by Rob Sedgwick
“For Mr. Sedgwick to be involved as deeply as he was bespeaks a mind capable of future criminal endeavors, perhaps even more severe than the crime for which we are now gathered,” the judge said. “However, for Mr. Sedgwick’s brother Nikko to come forward of his own volition to cooperate with the US government for his brother’s benefit, to incur a serious criminal record that might have never come to light had he not come forward, bespeaks a selfless character indeed. The fabric of the Sedgwick family must be made of some stern stuff, and in a sense the Sedgwick brothers have rewritten the tale of Cain and Abel.
“Still, I’m having an exceedingly difficult time coming to grips with this blatant flouting of the law. This almost flippant disregard for decency—for marijuana is most certainly a bane, and the possession and distribution of it is against the law. We are a nation of laws, and when a law is broken, there must be punishment. Mr. Sedgwick, I am intensely disappointed in you. Your background is that of…”
I can’t do this anymore. If he’s going to send me away, he should just do it already. A year of this bullshit, this waiting, and now this scolding. This must be how Floyd Patterson felt when Ali tortured him for calling him Cassius Clay. “What’s my name?” POP! “What’s my name?” POP! After a thousand of those, he must’ve just wanted to take a knee and be done with it already.
“What is fear? What is culpability? Have you made a soul-searching inventory of yourself, Mr. Sedgwick? Because if you have not, you cannot be called a man. To be a man, one must stand up and be held accountable, look a misdeed in the eye and take full responsibility for both the misdeed and its consequences. As for fear, we are all plagued with that beast every day, all of us…”
Cus D’Amato, the legendary boxing trainer, said, “Heroes and cowards feel exactly the same fear. Heroes just react to it differently.” I still couldn’t piss in the urinal in public, and frankly, I preferred to piss sitting down. It was more comfortable. When I was around six and having a major toilet session, I would cover my head with a towel and think of angels, like the ones you’d see in a museum. I would imagine them singing church hymns. I found this very comforting for some reason.
My God, he’d been going on for thirty-five minutes. Sit up straight.
Focus.
Warren looked over to me, and I noticed the teeny beads of sweat on his nose. There were a lot of them. His eyes told me the judge was still deliberating with himself; he had yet to make up his mind. I could see by the tightness of Warren’s lips he thought incarceration was a very real possibility.
“Mr. Sedgwick, have you anything to say before I pass sentence?”
The question echoed and reverberated endlessly, like in some goddamn Hitchcock movie.
What is the ultimate measure of a man?
I wanted to turn into a puddle and die.
In the unfolding of my long body skyward, the blood either raced into or out of my head. The room spun sideways. I felt my face on my face and myself watching myself. This was one of those times in life where life itself was too much to actually participate in.
A tall blond man in an old blue suit from his high school graduation stood up from his chair, took the three feet of ground that was his on this earth, and stood on it. He looked the judge in the eye and spoke. He was noticeably trembling.
“Yes, Your Honor. I can’t tell you how sorry I am, and I’m so ashamed that I have done something like this. I am so terribly sorry, and I will never do such a thing again. It would never even cross my mind. I have done my best to make restitution for what I have done, though I know that’s not really possible. I have tried my best to be a productive person in my community, yet I know deep in my heart that what I have done is unforgivable and wrong. I am also deeply ashamed for the burden it has placed on my family. I can’t understand why I would have done such a thing, but I did, and I take full responsibility for it. What I have done is my fault, no one else’s. I ask for my family’s forgiveness. I ask for your forgiveness. And I promise you, I will never do such a thing again. And, again, I am terribly, terribly sorry.”
The tall blond man sat down.
“Thank you, Mr. Sedgwick. I have considered and examined all facets of this case, and my determination is as follows: Your cooperation in this case must be acknowledged and must be rewarded; otherwise, how will we possibly deter and quell the insidious influx of drugs into this country? However, you have committed a grave and severe crime, and the punishment should be grave and severe. You have willingly participated in a conspiracy to possess and distribute large quantities of marijuana. This is reprehensible. However, in light of your timely and forthright cooperation, in addition to your brother’s, I sentence you to four years…”
Warren petted my knee. It was over.
It couldn’t be four years.
“…suspended sentence. Four hundred hours of community service. And, Mr. Sedgwick, if you ever do anything like this again, God help you.”
Brad Fine shot up. “Your Honor, I urge you to recommend a period of incarceration for the defendant.”
“I have made my decision, Mr. Fine.”
“But we must eradicate marijuana from the fabric of our society, Your Honor. At least make the attempt. There’s nothing else—”
“That is all, Mr. Fine.”
“But—”
“That’s enough, Mr. Fine.”
Brad Fine had been rebuked. He had lost to the fancy law firm he wished he was part of. His lips were scrunched in disappointment. He hated.
My mother hugged me as if I’d come back from Omaha Beach alive and reminded me that we had dinner reservations at the Post House in two hours. I got kisses and relief from everyone.
My sister said to my mother, “Thank God it’s over. Now I’m going to kill him.”
I called Nikko, who was in Italy, modeling. The court had allowed him to travel abroad for work until his own sentencing in six months, which, given the result of my own sentence, both his and my lawyers agreed, would be a suspended sentence as well. He cheered over the phone. I hugged my lawyers and kissed everyone goodbye. I walked out of 40 Foley Square a free man with dinner reservations at one of the best steakhouses in New York City.
But I had to go home first to feed and walk my dog.
—
Woods surround us in Croton, and I spend much of my time in them. Sometimes with my brother, but mostly with Golden Boy. On the rocks, climbing pine trees, waiting for our parents to come home, hiding from our nanny Marla. I find clubhouses that aren’t really clubhouses at all but simply places that I say are clubhouses. I run through thick carpets of leaves. To the dam, to the lake.
The sky is getting dark. I have to get home so Marla doesn’t get mad. If Mom and Dad were home she wouldn’t get mad—couldn’t, because they would be there. And why do I feel sad? But Superman will be on later, so it’ll be okay. And we’ll play “you can’t get me” around the carpet if Marla lets us, so I am running to get home before it gets dark, running with Golden Boy panting behind me. He’ll make it all right somehow, but it would be nice to hear Peter, Paul and Mary sing, “Stewball Was a Racehorse” with Dad if he was home, but he’s not home and so I am running, running from one clubhouse that isn’t really a clubhouse to another and Mom wants the keys to the car NOW.
So I have to hurry and so I am running, and it’s almost getting dark so I have to be inside and not get in trouble with Marla, and I hope it’s not the hotdogs again because they make me throw up, so I am running, running because it’s too much to sit still and everything around me is jumpy and makes me jump and the darkness is sad and why is it so lonely when it first gets cold? And now I feel the sweat start under my hair and my face feels hot, and I see the shed before the house and it’s getting very dark now, so I have to hurry up, so I don’t have to be worried…
So I am running…
—
A tall, thin bl
ond man stands about one hundred paces into Riverside Park with his dog. The man is talking to someone who is not there. He gesticulates, he laughs, he jumps up and down, he slaps his knees and bends down to kiss and pet his dog, whom he obviously adores, so many times that it becomes comical. The Hudson shimmers in the moonlight, millions of diamonds floating by, silent, the sky cloudless, crystal clear, and the moon glowing bright and regal. The tall blond man is celebrating one of life’s close calls and thinks he is so happy.
He is hopelessly lost.
The dog that he so adores will die in seven years on March 8, 1998, twenty-seven years to the day since the immortal Muhammad Ali was defeated by the valiant, ever-charging Smokin’ Joe Frazier.
And it will be the deepest, most profound loss of the tall blond man’s life.
FIN