Folie à Deux (39 page)

I compose myself, “So what happens now? I’ll spend the night in jail?”

He stops and looks at me, confused, “Well, yes, well, I guess I didn’t actually say it, but yes, you’re under arrest. You’ll be
brought to the county jail where you’ll be housed until you have a court date. We’ll call the judge and he’ll set bail. Once you’re arraigned, if you can make bail then you’ll be able to get out. That’s about all I can tell you.”

Ok, so I’ll spend the night in jail, maybe tomorrow too. And I know I’ve lost my job, but so far this sounds manageable.

It’s three thirty in the morning when I’m given two coarse blankets, two sheets, a pair of orange shoes and an orange jump suit. I walk through a heavy door into a room with four bunk beds. It reeks of caustic cleaning products that try to unsuccessfully mask sweat and urine and shit. The only beds available are top bunks. I try to make the bed without waking whoever is in the bottom but I’m trembling.

I’m in jail and have not one item in my skill set to even begin to cope. I’m trying not to cry knowing that would be disastrous. I lie on the bunk and try to sleep or think or do anything productive. I’m on the verge of an anxiety attack focused on the reality that in a few hours everyone I work with, everyone that called me their teacher, my friends and family will all know the second biggest secret I’ve ever kept. I’m at the far limit, the end of myself.

In the default setting of my mind I try to plan my next move in this game I’m reluctant to quit. I’ve always had a feasible plan to clean any previous mess. This is difficult to formulate because I have no control over anything that could happen next. I lie awake all night.

Before I left the police station I was able to call Dana, she had apparently already done some research for herself since I left, piecing together obvious information. When I told her that I was charged with a first degree sexual assault, second degree
endangering the welfare of a child, and third degree criminal sexual contact she was astonished, “First degree? Why first degree? Oh no Jim.” I speak as vaguely as possible because the cop is next to me, trying to keep some vestige of dignity.

At Dana’s request I put my hand over the receiver and ask, “Why am I charged with a first degree crime?”

Very officially and without thought he replies, “Any act of penetration constitutes a first degree sexual assault.”

“Even though it was just for a second?” digressing into a juvenile ego state. I’ve penetrated her much more than once and my presence will be felt for longer than simply three seconds. My permeation encompasses not only the multiple physical occurrences, but the much more damaging psychological ones that may never heal.

“It doesn’t matter for how long. Penetration is penetration,” sounding like a line he often practices in front of his mirror. In any case, I plan out my immediate future, certain to make bail and be home in time to teach my college class this evening.

Trying in vain to focus on my first full day in jail, my name is called by a guard standing in the doorway. My heart rate speeds to a painful pace. I look at him in bewilderment, waiting for some indication why he has called me.

“Let’s go asshole, time for court,” prompts me to the door. He points to a box drawn in red tape on the floor and says, “Stand in that box and don’t move.”

On the counter next to him is a set of handcuffs, a chain and shackles. I am certain to vomit. The smell alone is enough to make me wretch aside from what my life has become. Everything I look at seems to have a film over it, as though looking through someone else’s opaque eyeglasses. I haven’t led the type of lifestyle, until recently, that ever led me to believe I was heading down this path.

“Turn around face the wall. Raise your right foot,” cold shackle on my bare ankle.

“Raise your left foot,” shackle on the other.

“Turn around.” I shuffle my feet to put my back against the wall. The chain is short of a normal stride so I almost tip over with each step. Handcuffs are secured, linked to a chain wrapped around my waist.

I’m led into an elevator and down a long, freezing corridor. I was stripped of everything last night, wearing a short sleeve jumpsuit, no socks and no coat, fourth in a line of six other inmates going to court. We’re led into a holding cell separating us from the court room by an enormous steel door, overkill considering my restraints. I’m the last to be led out, forced to hear the horrid sound of the door open and shut five times before my turn. The loud clanging sucks years off of the back end of my life every time a slam echoes in my head. A reminder of what I’ve done and worse yet an alarm of the uncertainty ahead.

Before court I’m brought into a tiny room with a screen in front of me as if it were a confessional. Across from me sits a man I can hardly see through the tight metal weave.

He explains briefly, “I have been retained by your father and I will be representing you in the arraignment.”

He discusses my charges and gives a brief summary of what will happen once in the courtroom. Because he is speaking hurriedly I say, “Guess not,” when he asks me if I have any questions.

Right before I exit he says, “Oh, just so you’re prepared, there are reporters out there. And cameras.”

I stop to ask for clarification, or help, but a guard pushes me into another holding area. Did he mean video cameras? Newspaper reporters? This is my first introduction into the true gravity of my situation. Prior to now I was certain this would
blow over with little damage, but cameras and reporters tell a different story.

The first person I see upon entering the courtroom is Dana. She is crying, next to my father and brother. A second after I recognize them the rapid and incessant clicking of cameras begins. I refuse to look in their direction, forbidding a quality picture but the thought of what this is becoming, in the hands of strangers petrifies me. I see the same attorney standing at the defendant’s table, looking different without wire mesh over his face. It’s when I look at him and he nods that I’m stricken with the understanding that these people take my actions much more seriously than I ever have.

My knees buckle intermittently. People talk to me and about me, all unintelligible. The judge asks the prosecutor questions about what he wants as conditions of bail barely audible over the clicking. My attorney speaks about having certain parts of an evaluation sealed as to not prejudice a jury in the event of a trial. He pleads not guilty on my behalf which confuses me in my state of lethargy because I confessed. I want to turn around to see everyone but am far too embarrassed. I hear Dana sobbing. Her reputation for melodrama is renowned but this is one of the first instances that I believe she actually has grounds to react exactly as she is.

My plan to make bail and be home in time to teach my college class is laughable. The judge holds my bail at $75,000 despite the prosecutor’s request to raise it but stipulates that I must pass a psycho-sexual evaluation. As the guard grabs the crook of my elbow to take me away the attorney leans and says, “I’ll be over to you see you soon.”

I’m back in the cell where I spent last night before I can process anything. I wait a few hours and call Dana, only to receive
more bad news, “Your story has been all over the radio and the college called to say they’ve terminated you.”

Long ago I could see the slight fraying at the edges of my fragile existence but only from the inside. Those were the hidden storms, left invisible to everyone else in my world. The public dismantling of my entire life is now beginning and everyone who knows me and more who don’t are enjoying front row seats to watch the dog and pony show which will be the legal case that determines my punishment.

I’m still your son. Still your brother. I’m the neighbor who lends you his lawnmower. The one who gives you vegetables from his garden, plows your driveway, and unnecessarily keeps you up at night because I live next door. That’s if you choose to see me for what I am, instead of who I am. I long to be average once again but the monthly visit from my parole officer prevents my life from returning to normal.

I want to be a good father, good son, good friend, a writer, in that order of preference. My parents are still heroes to me, embodying the unconditional love and forgiveness that I can only hope to show my own children. And my grandfather too, I admire him even more for exemplifying a trait I never knew he possessed to such a degree, always finding the good in people, no matter how poor their choices.

Six years after my arrest, still engaged in intensive therapy, I knock on Carla’s front door. A trip twenty years in the making. Two years ago I wrote her a letter asking for help. I stated the impetus was conciliatory, assuring her I meant no harm. I offered my mailing address, email and phone number hoping she would contact me of her own volition. Simply hearing from her would verify that I was a person in her eyes, not just a sex toy.

Three months with no response so I called. No answer the first several times. Then, I reached an answering machine so often that I dialed mindlessly, expecting her recorded voice. One afternoon a man’s voice surprised me from the other end of the phone. I stumbled through, “Hi, may I speak to Carla please?”

“Sure. Who shall I tell her is calling?” he replied with candor.

“This is Jim. I know her from high school.”

After hearing the phone placed down on a solid surface, he returned, “I’m sorry, she’s upstairs teaching right now. Can she call you back?”

I knew I would receive no such call but I was as close as ever to my goal. I spoke to someone who verified that Carla was alive, lived there, and was physically able to speak to me. Who is he? Her husband? Does he know who I am? Does he know who she really is?

One week to the day, I call back in the evening. On the third ring, a voice, “Hello?” soft, yet deep and rich. I picture Carla with the receiver to her face.

“Hello?”

My stomach churns, I’m fifteen years old again. I hang up, hyperventilating.

I hate myself immediately. I hate the fear and I hate my guilt. I hate the false sense of healing in which I’ve taken solace but mostly, I hate the wasted opportunity that just escaped. Carla just got another pass.

Through processing that collapse, in my therapist’s office, I come to understand why I was afraid and more importantly, why I shouldn’t have been. Over the next two years I make ready to confront my past yet again, in person. I imagine and role play and conjecture every scenario in which I may find myself to make the best use of my time in her presence.

With my arrangements to Florida solidified I ask two dear friends, Dan and Connie, whom I trust explicitly to accompany me, unaware of who I might find at her door, and more frighteningly, who I might find inside myself after such a confrontation.

The preparation is thorough and intense, looking at satellite maps to know her neighborhood, writing letters to leave on her doorstep in anticipated rejection, and rehearsing my opening line. Most importantly, the completion of the manuscript that became this memoir. The two hour drive to her house is excruciating. Every time I consider obeying the resistance in my head, the overwhelming reminder screams, “Don’t quit now.”

I bring to the forefront all of the reasons why canceling this trip is not an option, why bailing out now would be more destructive than any reception from Carla. I think of my children, how great to tell them I stared down my victimizer. I think of my parents, their incessant anger at having been duped. I can’t face my therapist and tell him that all of our work over the years was in vain. I press forward for Dan, driving with me, so he can see this happen and know the fruits of his support.

Dan is also a survivor, unable to confront the deceased priest who has forever altered his life.

Strength and motivation come in strange and desperate forms when the surreal edges of one’s life begin to close in around the field of vision. Fifteen minutes away, I stop at a rest area to stretch my legs and firmly focus. I switch the auto-pilot off, and make sure the executive ego is ready for what I’m about to ask of it.

I make the last turn onto her block. This is very real now. My eyes scan everywhere, not just for danger but also to etch everything into memory. The golf course and the styles of the homes not so necessary, except to create a backdrop against which today will be set, detailing the most accurate portrait.