I still wasn’t ready to go back down after Frank and I were through speaking, so I phoned Suzy to see how she was doing. She was by herself in her apartment, continuing to keep her distance. As soon as I said hello she began to cry.
“Oh, Mommy, it’s so awful,” she wailed. “I’m having such a bad time. I need to be with you.”
“But I’m in Washington, sweetheart.”
“Come home, please.”
“I can’t. I have meetings tomorrow. What happened? Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I can’t be around other people. I just can’t. I went to class today. Political science. The professor called the roll, okay? And when he got to my name he said ‘Spungen. No relation, of course, to Nancy Spungen, killed by Sid Vicious at the Chelsea Hotel.’ He thought he was being funny. He didn’t know. Some of the people laughed. I started to cry. That made everyone around me freak. I ran out. I just can’t be around other people.”
“Tomorrow you’re going to go right back into the classroom and tell that professor—”
“I can’t stand it, Mom! I can’t! What am I gonna do?”
“Maybe you should think about seeing someone.”
“You mean a shrink?”
“Yes.”
“No way. No!”
“Why?”
“Nancy went to shrinks. No way. I’m not Nancy.”
“I’m not saying you are, Suzy. Just because you need help doesn’t mean you’re Nancy. David’s seeing one. So am I.”
She said she’d think it over. When I got back to Philadelphia, Frank and I went to see her. We discussed the subject again and she grudgingly agreed to see a therapist.
Her problems began to come to the surface. Much of what bothered her was what plagued David—the conflict between her grief and her resentment. But in Suzy it ran much deeper. Nancy had heaped more abuse on her. There had been intense jealousy and rivalry between them. Suzy had often truly detested her older sister. At the same time, she had looked up to her and sought her approval. She still loved Nancy. And she wondered how much of Nancy’s influence guided her. Hers was a powerful struggle. It still is.
If Suzy and David had been able to communicate, they might have helped each other at this time. They were going through the same problems. But Nancy had driven a wedge between them. They did not have a close relationship.
Besides, Suzy was keeping all of us at arm’s length. With her therapist’s aid she began to understand why. Someone she loved had gone. It hurt. She was reacting to her hurt by pushing us away. A defense mechanism triggered revulsion when we tried to embrace her. After all, she loved us, too. She didn’t want to open herself up to being hurt again.
Sid was released from Bellevue after a couple of weeks. Toward the end of November he appeared at a preliminary hearing, at which he pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder. (First-degree murder in New York applies only to the killing of a police officer.)
The famous attorney F. Lee Bailey was retained to defend him. Bailey’s defense, the press speculated, would center around Nancy’s past history of drug abuse and attempted suicide in an attempt to prove she’d brought her murder on herself. This pained me. It meant that she, not Sid, would be on trial. She would be painted as someone who deserved what she’d gotten, just like a rape victim. Except a rape victim can be there to defend herself. Nancy wouldn’t be.
I didn’t think I’d be able to handle Nancy’s public crucifixion, especially since I might be asked to get up on the stand and help. I decided I would not go to the trial. I told Frank. He understood. He said he was unsure about himself.
“Can they make me go?” I asked our lawyer.
“If you get a subpoena,” he replied, “you have to go.”
“What if they make me testify?” I asked. “What if they ask me all sorts of awful questions about Nancy?”
“Worse comes to worse,” he said, “you put your hands over your face and start screaming, ‘Leave me alone! Leave me alone! My child is dead!’ And they’ll leave you alone.”
I didn’t think I could behave that way in public.
I began to worry more and more about the trial. It loomed ahead. It made it impossible for me to get on with my life.
In the beginning of December, Frank and I were asked to come to New York to be questioned by the new assistant district attorney assigned to the case, Allen Sullivan. Unlike his predecessor, he had prosecuted a number of major homicides and had the reputation of being a heavy hitter. Bailey’s presence for the defense necessitated such a man for the prosecution.
I asked our lawyer if he thought he should accompany us to the questioning. He said it wouldn’t be necessary.
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” he said. “You haven’t got anything to hide. I can’t see why you need an attorney with you.”
He was trying to save us money. That was nice of him. Unfortunately it was a mistake.
Sullivan was in his late thirties, tall and brusque. He immediately put us on the defensive. He made no effort to acknowledge our loss. Rather, he declared, “I’m going to question you witnesses separately. Which one of you wants to go first?”
Frank and I held hands tightly. We looked at each other, confused.
“Well? Speak up!” he commanded.
“We’d rather not be separated,” Frank said.
“You will be separated,” he insisted, glaring at us.
“We came here voluntarily,” Frank said. “We have nothing more to tell you than we’ve already said twice before. We’d prefer to stay together.”
“We’re going to stay together,” I said.
Sullivan looked at me, then at Frank. Then he threw down his pencil in disgust. “Okay. This time. But next time I separate you. Understand? Now, when was the last time you saw your daughter?”
Frank protested, “We’ve already—”
Sullivan cut him off. “I want the answers again,” he snapped, as if we were naughty children. He pointed a finger at us. “I want you witnesses to answer my questions,” he thundered.
Why did he keep calling us witnesses? Witnesses to what? We hadn’t witnessed anything. We were the parents of the victim. Why was he putting us in an adversary position? Why was he yelling at us?
We were sorry our lawyer wasn’t with us. We were intimidated and rather lost. We had no idea what our rights were. We realized Sullivan had a job to do, but we didn’t understand where we fit into it.
He threw questions at us for about two hours. He didn’t ask many that we hadn’t heard twice before. Unlike the police and his predecessor, however, he was not satisfied with the extent of our knowledge. If we didn’t know the answers, he pressed us, bullied us, belittled us.
“Has either one of you ever been arrested?” he demanded when he was through.
“No,” Frank said.
“Never,” I agreed.
“Positive?”
“Yes,” we said.
He eyed us skeptically. “I’m going to question you separately about that.”
He didn’t believe us!
“I’ll be in touch,” Sullivan said. “And then I’ll see you at the trial. April, probably.”
So many more months before this would be over!
“I’m not planning to come,” I said.
“You have to,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“You have to,” he repeated.
“I don’t want to.”
“Then I’ll subpoena you,” he said.
We limped out of there. When we got home, I checked with our lawyer to see if there was any way to avoid being subpoenaed.
“Yes,” he replied. “Stay out of New York. They can’t get you if you’re out of state.”
That was a relief, but it was small consolation. I was flabbergasted by our meeting with Sullivan. Prior to that, I’d always thought the district attorney’s office represented the victim. It doesn’t. It represents the state. Who represents the victim? Nobody. The suspect is
taken very good care of. He gets free counsel if he can’t afford it. His rights are vigilantly upheld and monitored. As for the victim, well, the victim has no legal rights. Nobody watches out for the victim’s family. Society places a very heavy burden on it. Too heavy. And even though, in retrospect, we needed a lawyer with us at our meeting with Sullivan, we would have been forced to pay for it ourselves. That hardly seems fair.
Still, it would have been worth it. Sullivan would have been less likely to treat us as he had. I have since spoken to many other parents all over America whose children were murdered. They have similar horror stories to tell about the way they were treated by prosecutors. Our experience with Sullivan is not the exception.
Why did he treat us that way? Maybe he was trying to prepare us for what it would be like to be grilled on the stand by F. Lee Bailey. If so, he should have explained himself. It would not take that much more effort to show some sensitivity. Maybe Sullivan was a fine prosecutor. Maybe he was a warm, caring human being who found it necessary to shield his emotions. Maybe he was under too much pressure to build a case. Whatever the situation, it was not necessary to treat us with such disdain and hostility. We were still reeling from the shock of our daughter’s violent death. The prospect of a lengthy trial was extremely painful. It would not be flattering to Nancy. It would keep us in the public eye. It would prolong the grieving period. The prospect of attending the trial was even more painful. A great emotional price would have to be paid. Some explanation for why this sacrifice was required would have been appreciated. We were given none.
I beg prosecutors to remember the other victims of murder—the victim’s family. There are a lot of us out there. More of us every day. We hurt and bleed, too. Our rights and feelings must be dealt with in a better way than they are now.
Sid stayed in the papers.
In the second week of December he was jailed again, this time for allegedly slashing the face of musician Todd Smith, brother of singer Patti Smith, with a broken beer bottle. The incident occurred at a rock club where the musician’s band was performing. Reportedly, Sid liked the looks of Smith’s girlfriend, a guitar player in the band. He gave her a lewd pinch and she complained to Smith. Smith told Sid to leave her alone. In response, Sid broke his beer bottle on a table and slashed Smith.
“He is hell-bent on living up to his image,” McLaren was quoted as saying.
Sid was arrested for the attack the following morning when he made his daily check-in with the police—a requirement of his bail. He wore a torn black T-shirt, black jeans, and boots.
“I doubt that he’ll be let out on bail again,” the papers quoted a police spokesman. “But he could be.”
His bail was revoked. He was sent back to Riker’s Island.
Again, we got a visit from the press corps. Again, we said nothing.
A few days later I was sitting in my office, staring out the window, when the phone rang. It was a secretary in personnel at Western Union where I had worked. She thought I’d want to know that a man who said he was with the FBI had phoned requesting background information on me. Her boss had read my personnel folder to the man over the phone—what I earned, weighed, did. Everything.
I was aghast. I phoned the FBI in Philadelphia. They said there was no reason for them to be involved in the Sid Vicious case. In addition, I was told they would never approach a company for a personnel file over the phone. They’d do it in person.
I called Sullivan in New York. He said he’d look into it and get back to me. He never got back to me.
I went home. David was there, but still I circled the house several times before having the nerve to pull into the driveway. When I finally did dart inside the house, I kept my coat on and my keys in my hand—just in case I had to make a run for it. David was upstairs in his room. I sat down at the dining room table, chest aching beyond belief. I heard a car door slam outside and I panicked. I took off out the back door, jumped in my car, and sped away. I had no destination in mind. Just away.
I ended up at my therapist’s office. I burst in. Fortunately she was there.
“You’ve got to give me something,” I begged. “I have to take something. I can’t stand it anymore! I’m losing my mind! Give me a pill!”
“No,” she said simply.
“Please! I’ve got to get rid of it! I’ve got to calm down! I can’t do it on my own. A pill please!”
“Sit down, Deb.”
“I’m begging you!”
“Sit down!”
“I don’t want to sit down!”
“Fine, then stand! You want to know why your chest hurts? Because your daughter is dead. That hurts. You’re feeling the pain. You have to feel it! And you have to stand it! That’s the way it is.”
I took several deep breaths, tried to calm myself. I sat down.
“No pills.”
“No pills,” she said. “You have to feel it sooner or later. It may as well be now.”
“Couldn’t we put it off? Until after the trial?”
“No.”
“Two months?”
“No.”
“One month?”
“I’m not going to bargain with you.”
“Will you do me one small favor then?” I asked.
“What?”
“Find me another mother whose child was murdered. Find me a woman who has gone through what I’m going through. I’d really like to talk to her. I’d like to find out how she survived.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll try. But offhand I can’t think of anyone.”
“That’s not very comforting.”
“All I mean is that I’ve never handled a murder before. I’ll find you somebody. I’m sure there’s somebody out there who knows what you’re going through. You’re not alone.”
I didn’t contradict her, but I felt certain she was wrong. Nobody else had gone through this. Nobody else had felt my pain.
I went home and made dinner and felt the pain. There was really only one way it would go away, I realized. It would vanish only if I were dead. Then I would be free of pain, at peace.
As I stood in the kitchen, chopping vegetables, I seriously wondered if I’d be better off dead. Then I remembered something Sid had written in his first letter. I found the letter, and the passage:
Thank you, Debbie, for understanding that I have to die. Everyone else just thinks that I’m being weak.
I did understand. I did see what he was talking about. The pain was too much. Only in death could one be free of it. Just as Nancy was.
Suicide? Me? Never. How would I do it? Stick a pistol in my mouth? Swallow a bottle of Drano? Where would I find the nerve?
No, I couldn’t do it. I had to survive the pain, that’s all. Suicide was not a practical alternative. Tantalizing, yes; realistic, no. No way.
I resigned from my job right around the holidays. I didn’t want to work anymore. I no longer had any desire to succeed in business. It simply wasn’t important.
I held on to a slim connection. I was a consultant one day a week. But the rest of the week was my own to do with as I pleased. Most of the time I sat around the house in my coat, keys in hand. I stared at the walls a lot. I was very lethargic, withdrawn into my own suffering. I also felt very isolated from Frank. We didn’t talk much now. I didn’t talk to my friends at all.
January was a very dreary month. It seemed the sun never came out. Life held no hope for me, no meaning. Only nightmares. Only pain. With each passing day my desire to be alive waned.
I thought about suicide again, though I didn’t mention it to Paula. She’d just get mad at me. No, I kept it to myself. And I began to write scenarios in my head. I began to fantasize my own death, just as I had Nancy’s. I checked into guns, called some shops I looked up in the Yellow Pages. You had to get a license in order to get a gun. It seemed too time-consuming and complicated. And it would be messy for whoever found me. Pills? There weren’t enough in the house. Poison? I carefully read the contents of all of the
cleansers and polishes in the house. There were several that could do damage. But would I be able to swallow enough of it?
Then one day one of our neighbors, a man I didn’t know, hanged himself. Successfully. He used the metal support for the garage door. If it held his weight it would hold mine. I took this as a message. Somebody was trying to tell me something. Hanging was the way to go.
There was no rope in the house, but I did find a length of heavy, rubber-encased wire. It would serve my purpose nicely. The only question now was when.
Tomorrow. Always, it was tomorrow. A part of me kept saying; Tomorrow you’ll be your old self again; tomorrow you’ll find a reason to be alive; tomorrow you’ll be ready to start living again. I lived from day to grim day, cut off from everyone. All I could think about was that I wanted my pain to stop.
On February third, the day of Sid’s death, I was at the bottom.
He’d been released on bail again from Riker’s Island. Reportedly, he celebrated that night with a party at a friend’s Greenwich Village apartment. He had a few beers and was feeling pretty good. At about midnight he decided to shoot up some heroin. It was too much. He died in his sleep later that night. Sid was found in bed, face up. It was ruled an accidental overdose. He was twenty-one years old.
And then the reporters were back on our front porch with their microphones and bright lights and minicams. They were ringing the doorbell over and over and over again, demanding a comment.
And then Sid’s mother was on the phone. I wondered how she’d gotten our unlisted number. I didn’t ask. She had a question. Could she bury Sid next to Nancy? No, I said. She ended up having him cremated.
And then I was certain it was time for me to hang myself. I was ready now, really ready. I’d had it. This nightmare was never going to end. I couldn’t take it anymore. No more. No tomorrows. I went out to the garage, got that piece of wire. I brought it back into the house, tied a noose around my neck, stood in front of the dining room mirror.
And then, as I stared at myself in the mirror, reality sank in. I realized I was not going to kill myself. I didn’t need to. It was over now. The odyssey was truly over. Sid was dead. There would be no trial. Nothing else could possibly happen. The press would leave us alone, forget about us.
And I Don't Want to Live This Life : A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder (9780307807434) Page 43
