inside her, she thought of many men, but mostly of three men in her life.

  ‘Remember how it was in the book, Mike?’ Maggie asked. ‘If you remember, you’ll understand why I gave it to Jerry.’

  He took a moment to remember, and then he did.

  There was Jadway’s Cathleen, lying there, recollecting her adventures with the three men who wanted her, and trying to imagine what it would be like to belong to each one. The first man, she knew, was spoiled and self-centered, yet a great lover, a Casanova, skilled and experienced, promising a memorable life of the flesh. The second man was, she knew, a conservative lover, Everyman, who would devote more time to achieving success in his work than to his woman, but who promised a comfortable material life. The third man was, she knew, a temporarily impotent lover, but he was a man of much sensitivity, creative, understanding, promising intellectual and spiritual fascination. And to one of these she had finally given herself completely, but which one it was Jadway did not disclose until the last page of the book. And in the end the reader learned that it was the third man with whom she had been living these seven memorable minutes. Through her own warmth and tenderness, she had made him a man, and in making him a man she had found her greatest fulfillment as a woman. Of course the third man was Jadway himself. It had been so obviously autobiographical. And that was what Maggie had wanted Jerry to read.

  ‘Then you actually got Jerry to read it?’ Barrett asked.

  I did. He read it not once but twice. And while a good deal of the novel made him uneasy, it shook him and gave him some understanding of women and some hope for himself. Yet that wasn’t enough. Without the guidance of an analyst, or the author himself, there was no way Jerry could translate Jadway’s experience in the book to serve his own purposes. Jadway could do little for him. Jadway gave him some words, helpful ones, but Jerry needed more from the author, and the author was dead. So what was left? To emulate someone living, someone successful with women. Namely, his friend George Perkins. So he lamely followed George to Sheri Moore on her bed. But Jerry wasn’t George. Jerry was Jadway’s impotent hero, only Sheri wasn’t Jadway’s Cathleen.’

  ‘I see,’ said Barrett. ‘Jerry took credit for George’s semen in the victim, and he opted for rape. And then he was caught, and then the book …’

  It was becoming clearer now.

  The book - Maggie’s copy - had been found where she’d hidden it from Frank Griffith in the trunk of the car that she and Jerry shared. And, believing the book to be the real culprit (or wanting to believe it), and prodded by Elmo Duncan and Luther Yerkes, Frank Griffith had immediately rai
led against the book for corrupting his son. Yes, it was becoming clearer. And Jerry, not daring to contradict his father, afraid to contradict the law, perhaps wanting to believe it was the book so he could plead extenuating circumstances to his supposed crime, went along, picked up the chant, made his confession, appeared in court.

  ‘Maggie, what about Jerry’s second suicide attempt?’ Barrett wanted to know. ‘What was behind it?’

  ‘He’d been depressed about Sheri’s condition in the hospital. That really bothered him. And he wanted a few kinds words from George and a chance to meet Sheri’s roommate, not to reveal the whole truth but simply a chance to explain to her that Sheri’s head injury had honestly been an accident. And so he got out of the house and went hunting for George in that club on Melrose, but as you saw for yourself, George wanted nothing to do with him, wanted no part of the trouble. So in order to get rid of Jerry, friend George pointed out Darlene Nelson. You saw Jerry try to speak to her. He just wanted to plead accident, beg forgiveness, derive some relief through expiation, but instead, well, she stunned him by lashing out at turn with her knowledge of his impotence. It was callous, unfeeling, but -‘ Maggie shrugged - ‘I guess all of us can be vicious sometimes. Darlene - she taunted Jerry with that old Irish goodbye, “God stiffen you.” Jerry just came apart, unraveled. He was sure that the whole world now knew or soon would know his condition. He couldn’t face that. So he tried to kill himself. You can see how he would want to, can’t you?’