Burn Down the Ground (36 page)

The autumn air was thick and clouds formed in the night sky poised to burst with rain. I was standing outside Michiko Studios on Forty-sixth Street, missing a rehearsal of an off-Broadway musical I was co-producing. I had just gotten a call from the district
attorney in Fort Worth, who had dug up Dad’s 1988 conviction for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against Mom. As the sole witness listed on the police report, she was prepared to call me to testify for the prosecution at Dad’s trial. “Well, Ms. Crews, it’s either you or your mother. We don’t care which one of you it is, but we will subpoena you if it comes down to it.”

Everything from fourteen years earlier was abruptly in my life again. I had spent the last decade and a half distancing myself from my family’s drama. My hopes of college and an acting career had been dashed back then, and now I felt like my dreams were being threatened again. I was in New York City on the cusp of
something
. I was not going to miss my first real off-Broadway production for their drama. In a panic, I raced downstairs so no one at the rehearsal would overhear me.

When Mom answered her phone she was caught off guard to hear me frantic and gulping back tears. “They want me to testify against Dad.”

“What? Testify? Why? What for?”

“For what he did to you,” I sobbed. “I’m listed as a witness on the police report so they want me to testify.”

“Kambri, calm down and tell me what happened.”

I recounted my brief conversation with the DA and how they pulled the old case file. For the first time ever she and I talked about August 15, 1988. Mom had little recollection of that night. I was baffled. How could anyone forget the details of an attack at the hands of her own husband? I presumed that she had moved on in a way that allowed her to wipe clean any remembrance.

For me, the memory was vivid. In the middle of the Manhattan sidewalk I erupted into a flurry of words. I reminded her of the holes in the walls, the hours of interrogation, the choking,
the knife to her throat, my frantic 911 calls, and me pleading with Dad to spare her life. As the details emerged, the fog was lifted and she began to remember, piecing together the fragments. We were sobbing hysterically when I noticed a group of fanny-packed tourists headed straight for me. Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I hid behind a street sign pole in a pathetic attempt to avoid eye contact with the ladies, who couldn’t help their voyeuristic curiosity.

Baring the resurrected pain left me exposed and outraged, and opened old wounds. “You let me get married in high school and fend for myself. Why didn’t it dawn on you that ‘Hey, maybe it’s illegal for seventeen-year-old girls to get married for a reason? Maybe Kambri deserves to go to college!’ Well, you failed me then and I am asking you to not fail me now. Please do
not
make me testify against my own father!”

Mom took a deep breath and sighed. “I’m sorry, Kambri,” she said. “I’ll make it up to you.”

And she did. She called the district attorney and volunteered to go in my place. She would confront her past face-to-face and protect me from having to do the same.

A few weeks passed and I was at my desk at the law office when my phone rang.

“Hi, Kambri,” Mom said grimly, her voice trembling. “Twenty years.”

I knew Dad would be found guilty. I knew he deserved whatever punishment he got, but, still, the breath was knocked out of me. My head spun.

My daddy is going to spend the next twenty years in jail
.

Throughout the trial it was revealed that not only had Dad nearly killed Helen, but he had a history of abusing her. Prior to assaulting her with the knife, Dad had broken her ribs during an incident in Dallas. He had received probation and an order of protection was put in place against him. But he violated that directive from the court during another altercation. To evade repercussions for that assault, he used his twin brother’s name and Social Security number as an alias, something he had apparently done before. He used his brother’s ID to earn money on a job while he was collecting disability payments from the government via his own Social Security number, which was illegal as well as damaging to his brother. They were on to that scam now, too, and he potentially faced federal charges for the fraud.

By the time Mom was called to the stand, the jury had already found Dad guilty. She was meant to be a character witness for the prosecution during the punishment phase. Their goal of putting her on the stand was to ensure that my father received the harshest sentence allowable under the law. Seeing Dad looking so old and frail, convicted of attempted murder and without a single friend or family member present in support, tugged at her heartstrings.

“When they called me to the stand I was nervous but I felt like I could do it. They asked me questions about where I lived, how I met your daddy, our marriage. I gave all good, positive statements. Then they asked me about the 1988 incident, and I said that …” She stopped.

“That what?” I pressed.

Mom swallowed and sniffled before squeaking out her next words. “I said that you were traumatized. I started to cry, so they had to stop for a minute while I tried to catch my breath.” Mom
gulped and gasped as though she was in a live-action role play of the trial.

“It’s okay, Mom, take your time.” I wished I had gone after all. It was selfish of me to ask her to do this alone. She and I had been through it together then. Why not now? I felt like my family had abandoned me, and now I was doing the same to her.

Mom inhaled deeply several times before continuing, and I forced back the golf-ball-sized lump in my throat. “I said you were traumatized, and your daddy covered his mouth like he was trying to control his emotions, so I know it bothered him to hear it. I told them he was a good father and a good provider and real talented at construction. I ended up crying and crying after I got off the stand, but not in front of the jury—outside the courtroom. Do you think he’ll have to go to a regular jail?”

“What do you mean?”

“Because he’s deaf, do you think he’ll go to a regular prison?”

“He tried to kill someone.”

“I hope not,” she said, preoccupied with her own train of thought. “There are too many predators in there.”

Dad won’t even hear them coming
.

I shuddered. The thought was too much to bear.

I heard Greg barreling down the hallway, snapping me out of my spiraling self-pity. His voice got closer as he asked an equally sharp-dressed, high-priced attorney, “Can you make a meeting at four o’clock?”

“Can’t. My son is starting a T-ball league today.”

“Good,” Greg quickly retorted. “Now you’ll find out if he’s gay.”

Greg could always count on me for a reaction to one of his zingers. Instead I kept my head down and scribbled on my shopping list: Kleenex for desk. A napkin from the deli does not make a good tissue.

“What’s wrong with you?” Greg asked, slightly annoyed that I was ignoring him.

I put on a blasé face and shuffled papers as I told him, “My dad was just sentenced.” Greg was one of the few people I had confided in about my father.

“Oh,” he said as he sized up my grim look. “Come on, I’m hungry; let’s get lunch.” I was a regular lunch companion for Greg. I always joined him and his two partners or a client. He headed to the elevator without asking them, but I didn’t balk; I grabbed my purse and trailed after him. We weaved through the horde of tourists in the Channel Gardens and passed the gleaming golden Prometheus statue that lorded over the iconic skating rink outside our offices. I blinked back tears, which became easier with the fresh air and sunshine, but that damned lump in my throat was lingering.

We arrived at Joseph’s Citarella, a fancy restaurant next to Radio City Music Hall. “I’ve been meaning to check this place out,” Greg stated, and quickly secured us a table for two by a window. The menu was mostly seafood, prepared with words I couldn’t decipher or pronounce, all listed at exorbitant prices; my eyes crossed. Growing up, the only fish I ever ate we had caught by ourselves or was prepared by Long John Silver’s and doused in malt vinegar. Catfish and perch deep-fried over a campfire I can handle, but what the heck is kanpachi or skate or fluke? My mind wandered. I thought about how Dad showed me how to eat fish without choking on a bone and used his favorite pocketknife
to deftly shave corn off the cob in a way that kept the kernels attached in perfect little rows.

I wonder if that’s the knife he used to stab Helen?

I sighed pitifully and Greg swooped in to take over. He was not opposed to a scene; he just wasn’t used to not being the center of it.

“I’m going to order for you. She’ll have the tuna steak medium rare,” he instructed the waitress. He looked back at me and said, “You like meat, so I know you’ll like this. You should order it rare, but since you’ve never had it before we’ll start you out gently.” He rolled up his pant leg and jabbed himself in the thigh with a shot of insulin.

I was skeptical. Mom used to make a tuna casserole with cans of Starkist tuna and the smell of it baking made our trailer reek and my gag reflex go into overdrive. Now somebody wants to charge thirty dollars for a lunch of cooked tuna? At least Greg was paying, and I was grown-up enough to know how to pretend to enjoy something.

Greg was right about the fish. I really liked tuna steak and it was nothing like baked Starkist. We ate in relative silence. The silence may have made Greg uncomfortable, but I was too busy thinking about Dad and wishing I were Greg’s daughter instead. He had put his girls through college, helped pay their rent, and had gotten them out of jams. Maybe Greg would adopt me.

I’m a good daughter
.

“So, how long did he get?”

“The maximum,” I muttered. “Twenty years.”

“That long, huh? How old is he?”

“Fifty-five. He’s gonna die in there.” I chewed on the inside corner of my lip to stop myself from crying and stared at a sesame
seed I rolled between my fingers. If I didn’t look Greg in the eye, none of this would be real.

“Yeah, maybe or maybe not.”

“He drank and smoked pot his whole life, he snorted crank; he’s not exactly the picture of good health. Let’s be real. My
dad
 … is gonna
die
 … in
jail
.”

Greg took a big bite of tuna and smacked, “Yeah, well, he’s not dead yet. And, hey, at least now you’ll know where to find him.” Greg shoved another forkful of meat into his mouth and tacked on matter-of-factly, “He’s lucky he’s got you.”

NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH

O
n a beautiful summer day in 2002, not long after Dad’s assault on Helen, I sat perched on Greg’s window ledge peering down to the street below. The bagpipes wailed in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, but they weren’t part of any annual parade. Instead, countless men and women in dress blues filled the
street paying respect to someone who had died on September 11. This had become a near daily occurrence over the last year, a constant, palpable reminder of the attack. I remembered walking alone across the 59th Street Bridge that day in 2001. The acrid smoke rose from the heap that loomed to the south.

For every funeral service, I found myself drawn to the same window ledge and leaned my head against the glass. As I listened to the sad strains of “Going Home,” I wondered which person was finally being honored.

I wished I could swap Dad with the stranger in the casket.

Dad will grow old and die in jail and nothing good will ever come of his life. No one would know him as he was or care to know him as he is. He will always be flawed in a stranger’s eyes; not worth anyone’s compassion or pity or love; earning his dank cell devoid of warmth and filled with pain and suffering.

The heralded stranger may have been flawed; hell, maybe he was even a convict who had served his time, but he was now a victim. Innocent, unsuspecting, and undeserving of what lay ahead that September day. His family deserved great sympathy for their loss.

If Dad could switch places with someone who died that day, that someone could go on and lead their life as flawed as they wanted it to be. I fantasized that they were young and vibrant and would be able to hear music and sing the way Dad always wanted; they were loved unconditionally instead of disowned by their whole family and they had a future and life worth living. Then, if anyone asked about Dad, they would not care about his flaws; they would only hear that I had sacrificed him unwillingly. Dad would somehow be worthy of their respect without reservation and I wouldn’t reject their sympathy.