Out of Orange (26 page)

The computer screen, the keyboard, and the occasion reminded me of a similar death, almost seven years earlier. If I closed my eyes and tried, I could still see my big oak desk as if I were sitting there and the watery green halo of light on the floor. The light had come from the glass edges of my desk lamp, the one that had illuminated my keyboard in Vermont. I could see it as clearly as the glass desk I currently sat at and the code scrolling by on my screen. Tomorrow this too would have to live behind my lids. It was time to die again.

Miss Kitty had no interest in my noisy musings or my dinner. But she still didn’t budge. She had been sleeping, curled up, between the monitor and my keyboard, or within petting distance of wherever I was, for the last twenty-four hours. I hadn’t been out of the house all day, and it was already over. Miss Kitty and I would be taking our last late-night walk together in a little while, and I think she knew that. I think she was trying to delay the inevitable, as if in sleeping longer, it wouldn’t have to happen. I remembered doing the same thing when I was a kid, and it was time for school.

Miss Kitty had been my guardian angel, my little Dum Dum surrogate. I had both lived and worked in her neighborhood, the one I spotted her in when we first met, three years earlier. I chased her up De Haro Street in San Francisco, sure that she was Dum Dum and had made the miraculous journey across the continent to find me. I had a complete nervous breakdown at the top of De Haro, cried my eyeballs out, when she got away. A couple of weeks later, I found her sitting in my backyard. I lived one block over from De Haro. She clearly had a home, but she still came by to hang out with me every day after work. Eventually, she started spending the night with me.
That’s when I got a collar for her and put a tiny note inside a little charm: “If you are wondering where your kitty has been, call me,” and I listed my number. Her daddy called a couple of days later and we had a good laugh about his kitty cheating on him with me. She didn’t get along with his dog, so he was fine with my adopting her when I moved away from Potrero Hill a couple of years later. I told him I would return her if anything happened to me.

She was the coolest cat in the universe. She liked going for walks really late at night, when the city was quiet, and with me on her leash. She would drag me up Jones Street, an easy climb for a tiny black cat but not a hill an overweight smoker enjoys. The last few bits up the hill are so steep the sidewalk turns to stairs. We would go to the top of Jones, where Grace Cathedral looks out over the city. There is a fountain up there; she liked to walk around its edges. Then we would go back to our apartment building on Jones Street and head up to the roof one last time. Jones Street would be my last address in San Francisco.

Miss Kitty had two moms now, as Julie and I had moved in together shortly after starting dating. But it wasn’t one of those dates lesbians are famous for, where someone brings a U-Haul. There had been a fiasco involving a faulty sprinkler system where I used to live. Julie had let me and Miss Kitty move in with her. “What the fuck are you talking about?” she now responded to my burst of poetic grumbling. She was irritated, and who could blame her? I was horrible company. She probably couldn’t wait for the morning to come, so she could be rid of me.

I pushed my pieces of sushi around on the plate and popped another Vicodin, chasing the pill down with my miso soup. We had ordered sushi and miso soup, a meal we usually shared with
The Sopranos
on Sunday nights, not Thursdays—I don’t mean Miss Kitty; I mean Julie. Miss Kitty didn’t like television or sushi.

Julie and I couldn’t possibly have been more incompatible, but there were strange forces at work in my life. Forces probably managed by Miss Kitty. She loved my roommate.

Living together was supposed to have been a temporary arrangement
while I found a new apartment. But that was when I finally got the call from Chicago, the call I had convinced myself would never happen. It had been just over six years since my arrest in Brattleboro, Vermont.

That was back in August. On September 22, 2002, I finally stood in front of a judge in Chicago. So much had passed to bring me standing there, in that spot, in front of the man about to tell me where I would be spending the next few years of my life. I had come to terms with that. I’d had years to come to terms with where I would be spending this time—probably in the federal correctional institution in Dublin, California. I realized, though, that I had neglected to come to terms with what would happen right there, right then, in that courtroom.

My entire family and some friends from the neighborhood where I had grown up were there. The friends had traveled to Chicago from Cincinnati with my sister, my brother, and our parents to support them through this horrible day. Hester would be sentenced immediately following me, and a few other defendants were either before or after us. We knew this because we had seen their names posted on the schedule outside the door of the judge’s courtroom.

We hadn’t actually laid eyes on any of them, which was a little disappointing. I would like to have seen what everyone looked like after almost seven years of this bullshit. Henry was fighting his charges; he was going to trial. He would get more time when that finally happened. I knew by then that they punished you by asking for much longer sentences if you went to trial. He sure as hell couldn’t win. Every one of us had accepted a plea agreement to avoid going away for an eternity. But part of that plea agreement was that we would testify against co-defendants if anyone decided to go to trial, the assumption being Alajeh was the only one who would do that.

Henry was charged with conspiracy, like most of us had been. Conspiracy law can be used to convict people with hearsay evidence alone. It’s a crime to conspire to do something illegal if you actually do any part of what you conspired with others to do, even if you don’t actually follow through. It was invented to get at the
untouchables, I’m told, but has been used for much juicier goals than it was intended. Someone explained to me McCarthyism was made possible by conspiracy law, but its more common abuse was by questionably ethical prosecutors pressuring people to cooperate with the threat of an inevitable conviction. Normally, it requires actual hard evidence to convict someone of a crime, and hearsay is not admissible in court. But with conspiracy, hearsay is allowed in court, and all it takes is enough people saying something happened and it is accepted as having occurred.

One other very important thing to know about conspiracy law: If you are convicted of conspiracy, you are held responsible for everything that everyone in the conspiracy did. We had been shown a list of the sentencing recommendations. For the time being, Phillip, Bradley, and I—I thought—were getting the longest sentences, which was to be expected. But at the time, Hester and I were the only two out of all the co-defendants who were in the courtroom.

Our parents sat behind us, holding hands. They both were trying to look calm and collected, but it wasn’t working. They had more of an our-daughters-are-getting-beheaded look going on. The law would sweep both their girls out of their lives for a long time, period. Mom and Dad couldn’t come to terms with the length of our sentences. We had talked about this with them numerous times, but I don’t think they thought it was possible. Like I said, Mom had worked in the Hamilton County jail for years as an employee of the Cincinnati Public Schools, and she thought she knew better.

She had ironically taken this assignment on long before my sister and I had ever become entangled with the justice system. It was kind of a blessing for her. It had helped her deal with much of what had already occurred to us. But her experiences had the opposite effect in regard to our sentencing. Only cold-blooded murderers got this kind of time; rapists didn’t get half of what we had tried to convince her that we were going to be given. She always believed this was just prosecutors trying to be scary.

It was hard for them to understand, when viewed through parent goggles, that their two daughters—who were so smart, so beautiful,
so innocent, with such promise—could be facing this court as the outlaws we were admitting to being. I heard a throaty noise from behind me. It had come from my dad. I knew he was upset; this was the throat-clearing noise he made when emotional. I had only heard it a couple of times in my life, but it was unmistakable.

I was first up. I was dressed well, in a tailored tan pantsuit and a black turtleneck, with my long hair pulled back in a bun. Up until this moment, I did not look or feel like a criminal. But when I stepped up to the bar with my lawyer, that is what I became. I wanted to turn around and tell Dad that I was all right, I wasn’t afraid. But the judge had come into the courtroom and I was frozen—breathing and alive, but I couldn’t turn around. I realized I was shaking. Well, trembling; shaking seems more deliberate. I wanted to have my sister right by my side, where I could see her, maybe hold her hand, or comfort her. But she was behind me with her lawyer, watching what was about to happen to her happen to me.

The judge started speaking to me about letters he had received on my behalf alleging what a great person I was. His words turned into white noise. I thought I could hear Mom and Dad’s heartbeats more audibly than what the judge was saying, but I think it was my own heart doing double time. I knew my sister was afraid for me and it bugged me that she had to be there right then. I was more afraid for my sister than I was for myself. I felt sorrier for my parents than I did anyone. My poor brother must have been completely freaked out. I said a prayer in my mind that he wouldn’t have a seizure. My brother is epileptic and stress is a trigger. I realized we had to be setting a record for twisted emotions and family drama. I thought it couldn’t get worse.

The judge looked over my shoulder and to the people behind me, acknowledging someone who wanted his attention. I heard his words perfectly then and was stunned. “Yes, sir. Would you like to address the court?”

“Your Honor. Yes, I would like to say some things on behalf of my daughters . . .” Dad paused. Dad was comfortable on stage, but not this one. He still looked like a star though, and while I was embarrassed,
he was actually responding to the judge’s request to the peanut gallery for input. I was proud he stepped up and identified himself as our father. “I am sorry. My wife and I were parents of the seventies—good parenting was to be permissive, let them make their mistakes and learn.” He paused again and looked flustered. “I don’t understand this.”

The judge was patient. Eugene Wolters was not before him for sentencing; he was not a criminal. He was a father. The judge was a father too. I knew the judge would know, without a doubt, this was a good father, this was a good family, and now he had to see me and Hester, not just the data in our presentence reports. Dad turned to my mom and held her hand more tightly. “This sentence extends to all of us here today.” Dad made a sweeping gesture toward our cheerleading section from Cincinnati. “Your Honor, as I said, my daughters have never been in trouble with the law.” He stood silent for a long moment before he could continue. “I hope that this court shows us mercy.”

Hearing this from my father took my breath away. In all of this, I had never been able to quantify or genuinely acknowledge the pain and suffering this predicament had caused him and Mom. But there it was, their pain flooding my ears and my heart like molten lava. I felt like my heart had stopped pumping blood out but kept pumping it in, and it would explode.

The judge spoke about how horrible my crimes were and how, in spite of his compassion for the family, the crimes demanded harsh sentencing. Besides, it wasn’t in his hands anyway . . . “mandatory minimums” . . . blah, blah, blah. I heard the judgment: “Ninety-four months to be followed by five years supervised release.” He asked me something, but I have no idea what. Alan, my lawyer, responded for me, and it was done. Alan and I were excused from the court and walked out. I felt like I had left my sister to be torn apart by wild dogs. My father gave me a sad smile as I walked by.

The weirdest thing imaginable happened when we left the courtroom. I felt great, fucking fantastic. I felt like a ten-thousand-pound weight had just been lifted off me. It wasn’t until that moment that
I understood how heavy it had been, the not knowing, the waiting, the hoping, for over six fucking long years I had been dead. But I felt alive again, like someone had just zapped me with those electric paddles and my happy heart was beating again. I could now see an end to this. It might be years away, but it existed. My whole family would celebrate when that happened. I could see it: Mom and Dad, probably at the Bankers Club, popping corks and cheering.

My sister came out of the courtroom a few minutes later and my elation vanished. She looked pale as a ghost and pissed off. Her lawyer had prepared her for forty-eight months; she got seventy-two. My brother came out next and looked lost. Then Hester’s husband of six months—a Tom Cruise look-alike named Matt—Mom, and Dad came out with my sister’s lawyer and formed a huddle, probably about the surprise addition of two years to Hester’s sentence. Hester walked toward me and Alan while digging in her bag. She pulled out her pack of cigarettes.

“Tell them we’re outside smoking. We’ll be there waiting for them.” She’d said this to my lawyer, Alan, assuming he knew whom he was to deliver the message to and that he would hang around waiting to do so. She grabbed my hand and yanked me in the direction she had told Alan we were heading, gripping my hand and towing me toward the elevator. I passively followed her to the elevator and I saw a smile form on her lips while we were waiting. I think in spite of the nasty turn of events, she was having her strange minute of joy too. We were given three months to turn ourselves in, so I hoped she wasn’t planning on making a run for it, not right then anyway. We were stopping for a cigarette outside though, so I knew I would have the length of a cigarette or two to talk her out of jumping if that is what the happy smile on her face meant.