Lucky

  I don't remember what I wore, only that Gallagher, who was known on campus for flamboyant dress and just the right hat, wore a tailored suit and sensible shoes. Seeing her hemmed in this way, literally, made me know she had prepped for battle. She knew how the outside world judged poets. I know I wore something appropriate. In the halls of the courthouse we looked like what we were: a coed and her youthful mother figure.

  My greatest fear was the possibility of seeing Gregory Madison. Tess and I walked through the halls of the Onondaga County Courthouse with a detective from the Public Safety Building. He was meant to guide us to the correct courtroom, where I would meet the attorney chosen to represent the State. But I had to use the ladies' room and he had only a vague idea where it was. Tess and I went off in search of it.

  The old part of the courthouse was marble. Tess's low heels clicked against this in a staccato beat. We finally found the bathroom, where, fully clothed, I sat in a stall and stared at the wooden door in front of me. I was alone, however briefly, and I tried to calm down. The walk from the Public Safety Building and into the courthouse had left my heart in my throat. I had heard the phrase before but now I literally felt as if something thick and vital were jammed in my throat and thumping. Blood rushed to my brain and I put my head down, trying not to heave.

  When I emerged I was pale. I did not want to look at myself in the mirror. I looked at Tess instead. I watched her readjust two decorative combs on either side of her head.

  "There," she said, happy with the way they set. "Ready?"

  I looked at her and she winked back at me.

  Tricia was standing with the detective when we returned. Tricia and Tess were a study in opposites. Tricia, who represented the Rape Crisis Center and signed her notes to me "In sisterhood," was the one I didn't quite trust. Tess was my first experience of a woman who had inhabited her weirdness, moved into the areas of herself that made her distinct from those around her, and learned how to display them proudly. Tricia was too interested in drawing me out. She wanted me to feel. I didn't see how feeling was going to do me any good. Onondaga County Courthouse was not a place to open up. It was a place to hold fast to what I knew to be the truth. I had to work at keeping every fact alive and available. What Tess had was mettle. I needed this more than an anonymous sisterhood; I told Tricia she could go.

  Tess and I sat on a wooden bench outside the courtroom. It reminded me of the benches in the closed-in pews at St. Peter's. We waited for what seemed like hours. Tess told me stories about growing up in Washington State, about the logging industry, about fishing, and about her partner, Raymond Carver. My hands were sweating. I had a short bout of uncontrollable shaking. I heard less than half of the words Tess said. I think she knew this. She wasn't actually speaking to me, she was singing a kind of lullaby of talk. But, eventually, the lullaby stopped.

  She was irritated. Looked at her watch. She knew she couldn't do anything. A diva on campus and in the poetry world, she was just a small woman with no power now. She had to wait it out with me. Our lunch treat seemed very far away.

  Since that day, if I am made to wait long enough for something I dread, my nervousness dissipates into a steely boredom. It is a mind-set and it goes like this: If hell is inevitable, I enter what I call trauma Zen.

  So by the time ADA Ryan, assigned to the case that day because ADA Uebelhoer was in court with another matter, walked up to introduce himself, Tess was silent and I was staring at the elevator six feet away.

  Ryan was a young man in his late twenties or early thirties. He had reddish-brown hair in need of a comb. He wore a sort of nubby sport coat with suede elbow patches, which seemed more in place on the campus I'd just left than inside a courtroom.

  He called Tess "Mrs. Sebold," and, after being corrected and informed that she was one of my professors, he grew flustered. He was embarrassed and impressed. He stole little looks at her, trying both to include her and figure her out at the same time.

  "What do you teach?" he asked her.

  "Poetry," she said.

  "Are you a poet?"

  "Yes, actually," Tess said. "What do you have for our girl here?" she asked. I wouldn't understand it until later, but the ADA was flirting with Tess and she, swiftly and with a skill developed from experience, deflected him.

  "First up, Alice," he said to me, "you'll be happy to know that the defendant has waived his right to appear."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means that his attorney has agreed not to contest identification."

  "Is that good?"

  "Yes. But you still have to answer any questions his attorney has."

  "I understand," I said.

  "We're here to prove it was a rape. That the act with the suspect was not consensual but forcible. Understand?"

  "Yes. Can Tess come with me?"

  "Quietly. Don't speak once you walk through that door. The professor will slip into one of the seats in the back near the bailiff. You'll approach the stand and I'll take it from there."

  He went into the courtroom doors to our right. Across from us, a group of people got off the elevator and started walking toward us. One man, in particular, took a good, long look at both of us. This was the defense attorney, Mr. Meggesto.

  A while later, a bailiff opened the door of the courtroom.

  "We are ready for you, Miss Sebold."

  Tess and I did as Mr. Ryan had instructed. I walked to the front of the courtroom. I could hear papers shuffling and someone clearing his throat. I stepped into the witness stand and turned around.

  There were only a few people in the room and only two rows near the back, which composed a gallery. I saw Tess to my right. I looked at her once. She gave me a "go get 'em" smile. I didn't look her way again.

  Mr. Ryan approached me and established my name, age, address, and other vitals. This gave me time to adjust to the sound of the court reporter's machine and to the idea that all of this was being written down. What happened to me in that tunnel was now something I would not only have to say aloud, but that others would sit and read and reread.

  After asking a few questions about how the light was that night and where the rape took place, he asked me the question he had warned me I would have to answer.

  "Can you tell us in your own words what happened at that time?"

  I tried to take my time. Ryan frequently interrupted my account. He asked about the lighting again, whether there was a moon out, whether I struggled. He wanted details of whether blows struck were open-handed or close-fisted, asked whether I feared for my life, and questioned me about how much money the rapist had taken from me, and whether I had given it willingly or not.

  After I described the fight outside the tunnel, his questions turned to the events inside the amphitheater.

  "Describe to me, from the time he took you into the theater, what force he used and what you did prior to the act of sexual intercourse that occurred."

  "First he brought me up to his face with his hands around my neck and kissed me a couple of times and then said to take my clothes off. He tried to take my clothes off first. He couldn't get my belt undone. He told me to do it and I did."

  "When he told you to take your clothes off, was that before or after he told you he would kill you if you didn't do what he told you?"

  "After--and I was bleeding at the time--my face wasn't in the best of shape."

  "You were bleeding?"

  "Yes."

  "From falling down?"

  "From falling down and him hitting me and smashing my face."

  "Prior to the act of sexual intercourse you described, he struck you?"

  "Umm-hmm."

  "Where did he strike you?"

  "In the face. I couldn't breathe for a while. He kept his hands around my neck, he scratched my face. Also, he just generally punched me around when I was on the ground and he was sitting on me to keep me from going anywhere."

  "All right," Ryan said, "and after this you mentioned he was having some
difficulty having an erection for some period of time, is that right?"

  "Umm-hmm." I had forgotten the instructions from the judge. I was supposed to clearly enunciate a yes or a no.

  "What happened after that?"

  "He wasn't able to have an erection. I didn't really know if he had or not--I'm not familiar with that. But, then, before he came into me and had intercourse, he stopped once and made me get on my knees and he was standing up and he told me to give him a blow job."

  "Did there come a time after this you eventually did get away from him?"

  "Yes."

  "How did that come about?"

  "After he did come in me, he got me up off the ground and started dressing and found some of my clothes and gave them to me and I put those on, and he said, 'You're going to have a baby, bitch--what are you going to do about it?'"

  I detailed how the rapist hugged me, apologized, then let me go, only to call after me.

  Ryan paused. His next few questions were my only rest period. What was taken from me during the incident? What was the rapist wearing? His size? His appearance?

  "I don't recall whether you mentioned whether he was white or black," Ryan said before closing.

  "He was black," I said.

  "That is all, Your Honor."

  Ryan turned to sit down. The judge called, "Cross," and Mr. Meggesto stood and approached.

  Both defense attorneys who represented Madison over the course of the year shared certain traits. They were shortish, balding, and had something fetid going on on their upper lips. Whether it was an unkempt mustache as in Meggesto's case, or grainy beads of sweat, it was an ugliness I focused on as each one cross-examined me.

  I felt if I was going to win, I had to hate the attorneys representing him. They may have been earning a paycheck, or randomly assigned to the case, had children they loved or a terminally ill mother to take care of. I didn't care. They were there to destroy me. I was there to fight back.

  "Is it Miss See-bold--is that the way it is pronounced?"

  "Yes."

  "Miss Sebold, you said you were at 321 Westcott Street on the night of the incident?"

  "Umm-hmm."

  The tone of his voice was condemning, as if I had been a bad little girl and told a lie.

  "How long had you been there on this evening?"

  "From approximately eight to midnight."

  "Did you have anything to drink while there?"

  "I had nothing at all to drink."

  "Did you have anything to smoke while you were there?"

  "Nothing at all to smoke."

  "Did you have any cigarettes?"

  "No."

  "You didn't smoke that evening?"

  "No."

  "You had nothing to drink that evening?"

  "No."

  That tack not having worked, he moved on to his next.

  "How long have you worn glasses?"

  "Since I was in the third grade."

  "Do you know what your vision is without glasses?"

  "I am nearsighted and can see very well close up. I don't know exactly, but it isn't that bad. I can see road signs and such."

  "Do you have a driver's license?"

  "Yes, I do."

  "Do you need your license?"

  "Yes, I do."

  "You maintain your driver's license?"

  "Yes."

  I didn't know what he was doing. It made sense to me that he might ask if my license required me to wear corrective lenses. But he didn't. Was I a better or worse person with a license? Was I firmly an adult and not a child, making it less a crime to rape me? I never figured out his reasoning.

  He continued.

  "Is it a fair statement to say you wear your glasses all the time to be able to see?"

  "No."

  "When don't you wear them?"

  "When I'm reading, and basically when I am just doing most anything."

  How could I explain, on the stand, a battle I had had with my eye doctor? He said I wore my glasses more than I needed to. That in my desire to be so clued in, I was ruining my vision and making my eyes, as they are now, dependent on corrective lenses.

  "Did you think you needed your glasses on this evening in October?"

  He meant May, but no one corrected him.

  "It was night, yes."

  "Do you see poorer at night?"

  "No, I don't."

  "Was there any special reason you brought your glasses?"

  "No."

  "Is it a fair statement to say you wear your glasses when you leave the dorm all the time?"

  "No."

  "Was there any special reason you wore your glasses that evening?"

  "Probably because they were a week old and I liked them. They were new."

  He jumped on this: "New prescription or just new design of frame?"

  "Just new design of frame."

  "Prescription the same?"

  "Yes."

  "Prescribed by whom?"

  "Dr. Kent of Philadelphia, near my home."

  "Do you recall where these--do you recall when that was?"

  "December 1980,1 think, was my last prescription."

  "Prescribed and made in 1980, is that correct?"

  Could he know that he was making his point and losing it simultaneously? That my prescription had been updated six months before the rape. I didn't know what he was doing but I was going to follow him at every turn. He wanted to back me into a maze I couldn't get out of. I was determined. I felt I had what Gallagher had--mettle. I could feel it in my veins.

  "Umm-hmm," I said.

  "And I believe you say that, at some point during this struggle, your glasses were knocked from you, is that correct?"

  "Yes."

  "It was a dark area, is that correct?"

  "Yes."

  "How dark would you say it was?"

  "Not that dark. It was light enough so I could see physical features--face, plus the fact that his face was very close to mine and since I am nearsighted and not farsighted, my vision is good up close."

  He turned to the side and looked up a moment. For a second, adrenaline pumping in my veins, I watched the court. Everyone was still. This was business as usual to them. Another prelim on another rape case. Ho hum.

  "I believe you said at some point this individual kissed you?"

  He was good, sweaty lip, bad mustache, and all. He went, with a keen, deft precision, right to my heart. The kissing hurts still. The fact that it was only under my rapist's orders that I kissed back often seems not to matter. The intimacy of it stings. Since then I've always thought that under rape in the dictionary it should tell the truth. It is not just forcible intercourse; rape means to inhabit and destroy everything.

  "Yes," I said.

  "When you say, 'kissed you,' do you mean on the mouth?"

  "Yes."

  "Were you both standing?"

  "Yes."

  "In relation to your height, how tall was the individual?"

  He chose the kiss to lead me to the rapist's height.

  "Approximately the same height or an inch above," I said.

  "How tall are you, Miss Sebold?"

  "Five, five and a half."

  "You would say this individual was probably the same height or maybe an inch taller?"

  "Umm-hmm."

  "When you were standing there, looking at him, he looked to be about the same height, is that correct?"

  "Umm-hmm."

  "Just about that?"

  "Yes."

  His tone, since questioning my vision, had changed. There was now not even a trace of respect in it. Seeing that he had not yet gotten the best of me, he had switched into a sort of hateful overdrive. I felt threatened by him. Even though, by all measures, I was safe in that courtroom and surrounded by professionals, I was afraid.

  "I believe you testified that the description you gave on that night indicated he was of a muscular build?"

  "Yes."

  "Short and had
short black hair?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you remember telling the police, when you made your voluntary affidavit, you thought he was about one hundred and fifty pounds?"

  "Yes."

  "Is that your best estimate as to the weight of this individual?"

  "I am really not very good with weight," I said. "I don't know the ratio of muscle or fat in someone's body."

  "You do recall telling him it was one hundred and fifty pounds?"

  "The police officers gave me an estimation of what they might weigh, a man, and I said, yes, that looked approximately correct."

  "Are you saying you were influenced by what the police officer told you?"

  "No, he was just giving me an example to follow. It seemed approximately close."

  "Based on what the police officer gave you and your physical observation, is your testimony on May eighth your best estimate of the weight of this individual is one hundred and fifty pounds?"

  "Yes."

  "Have you heard anything that would change your mind at this point?"

  "No."

  His energy zoomed. He looked just like a boy who is savoring the last bite of cake. Mr. Meggesto had gotten something back after losing on vision, but I didn't know what.

  I was tired now. I was doing my best, but I felt my energy drain. I had to get it back.

  "I believe you say you were struck in the face a number of times?"

  "Yes."

  "And that you were bleeding?"

  "Yes."

  "And your glasses had been knocked from you?"

  In hindsight I wish I had the wherewithal to say, "None of this made me blind."

  "Yes," I said.

  "Did you seek any medical attention for your injuries?"

  "Yes."

  "When was that?"

  "The same night right after I got back to the dorm, and before I arrived at the police station--I reported to the police. The police brought me to Grouse Irving Memorial Hospital and I went to the lab, where they prescribed medication for my facial cuts."

  I would try and stay steady. I would give the facts.

  "Were you able to find your glasses on the night of this incident?"

  "The police found the glasses--"

  He interrupted me.

  "You didn't have them when you left the area? You did not leave with your glasses?"

  "Right."

  "Anything else you remember?"

  "No."

  I felt hushed by him now. The gloves were off.

  "Can you tell me briefly what you were wearing on the night of October fifth?"