by Owen Thomas
“Your Honor, the Board of Education does not have any additional witnesses to call in its case in chief. However, we do wish to reserve the right to question Mr. Johns as a rebuttal witness following the close of his case. And, as to that, your honor, we would object to any witness called by Mr. Johns for lack of notice as required by the rules.”
“Very well. Your objection is noted. Mr. Johns, I note that you have not filed any witness list with the court, is that correct or am I mistaken?”
I stand. “That is correct. That was my mistake. I… I’m not a lawyer. I’ve been kind of dealing with a lot lately. It … that’s my fault.”
Archoni looks at me, thinking. Someone outside has turned up the amplifier.
Can you hear me now?!
The crowd roars from below. Archoni is clearly annoyed and raises his voice.
“Mr. Johns, I’m afraid Mr. Etus is correct. You are required to provide advance notice of the witnesses that you intend to call.”
“I did not receive notice of their witnesses.”
“Your Honor, as I have explained before, we provided everything to Mr. Johns as required by law. It’s not our fault if he is not going to open his mail.”
“Thank you, Mr. Etus, you may be seated. Mr. Johns, I will permit you to call one witness, so choose carefully. I am not waiting. If that person is here and willing to testify, then you are in luck. If that person is not here, or not willing to testify, then you are out of luck. I will note Mr. Etus’ objection in advance. And I will remind you both that I am perfectly willing to disregard all testimony that I think is procedurally unfair.”
I look down at Glenda. She shrugs and points to her screen.
U R sitting about as good as U could possibly expect. What the hell else is there to prove? Don’t call anyone. Send Archoni the message that U R not concerned about the Board’s evidence.
I turn and face the gallery. I look for the students. It is disconcerting to have so many faces staring back at me. Eventually, the mob resolves into individuals. Here is Becca. There is Brian. Todd. Cyndee. Here is Taren. They are attentive. Wary. We are back in the classroom. They keep their hands down, eyes to the floor, worrying that I will call on them for the answer. Only this time the question is not, how do we know what happened to John Kennedy or what was the historical contribution of Helen Keller or what does it mean that Woodrow Wilson was a white supremacist and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. This time, the question is, what did I actually say in our history class? Have we been listening to fact or opinion or outright lies?
In the far back-right of the gallery, behind where Mae used to be sitting, I spot Kashawnda Davis. Her blouse is a royal purple with ruffles around the neck. It is a little small for her doughy torso. I see a glint of silver on each lobe. She can tell that I am looking. She glances away.
How hard would it be to cross-examine Kashawnda Davis and show the judge how easily my words to these students have been twisted and stripped of context? Kashawnda, do you remember our discussion about Jesus? Did I bring up Jesus, or was it you who brought up Jesus when Brent brought up the subject of evolution? Remember us talking about the Bible as an historical document? About the difference between the Rapture and a raptor? Remember how angry you were when I suggested that Jesus was a Jew? When I suggested the he might have been Black, like you?
Yes. Kashawnda Davis it is. Heads start to turn, one-by-one, following my gaze.
Kashawnda’s mother is next to her. She puts her arm over her daughter’s shoulders, perhaps in reaction to the mounting attention. Her dark fingers embed themselves into the purple fabric of Kashawnda’s sleeve. Kashawnda hazards a slow, careful look. She’s terrified.
I realize, suddenly, that this is not something I can do. To win would be to lose. It is the same with all of them. I could never teach them anything ever again. There is an unspoken trust between student and teacher. It is the educational equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath. The Socratic Oath. Which is simply that the dialogue shall not hurt. The teacher’s light upon ignorance shall not be made to blister. I’d rather call no one.
Besides, I know that look. She is not terrified of what I will think of her answers.
Immediately in front of me, Ben is trying to peel an orange. He is in his own world of concentration. The rind comes off in small pieces, which he puts one-by-one back into his satchel. Every success comes with a sharp jerk of his arm. Every other jerk brings his elbow in close proximity to Chuck North’s abdomen. Chuck is looking at the orange like he wants to tear it open.
I decide to tell Judge Archoni that I do not intend to call any witnesses. Before I can turn, a man in the back row stands. My father. He makes his way to the aisle and then proceeds calmly to the gate. He pushes it open and heads for the witness stand. He does not look at me as he passes.
Ben looks up. He gasps and looks at me and leaps to his feet, waving his orange.
“Dad! Daddy-O!”
Now he looks at me. Nods. My voice comes from a will not my own.
“Your Honor, I call as my witness Hollis Johns.”
Dad raises his right hand and waits. Judge Archoni clears his throat.
“Sir, do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?”
“I do.”
“Please be seated, sir, and state your full name for the record, spelling the last.”
He sits. He is an older version of the picture I carry around in my head. The hair is always somehow thinner than I imagine. The skin of his face paler, more waxen. But I can see a younger version still in that familiar form. The shoulders. The frame. The posture. The reach of the arms. My father used to be a champion collegiate swimmer. Even the face. The line of his nose in profile. The eyes. There is a young man still inside. Like he could start all over again from the beginning.
“Leonard Hollis Johns.”
As my father spells his name and recites the address of the place in which I was raised, my mind grapples for his purpose. I have no idea what I am supposed to ask him or why? I have no idea what, besides humiliation, this is supposed to accomplish. I know only that he is here and that it has been a long time in coming.
“Mr. Johns?”
We both look up at the Judge.
“The younger Mr. Johns, I suppose I should say. The witness is yours.”
We look at each other for a second or two, he calmly waiting, and me wanting to turn on my heels and leave.
“Dad.”
“David.”
“Hi Dad!” My brother’s excited voice pops up from behind.
“Hey there, Benny. Have a seat now. Keep quiet.”
There is nervous laughter from the gallery. The awkwardness is palpable. The crowd outside roars, as if the entire city has packed itself into the courtyard below.
“Well. Here we are,” I say, knowing nothing of how to begin.
“MmmHmm,” he nods slowly. Confirming. “Here we are.”
Silence.
“So… how ‘bout them Buckeyes?”
“They’re going all the way this year, kiddo.” He looks up at Judge Basil Raymond Archoni as if they are old friends. “Aren’t they Judge?”
Archoni smiles good-naturedly. “What if I told you I graduated from Penn State?”
Dad laughs and crosses his legs. He purses his lips in that inimitable way of his, like he is enjoying something private in the exchange. “I’d say it’s never too late to be forgiven, Your Honor.”
There is open laughter behind me. Someone claps.
“I’d say that A.J. Hawk and Tony Smith will make a believer out of even the most loyal Penn State alum.”
“True enough, sir,” says Archoni. “True enough.”
Dad wags a jesting finger. “Although the very fact that the Penn State Lions play in Beaver Stadium should have been more than enough to suggest the error of your allegiance from the very beginning.”
The gallery hoots. Now severa
l people are clapping. Judge Archoni allows himself a laugh, swatting the back of his hand at the rest of the courtroom in mock dismissal. An acknowledgement that he is hopelessly outnumbered. Dad sticks in the rubber knife.
“After all, a lion without a proper den may as well be a Buckeye.”
The only ones in the room not openly laughing are Melvin Etus, Principal Robertson, and Chuck North, each of whom stare sourly into space.
“Verily, I am saved,” says the Judge, bowing his head slightly to general applause. Ben too is on his feet clapping and bouncing and soaking in the sudden change in vibration. Even Walter Green, for all of his earlier righteous indignation and certainty that I, David Johns, am what’s wrong with this world, is laughing. In all of five minutes, as casually as I might open the morning newspaper, my father has conquered the room.
The moment passes and the levity slips back into an awkward silence. The mood of the room readjusts reluctantly and everyone waits for the change to complete itself, like clouds scudding in to cover an errant patch of blue sky. We all listen to the masses chanting outside.
Turn it up! Turn it up! Turn it up!
“Dad… you’ve heard all of this. The testimony?”
“MmmHmm.”
“And did you know any of it before today?”
“Not the details. No.”
“You’ve never seen me teach.”
“No.”
“You do not know any of the other witnesses?”
“No.”
“You’ve never set foot in Billy Rocks?”
“No.”
“What is it, Dad, that you want me to ask you? What do you have … to offer?”
He is thinking. Staring into that secret middle-distance of his. How many times have I been here? There are clouds in the wine. He is working on something and we all must wait for it.
Hollis? Hollis?
MmmHmm.
He asked you a question. Did you hear?
MmmHmm.
David, let me know when he decides to answer. I’m starting on the dishes.
“Dad…” He looks up. Nods.
“I listened with interest at the exchange between Mr. Etus and Detective North. About the Vanguard Academy.”
“Okay. What about it?”
“Detective North testified that he did not place much specific importance on the fact of your expulsion for…” he pauses, choosing his words. “For sexually assaulting a young girl. Charles Compson’s daughter.”
The words lodge themselves in my heart.
“I don’t think he said…”
“He did not use those words. But that is the implication left on the record. That when you were a fifteen-year old boy, you sexually assaulted a younger girl. That there was a careful inquiry into the facts, followed by a reasonable conclusion of your guilt, followed by your immediate expulsion, a lenient punishment given the offense, but predictable given your age. Anyone reading the transcript of this hearing will understand those to be the facts. History has been examined, interpreted and recorded in this very room. It is solidifying into hard, cold reality as we speak.” He points to the gallery. “They are all witness to it. They will go home tonight and repeat it excitedly over dinner. The woman in the back with the notepad will find a way to work it into tomorrow’s edition of the Dispatch.”
Everyone in the gallery rotates in their seats. A woman with glasses and a head full of black curls looks up, startled, and then back down at her lap, busily scribbling.
“The point of interest for everyone will not be whether Detective North found this information to be relevant or irrelevant to his investigation. The point of interest will be the fact itself. The Board of Education will decide that had they known of this aspect of your history, it never would have hired you in the first place, and that will become their new argument to justify your termination. If not now, as a part of this hearing, then eventually. Someday. At the next opportunity.”
Robertson leans in toward Etus and whispers. Etus nods.
“More importantly, this episode will never fall away into the irrelevance that you pretend. It will define you. You will keep going back to it. You will keep playing out this drama forever until you can either resolve it or it devours you.”
I can only look at him. I can feel Judge Archoni’s eyes. But I am speechless.
Turn it up! Turn it up! Turn it up!
“So,” he says, “maybe you want to ask me what I remember.”
“Objection. Your Honor, this is highly…”
“Overruled. But, Mr. Johns the younger, and with due respect for the fact that you are not a lawyer, the question-answer format is highly preferred in this sort of thing.”
“Yes Judge.” I nod and square myself to the witness stand. A deep breath. “Mr. Johns, you heard the testimony about my expulsion from the Vanguard Academy.”
“I did.”
“And is it your recollection that I was expelled for … for improper sexual contact with a younger girl? Mr. Compson’s daughter… I mean, his youngest daughter.”
“That is not my recollection. In fact, I know differently.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“For… for how long?”
“Since the day you told me that you had done no such thing.”
“But…”
He waits. They all wait.
“You have a follow up question perhaps?” asks Archoni.
“Why … what do you understand to be the reason I was expelled?”
“You were expelled, David, because you had the poor judgment to put yourself in a compromising situation and Charles Compson pounced on the opportunity. You all but handed it to him.”
“I… in what way… I mean what is your understanding as to why he would…”
“Because you were unlucky enough to catch the man with his pants down. Literally. Having sex on the grounds of his vaunted academy with someone not his wife.”
Etus is suddenly on his feet and Archoni holds up a hand to stop the testimony. It seems to be a matter of instinct for him to object any time an allegation is made against any school administrator of any school. He stands silent, thinking. He sits down without a word, perhaps realizing that it is not his responsibility to defend the Vanguard Academy from attack, at least not here and now.
Salacity has the gallery buzzing. As Etus sits, Archoni lowers his hand.
“How did you… how do you know that?”
“Charlie Compson told me. That’s how. Not ten days ago at the health club.”
“Your honor,” says Etus from a half-standing position.
“Yes, yes, I know. Hearsay. We’ll all survive, Mr. Etus. Objection noted.”
“He… told you? Mr. Compson?”
“You had to go, David. He needed you out of there. You were a threat. And you handed him the opportunity.”
“So… then, you do not believe I did anything… improper.”
“I think you exercised the judgment of a fifteen-year old. But that’s no crime. At least I hope not. Because we all exercise the judgment of fifteen-year olds. I sure do.”
“Is there… anything else that you, uh, remember?”
“I remember that you were keeping the girl company. She was upset. She kissed you and Alice Compson saw it happen. I remember how insistent you were that nothing else happened and that it was not your idea. I remember how upset I was. How embarrassed I was. Because Charles Compson was a very important client of mine. Because my reaction was all about me.”
It’s like finding cold water in the desert. I cannot get enough.
“What else?”
“I remember that when Charles Compson told me what happened, he sounded more relieved than angry. I remember that there was never so much as a hint of a police inquiry or a civil suit. I remember thinking that if anyone had sexually assaulted my daughter I would have never settled for expulsion and a goodbye handshake. I remember thinking that Charles Compson did not want to push the issue into a
thicket of questions. I remember thinking that it had been my fault in the first place for making you go to that school. I remember… well,” he looks away, examining his hands. He twists his ring. Looks back. “That’s probably enough. You did nothing to deserve expulsion.” He looks up, different somehow. “I’m sorry, David. If we are going to put all of this on the record, then let’s put that on the record too. I’m sorry.”
Turn it up! Turn it up! Turn it up!
I turn and walk back to the table, seeing but not seeing. Hearing but not hearing. Forgetting to tell the Judge that I have nothing more to ask. Not caring that the lump in my throat threatens tears in front of my students. I feel, suddenly, inexplicably, cut free as if from a sunken anchor, scraping against the bottom of the ocean.
I am rising. We were made to float.
Turn it up! Turn it up! Turn it up!
“Mr. Etus?”
“Your Honor, the Board of Education objects to the entirety of Mr. Johns’ testimony which was nothing but inadmissible hearsay and character evidence. Furthermore, this is unfair surprise, Judge. We have no way of … nothing he has said can be verified. As far as I can tell, he is simply repeating what his son told him at the time. He has no independent knowledge of the events in question as to the Vanguard expulsion, let alone any of the events that are actually relevant in this matter. We ask that the entire testimony be stricken from the record.”
Judge Archoni takes a moment to write something on his pad. He looks up at Melvin Etus.
“No, Mr. Etus. I’m not striking anything. I do not know what, if anything I will actually factor into my decision, but I’m not striking anything. As I recall, you were the one that put the Vanguard Academy issue on the table as rank character evidence through a witness with no independent knowledge. Fair is fair. If you get to bring it up, they get to comment. I am inclined to conclude that nothing about the incident is remotely relevant to the real issues in this matter but Mr. Johns – elder and younger – were understandably concerned about the state of the record on this point. Now, if you would like to cross-examine Mr. Johns, then that is certainly your right.”
