Lucky (18 page)

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?"

Mr. Ryan stood and corrected the date. "May eighth."

"On May eighth," Mr. Meggesto rephrased, "tell me what you were wearing."

"Calvin Klein jeans, blue work shirt, heavy beige cable-knit cardigan sweater, moccasins, and underwear." I hated this question. Knew, even on that stand, what it was all about.

"Was that cardigan sweater one that pulled on or buttoned up the front?"

"Buttons up the front."

"You didn't have to take it over your head to get it off? Is that correct?"

"Right."

I was seething. I had gotten my energy back because what my clothes had to do with why or how I was raped seemed obvious: nothing.

"I believe you testified this individual attempted to disrobe you and, failing that, ordered you to do so?"

"Right, I had a belt on. He couldn't work the belt correctly from the opposite side of me.

He said, 'You do it,' so I did."

"This was the belt holding up your Calvin Klein jeans?"

He emphasized "Calvin Klein" with a sneer I was unprepared for. It had come to this.

"Yes."

"He was facing you?"

"Yes."

"Your testimony was he wasn't able to work the clasp, whatever the gimmick was, that closed that belt?"

"Umm-hmm."

"You did it on his orders?"

"Yes."

Now it was his turn to take a point. He questioned me on the rapist's knife. I had seen it only in the photos of the crime scene and in my mind's eye. I admitted to Meggesto that, though the rapist had threatened me and made gestures to retrieve it from his back pocket, because of the struggle on my part, I had never seen it.

"Is it a fair statement to say you were very frightened by all this?" Meggesto asked, moving on.

"Yes."

"When did you first become frightened?"

"As soon as I heard footsteps behind me."

"Did your pulse beat increase?"

"I imagine some, yes," I said. I didn't understand why he was asking me this.

"Do you recall?"

"No, I don't recall if my pulse beat increased."

"Do you recall becoming scared and breathing short and fast?"

"I recall becoming scared, and whatever physical things come from that, I probably had them, but I wasn't hyperventilating or anything like that."

"Do you remember anything else other than being scared?"

"Mental state?" I thought I'd say it since that's what I thought he was driving at.

"No," he said, "I mean physically. Do you remember how your body acted when you were frightened? Did you tremble, increase in pulse rate, have any change in breathing?"

"No, I don't remember any specific changes except for the fact that I was screaming. I did keep telling the rapist that I was going to vomit, because my mother gave me articles that said if you say you are going to vomit, they won't rape you."

"That was a ruse to use on this individual and might scare him off?"

"Yes."

"Did you ever learn the identity of this individual?"

"Exactly what time or—"

"Did you ever learn the identity of this individual?"

"By me, no." I wasn't quite sure of what he was asking. Interpreted him to be asking if I knew Madison's name back in May.

"Well, did you ever see this individual prior to May of 1981?"

"No."

"Did you ever see this individual after May of 1981?"

"Yes, I saw him in October."

"Did you ever see this individual between May and October of 1981?"

"No."

"Never did?"

"No."

"When did you see him after May of 1981?"

I told him of the incident on October 5. I detailed the time, location, and my sighting, at the same time, of the redheaded policeman who had turned out to be Officer Clapper. I told him I had called the police and had come back to the Public Safety Building to give a description of the rapist.

"You gave a description to whom?" he asked.

Mr. Ryan objected. "I think we have gone outside the scope of direct examination," he said. "Anything further would be for a Wade Hearing."

I had no idea what that was. The three men, Mr. Ryan, Mr. Meggesto, and Judge Anderson, debated what had been stipulated prior to the preliminary. They reached an agreement. Mr. Meggesto could continue concerning the arrest of the individual. But the judge warned that he was "going into it"—the issue of identification. The judge's last words recorded in the transcript are "Come on." Even now I hear the fatigue in them. His major motivation, I feel certain, was to wrap it up and get to lunch.

Frantic, because I had not understood the decision or even, frankly, what the hell they had been talking about, I tried to focus back on Mr. Meggesto. Whatever was said, it gave him permission to attack again.

"After you crossed the street and went to Huntington Hall, did you ever see this individual again?"

"No."

"Were you shown any photographs?"

"No." At the time I didn't know that there was no photo lineup in my case because a mug shot of Gregory Madison did not exist.

"Ever taken to a lineup?"

"No."

"You came there and made an identification at the police station?"

"Yes."

"That is after you called your mother?"

"Yes."

"And after that you were informed someone was arrested?"

"I wasn't informed that night. I was informed, I think it was this Thursday morning, by Officer Lorenz."

"So, you didn't know of your own knowledge whether or not the individual that you saw on October fifth was the individual that was arrested?"

"There was no way I could know that unless the police who arrested him—"

"The question is, yes or no, do you know whether or not the individual—"

This time when he cut me off, it made me mad.

"As they described the man, it was the man they arrested—"

"Question is, do you know?"

"I haven't seen him since he was arrested."

"You didn't see him."

"The man I described on the eighth of May and the individual on October fifth is the man that raped me."

"That is your testimony, you believe the man you saw on October fifth—"

"I
know
the man I saw on October fifth is the man that raped me."

"The man you say is the man who raped you is the same man you saw on October fifth?"

"Right."

"But you don't know whether that man was arrested?"

"Well, I didn't arrest him, how would I know?"

"That is my question—you don't know?"

"All right, I don't know, then." What else could I say? He had proven, very dramatically, that I was not a member of the Syracuse Police Department.

Mr. Meggesto turned to the judge. "I don't think I have anything further," he said.

But he wasn't done. I stayed in the witness stand while the judge listened, and then debated, the point of identification with him. It turned out that Ryan's purpose had been to have Madison in the court, that by Madison's having waived his right to appear, all Ryan now had to prove was that a rape had taken place on May eighth and that I had identified a man I believed to be my assailant. There was confusion. Ryan believed that in Madison waiving his right to appear, Meggesto had forfeited the question of identification. That was not Meggesto's understanding.

"Held for action of the grand jury," the judge said finally. He was tired. I concluded from the movements of Ryan and Meggesto—they were closing up their briefcases—that I was done.

Tess and I went to lunch. We had Upstate New York food—cheese fries, that sort of thing. We sat in a restaurant booth and the smell of the grease from the kitchen filled the air. She talked. She filled the time with talk. I stared up at the lush restaurant philodendrons that adorned and softened the high shelves separating each booth. I was exhausted. Now I wonder if Tess was silently asking the question I do when I reread the transcripts from that day. Where were my parents?

I want to give them an excuse. Perhaps they don't need one. At the time I felt that since it had been my decision to return to Syracuse, the outcome of this—that I had indeed run into my rapist again—was left to me. Now I'm tempted to make all the excuses available to them. My mother didn't fly. My father was teaching. Et cetera. But there was time. My mother could have driven up. My father could have canceled his classes for one day. But I was nineteen and ornery. I was afraid of their comfort, that to feel anything was to feel weak.

I called from the restaurant and told my mother the judge's decision. She was happy I had Tess with me, asked questions about when the grand jury would be held, and fretted about the lineup—any close proximity to him. She had been nervous all day, waiting for the phone to ring. I was glad to bring her good news—it was the closest I could get to straight A's.

I was taking a normal course load in school. Of the five classes two were writing workshops but three were requirements. Tess's survey course. A foreign language.

Classics in translation.

In the Classics class I was bored stiff. The teacher spoke less than he intoned and this, combined with the shabby, much-used textbook, made the class seem like an hour of death every other day. But in the midst of this teacher's droning on, I started to read.

Catullus. Sappho. Apollonius. And
Lysistrata,
a play by Aristophanes in which the women of Athens and Sparta rebel—until the men of both nation-states agree to make peace, these women of warring cities unite in a boycott of all marital relations.

Aristophanes wrote this in 411 B.C. but it translated beautifully. Our teacher insisted that it was low comedy but in its hidden message—the power of women united—the play was very important to me.

Ten days after the preliminary hearing, I returned home to my dorm after the Italian 101

class I appeared to be failing. I could not speak the words out loud the way we were required to. I sat in the back of the classroom and couldn't keep my mind on the conjugations. When I was called on, I butchered some form of what I was convinced might be a word but which the professor had trouble recognizing. Under my door at Haven, someone had slid an envelope. It was from the office of the district attorney. I was being subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury on November 4 at 2:00 P.M. I was supposed to go down to Marshall Street with Lila after she got back from class. While I waited, I called the DA's office. Gail Uebelhoer, who would represent me, wasn't in. I had the office assistant say her name a few times slowly. I wanted to get it right. I still have the piece of paper where I wrote down, phonetically, how to say it. "You-bel-air or E-belle-air." I practiced saying it in front of the mirror, trying to make it sound natural.

"Hello, Ms. You-bel-air, it's Alice Sebold from State versus Gregory Madison." "Hello, Ms. E-belle-air … " I worked on it. I put Italian aside.

On the morning of November 4, a county car met me at Haven Hall. I watched for it through the glass walls of the dorm's entranceway. Students had already attended breakfast in the cafeteria upstairs and gathered their books to leave for classes.

I had been up since five. I tried to linger over the rituals of hygiene. I took a long shower in the bathroom down the hall. I moisturized my face as Mary Alice had taught me to do the year before. I selected and pressed my clothes. My body alternated between stony chills and hot flashes of nerves centered near my chest. I was aware that this might be the kind of panic that ruled my mother. I swore I would not allow it to rule me.

I left the glass-walled foyer and met the detective as he was coming in. I engaged his eyes. I shook his hand.

"I'm Alice Sebold," I said.

"Right on time."

"It's hard to oversleep on a day like this," I said. I was sunny, cheery, reliable. I wore an oxford-cloth shirt and a skirt. On my feet I wore my Pappagallo pumps. I had fretted that morning because I could not find nude hose. I had black and I had red, neither of which was an appropriate choice for the virgin coed the grand jury would expect. I borrowed a pair from my resident advisor.

In the county car, marked with the seal of Onondaga on the front doors, I rode in the front beside the detective. We made small talk about the university. He talked sports teams, which I knew nothing about, and projected that the Carrier Dome, little over a year old, would bring a lot of revenue to the area. I nodded my head and tried to contribute but I was obsessively worried about the way I looked. The way I spoke. The way I moved.

Tricia, from the Rape Crisis Center, would be my company that day. We had about an hour of waiting before the lineup to be held at the Public Safety Building jail. This time the elevator of the Public Safety Building did not stop at the floor I was familiar with, where the reassuring sight of a security door and policemen with coffee mugs met you once you stepped off. The hallways the detective, Tricia, and I walked down were full of people. Police and victims, lawyers and criminals. A policeman led a man in handcuffs down the hall past us, while he barked an amiable joke about some recent party to another policeman on the hall. There was a Latina, sitting in a plastic chair in the hallway. She stared at the floor, clutching her purse and a crumpled Kleenex in her hand.

The detective brought us into a large room in which makeshift dividers no more than four feet tall separated desks from one another. There were men—policemen—sitting at most of them. Their postures were tense and temporary; they came there to fill out reports or quickly interview a witness, or make a call before going back out on patrol or, perhaps, finally going home.