SEVENTEEN
They were having a parade. They were naked in the middle of the street. The banners they had were bright and up in the air, not down around their waists like they would be in a painting. He saw them, the strong, hairy, hard man bodies and the smiles. He chanted with them.
The East Village, they called it. East because it was like Eden, and Village because it was a primal place where people go around without clothes. He pulled off his clothes and followed with the others and went home with one of them and had sex with him and stabbed him and cut off his head and hands.
“I call now to the stand,” Lynda Barnett announced,
“Peter J Dance, brother to the accused.”
The rumble that went through the crowd had the sweeping momentum of a wave. Azra sat up with the rest of the people and shifted in his seat to get a better look at the man walking down the center aisle. He was tall and lean, with Azra’s build. Older by perhaps eight years, Peter Dance had a flat ring of black hair laurel-like around his head, and a shiny bald top. His eyes were haunted, his feet lagged behind him, and between slightly parted lips showed a row of stumpy teeth. His clothes hung on him as if he were a hanger instead of a man.
“I object, Your Honor,” said District Attorney Franklin, standing. “This witness was not on the defense’s list.”
Azra nodded in agreement.
“Your Honor,” Barnett explained, “I was unaware of this witness until late yesterday. The status of my client as an amnesiac leaves a great deal of doubt about his past. It has been a long, difficult process investigating that.”
“But, Your Honor, if this witness appeared just yesterday, how can Counselor Barnett be sure of his identity?”
“Counselor Barnett, you will provide the court with documentation as to the identity of this witness.”
Lynda Barnett nodded. Her head was bowed in thought behind her briefcase. The gold and green embroidery of her vest reflected sunlight beneath her chin, nostrils, and brows. It looked as if she were staring down into a treasure trove. She produced a folder of papers and approached the bench. “I would like to enter into the record these copies of Mr Dance’s identification. This packet includes, among other things, two birth certificates issued from Fort Atkinson Memorial Hospital, one for Peter James Dance in 1964 and another for his brother, William Bruce Dance in 1972, to the same parents.”
The judge received the documents and slipped on her reading glasses. She perused them, running her thumb over the embossed seals. Lips pursed, she said, “I’ll rule these admissible. Bailiff, please designate these Items 138 and 139 and enter them into evidence. I will review the rest of this packet later. On the basis of this evidence, I will allow Peter Dance’s testimony,” said the judge above her crescent-shaped reading glasses. Counselor Franklin said, “Your honor, I have had no time to prepare for this witness.”
“You can cross-examine on Monday. In the meantime, Mr Dance, will you please take the stand.”
Peter Dance took his place on the witness stand.
“For the record of the court, please state your full name,” said the bailiff.
“Peter James Dance,” said the man in quiet nervousness, adding afterward, “esquire.”
Judge Devlin quirked an eyebrow. “You’re a lawyer?”
“Um – no, ma’am.”
During the resultant ripple of amusement, the bailiff swore him in.
“Counselor, proceed with your questioning.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” said Barnett, beginning to pace. “Mr Dance. Mr Peter Dance, how old were you when you last saw your brother?”
The man blinked in thought, cleared his throat, and said, “Twenty-five, when Billy was seventeen.”
Azra watched the man like a hawk. Donna clutched his arm.
“So, you are eight years older?”
“Objection. Leading.”
“It’s simple mathematics.”
“Overruled.”
Barnett continued. “And how old are you now?”
“Forty-four.” The man gestured toward the defense table. “So you must be thirty-six, Billy.”
The public defender pressed. “And what had happened to Billy at seventeen?”
“Don’t know. He disappeared. Billy’d always been a problem. He didn’t live with us – with me and our stepdad – but in the boys’ school. Dad would bring him home sometimes, but not much. Then, at seventeen, Billy disappeared from Boys Town. Dad said he ran off and would be back. His friends said he’d been talking about joining the circus. I thought he was dead.”
“Why did you think he was dead?”
“He’d almost got killed five or six times before then. Our stepdad used to beat us pretty bad – Billy especially. He did more wrong than I ever did. Dad said Billy’d never live to graduate high school. Guess you showed him, huh, Billy?”
Judge Devlin said, “Will the witness please address his comments only to the counselor asking the questions?”
“Sorry, Judge,” Peter Dance replied, hanging his head. Then he looked up, wide eyes fixed on Linda Barnett. “I mean, uh, please tell the judge I’m sorry.”
Linda nodded, smiling despite herself. “You said ‘Billy did more wrong’ than you did. What kind of ‘wrong’
things did Billy do?”
“He was a little fag. That’s what Dad called him. Little Faggot.”
“Tell us about your stepfather,” Barnett said.
“Objection. What’s the relevance?”
“I’m attempting to establish Billy’s motives for running away.”
“Objection overruled. Continue, Counselor.”
“I still object. The question is vague.”
“I’ll restate. What did your stepfather do for a living?”
“He’d been a mechanic. Worked at J and C Garage. He called it Jesus Christ Garage.”
“Was he working there when Billy disappeared?”
“No. He’d been laid off three years. There was food stamps and public aid for a while, and he worked odd jobs. He used to beat us a lot then. Before, he wasn’t home so much and didn’t beat us so much. But he never beat us on Friday or Saturday nights, except on our feet. He didn’t want us to show bruises for Sunday.”
“When did your stepfather start calling Billy the Little Faggot?”
“After Dad got into the Klan.”
Through the hushed gasp from the spectators, Barnett continued. “When did he get involved with the Klan?”
“When I was twenty-two, so Billy must have been fourteen. That was just after he caught Billy sexing David Bergmeyer from up on the pavement. Fags and Jews. He beat both of them. The Bergmeyers tried to sue, but he burned them out. That was what got him in the Klan.”
“Did your stepfather have any other nicknames for Billy?”
“He used to call him, ‘Little Killer,’ or the ‘Little Motherfucker.’”
“Why?”
“Because he’d fucked up our mother. That’s why we were orphaned. Billy killed her by being born.”
“You said something about Billy joining the circus?”
“Well, yeah, the circus. But I knew what Billy really meant. He was talking about the service. I’d been in for two years, and Billy always said he wanted to go. He liked guns and stuff, and he said he wanted to join the Marines because it would be like being in the circus, only you got to shoot people.”
“So Billy joined the Marines at eighteen?”
“Right. That’s what we found out later, when he was twenty. We got this postcard from Baghdad.”
“So, he fought in the first Gulf War?”
“Objection. Leading.”
“Overruled.”
“Yeah – the good one. Desert Storm. He fought in that one is what the postcard said. The one and only postcard. We didn’t hear then for a year, and I tried to find out where he was stationed, but by then the Marines said they didn’t have no record of him.”
“Why didn’t they have any record?”
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“Objection. How can the witness speculate about the reason the Marines didn’t have records?”
“Your Honor,” Barnett said, “this is ridiculous.”
“Rephrase, Counselor.”
“Why did you think that the Marines had no record?”
“Stepdad said it was because Billy was gay. That was when ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ came in, so Dad figured they’d found out he was gay and so kicked him out and wouldn’t talk about him. We asked, and they didn’t tell.”
“Did you agree with your stepfather’s idea?”
“Well, I figured Billy might just plain be dead. I kind of hoped he was. He’d’ve been better off.”
“Why did you think that?”
“Because even if them sand niggers didn’t kill Billy–” Dance’s eyes grew wide. “No offense. When I said,
‘sand nigger,’ I didn’t mean people like you.”
“No,” Barnett replied, “I’m a regular nigger. But you were saying that if the Iraqis didn’t kill Billy…?”
“Yeah, if they didn’t, well, Dad was going to. He’d talked about it with his Klan friends. They’d planned to kill Billy.”
“Did your brother know of this plan?”
“I didn’t think so. That’s why when he disappeared the day they were going to kill him, I thought he was dead.”
“So, before you knew he’d joined the Marines, you thought maybe he’d been killed by your stepfather?”
“Yeah, and then after I found out he joined the Marines and disappeared, well, I thought maybe that was better.”
“Didn’t it bother you that your stepfather planned to kill your brother?”
Dance shrugged. “He was a faggot. I wasn’t allowed to care about him. I had a dream about him afterward, though.”
“I object. Relevance.”
“Overruled. Continue.”
“What was your dream?”
“I had this dream of what it was like when I was about ten and Jeffrey about seven and Teri about three and Billy about two, except that mom was still alive. Jeffrey and Teri got killed in a car accident on their way to the other home. Anyway, we were all in the living room, dressed up for church. My stepdad was there, too. He had on a gray suit, and Mom a knee-length orange dress, one of the flat kind from the seventies, and I had my red crushed velvet vest with the little gold chains across the buttons.”
“Your memory is very vivid.”
“It was the worst dream I ever had.”
“Continue.”
“And Jeffrey also had on the crushed velvet jacket but a pair of blue plaid pants, and Teri a little white dress she wore at Easter one year, and then Billy, two years old, was naked and standing at the end of the line.”
“Why was he naked?”
“Objection. Calls for speculation.”
“It was his dream, Your Honor.”
“Objection overruled. Continue.”
“I asked Dad that same question, ‘Why isn’t Billy ready for church?’ He said, ‘Oh, he’s ready. He’s going to be the burnt offering this morning.’ And as I looked at Billy, standing there, I saw he was already burned in a few places, his fingers kind of stuck together and his eyelids burned closed, and I realized it wasn’t just this Sunday but last Sunday and next Sunday and the next until he was all burned up.”
“Your Honor, I move that this whole dream be stricken from the record. It is an irrelevant, forty yearold fantasy.”
“Your Honor, I am trying to establish the environment from which my client came, not just the physical environment but also the social and emotional one.”
“I’m going to allow it. Mr Franklin, remember, you will get a cross-examination on Monday. You can address your concerns about the testimony then.”
“Mr Dance, you said the disappearance and possible murder of your brother did not upset you that much, since he was homosexual – in your words, a faggot.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Well, then, why did this dream upset you?”
“Well, ma’am, in the dream I got the idea he was kind of the queer savior.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Well, you know how the book of Hebrews says Jesus died once for all men, that his sacrifice was full and complete?”
“Yes,” Barnett replied, “in the tenth chapter.”
“Yeah, and it says ‘when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared for me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. By which all men are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all.’”
“Yes?”
“Well, since Billy wasn’t really a man, I figured maybe he needed to be a burnt offering for the sins of faggots, or maybe he was the Jesus for faggots, so when he died, they would all be saved.”
Lynda Barnett nodded, her soft-soled shoes pacing across the cold marble floor. “To conclude this examination, Your Honor, I would like to submit as evidence this old photo album, filled with forty-eight pages of pictures of life in the Keen household, including pictures of the boy Peter Dance and his younger brother, William.” She handed the album up to the judge and turned toward her seat. “No more questions.”
I sit in the interrogation room and page through the black-and-white ghosts of a life I had forgotten. They gave me photocopies of the album. They wouldn’t trust me with the actual evidence. The images in the book are made only more phantasmal by thin shadows and grain. Dark eyes become black wells. Faces bleach away to masks. Dirt and age add their defamations. There, that boy there with the disarming smile that shows no teeth, and the eyes down-turned and squinted against the sun from the white clapboards – that boy is me. And this one, too, who stands beside an old grave man in a cluttered room with twelve-foot ceilings. And that one, no more than a blur on the rusty playground slide, set in the depression below the walls of fieldstone and galvanized fencing. They are all me, or were me. They are all the embryonic hope that became this mature despair. My brother – the pictures of him show a cocky young man in uniform, home visiting from whatever base he was stationed at. I find one with him beside the old slide, something small and metallic glinting in a whitegloved hand. Could he be the same blasted figure I had seen testifying in court yesterday?
Fate had only bad things in store for the Dance brothers. My brother. I do not remember him, but I hate him. He tastes like poison. What once nearly killed us is ever after despised by every tissue of our bodies. I was wrong. He proves it. Those photos prove it. They bring old memories floating upward like swollen bodies in black, still water.
The puppy that wriggles in the grass next to my knee, hot-splotched by summer sun; the crooked stick braced outward from my body like a ruined sword, and caught still in its violent rush toward the tree trunk; the old rankle of white pickets beneath the overhanging backyard tree in which I hang as though daring the spikes to impale me; the angled bed in that tiny back bedroom where I lay, the blankets strewn unevenly across me so that a jammied bottom showed from the fold of quilts…
Me. Me. Me.
All my former memories were illusions, all my thoughts of angelic power. With each passing day of this trial, new ghosts rise to the seat of testimony to convict me – not of murders to which I have confessed, but of humanity and history, which I have for so long denied. Speakers, words, photos, visions.
They say I was an orphan. They say I was a homosexual youth from a dysfunctional home. They say I was a soldier. They say I was a prisoner of war. They say that now I am at least a very sick man, perhaps a very evil man.
And, worst of all, I am beginning to remember. I remember being in Abu Ghraib. I remember the beatings. I remember when the American soldiers came in and shot my guard in the head and got me out with his key. I remember the interrogations, the blank looks of amazement on the faces of the soldiers, the dark looks of greed on the faces of the g
eneral.
There was a phone call from the president – a well wishing, a chance to talk, to see if maybe I could be his poster child for Operation Iraqi Freedom. And after I was well enough to travel, there was the trip to the airport, when the convoy passed by soldiers emptying clip after clip of hollow-point rounds into a crowd of women in burkhas. I remember them going down in black fabric and blood and I remember the joke that the man in the Humvee beside me told: “What’s black and white and red all over? A penguin with diaper rash.” I began shouting for the soldiers to stop, and the man’s face fell. His face touched off an avalanche of frowns –
all scowling at their poster child gone wrong. Instead of a flight home, there was a flight to Guantanamo. Instead of freedom, there was a new interrogation room. Cells. Shackles. I remember the beatings. I remember lying so bloody and still they thought I was dead. I thought I was, too. I remember the body bag zipping up over me. I remember it all. But how can any of this be true? It is too close to what I had plotted with Derek. Did I half-remember it even then and think I was only concocting it?
How can it not be true? How can memories as vivid as these be made up by my mind without my even realizing it? There is a syndrome, a false memory syndrome, where people remember horrific, ritual abuse even though there was none. But which is worse, to have endured these torments, or to have invented them and believed them and fantasized about them?
Herbert Mullins. I’d been reading about others like me. He believed he was offering human sacrifices to nature to prevent California from falling into the ocean. He believed he did an otherwise heinous act for a divinely justified reason. And when describing the murder of an entire family, he told police that they had asked him to kill them, that they had volunteered to be sacrifices for the good of the world.
I’m no angel, but another Herbert Mullins. How strange, after all this time, to be realizing this only now. How strange, just before punishment is meted out, to become at last convinced of my own crimes and penitent of them, to become suddenly a different creature than the one who had committed the crimes. Donna didn’t say a word as Azra flipped through the photocopies of his life. He didn’t even seem to know she was there, even though she sat beside him and held his hand and hoped against hope that he would remember who he was. He did. He remembered. She could see it in his eyes. Where once there was only delusion, now there was a pit of grief.
Angel of Death Page 17
