His Name Is Ron

by Kim Goldman

  Ron, you developed into such a beautiful person. You had such energy and zest. I admire your strength and desire to go on when things got bad and always making out like a champ. You have a good soul and wherever you are now, I want to say I love you and I am very proud of you.

  I also want to say that both dad and I knew what a great person you were. However, we had no idea to what extent. You led a full life and touched many people and influenced them all. And that shows here today. I hope that wherever you are you realize how much people loved, admired, and respected you.

  For everyone that is here today, I can’t tell you enough how honored my family and I am to have such support and love from all of you. You know, this is a very tough time for everybody but if Ron were to tell us anything, he’d say, “It will be okay. We’ll get through it. Tomorrow’s another day. Be strong.”

  I know this sounds crazy to say but please don’t ever let Ron leave your memories. Please keep him close to your hearts, because you are close to his.

  Ron, thank you for being my brother, my best friend. I love you with every fiber that I have. Wherever you are, please put your arms around yourself and squeeze because I am giving you a hug and I need one too! Ronny, I love you.

  It was my turn. But I was stunned, overwhelmed by Kim’s words and my own grief. I felt paralyzed. Kim read the message that I had hand-printed onto a single sheet of paper:

  Ron,

  My love. My son.

  I’ve adored you since the day you were born. I have been proud of you and who you had become. You touched deeply every one whom you met.

  A good, kind, considerate person always there for others.

  I will miss being with you—but you will be in my heart and thoughts every day.

  God will watch over you.

  Some day we will hug and kiss again.

  Love, Dad

  I was upset that I was unable to say these words myself, and disappointed that I had not written more. I hoped that somehow I could make it up to Ron.

  After the chapel had cleared, we were asked if we would like a few additional minutes to say our last goodbyes.

  The casket had remained closed during the service, but they opened it for us now. Kim plucked a few roses from one of the flower arrangements and placed them on Ron’s chest, but she wanted to give him something more. She took the notes from her speech and mine and laid them carefully at Ron’s side. Then she leaned down, kissed his cheek, and whispered, “Goodbye.”

  I heard someone crying, whispering, “Ronny, Ronny …” Then I realized that it was me.

  We had planned to ask Ron’s friends from Brentwood, Jeff Keller and Mike Davis, to be pallbearers. Neither of them showed up for the funeral, so we had to quickly designate two others. Rob Duben walked in front. Michael and Brian, along with Jeff Tierstein, Pete Argyris, Mike Pincus, and John Baskett carried the coffin, and Jim Ziegler walked behind. Long afterward, I would swear that I had helped them carry the casket, but I did not.

  The walk to the grave site was surreal. I was engulfed in a fog of pain, mixed with an eerie floating sensation. I kept mumbling, “You’re not supposed to bury your kids. It should be me. It should be me.”

  I was amazed to see the gently sloping hill behind the grave site covered with hundreds of people who had been unable to fit into the tiny chapel. I saw a blur of faces—young people—people whom Ron had touched in the seven years he had lived in California.

  Tears streamed down Michael’s face as he forced his legs to keep moving up the hill, staring at the hole in the ground where Ron would be buried. In his mind he saw Ron serving a tennis ball, running on the beach, dancing with Grandma at Lauren’s Bat Mitzvah.

  Brian, Michael, and Lauren were crying inconsolably.

  Kim stared straight ahead and saw her friend Jana Robertson in the crowd. She began to focus on Jana’s weeping face.

  The rabbi spoke, but Kim could not listen. She just focused on Jana.

  We were handed black mourning ribbons. Kim just focused on Jana.

  She thought: I’m five years old again. I don’t understand what death is. I don’t understand any of this.

  Patti, Kim, and I held in our fists a portion of the dirt that had been dug from the grave site. We were to sprinkle it on top of the casket as it was lowered into the ground.

  Kim clenched the grains of soil in her hand, refusing to let them go. I took her hand in mine and tried to shake the dirt free, but she still would not release it. Finally, her fist opened and she let it go.

  The earth was ready to receive her brother, but Kim was not ready to let him go. As the casket was lowered, Kim thought she saw it slip and feared that it would fall. She lunged forward and hung over the side of the grave, her arms stretched, grasping toward her brother. She just wanted to be close to him, to make him safe. She felt my arms, pulling at her.

  The pallbearers quietly filed by and dropped their white carnations into the open grave. As Michael approached, he saw Kim on her knees, lunging for the coffin, as if she wanted to join her brother in eternity. He saw a part of Kim disappear that day, and he doubted that it would ever return.

  SIX

  After the funeral, Michael drove Brian and his dad back to their room at the Radisson Hotel.

  Brian wanted to drive, but Michael insisted. He thought: For days I’ve felt my life spinning out of control. I’ve lost my brother. I’ve carried his casket. I’ve seen my family in the worst kind of pain imaginable and there is nothing I can do about it. I just need to be in control of something, even if it is only the wheel of my car.

  What seemed like hundreds of people filled our house.

  While I was cold and dead inside, Patti, as always, was there for everyone else. She struggled with her obvious pain, but still managed to be available for each of us. I will never understand her strength, but I knew then, perhaps more than ever, just how much I loved her.

  Kim continued to cry. Well-meaning words of comfort did nothing for her. She and Ron had often talked about family and religion. Ron believed in God, whereas Kim was always filled with doubts, questions, and skepticism. Although Ron did not keep kosher, or attend services regularly, he enjoyed the traditions of our Jewish faith. They held a special meaning for him. Kim analyzed. Ron accepted. Now Kim thought: I am not an existential person. If I am here, sitting in this chair, that is exactly where I am. Don’t tell me I’m floating in some third dimension somewhere. I saw my brother in that casket, and I saw that casket go into the ground, and that’s where Ron is.

  Jeff Keller and Mike Davis, whom we had not seen at the funeral, now stopped by to pay their respects. They were accompanied by another young man from Brentwood, who drew Kim aside and said, in a cryptic tone, “I’m not like that. I’m not like the rest of them.” Kim had no idea what he was talking about.

  As we watched the taped coverage of Nicole Simpson’s funeral, which was held at about the same time as Ron’s, we were surprised to see Jeff and Mike there. Why had they gone to Nicole’s funeral when they were supposedly Ron’s friends?

  Others from Brentwood seemed more caring. Andrea Scott, a young woman Ron had been dating, came to the house to pay her respects and asked if she might have a moment alone with Kim. Kim was sitting in the living room, crying. Andrea reached into her pocket and pulled out a ring. “I think Ron would want you to have this,” she said, handing the ring to Kim.

  The ring had three intertwined circles. Andrea told Kim that when Ron had given it to her he had told her that one circle represented their first date, the second, their engagement, and the third, their wedding.

  “I know he was only kidding around,” Andrea confided, “but I thought his comments were so endearing—I just want you to have this.”

  Kim was touched beyond measure. She placed the ring on her finger, silently changing the meaning of the three intertwined circles to represent Ron, Dad, and Kim—always connected and bound to each other.

  On Thursday evening we were told that Simpson was
going to be arrested for the murders. We knew that this meant that the police had “probable cause” to believe that Simpson had committed the murders. In the midst of our grief, it was tempting to accept this as a judgment, and to vent our rage. But throughout this nightmare we had been too distraught to pay close attention to the details of the police investigation, and we did not wish to disrupt the process.

  “Let the system work,” I counseled. “We’ll go through the system. We’ll hear all the evidence.”

  We did think it was absurd that Simpson would be allowed to turn himself in the following morning at ten o’clock. That was a joke. Only if you are a celebrity or wealthy do you get to “turn yourself in.” We asked ourselves: Why don’t they just arrest him? Who is this person who gets the kid-glove treatment and makes these decisions for himself? No one suspected of with double murder should get special treatment.

  Throughout the week we had heard reports of people saying, “He’s O. J. Simpson, the sports hero, he couldn’t have done it.”

  Michael, as the family’s resident sports fan, had his own perspective on that. He loves to play sports and loves to watch events on TV, especially basketball, but he has never been one to put a sports figure on a pedestal. To Michael, a hero is someone who does a good deed, someone who gives to charities, someone who cares about other people. A hero risks his life to save another. A hero pulls a kid out of a burning building. A hero is a teacher who turns a kid’s life around. A hero is not someone who scores four touchdowns in a football game.

  On Friday morning, like much of America, we gathered anxiously in front of the television to watch the official arrest. The live coverage bounced between scenes at the courthouse and Parker Center Police Headquarters. Because the crime was a double homicide, the charge included “special circumstances,” and reporters discussed the impact of that. The only possible sentences for a person convicted of homicide with “special circumstances” would be life without parole—or death.

  Our frustration grew as the deadline was extended from 10:00 A.M. to 11:00 A.M. Then it was extended again, to 11:45. What was going on? we wondered.

  Finally, an extraordinarily tense-looking Commander David J. Gascon appeared on the screen and began to speak:

  “This morning, detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department, after an exhaustive investigation, which included interviews of dozens of witnesses, a thorough examination and analysis of the physical evidence both here and in Chicago, sought and obtained a warrant for the arrest of O. J. Simpson, charging him with the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman.

  “Mr. Simpson, in agreement with his attorneys, was scheduled to surrender this morning to the Los Angeles Police Department. Initially that was eleven. It then became eleven-forty-five. Mr. Simpson has not appeared.”

  There were audible gasps from those assembled as Commander Gascon continued: “The Los Angeles Police Department, right now, is actively searching for Mr. Simpson. The Los Angeles Police Department is also very unhappy with the activities surrounding his failure to surrender, and we will be further looking into those activities, including anyone who may have intervened on his behalf…. Mr. Simpson is a wanted murder suspect. Two counts of murder, a terrible crime. We need to find him. We need to apprehend him. We need to bring him to justice. And we need to make sure that we find him as quickly as possible.”

  And so the supposedly great O. J. Simpson, the sports hero who “couldn’t have done it,” was now a fugitive from justice.

  I thought: If you’re not guilty, you don’t have to flee. You have nothing to fear if you’re not guilty. Why do you flee if you’re an innocent man?

  If I were in his shoes and I were innocent, they would have to tape my mouth shut, put a muzzle on me, and tie my hands down to keep me from ripping the tape and muzzle off and screaming “I’m not guilty!” I would demand a lie detector test. I would invite every expert in the land to witness it and want to take the test on national television in front of the world. I would never stop crying out, “I am an innocent man!”

  But I would not run away.

  Simpson’s long-time friend Robert Kardashian appeared on the screen, reading what was described by some reporters as a suicide note. It did not sound like a suicide note to us, and suicide was the last thing that we wanted to happen. All of us desperately wanted this man to stand trial; we were certain that the American justice system would find the truth.

  The phone rang. One of our neighbors informed us that Channel 2 had spotted the fugitive on the freeway. He was being driven by a friend, A. C. Cowlings, in a white Ford Bronco. Reporters said that Simpson was hidden in the back. They said that he had a gun.

  Kim began to pace.

  We watched intently. The vision of people lining the overpasses, holding signs, urging him on, nauseated us. They were rooting for an accused murderer! I said, “These people are warped.”

  Michael raged, “Wait a minute! What is this? It’s not normal. He’s a fugitive. He ran from the cops. Catch him and haul him to the police station!”

  Kim thought: Just get him in jail. Lock him up. If it were anyone else, they would have blown him away by now.

  Instead, twenty police cars surrounded the white Bronco, following it at a methodical pace. Time seemed suspended. We sat immobilized in front of the TV screen. We had planned on going to Friday night services at our temple, but none of us was going to move until this man was in custody.

  As word of this unbelievable drama spread, our house once again filled with friends and neighbors. Nobody left the room.

  Melanie Duben held Lauren’s hand. Lauren thought: Oh my God, what is going to happen? If he shoots himself, we’ll never find out exactly what happened. He might be the only person who knows.

  Kim realized that she had chewed through the skin of her lower lip.

  I paced like a caged animal.

  Someone in the room yelled, “He’s such a coward he can’t even shoot himself.”

  “No,” Kim said quickly, “then we’ll never know.”

  The chase continued until the macabre caravan reached Simpson’s Brentwood estate. By now it was dark. Helicopter news teams provided live coverage from overhead. The white Bronco sat in the driveway. Hundreds of supporters gathered outside the gate chanting “Free O.J.” and rocking police cars. The LAPD Special Weapons and Tactics team surrounded the house. Cowlings spoke to hostage negotiators. For nearly an hour the fugitive sat in the Bronco, cradling a blue steel revolver and demanding to speak to his mother. He finally put his gun down and emerged about 8:50 P.M., carrying a framed family photo. He entered the house, used the bathroom, drank a glass of orange juice, and called his mother before finally being transported by police motorcade to Parker Center for booking.

  Sunday was Father’s Day. Over the years, Ron and Kim always pooled their money on a gift for me and went together to pick out a card. As they got older, the cards became more personal and meaningful, and were always a special treat for me.

  This Father’s Day was very different. Kim walked into a drugstore and began to peruse the card selection. “I was mortified,” she said. “Most of the verses spoke of the impact a father has on a son, dreams for the future, passing on the lessons of life, and gratitude for the years gone by. How could there be a Father’s Day card to fit this empty, sad, grief-stricken reality? I was immobilized. I didn’t know what to do.”

  She finally settled on the card that she would give me. Then she found one that she felt Ron would have chosen. She bought them both.

  “Shock does funny things to you,” she said later. “A part of me was convinced that Ron would thank me for buying the card and sign it himself. A part of me knew that was insane.”

  Later, at home, she signed her card. Then she wrote Ron’s name on the one she had selected for him. She had only three letters to scrawl, but it seemed to take forever.

  Shortly after we had moved to Los Angeles, Ron and Kim had bought us a lemon tree as a wedding presen
t. We planted it in the backyard.

  For seven years it had never bloomed.

  This year it did.

  SEVEN

  Four of us—Patti, Kim, Lauren, and I—drove to 11663 Gorham, in Brentwood. Michael could not bring himself to come along. He had been there before during happy times. He did not want to walk into apartment #3 ever again.

  We felt very strange being there, and purposely left the door ajar.

  Ron’s dark slacks and white shirt, the clothes he had worn during his last evening of work, were still hanging on the bedroom door. Kim and I put them on hangers.

  The work “uniform” of simple black slacks and a plain white shirt was perfect for Ron; he was color-blind. On mornings long ago, back in Chicago, when Ron was ready to head off for high school, he sometimes appeared dressed in what Kim called “the most godawful combinations.” She would shake her head and command, “Ron, go back upstairs,” and then tell him what shirt and sweater would go well with a particular pair of pants. Ron always took the razzing with a good-natured grin.

  We made arrangements with the landlady to leave the water bed and a few other things, because none of us felt up to moving large pieces of furniture. Patti spotted a few pop-open water-bottle caps. She carries water with her constantly; she quietly slipped them into her pocket. Working quickly, we shoved everything into cardboard boxes, crying as we packed up kitchen utensils, clothes, and all the minutiae of Ron’s existence.

  There were a thousand little details to attend to, small fragments of Ron left dangling in the wind. We found a dry cleaner’s receipt and realized that we would have to stop there to see if Ron had left clothes to pick up. His checkbook reminded us that we had to close out his account.