Gideon - 04 - Illegal Motion (16 page)

Please don’t make any more cracks about women burning their bras! This group is not like that.

Love, Sarah P.S. I’ve quit jv cheerleading even though I think I had a good chance of being a Razorback cheerleader next year. It’s really just kind of a sex show—women in skimpy, tight outfits performing for men. I want to have more control over what happens to me instead of just reacting to the prevailing culture, which, you’ll have to admit, is pretty sick. I’ll see you later this week.

I read the letter twice. I should have seen this coming, I think, as I swallow more beer. Sarah is always vulnerable to whatever comes along at the moment. If I hadn’t been so nuts after Rosa died, none of this would be happening.

What gets into her? How does she think I’m going to make a living if I defend only people I know are innocent?

And what is wrong with being beautiful? Actually, it wouldn’t bother me in the slightest if she didn’t feel as

if she had to spend as much money on clothes as she does. Unless she shaves her head, she’s going to be gorgeous, no matter what. I scan the letter again. I never knew she worried about being fat. She never has been even close to being five pounds overweight. And if researchers have proved a direct casual link between pornography and physical violence against women, I’ve missed it. Up until now it’s always been the right wing that wanted to ban porno shops and movies. This is ridiculous! My apolitical daughter becoming left wing and going so far around the bend she’s meeting conservatives on the other side. I can’t believe she’s quit cheerleading. Regardless of the cost, I was all set to make every home game for the next two years just to see her.

Damn these groups! They get their teeth in you and won’t let go until you’re a carbon copy of them.

Desperate to find out what this all means, I call Amy and launch into a feverish description of what Sarah has been doing.

“It just sounds like they’re trying to make her feel guilty about being who she is,” I say, without letting Amy get a word in edgewise.

“In one paragraph she goes from screaming about the cosmetics industry to pornography.

I don’t get it. It sounds like if you’re beautiful, you should burn yourself at the stake to make these women happy. What the hell’s going on up there?”

“Whoa, boy!” Amy commands, giggling at my hyperbole.

“I suspect you’re like a lot of people, including women, and are pretty confused by what’s going on today in what passes for the women’s movement. I’ll grant you it’s pretty weird. At one end you’ve got

people like Catharine MacKinnon, a law professor, who truly believes there is a relationship between pornography and violence against women and would ban it; but, then there’re women like Camille Paglia who say that women are buying into a victim psychology that wrongly defines us as weak and powerless. I can identify especially with the part about her physical appearance. I’ve spent my whole life trying to look, as my mother says, perky and cute, since I don’t have a chance of looking like the Sarahs of this world. As a case in point I’ve barely eaten anything since I gorged myself Saturday night, so I know how Sarah feels.”

“But she’s never been fat a day in her life!” I say, remembering all the times when Sarah complained about her appearance although she looked perfect.

“Society has made us worry about it constantly,” Amy responds.

“You’d have to be a woman to really under stand it.”

I sip at my beer, which I have brought into the kitchen.

“I don’t see why she quit cheerleading,” I gripe.

“That seemed harmless enough to me. It’s not like they got out there naked.”

“I admire her for it,” Amy claims.

“It took guts to give it up. Most of us don’t do anything but talk.”

A lot of people are better off that way, too.

“When this dies down,” I predict, “she’ll regret it.”

Amy says, quietly, “It sounds to me like you don’t take Sarah too seriously.”

“I do, too,” I reply hastily.

“It’s just that I don’t want her to be overly influenced and do things

she’ll wish she hadn’t” “Gideon, you want her to make mistakes you approve of and not her own. Don’t forget she’s twenty years old.”

That must sound old to Amy.

“She’s still a child,” I respond

“I know her. She’s like a lamb being led to the slaughter.”

“How ridiculous!” she says affectionately.

“I forget how melodramatic you are.”

“When it comes to Sarah,” I confess, “I don’t have much perspective. I guess it’s just that I’ve got her close to being grown up, and I don’t want her to blow it.”

“Are you crazy?” Amy says, sounding almost smug.

“You know there’s no magic age when humans stop screwing up. Look at us.”

In the last couple of days Amy and I have talked on the phone, and I have probably confided in her more than I should. I find myself telling her about Rosa, Sarah, even discussing my relationship with Rainey. She seems wise beyond her years, but it comes as no surprise to me that most women have more insight into relationships than men. But, as she says, it doesn’t keep them from messing up their lives. Her abortion was a case in point. Only last night she told me about an affair she’d had with one of the men in the prosecutor’s office when she worked there.

He was terrible, but she’d fallen head over heels in love with him.

“I thought you’d be more sympathetic,” I complain. Rainey, with a daughter older than Sarah, would have been reassuring.

“I am sympathetic to her,” Amy says dryly.

“You don’t want her to grow as a woman because it threatens you. I think you should be proud that she’s involved in some thing more than

boys or cheerleading. She’s trying to deal with things that are important to women, and she’s willing to challenge you. Lots of girls her age would keep their mouths shut and their hands out.”

“Sarah’s never done that,” I say.

“She’s always been on my case.”

“Poor Gideon!” Amy teases.

“What a hard life he has!”

“Wait’ll you have children,” I say irritably.

“It’s not as easy to raise them as you apparently think.”

“Don’t be such a baby!” Amy says uncharitably.

“Sarah’s doing great. If you have any sense, you’ll sup port her in this.”

I’m ready to end this conversation and am rescued by Woogie, who is scratching at the front door. I hang up after telling her that I will call her when I get back. We’re supposed to go out again this weekend.

While I am giving Woogie his dinner (a good reason not to be a dog), the phone rings again.

“Mr. Page,” Dade says, his voice anxious, “I’ve been trying to get hold of you. I got something in my mailbox telling me there’s gonna be a hearing on Friday at ten” “Who’s it from?” I ask, thinking how inevitable it was that the university would get involved. Despite the signs, like an idiot, I had harbored the hope that somebody would make the decision to let it be resolved in court. I should have started preparing for this last week.

“A woman named Clarise Dozier. It says she’s the Co ordinator of Judicial Affairs. It says to contact her for a pre hearing conference where she’ll explain my rights.”

“I want you to call her tomorrow first thing and tell her you and I’ll be in her office at ten. Find out where to go.”

“Am I gonna be kicked out of school?” Dade asks.

“Can they do that?”

He is scared. I can hear it in his voice. That damn group WAR. The university couldn’t stand the heat. Yet, if I were the father of the girl, I’d be screaming they should have done this five minutes after criminal charges were filed.

“No,” I tell him, “you’re not going to be kicked out of school. Let Coach Carter or one of the coaches know what’s going on. I’ll call you about nine thirty tomorrow morning and find out where to meet you.

By the way,” I add, trying to relax him, “you had a great game against Tennessee. Think y’all can beat Georgia?”

“I don’t know,” Dade mumbles.

He sounds as if he is in shock.

“Listen to me,” I say sharply.

“Until somebody in authority says otherwise, you’re still on the team. So you have to make the most of it. How you did last Saturday is going to affect some of the people who will be sitting in judgment on you, no matter how much they’ll pretend it doesn’t. I’ll try to get it delayed so that you can keep playing. Maybe we can drag it out until after the season is over. You’ve got to practice and stay focused like you’re playing for the SEC title this weekend, you hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” Dade answers. I can barely hear him.

After he hangs up, I realize I didn’t even ask him what else the notice said. I try to call him back, but his line is busy. It doesn’t matter what the paper says. We both know what can happen. The university can do whatever it wants if it takes the trouble to go through the motions.

Yet, who is really the boss hog? The chancellor? Hell, the governor may be calling the shots for all I know. I fight down a panicky feeling. If he does get kicked out of school, the effort to keep him playing will have backfired. Maybe I should have advised Dade to request a suspension from the team until after his trial. That might have headed off this hearing. I call Barton’s number to find out the name of the lawyer I blew off last week. No answer. Shit. Four days. This is a rush job if there ever was one. I dial Sarah’s number but get her answering machine.

Relieved (I don’t know what I would have said), I leave a message that I will call her tomorrow.

I hang up and realize I was going to drop Woogie off at his kennel on my way out of town. Now I won’t have time. I call Amy, who says she’ll be glad to take him.

Would she be calling me to ask me to do the same thing for her? Probably not. I hate to use Amy, but the truth is, she is so damn user-friendly.

Clarise Dozier’s office is on the second floor of the Student Union across from the library. She is a tall, smiling woman of about my age, but her gray hair, pulled back in a bun, and the vanilla-colored shawl she has draped around her shoulders make her look distinctly grandmotherly. She takes my hand and looks me in the eye.

“I’m glad you could come with Dade, Mr. Page. Unless you’ve done one of these cases before, the hearing Friday will probably be quite a bit different from anything you’ve experienced. Please have a seat. Can I get either of you some coffee?”

Dade shakes his head, but I say, “Thank you,” taken slightly off guard by her unexpected courtesy and friendliness.

We could be here to dispute a parking ticket. If she is uncomfortable at being in the presence of an alleged rapist, I can’t tell it. I look around her office and notice mainly photographs of campus architectural projects under construction. I recognize Bud Walton Arena, the new home of the Razorback basketball team. Seating about twenty thousand people, it is a magnificent structure. A good omen, I tell myself.

After handing me my coffee, Ms. Dozier warns me, “Frankly, lawyers find our hearing procedures a little unsettling.

Are you at all familiar with what we do?”

I do not say I received and mostly ignored a mini lecture on the subject from a Fayetteville lawyer just last week and ask for a full explanation. Rubbing her hands together as if she knows she has her work cut out for her, she nods.

“Well, we view the hearing process as a part of the educational mission of the university. Punishment is not our goal here, education is, and, if warranted by the facts, that can entail correction.”

She makes this statement with a straight face. Doubtless, this message is appropriate when someone has been accused of playing his stereo too loud, but I suspect that if the board finds that Dade is guilty of what he’s been charged with, it will entail more than writing one hundred times on the blackboard: I won’t rape Robin anymore.

“What is the burden of proof?” I ask, looking down at the form that Dade handed me on the way over. It lists Robin as one of four witnesses. The other three are identified as Robin’s roommate, a woman from the local Rape Crisis Center, and a nurse from Memorial Hospital. It has already occurred to me that this proceeding will be useful for discovery purposes. Arkansas does not require witnesses to talk to opposing counsel in criminal cases be fore trial. Depositions are not allowed, so I can’t force a witness in a criminal case to say a single word. All I can do is get the statements they gave to me prosecutor.

“The same as in civil court cases,” Ms. Dozier says.

“Fifty-one percent. I’ll just run through the procedure, if you don’t mind, and then you can ask questions.”

“Fine,” I say, feeling like a school kid in front of this woman who surely was a teacher at one time.

Ms. Dozier refers to a sheet of paper on her desk and says: “Let me start with the individuals who will hear this case. The All-University Judiciary is made up of nine people five faculty members, one of whom is the chair person, and four students. Dade will have a right to have present two counselors who may advise him but who can’t speak or ask questions. This isn’t like a case in court where the judge acts like a referee for the lawyers.

It is much more informal than that. We aren’t bound by hearsay rules or rules of evidence, though, of course, the T Board takes the source of information into account in assessing credibility. The hearing is closed to the public and confidential. The complaining party and respondent each have the opportunity to make an opening statement.

The members of the board and the opposing parties can then ask questions of the witnesses and each other. Dade will be allowed to summarize his position at the end, a closing statement, if you will, and so will the complaining party. I’ve written down the names and positions of the witnesses who’ll be called by the complaining party.

They include her roommate, a woman from the Rape Crisis Center who met the complaining party at the hospital, and a nurse there.”

As the woman drones on, I realize quickly why this procedure drives lawyers crazy: we don’t get to do anything to help our clients except whisper in their ears.

Dade could hang himself if we aren’t careful.