Fishbowl

By: David H
(© 2011 by the author)
Editor: Ken King

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

 Chapter 9 

Complications and motions, hearing after hearing, all of it delayed the start of Giovanni’s trial by more than a month.  As the temperature in Alabama cooled, as people made ready for Thanksgiving, the time finally came to assemble at the Jefferson County Courthouse for the start of the trial.  The jury had been seated, and as Elias entered on that first day, he looked at each of them, wondering if they knew what they were being brought into.  As promised, Jenny was with him.

At exactly nine a.m. the judge arrived, dressed in her long, black robe, her blonde hair hanging down behind it.  Everyone in the courtroom stood out of respect until they were told to be seated.  Without wasting any time, she told the attorneys to get down to it.  The prosecutor’s opening statement alleged he had every intention of proving the monster that was Giovanni Taylor was guilty of everything with which he’d been charged.  The defense attorney spoke of his intent to show him as a tortured man with a history of mental illness, who himself got caught up in the wrong crowd as a youth and wasn’t responsible for the decade and a half of acts with which the State accused him.

When they were done, the judge recessed for lunch but told them after the break the press wouldn’t be allowed inside the courtroom and that no one was to speak of the proceedings outside the courtroom.  The gag order was to remain in effect until both sides finished with their cases and the jury was in deliberation.  Spectators who were there in a support capacity for those who were testifying, though, would be permitted to stay.

After a quiet lunch in a crowded sandwich shop, Elias and Jenny returned just moments before the judge herself did.  The testimony started with a couple of expert witnesses who talked about how drugs affected a person and how it related to the particular case at hand.  The prosecution was friendly; however, the defense did a bang up job in an attempt to discredit them.  By two p.m., the experts were done, and after a quick recess, testimony resumed with Scott Riggins called to the stand.  For the most part, as he was asked questions by both sides, his eyes remained closed.  At one point, Judge Loucks stopped the testimony and told Giovanni to stop making faces at people or he was going to have a contempt of court slapped on him faster than “stink attaches to a cow pie.”  When his testimony was over, Scott opened his eyes and looked at Elias, who told him through his gestures the boy had done a good job.  After Scott stepped down from the witness box, the judge adjourned the proceedings until the next morning. The early adjournment gave Elias one more day to psych himself out for his own testimony that would no doubt occur the next morning.

Instead of going home, Elias and Jenny went to her parents’ house.  After dinner, Jenny retired to her old room while Elias reluctantly went to sleep in a room that had previously been occupied by Ashton.  Posters of surfers and tropical locations still adorned the walls.

The next morning, Elias woke up at six.  His dreams had been vivid and bad, but the first thing he thought of after waking up was to make sure that he hadn’t wet the bed as he normally did during such occurrences.  He was thankful that he hadn’t.  By the time he was dressed and ready for the day, Jenny’s mom was downstairs cooking them breakfast: banana pancakes that smelled decadently sweet and yummy.

When he got downstairs, he was surprised to find Jenny’s parents were dressed in business attire, as was Jenny who was devouring her mother’s culinary efforts.

“So, Mom and Dad are going with us today,” Jenny told him just after he followed instructions to have a seat at the table in the kitchen.

He closed his eyes as he gazed at his best friend across the table from where she was.  “If you don’t want us to go, though, we’re won’t be offended,” Jenny’s mom said as she handed Elias a plate.  The aroma of it all was amazing.  What was on the plate was sweet, just like Jenny’s mom.

“It’s not that I don’t want you to go…” he started.  “I could probably use all the good energy I could get.  The thing is, I should warn you beforehand that there are things about me, about my past, that are going to come out today.”

“Okay…” Jenny’s dad said as he sat there.  “Are you worried that we’ll think less of you by knowing whatever this is?”

He looked at Jenny, who was smiling, supporting him quietly.  “Yes…” Elias answered meekly.

“Regardless of what it is,” Jenny’s mom said as she put her hands on the sides of his face and kissed the crown of his head, “we will still think the world of you.  You’re one of our babies.”

“Thank you,” Elias said simply as he smiled.

As soon as he was finished, he took both his and Jenny’s plates and put them in the sink as he always did, even though neither she nor any of her siblings ever did.  As Katie came down the stairs, their mother told her of the pancakes on the counter for her, and warned her that she would have to get herself onto the bus that morning.  Katie had no problem with any of her mom’s directions. She then walked over to Elias and gave him a sweet hug around his neck.

“I hope it goes well today,” Katie said as she smiled.

“Thanks, kid,” Elias told her. As time was short, the four of them walked from the main house into the garage to take a single car downtown that day. 

******************** 

As they arrived, Jenny put her arm in his as they walked through the lobby of the courthouse to the elevator.  They were only going to the fifth floor of the building, but it seemed to take forever.  When they climbed off, their elevator at the end of the hallway opened just as Giovanni was being escorted into the courtroom through an entrance different than the one they’d be taking.  Gio, as Elias had known him in the day, turned to his right only to see him standing there.  In that moment, they both knew who they were looking at; Elias could see the spark of recognition in Giovanni’s eyes, and Giovanni could see the anger and the pain in Elias’s.

The four of them entered the courtroom and sat next to Scott and Ms. Peggy, who had come with him today.  Taking a seat on the row behind them, Elias took the hand Ms. Peggy extended for him, knowing that he needed as much support as Scott did right then.

“Hey, Mr. T.”

“Hey, Scotty.  You did good yesterday.  I’m proud,” he told him.

“Thank you.  You wanna see what I did last night?” Scott asked him.

“Sure,” he said as Scott held up a picture. 

“It’s not as good as Super E or anything…”

“It’s perfect, though!” Elias told him as he smiled, the teacher and the counselor coming out of him for a second.

“Oh!” Peggy exclaimed as she suddenly remembered something.  “Dr. Owens asked me to go into your office and get you something for today.” Peggy turned and reached for Elias’s photo album, the book in which he kept his entire portfolio of drawings and photographs that he’d created over time.

            As Elias took the album from her, he immediately opened it to the first page and removed the drawing of Super E. He gazed at the picture for a long moment, folded it, and placed it in the front pocket of the shirt he was wearing.  He’d told his kids to always carry their pictures with them, for strength, to remember who they imagined that they could be.  “Would y’all like to see some of my work?” he offered to Jenny and her parents.

“Ms. Peggy, this is my best friend Jenny Tanner, and her parents, Catherine and James.”  He turned to the parents, “Guys, this is one of my former counselors and now a colleague, Peggy Hendrix.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Jenny’s mom and Ms. Peggy said to each other as Jenny’s dad nodded his agreement.

Jenny began thumbing through the book.  It was something that Elias had kept in his apartment for some time, but she’d never looked through it.  Knowing what she knew about Elias, she felt the need with him, more than anyone else, to respect his privacy in matters such as those.

At ten minutes to nine, the attorneys arrived in the court room and set up their own spaces, speaking with people about strategy and whatnot.  At nine on the nose, Giovanni was brought into the room.  Jenny’s dad looked right at him and then at Scott and Elias.  Both of them were doing everything in their power to look away from him, to avoid eye contact completely.

Jenny’s dad knew that Elias came from a broken past; he knew that Elias had been homeless for a while, but he gathered from the way Elias was looking away that that there was more to that year and a half than him just living on the streets.  It didn’t matter, though; Elias was a good kid and a great man.  If there was anyone in that room he knew he could respect and trust, it was this man that his oldest daughter had just one day brought home and introduced as a friend from school.

“All rise!” The bailiff called as a door on the back side of the courtroom opened and the judge strode in.  “The Honorable Judge Malissia Loucks presiding.”

“You may be seated,” she told those that were present.

“Your honor, we would like to present a motion to dismiss,” the defense attorney stood and declared before anyone else could speak.

“Why?”

“The prosecution has failed to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that my client is guilty of the crimes with which he has been charged.”

“Your honor,” the prosecutor began as he stood to address the judge. 

 “The defense is attempting to play games with the court because my office refused to plea out the case with a result that would allow his client to walk.  We have not finished presenting our case yet, and we feel strongly that with the additional testimony of a couple of other witnesses we will be able to prove that Mr. Taylor is as guilty as we contend.”

“I’m inclined to agree with the prosecution on this one.  I’m going to hold off ruling on the motion until after the prosecution has rested,” Judge Loucks said with a bang of her gavel.  “All right, bailiff, show in the jury please,” she instructed as another door opened to permit the entry of the jury into the courtroom.  “Mr. Prosecutor, you may call your first witness of the day.”

“Your honor, the State calls Elias Thompson to the stand,” the prosecutor said, and an odd tingly sensation went over Elias’s body.  He stood, though, and made his way down the aisle toward the small gate that separated the action from the gallery.  It was a long walk, to say the least, and Elias was sure that at any moment his legs were going to give out.  He made it through the gate, however, and walked to where the bailiff stood holding a Bible.

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?  So help you God?” the man said in a deep, rumbling voice.

“I do,” Elias replied as he looked around and saw all eyes in the courtroom were set squarely on him at that moment.

“Elias,” the prosecutor said easily and friendly, knowing his young witness was anxious.  “Would you state for the record your full name and your current occupation?”

“My name is Elias Thompson, and I am currently a counselor at the Baur Center.  I work with Art Therapy.”

“And what led you to apply for that position?”

“From 1996 to 2000, I was a student at the Baur School. After finishing college and graduate school, I saw the job posting, and I knew that I wanted to give something back to the community that had given me a second chance on living,” he answered honestly, but showing a great deal of nervousness.

“What led you to be a student at the Baur Center in the first place?” the prosecutor asked.

“Objection!” the defense called.  “I fail to see where this is going.”

“I do, too,” the judge said.

“Your honor, this client has information could help my case a tremendous amount.  If you will allow me a little flexibility, I will make my point in just a moment.”

“Make it fast,” the judge told him.  “Objection overruled.”

“Elias?” the prosecutor returned.

“For a year and a half before I was placed there, I was homeless and living on the streets,” Elias answered as he looked down from the stand and saw Giovanni whispering something to his attorney.

“How did you end up on the streets?”

“Your honor!” the defense attempted to sideline the questions being asked, for they knew that he would be just as damning to the case as Scott had been the day before.

“My ruling stands,” Judge Loucks told the defense attorney, “but if you don’t make it in the next couple of questions, Mr. Baker…” she glared at the prosecutor.

“Yes ma’am.  Two questions!” he assured her.

Turning his attention back to the witness, Elias knew that it was time to answer the question as posed to him.  “I ended up on the street after running away from my eighth foster home in seven years.”

“And did you at any point encounter the defendant?”

“Yes.”

“How long after your running away did that occur?”

“About a week.  I had been sleeping in various places.  I’d been robbed a couple of times, and Gio… the defendant… came to my rescue before it could happen a third time.”

“He came to your rescue?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you think about him at that point?”

“I thought he was a kid, like me, just trying to find a way to make it in the world.  He… offered to let me stay with him… on the streets for a few days.”

“And at what point did your opinion of him change?” the attorney asked as Elias looked toward his hands, the hands that still bore the weight of his world.

“About two weeks after he made the offer of protection, he said that if I wanted to remain in his protection, I had to do certain things for him.”

“What kind of things?”

“Objection!  Leading!” the defense attorney barked.

“Get a dictionary, and you’ll see why I’m overruling you,” the judge barked.  “Continue…” she told the prosecutor as she returned her gaze to their interaction, the questions, and Elias’s reaction to them.

“It started off that I had to perform oral sex on him.  Then it progressed into anal sex acts.”  Elias stopped for a second and closed his eyes, just as Scott had done the day before.

“Please remove any minors from the room,” the judge requested as Ms. Peggy took Scott and the two of them temporarily left.  “Mr. Thompson.  Continue…”

“Did you ask him to stop?” the prosecutor asked.

“Yes, but he wouldn’t.  The first time he did it, I was lying face down on a picnic table in the park… Wade Park, after dark.  He turned me over, and gripped my left arm.  From his back pocket, he pulled a needle and inserted it into a vein that had popped up.  He told me that it would help.”

“And did it?”

“At the moment, yes, it did.  It felt funny, at first, and then all the pain that I had going on, from the mental to the physical, was just… gone…” Elias recounted.  “I closed my eyes, and I imagined that I was in a different place.”

“Did it stop there?”

“No.  He continued to take advantage of me for several weeks.  Each time it was with a dose of whatever was the needle that he had right then.”

“Did you know what was in the needles?” the prosecutor asked.

“Not at first, but I learned later that it was morphine,” Elias looked at Giovanni, who was whispering something else to his attorney.

“In as much detail as possible, describe to the Court what happened after that.”

“Giovanni told me a couple of months after it all started that I had to do more to earn my keep.  By keep, he meant that I had to start paying with more than just my body for the drugs that he’d gotten me addicted to.  He began offering me to clients that were coming to him for drugs.  A blow job was twenty dollars, and for forty, I would swallow.  Anal sex was fifty dollars with a condom.  He would never let a john do bareback, though.  That was… as he put it… his…”

“What were these encounters like?  Did you get to meet the person beforehand?”

“Never.  It was always something that was done in the shadows.  With only a couple of exceptions, I would always be bent over as they did whatever it was they were going to do to me.”

“And it continued this way until you were sent to the Baur Center?”

“No.  When I turned fourteen, he told me that I was too old, that I wasn’t useful to him any longer, and that none of the men that visited him for drugs wanted me.”

“So what did you do?”

“By that time, I was addicted to drugs.  I had started smoking crack; I’d also done cocaine a few times.  My favorite drug, though, was heroin, and he was the only person from whom I knew I could get it.  I didn’t have any money to pay for it, though, so I started dealing for him, and on the side I would turn a few tricks.  When I couldn’t find any guys, I would steal stuff for him, from convenience stores mostly, but also from homes on Southside and other parts of town.”

“How long did it continue?”

“Until around the middle of January 1996,” Elias said as the back door of the courtroom opened slowly. Caleb and Luis entered the room and took seats at the back, close to the door.

“What happened then?”

“I was attempting to steal some costume jewelry from a convenience store off Highland Avenue, as well as can of Mountain Dew and some cookies.  I hadn’t had any cookies in a very long time, and… I wanted to see if they held the same pleasure as they did when I was a kid, when I was younger.”

“Continue.”

“As I was walking out of the store, the owner saw that I was wearing one of the bracelets around my hand, and he chased me.  I thought I could run fast enough to outrun him, but just in front of the Temple Beth-El, on Highland, he knocked me to the ground and yelled for the police.  Two officers came running over; he explained what had happened, and they put me in handcuffs and took me to jail.”

“How did you get out of the trouble?”

“I don’t know, but at some point, when I was before a judge, he explained that since I’d never been arrested before and since I was, technically, a ward of the state, there was this place I could go called the Baur Center, and they would take me in and help me.”

“And you went?”

“Yes,” Elias said.  “I was a horrible child, but there were people there that showed me that I could be more.  They got me involved in art, which is still a passion of mine to this day. They also gave me a second chance to be a kid, to grow up… They helped me with my college applications; they helped me get a scholarship to go to school, to study art.”

“Was that the end of it?”

“No.  In working toward my degree in counseling, there was a lot of cause for me to look at myself.  I was afraid to try new things; I didn’t ever go anywhere; I made arrangements with the Housing Department to stay in a place on campus so that I wouldn’t have to… find a place during the holidays.  I made three friends the entire time I was there, and only one of them is still with me today.  Her family has been amazing to me, but I can’t even trust them completely.  I don’t do relationships, and the idea of sex scares me to no end.  My physical contact is limited to handshaking or the occasional hug, but that’s it.  Um… I still have nightmares from time to time, and I am probably the only twenty-five year old who still wets his bed.”  Elias had fought back his emotions the whole time he’d been testifying, trying to remain strong to the end, but in that moment he couldn’t help but lose it. He began to silently sob.

As they sat in the audience, Jenny’s dad, one of those men’s men who would otherwise never shed a tear in public, also began to weep, but not as profusely as his wife.  Jenny was holding her mom’s hand as she squeezed it tightly, and in a single moment she finally understood why Elias was the way he was.  Luis had his arm wrapped around Caleb’s shoulders, holding him closely.

“Do you need a break, Mr. Thompson?” the judge asked him compassionately.

“No ma’am,” Elias answered quickly.

“Do you have anything further to add to your last answer?”

“Just that I… I probably will never have a chance at a normal life because of him, because of the price of his protection and the cost of being addicted to drugs.”

“No further questions, your honor,” the prosecutor said.

The defense attorney rose and waited for a signal from the judge to begin his cross examination.

“Elias, you say that you don’t have sex, but have you masturbated since becoming a student at the Baur Center?”

“Not that I remember,” Elias answered.

“You’re telling me that you, as a healthy, twenty-five year old man, a bedwetter, a recovering junkie… that you haven’t pleasured yourself in any way?”

“If I have, it was a long time ago.  I’ve focused on my work, on my art…”

“Hmm… Interesting… No further questions, your honor,” the attorney observed as he smugly walked back to the table where he was sitting.

“I think at this point I’m going to call for a thirty minute recess,” the judge announced as she banged her gavel, leaving the courtroom a moment after the jury was taken away.

Physically weakened by the intensity of his testimony, Elias stood from the stand after Giovanni was taken into a room just off the main courtroom.  He shuffled across the stone floors as no other sound was made.  After he crossed the threshold into the gallery, Jenny’s mom pushed everyone out of the way and ran over to him, hugging him only as a mom could.  Remembering it all, reliving it, speaking the truth had sent him well into what Jenny would have referred to as a “cantaloupe moment. ”

“It’s okay, sweetie,” Jenny’s mom told him.  “I won’t let him hurt you any more.  I swear it to you!”

“Thank you…” he said to her, as well as to Jenny’s father when he came up to them and rubbed Elias’s back.

“Do you want something to drink?” Luis asked as they walked up, and as the parents let him go for a moment he was finally able to hug Caleb.

“Please…” he said.

“What you want?” he asked.

“A Mountain Dew…” Elias answered as they walked out of the room and into the hallway with the parents close by. 

******************** 

The thirty minutes passed and they went back into the courtroom. The State rested its case just before lunch was called after hearing the testimony of two police officers, one of which was Officer Skinner.  After lunch, Giovanni’s attorney offered what could passively be called a defense.  He called a single “expert witness” who spoke a lot of psychobabble in an attempt to “prove” Giovanni’s mental illness.  By two o’clock, though, the defense had also rested, and the judge gave the jury instructions on how to proceed with their deliberations.

The whole group of Elias’s supporters moved downstairs to get something else to drink and some fresh air.  In less than an hour, Officer Skinner came down to tell them that the jury had reached a decision.  Just as they walked back in, the judge returned to the chamber as well.

“Is there anything that either counsel would like to ask me before we do this?” she asked.

“No ma’am,” the prosecutor answered.

There was a moment when they all held their breath to see what the defense was going to do.  When the attorney offered nothing, however, the judge summoned the jury to return.

“Mr. Foreman, has the jury reached a unanimous verdict?” the judge asked.

“We have, Your Honor,” he said as he stood.

“What say ye, members of the jury?” she asked.

“On all counts, we the jury find the defendant…” he started as Elias held both hands over his mouth, waiting.  It was all taking forever, at least in his opinion.  “…guilty!”

Elias began to cry, for it was as if a mighty weight was at long last lifted off his shoulders.  Scott smiled, but everyone knew that it would take time for him to really appreciate that day, that moment, when everything in the world was, for the first time, right.  As the judge concluded the proceedings and dismissed the jury, Jenny and her mom, who had flanked themselves around Elias, simultaneously squeezed his arms tightly.  Caleb and Jenny’s dad both patted him on the back as Luis and Caleb also reveled in the moment.

As soon as it was over, as Giovanni was taken away, the group walked out into the hallway where Elias at last openly, loudly, vibrantly cheered.  Peggy was on the phone with Dr. Owens, who first wanted to talk to Scott to make sure that he was okay, and then to Elias.  In all her years, many of her children had grown to know pure joy, and she was happy that Elias finally, after all that time, could be counted among them as well. 

******************** 

The very next week, at Thanksgiving, Elias arrived at Jenny’s house just as they were all sitting down to lunch.  The whole family was there, from cousins to aunts and uncles, and everyone gathered to share the holiday.  As they formed a circle, Jenny took Elias’s hand and included him as part of it.  Rather than a family prayer, though, they all spoke of something for which they were thankful on the holiday.  Jenny was grateful for her family, which included all three of her brothers, but Elias, the last person in the circle, took no time in informing them that he was thankful that, after 25 years, he knew at long last what peace was.

The End

Posted: 11/04/11