The phone is ringing.
"Listen, you son of a b.i.t.c.h..." a disembodied voice is yelling at me.
I"m terrified, thinking it"s him-Richard Nixon calling me.
"You have one h.e.l.l of a nerve," he says, continuing to shout as I come to consciousness. I realize it"s not Nixon, it"s Jane"s father. "I think about you and your lousy brother and I"m disgusted."
She seduced me, I think to myself, but say nothing.
"I want you should never forget what you"ve done."
"I think about it constantly," I say, knowing that"s of little comfort.
"We hear things are coming to a head, the ball"s rolling, there"s a hearing, and the proverbial ax is going to fall, and, well, we"re worried about the children," he says.
"The children are at school."
"It"s enough already. We think they shouldn"t be a part of this."
"They"re doing very well."
"We think you should take them somewhere."
"I saw Nate a couple of weekends ago, at Field Day-he"s quite the athlete."
"They don"t need to be exposed to the brouhaha that"s going to surround this whole thing."
"And Ashley called a couple of days ago. We had a wonderful phone call-really bonding, it was like we went through something together."
"Shmuck," he says. "Are you hearing anything I"m saying? We think it would be good if the children were out of the country."
"Where?"
"You could take them to Israel."
"They don"t speak Hebrew. They barely know they"re Jewish."
There is silence. "Look, you giant creep," Jane"s father says. "I was kidding when I said Israel."
"It was a joke? What Jew makes a joke about Israel?"
"Who sleeps with his brother"s wife while his brother is in the nuthouse? I meant you should take them somewhere, get their minds off all this c.r.a.p, I don"t care where."
"I don"t know what to say."
"Listen, a.s.shole, I will pay you to take the children someplace."
"They"re at school," I say. "But, more to the point, if you want to take them someplace, why don"t you plan a little vacation and let me know the dates."
"At the moment it"s all I can do to care for my wife and myself," he says. I hear him cry out, a single deep, bellowing sob, and then he hangs up.
I walk the dog; the morning sky is a rich benevolent blue, filled with promise and opportunity. It"s overwhelmingly optimistic-in other words, it makes me nervous, sets the bar too high.
I dress for court and lunch in one of George"s charcoal-gray suits, a white shirt, and a blue tie. Blue seems more about justice than red, which signals aggression. An impending sense of doom is gnawing at me from the inside. I dress as best I can, putting deodorant not just in my armpits but in a thick line down the center of my chest, a ring around my lower back, as far up each side as I can reach. I"m a sweater-under duress I drip raindrops of stress; I can soak a shirt in two minutes.
In White Plains, I circle the Court House; there are "No Parking Anytime" signs posted everywhere. I end up parking at the Galleria shopping mall and walking through the mall.
Like all modern courthouses, this one is a characterless fortress, testament to paper pushing, bureaucracy, and the incipient insanity of our system. Going postal is no longer reserved for those who pledge that "Neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night would deter its couriers from their appointed rounds." It"s become a kind of rite of pa.s.sage: disgruntled employee returns and shoots boss, disgruntled wife kills kids, disgruntled husband wrecks car, kills strangers, and then kills wife. Hard not to be surprised, when the bulk of public conversation goes like this: "Paper or plastic?" The loss of the human touch scares me.
I approach expecting a media circus, TV trucks, satellite dishes-this is America, everything is a circus. The fact that it is not a "scene," no red carpet, just business as usual, is all the more unnerving. Is it still "real" if it"s not doc.u.mented and delivered back to us in the media? Does anything have meaning if it"s not covered? And what does it say about me that I feel these events are not legitimate without a camera crew? Inside the building, an anonymous recording plays: "Welcome, please empty your pockets into the bins provided and pa.s.s through our screening process."
Reflexively, the man ahead of me takes off his shoes.
The guard says nothing and simply ushers him through the metal detector, ignoring that he"s clutching his well-worn lugs close to his chest. Looking at the heels, I see he walks on the outsides of his feet-is that p.r.o.nation or supination?
My turn. I dig deep into my pocket and throw my handful into the basket; it misses, splatters, nickels and dimes. .h.i.tting the floor like shattering gla.s.s and rolling this way and that.
"Sir, please step to the side."
"Is there a problem?" I ask "Is there?" the guard repeats.
"I worry that I was too enthusiastic," I say. "I"m a little nervous. My brother is coming today."
"How exciting," he says, giving me both the wand and the pat-down. "Do you want your money back?" he asks when he"s done; another guard has been walking in circles collecting my nickels, dimes, and quarters.
"Keep it," I say.
"I can"t," he says. "Either you take it or it goes in the bucket." He tips his head towards an unmanned Salvation Army cauldron, like the kind Santa minds in season.
"Bucket," I say. And then, as I"m repacking my pockets, I ask. "Am I being treated specially?"
"We treat everyone specially."
I"m taking all of this far too personally, as though I"m the one who"s on trial. I locate the courtroom, which I mistakenly call a cla.s.sroom when asking for directions. It"s half empty, with activity of a low-key preparatory sort, papers changing hands, people milling about. It"s like watching stagehands getting ready for a scene. The system is a b.a.s.t.a.r.dized construction, vaguely English, surreal, and reeking of American culture, fast food, and an absence of style-the clerks and officers of the court are fat and poorly dressed. The room itself is ugly and not well maintained; you get the feeling no one is feeling any love for this place-it"s more like a bus station than a place you"d hold in high esteem.
So there I am, expecting media, press, people fighting to get in, and instead it"s a big nothing. A man with a beer belly takes notes on what we used to call a steno pad, and a woman wearing what Mother would call a shmatte is doing the same. When the case is finally called, George and his lawyer enter through a side door and take their places. I am in the third row, looking at George from the back. George turns and glances at me; he looks dull, puffy, medicated. Various formalities are run through, a kind of recap of where we are and how we got to this point. In the middle of it all, George makes a sound, like the grunt of a rhinoceros about to charge; it"s disconcerting, but no one says anything. The lawyers continue. I drift in and out, perking up when I hear someone from the DA"s office say, "Long story short-we"re dropping the charges with respect to the fatal traffic accident." He reads from a prepared statement: "Independent investigation corroborates defense a.s.sertion of known manufacturer fault. Manufacturer is doc.u.mented to have failed to notify consumers in a timely fashion. In the twelve months prior to this accident, manufacturer received numerous claims about failure, hesitation, and issues relating to the brakes, including inconsistency of brake application. Evidence obtained confirms that in fact the brakes on the defendant"s car were of the same type as those found to be faulty and that the defendant at the time of the accident stated to officers on the scene that he, quote, "tried to stop but the car kept going." Defendant has a clean driving record, and in the end it is our belief that the accident was the fault of the vehicle and not the operator. We feel our resources are best spent pursuing the manufacturer, and to that end papers have been filed."
Am I hearing what I think I"m hearing-George is off the hook for the car accident?
"So, with regard to the accident, you"re dropping all charges against Mr. Silver?" the judge asks for clarification.
"Yes, sir, we are dropping all charges related to the car accident, noting insufficient evidence to proceed."
The only people who seem surprised are George and me.
"This is ridiculous," George says loudly. "I am a guilty man, more guilty than you can possibly imagine. I want to be punished."
"I second the motion," I call loudly from the audience.
"Order in the court," the judge demands, banging his gavel. "What you want is irrelevant, Mr. Silver. This is a court of justice. Until further notice and or any change in condition or circ.u.mstance that would warrant a revisiting of the placement, Mr. Silver is to be returned to the custody of The Lodge."
George turns to face me. "Thanks for backing me up," he says, as one of the "staff"-bullies from The Lodge-leads him out of the room.
I find one of George"s lawyers by the water fountain. "I"m Ordy," he says, shaking my hand, "we spoke last night."
"It"s all so strange," I say. "Did you see this coming?"
"If we did, we"d be psychics, not lawyers. There are reasons people hire us: we did good investigative work on this."
"But he did it, it was his fault. I was there; I talked to him the night of the accident."
"It doesn"t really matter what George said. The brakes were faulty and the manufacturer had knowledge."
"I picked him up at the jail; he was not himself that night."
"He is who he is-the fingerprints match."
"He killed his wife."
"About some things only time will tell," he says, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.
"I have no doubt," I say. "I saw it happen; he hit her on the head with a lamp."
"Is that so?" The lawyer looks at me. "Maybe it was really you-maybe you hit his wife on the head and are blaming him?"
"I don"t think he ever denied doing it," I say.
"For all we know, he"s trying to protect you; you are the younger brother, after all."
"Actually, I"m older."
The lawyer shrugs. "Whatever."
"Is there going to be a trial for Jane"s murder-because I"d like to be here for that," I say.
"Remains to be seen," the lawyer says. "We"re still negotiating."
I change my tactics. "Nate wants to do something for the boy, the surviving child."
"Who"s Nate?"
"George"s son?"
"And what would he like to do?"
"He"s interested in adopting, or at least taking the kid out for a day."
"Because why?"
"Because why? Because he feels bad that his father killed the kid"s family. Why are you asking why-isn"t it obvious?"
"Obvious is meaningless. It"s not up to me," the lawyer says. "The boy is living with his aunt."
"Could you give her my phone number and let her know that we"d like to do something? More than something, we"d like to do a lot."
"Are you seeking to avoid a civil suit?"
"This is about one kid who lost his family wanting to help another kid who also lost his family, but if you want to make it ugly you can," I say.
"Just asking," he says.
"How about you get me the aunt"s phone number and I"ll do it myself," I say.
"Whatever floats your boat," Ordy says, taking a drink from the fountain and wiping his lips on the back of his hand.
I don"t have a boat.
I"m late for lunch. I arrive and tell the maitre d" that I"m meeting someone. "A lady alone?" he asks.
"Yes," I say, suddenly nervous, trying to remember what Cheryl looks like. The only thing that comes to mind-a striking but odd detail which is not useful in this situation-I"m remembering that her pubic area was groomed in such a way that instead of a vertical landing strip (that is, a strip of hair running from top to bottom) she had what she called a "flight path," which was a wider patch running from side to side, and which had been dyed hot pink. Hard to forget that. I"m blushing as the maitre d" leads me to a table where a woman sits alone.
"Are you you?" I ask.
"It is I," she says.
"Sorry I"m late," I say, sitting down.
"Not a problem," she says.
I look at her more closely. If I were being honest, I"d say she looks entirely unfamiliar, which prompts me to think that it"s all a setup, that some guy will pop out from behind the grill and announce himself as "Stoned Pauley from peepingtoms.com." Maybe it"s my obsession with media, with a camera crew, with the idea that everything has to be doc.u.mented in order to be real. Whatever it is, it"s making me nervous. She seems to intuit my concern.
"I changed my hair," she says.
"It looks nice," I say, with no commitment.
"I play with my hair a lot," she says. "It"s a way of being expressive-you may recall the pink?"
I blush but am relieved.
"What happened to your eye?" she asks.
"Gardening accident."
"It looks like you"ve been crying," she says.
"Sweating, not crying. The salt water may have aggravated it."
"So-how are you?" she asks, struggling to make conversation.