He Said, She Said

by John Decure

  By now, you know all the rest.

  The whole experience just froze my insides. So much bad, mixed-up feeling was just getting raked up, dredged right up from somewhere way, way down below.

  Andy? He knew something was up, you know, the way a husband not getting any would know. Just by looking at me. So in time he hired a private investigator, and not long after that, filed for divorce. I started drinking more. Some afternoons I was alone at home with nothing but the TV to keep me company. Pretty soon I was in an apartment, by myself; my whole life went upside-down. By the time I pulled out of the tailspin I went into, I had an ex-husband who claimed I sabotaged his happiness, which I guess I can’t deny, and two kids so mad at me they wouldn’t even return my calls.

  The judge called for a recess. I wanted to melt into my chair, just hide from everybody. Even the court reporter couldn’t look at me. She knew I was a freak, and though people like to stare at freaks when they can get away with it, it’s not something they do as easy out in the open. I had to pee, but I stayed put.

  * * *

  Ms. Aames asked me about some of the things I’d done since, to rebuild my life a little. I said something about school, my criminology studies, working part-time as a dispatcher for the local police department. Therapy I was doing with Dr. Weaver, which was working well enough for me to at least talk about my life like I did here today.

  The nice judge asked me if I wanted to take another break, before Dr. Fallon’s attorney asked me some questions. Put that way, it didn’t sound like a bad experience, getting questioned by the other side. But Ms. Aames did her best to warn me, told me to just answer each question, one by one, clear and direct and short—like, the fewer words the better. And I should pause before answering in case she needed to make an objection. And I should try not to take anything personal, just duck if they start throwing mud, ’cause no question ever killed anybody. I told the nice judge no thanks.

  This part of my time on the stand I don’t remember so well at all. I recall precious little about Andy’s lawsuit against Dr. Don, but his lawyer, Mister Hydigger? He made quite an impression in that case by trying to wear me down. For two whole days he strung out my deposition. Attorney Hydigger, with the sharp chin and crooked way of looking at you, cold gray naughty-boy eyes stuck in an older man’s bony face. Seeing him now, taking a second crack at me, it didn’t scare me much because I figured I’d been there and done that. But when he started in on me today, his every jab hit me fresh and hard, like a sock in the jaw. What I forgot was that back when the civil suit was going on, I was still a basket case. Now, though, I’d been in therapy and was more in touch with my problems and with myself. Which meant I was more vulnerable. That’s probably why this part of the medical board’s trial is so fuzzy to me now. Dr. Weaver says that as a natural coping mechanism, my mind will throw up a mental block on certain memories that are too painful. Maybe so, but this much I will carry with me to my grave:

  “Your sexual liaisons with Pastor Jim were consensual, were they not?”

  “No. He forced himself on me.”

  “But you didn’t call the police; you didn’t file rape charges, did you?”

  “I was a dumb kid, sir.”

  “Your stepfather didn’t either, did he?”

  “My stepfather was a drunk. And a coward.”

  “Please answer the question, your stepfather—”

  “No! He didn’t.”

  “Isn’t it true that you seduced Pastor Jim?”

  “Not true.”

  “Isn’t that why he referred to you as a whore? Because—”

  “Objection,” Ms. Aames said. “Argumentative. Calls for speculation.”

  The judge nodded, and said: “Sustained.”

  Not that it mattered. That Hydigger, he just went right back after me.

  “You like to play that role, though, don’t you?”

  “No. Never.”

  “Well, Ms. Loberg, your ex-husband, Andrew, gave sworn testimony in a civil lawsuit that one of his favorite role-playing games with you was when you played the role of lady of the night. Is that true?”

  “No, sir. Andy, he’s a gentle person. He just had an active imagination in the bedroom, and it was his idea to—”

  “Did you play the role of a whore or not?”

  “Maybe one or two times. Yes. But it was for fun, not—”

  “And isn’t it true that you did that to control your husband?”

  “No. That’s ridiculous. Andy wouldn’t even let me work. He was the one controlling me.”

  “And Pastor Jim. You used your body as a weapon, didn’t you, to turn him away from his chosen vocation?”

  “Objection!” Ms. Aames shouted, and the judge agreed, but I was too angry to keep my mouth shut, so I told Hydigger that was ridiculous, the dumbest thing I ever heard. The judge, he told me to please not answer questions when an objection was sustained. Then he struck my comments from the record. Right then, I felt like a helpless child in the company of powerful men—just like always, I guess…

  “You controlled Dr. Don as well, didn’t you?” Hydigger asked, as nice as if he were offering me candy.

  “No. He was supposed to be helping me.”

  “But actually, you were helping yourself. You looked up to him.”

  “My sessions weren’t helpful. I could tell he was out for himself.”

  “But you went back to him.”

  “For my daughter’s sake. He thought I could be of assistance to her, if I understood her struggles better. She—”

  “It was after hours, though, when nobody was in his office.”

  “That’s when he said I should come.”

  “Three times. Nobody there. You knew you could find him alone, and seduce him.”

  “That’s what he claims, but I did no such thing. He worked on me, made it seem like he cared, got me to open up, then put the moves on me.”

  “We’re supposed to believe that, yet he has no record of your visits, he wasn’t billing you, and no one saw you there.”

  “That’s how it happened, though. It’s the truth.”

  “The truth was you wanted him.”

  “No. Far from it.”

  “Your marriage was on the rocks, and here’s a famous psychiatrist, a successful man, a caring individual, whom you thought you could seduce, by using your womanly wiles, your attractiveness. But when you failed, your husband sued him, and you ran scared. So you lied.”

  “Didn’t happen that way, no, sir. He roped me back in, and when I got there, he used everything he knew about me to get at me. Everything from my past, all the stuff that made me the mess I am. It was him that used me.”

  “Mrs. Loberg, may I remind you that you took an oath—”

  “Objection!” Ms. Aames said. “Argumentative. Counsel is lecturing the witness on the meaning of the truth.”

  “Your Honor, I didn’t even get my question out before Ms. Aames here rudely—”

  “Argumentative,” she repeated, ignoring that weasel Hydigger.

  “Sustained,” the judge said, and wow, you’d think he was about to take a nap, that judge was so calm-looking.

  I can’t with any certainty recall the rest of Hydigger’s questions, but the truth is, they didn’t matter anyway; that’s because, to my total surprise, it had dawned on me that this old gas-bag with the wicked boy eyes was doing the same age-old number on me that had worked so well for every man who’d ever controlled me, used me, hurt me, thrown me away like a piece of trash when he was done having his way with me.

  First he did his best to make me feel bad about myself, like I was the one caused all the trouble. Next, he’d highlight my guilt by isolating me. I was the liar, making all this up, and I had nothing, no proof, no one to back up my story. Only my word. Then, the fact that he’d done his business on me was all my fault. Because I was bad. Evil.

  Jesus spoke to me in that moment, the dark night of my soul.

  I love you. You are Mine.<
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  “Redirect,” the judge said, and Bradlee Aames stood up. She seemed tired and a bit angry, and I wondered why until I saw the hungry pack-dog eyes at the table of lawyers to her left. I wanted to kiss her when she asked her first question.

  “Defense counsel came at you with some tough stuff, Mrs. Loberg, but you seemed to settle in more, even when you were essentially called a liar. Why?”

  “Because I’m not lying. I have no reason to tell any tall tales.”

  “May I ask why you’re smiling?”

  Soon as she said that, I got embarrassed and lost the smile.

  “Well, because through all the ups and downs I’ve been through, all the mistakes I’ve made, I come to realize that when a man mistreats me, first he makes it out to be all my fault…”

  That’s when I started to cry. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I’d got to thinking about myself as a little girl, my first birthday party, how I wanted a pony ’cause I’d seen it in a magazine, some rich kid getting one for her birthday, all the guests, other kids, riding it around, having a high time. Back then we were still poor, so of course I didn’t get one. But I knew I wasn’t shedding tears over a birthday, I was crying over the loss of that little girl’s hopes and dreams, how life and the people she trusted just crushed those hopes and dreams…

  “Mrs. Loberg? Ma’am?” The judge was calling out to me, his gray eyebrows wrinkling.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Next, after I catch the blame, I get singled out, you know, to stand alone for my sins. All alone. Funny, how the men who use me, heaping their own shame upon me, they always stand close by, near enough to condemn me, but just far enough away to maintain a safe distance from their own wrongdoing.”

  I stopped and wiped the tears from my face again, blew my nose.

  “It’s not my problem,” I muttered.

  Ms. Aames heard me. “Please explain,” she said.

  I looked at her, at the nice judge, at that scum persecutor Hydigger, then Dr. Don, my true tormenter, before I spoke. Took a breath, privately thanking God I was still alive—miracle of miracles!

  “I may be a sinner, but I’m a victim, too. These gentlemen here, they may sit back, at arms’ length, and pretend otherwise. But there is a difference, and I—that man’s victim—cling to it every day. Dr. Fallon, he’s reaping what he has sown. Not me. This is not my doing.”

  “Nothing further,” Ms. Aames said.

  “Re-cross?” the judge asked Hydigger.

  Hydigger smiled. “Briefly. So, Ms. Loberg, you say you are a victim. But you suffer from borderline personality disorder, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dr. Fallon’s diagnosis was correct, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re mentally ill, aren’t you?”

  Ms. Aames seemed ready to object, but I shot her a discouraging glance.

  “I’m damaged goods, Mr. Hydigger. And if that’s all you got, I’ll sit here all afternoon. Ask another question.”

  Hydigger wasn’t expecting that. The judge, he was typing away. And Jesus? I knew He was smiling down on me, I just knew it.

  18

  ANDREW LOBERG

  Three times I circled the block the state building was on, unsure of where to park, not even sure if I should stop. I’d taken a Softail Deluxe right off the showroom floor, a black beauty with cherry-red pinstripe that was stealthy silent, so quiet that when I banked off Olive and carved a right onto Fourth, I unintentionally gave quite a jolt to a shirtless guy… squatting in the gutter to do his business in the road. Wow—desperate people, but I guess that’s the big city for you.

  Why do I have to be here anyway? I was asking myself as I peeled off a twenty to a parking lot attendant with these funky white-framed shades and an accent I couldn’t place, guy who promised to watch the Softail like a hawk while I was gone, yapping in another language on his cell phone the whole time he dealt with me. Yeah, I’ll bet. Glad I didn’t have to leave him the keys.

  Rue, Dr. Don, my dead marriage—what was the point of rehashing such a tired old story?

  An hour later I was on the stand, wishing I was anywhere else. That exotic lawyer, the brunette babe who knew how to ride, came to the showroom and stroked my ego before she more or less threatened me? Talk about an unseen detour, the bloom falling off the rose. She was hot, all right, but whatever sex-doll allure I’d responded to before was in serious remission. She still couldn’t repress her babe-factor, even with her dressy lawyer look, but now she was focusing on only one thing: busting my balls. And with each question, I could feel my sack shriveling.

  I did my best to resist.

  Yes, I hired a private investigator when I suspected Rue was fooling around. Every Saturday at 4:00 p.m., always some excuse or another. Come on, something was up. Yes, I went with him to Dr. Don’s office to see for myself. See what? Dr. Don and my wife, of course.

  “What did you see?” Ms. Hot Number asked me, zeroing right in on my discomfort.

  “Ms. Aames? I really don’t want to get dragged into this thing.”

  “You are in it already, sir. I subpoenaed you to testify, and the judge gave you an oath.”

  The judge, a nice enough old man, sitting up front like Santa Claus until now, well… he turned up the heat on me with a simple, three-word command.

  “Answer the question.”

  “Right. It’s, uh… hard to say what I saw. I mean, late in the day, looking across from a parking structure. There was a lot of sunlight, and uh, glare.”

  “You told the medical board’s investigator that you were alone. You said you told the private investigator to wait for you down below, in the parking lot, while you went up three flights of stairs to position yourself to see into the doctor’s window, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you wish to be alone?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “Please give us your best answer, your best recollection.”

  “Objection!” Fallon’s nasty old dog attorney shouted. “Cumulative, asked and answered! Only Ms. Aames didn’t like the answer she got, so she’s trying it again. Your Honor—”

  “Overruled,” the judge shot back. Apparently, he didn’t care for Fallon’s choice of legal representation any more than I did.

  Man, oh man, suddenly my head hurt like hell and my brow was dripping with sweat. The plan was to stay in a gray area, to say as little as possible, not get tied up in this thing. Then I made a huge mistake: as I was concocting a string of meaningless words, searching for a way to say I hadn’t seen a thing, I looked up and saw, for the first time, Rue, sitting out there in the gallery with her hair done up and pinned back in a way that made her look younger by some years, like a cute flight attendant with that pantsuit, and all. Clean and sober, and alone, those sad eyes fixed on her gutless ex, not even blinking. Hoping I would have the spine to do the right thing, but tempering that hope with bitter past experience.

  “What I saw?”

  “Yes. You still haven’t answered the question.”

  I shut my eyes, thinking: here goes nothing.

  “Two people, half-naked from the waist down. My wife, and that man.”

  I pointed at Dr. Don, who was busy counting the weave in the carpet.

  “Originally, I thought we could film them together. The investigator said he could come back next week with a rented cherry-picker, raise himself up with a video-cam and catch them in the act.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Same reason I left the private eye downstairs. I thought I could take it, but I couldn’t. Once I knew, all of a sudden, I didn’t want any more to do with it. With her.”

  I could still see Rue sitting back there, her chin up. Thing is, she wasn’t crying or falling apart and I’ve gotta say, it impressed me.

  The defense attorney, Heidegger, he really let me have it when he got his chance. I’d sued Dr. Don, and agreed not to talk about the case again. Boy, the state attorney jumped out of her ch
air when she heard that, telling the judge there was no such thing as a civil-case gag order, I was bound by the law and my oath to tell the truth, and so on. The judge made Heidegger knock it off, but really, he never stopped ragging me with his cross-examination. Made me out as an opportunist out only for money—sure, I said sarcastically at one juncture, I wanted to wreck my marriage and blow up the family as part of a master plan to net some bucks in a stupid lawsuit. But no one, not even the judge, could save me from the beating I took. It was just before lunch when I limped out of there, not looking back, that tough bitch from the attorney general’s office acting like she wanted me out of her sight anyway, which I didn’t quite understand. I’d done my duty and gave her what she wanted in the first place. So I waited outside, in the hallway, till she came out.

  “Well, so how’d I do?” I asked her.

  “Thank you for coming,” was all she said before she started to walk away.

  “Hey, hey wait!” I grabbed her by the arm, and when she whirled on me, a sheet of that straight long hair fanned out over her head like a halo. Her cheeks were high and perfect, but her eyes were jumpy up close. I got the hell back instinctively.

  “Doesn’t matter what I think about how you did,” she said. “All that matters is what the judge decides.”

  “You know, I almost didn’t come,” I said. “But I did. For Rue.”

  She waited for me to say more, and seemed disgusted when I didn’t oblige her.

  “For Rue,” she said. “Uh-huh.”

  Without another word she started to walk away.

  “What—that doesn’t count for anything?” I asked with open palms.

  “What do you want, a medal?”

  “Well, hey,” I said, trying to lighten things up, “if you’ve got one handy…”

  Apparently she had no sense of humor, because that’s when she stepped right up into my grill.

  “I’ve got one more question for you.”

  “Sure. Shoot.”