28 Seconds

by Michael Bryant

  Between February 1998 and June 1999, when I was first elected, I must have knocked on thousands of doors. I spoke with thousands of people. I signed up over 1000 of them to the St. Paul’s Provincial Liberal Association (the Ontario Liberal Party division for my local riding, called “St. Paul’s”). Millions of words were exchanged, thousands of hands shaken. The experience of entering politics had been the most exciting and rewarding one of my life. And then I continued that grassroots work in my constituency office where, five days a week, people would visit, call, email, or write me seeking assistance with a matter involving a public service. On weekends I would attend events in the local constituency, during which more people would ask for more help.

  Most of the people who approached me for help received assistance in some fashion. Perhaps all we did is tell them who to contact to get assistance, or maybe we told them that their matter was in fact private, not something for an MPP to solve. But even the private matters—divorce, credit rating, unemployment, workplace troubles—sometimes included public assistance in some form. So we assisted.

  Imagine a job where people respected your office enough to approach you for help, and then you helped them. Now multiply this feeling exponentially and you have a happy MPP.

  But some MPPs get appointed to Cabinet, and some cabinet ministers think that the most important part of their job is the work done in government, where the most bang for the buck is obtained. Rather than assisting the woman from Balliol Street who had cockroaches in her apartment, which she’d helpfully brought along in a resealable plastic bag and placed on my desk, I could work with my cabinet colleagues to fashion legislation and a process that was more tenant-friendly for thousands, perhaps millions of tenants.

  The trick is to not let the latter impede helping the former; to not let the work of high utilitarian value preclude helping that lady with a purse full of cockroaches. Someone has to help her. And if it’s not me, it might not be anyone. Or, even if someone from my office helps her, for which I’m usually rewarded with a vote at election time, I miss out on life’s gardening. Predictably, the longer I was in politics, the less I got my hands dirty.

  No wonder I wanted to leave by decade’s end. I had originally been thirsty for human connection, but over time bought into the algorithm for popularity and public works. I mistook ego hits, via media coverage, for human connection. I got a rush from reading my name in a newspaper, or seeing myself on television. It was ego at its worst, and believe me, attracting media coverage makes the life of a media harlot a veritable rat race, an endless sprint on a wheel to nowhere.

  If I ever find myself involved in politics again, it will be for the original reasons: human connection and service to others. Now, this is not to feign modesty; I was associated with many good works. But that was as much the result of the service and offerings of others as my own doings. Hillary Clinton is right that it takes a village to raise a child. But that doesn’t mean that leading the village is the goal. The goal is better children and a better village.

  * The analogy came to me listening to a podcast: American Public Media, Krista Tippett, On Being, “Driven by Flavor with Dan Barber,” December 9, 2010.

  FOURTEEN

  Attorney General

  v. Michael Bryant

  After her presentation to Special Prosecutor Richard Peck, Marie Henein, my lawyer, received no signals from either Peck or his Ontario counterpart, Mark Sandler, as to whether they were inclined to drop the charges or to proceed to trial.

  “Rollercoaster” is how she often described it to me. One day the nature of Peck’s questions suggested that he was preparing to dismiss the charges. The next day he would seem hell-bent for a trial.

  Throughout March, April, and May, Peck and Sandler conducted their own investigation, with the police, of every aspect of the case. They interviewed our own witnesses, checking their accounts with the affidavits filed by Marie from the March presentation. They re-interviewed the Crown witnesses—those relied upon by police in laying the charges.

  And Peck himself, accompanied by Marie, inspected my Saab, which was held as evidence in a garage somewhere in Vaughan, Ontario. He scanned the marks on the hood, and witnessed first-hand the traces of Darcy Sheppard’s blood specks on the inside of my windshield, demonstrating just how far in the car he was during the 28 seconds.

  He sat inside the driver’s seat, to get a sense of my perspective, imagining Darcy climbing in the car. The driver’s seat was quite low to the ground, and Sheppard was above me, leaning in, climbing in, such that I had zero leverage against him.

  “It was like sitting in a bathtub,” I told Marie, “while trying to defend yourself against a giant climbing in the tub.” Pushing him off, when the car wasn’t moving, just wasn’t an option for me.

  Peck and Henein spoke almost every day during the week. Increasingly, Marie was able to anticipate Peck’s concerns, to read behind the questions, pinpoint the evidence he needed, either from the videos or from a witness or an expert report. And for each piece of the puzzle Peck needed, Marie Henein had to deliver. If there were too many pieces missing, we knew, the case would go to trial.

  The problem was, she told me, that the puzzle seemed to grow bigger with time. How complete did this growing puzzle need to be for Peck to have the confidence that there was no reasonable prospect of conviction? Every time it seemed that the puzzle was almost complete, another branch would form, leading to more inquiries, more puzzle-assembly. March, April, May. On it went, as the expanding puzzle was assembled: some pieces large, some tiny, intricate, elusive.

  “WE NEED TO MEET,” Marie said on the morning of May 21, 2010. She’d uttered those words a thousand times to me. It could mean anything. There was rarely a typical day during those nine months after the charges were laid. I was employed by now, but I always made Marie’s requests a priority over my law practice. I was at her office within an hour. She asked me to sit down.

  I suddenly had a feeling of dread, and I don’t know why. That Marie was sporting her poker face was nothing new. But I’d known for weeks now that the Crown prosecutor was very close to a final decision as to whether or not he’d proceed to trial. Given all our efforts to have him drop the charges, simply proceeding to trial would have felt like a setback. I prepared myself for the worst.

  “This Tuesday morning, May 25th, at 9:15, the prosecution will withdraw the information…. Drop the charges…. It’s over, Michael. It’s over.”

  I just stared at her, as she allowed herself a grin. She was clearly enjoying this moment, and deservedly so. This was as great a bit of lawyering as she’d ever done. Regardless, she’d saved my life, and I hope she knew it.

  I put my face in both of my hands for what seemed like an hour. I felt void of thought. Just as the new normal had become Michael as Accused Felon, it changed. Michael as Officially Innocent was a new feeling I wasn’t used to. My face was covered not to disguise tears—there was nothing I wouldn’t do in front of Marie Henein—but because I didn’t know who I was now. I didn’t know what I’d look like. I stopped breathing for a few long seconds. Then I put my elbows on my knees and stared into the floor, my face only half covered now. Marie waited. I’m sure she’d seen this reaction before.

  I hadn’t noticed that she’d closed the door to the office, which only happened if something extraordinary was going on. There were no secrets in that law office, or the few secrets kept behind those closed doors were never meant to be shared. In this case, she was delivering good news to a client. Marie deserved to savour this one alone.

  I thanked her, I know, but don’t remember much more of what I said. Marie, though, needed no magic words from me, being that rare soul who needs no affirmation from others to find satisfaction in life.

  “Now,” she started to say, and I knew she was going to warn me against prematurely disclosing this news.

  I cut her off. “I know, Marie. I know. I won’t do anything to compromise this. Let’s talk about who I can tell.”r />
  “Good,” she said. “No one. You can tell no one, other than Susan.”

  Fine. I didn’t care. I just wanted it to be Tuesday. I wanted it officially over. I’d suddenly grown as skeptical of the outcome as Marie had been. In fact, I was terrified about a syllable leaking. At the best of times, anything could happen to undo such arrangements between the time they were agreed to by lawyers and the time they were presented before a judge. Given the potential consequences, I wanted to do nothing that might displease anyone in any way.

  “You’re going to have to figure out what to do with the media afterwards, but let me help you. It’s not my expertise but you’re going to need some help. Maybe get Nikki involved at the last possible minute.”

  I agreed that I’d have to appear before the media. Otherwise, I’d be savaged. What does he have to hide? Moreover, a press conference would allow me to be presented on TV in a controlled environ-

  ment, without protesters or couriers or pit bull breeders heckling me. And once I’d answered questions, I could go back to doing no more media. I had zero appetite for public anything, at that moment.

  I knew from experience that a press conference could be organized in a few hours with an experienced group of people. Alone, I had no clue how I’d do it. I just needed to be sure that Nikki was available that morning. Plus I wanted Jan Innes’s help on everything, especially my remarks. As it turned out, Jan was able to clear her morning at the last possible minute, and she ran the presser like she had for Premier David Peterson, and for the great Canadian telecom giant Ted Rogers.

  Indeed, Nikki and Jan were able to get a room at the Sheraton booked first thing Tuesday morning, then order all the equipment needed for a press conference, then get the word out that I’d be available to the media after the court proceedings were over. Then Nikki called my former staffers from my political days: Sandra D’Ambrosio, Rod Elliot, Emily Bullock, Sarah Roberts, Beth Hirshfeld. They all came out, somehow.

  WHEN THE SUNNY SPRING Tuesday of May 25, 2010, arrived in Toronto, the morning rituals in our home might have seemed entirely normal, but they weren’t. Anxiety and fear should probably have vanished from my heart, but they hadn’t.

  I had a date at 9:15 a.m. in a courtroom at Old City Hall to hear the outcome of the two charges against me: criminal negligence causing death and dangerous driving causing death. We’d kept the news to ourselves over the weekend. I’d spent it redrafting some brief remarks for the presser.

  We were so paranoid about locking down the result that we didn’t even share the news with our parents. Within an hour of Marie telling me that the charges were being dropped, the previous Friday, I was on the front lawn of our house, where media had camped out nine months previous, telling Susan the news. I can’t remember why she was on the front lawn, but I remember her looking panicked at the odd look on my face.

  “What?! What?!”

  I fixed the odd look into a smile. “It’s over.”

  We embraced, then ran in the house, for fear that someone could hear us discussing the prosecutor’s decision.

  By Tuesday morning, Susan and I felt it was safe to tell our parents who, along with us, had spent nine trying months wondering what would become of their children and grandchildren. It was time also to tell Sadie and Louie that not only had their father been in a car accident involving a man’s death nine months ago, but that the police also had charged me with killing the man. The kids were going to have to learn this in any event. I didn’t want them hearing something on the playground.

  Just before Sadie and Louie were to leave for school with Sarah, I took them aside. As any parent would understand, our biggest concern through all of this had been the possible harm it would do our children. I hadn’t told them I’d been arrested because I was worried they would just assume that it meant I was going to jail. So as I talked to them on the morning of May 25, I was able to finally address my arrest and charges.

  “Guys, before you go, I have something to tell you,” I said.

  They had their backpacks on, Old Navy sweatshirts, Pink and Blue, standing side-by-side, looking up at me, wondering what I was going to say. Their eyes seemed to grow bigger as I knelt down and spoke as clearly as I could. I told them that the police had arrested me, but that they had changed their minds.

  When I said the police arrested me, Sadie’s eyes went wide and she sucked in her breath. Almost in the same sentence, I said, “But they’ve changed their minds and they are unarresting me,” and she exhaled and breathed out a sigh of relief. I explained that I might be in the newspaper again and warned Sarah, as she took them off to school, to keep an eye out for reporters or cameras and if she spotted any that it might be a good idea to “lose your capacity to speak English.”

  Susan called her parents and I called mine to tell them the charges were being dropped. For my parents, it had been a long nine months. Nothing like this had happened to our family—death, criminal charges, public castigation. My parents had enjoyed being the annoying couple with the envious family narrative. Their youngest, Alan, had an exotic job in an exciting location—working at a professional sports franchise in the city that gave us Elvis. Their daughter had been named one of Canada’s Outstanding Principals, and her children and husband had brought nothing but joy to the proud grandparents. I’d had my political success, of which they were insufferably proud; they loved Susan and their grandchildren in Toronto. Then, in their seventies, the unexpected: the prodigal son on the front page of the Victoria paper, charged with killing someone.

  And on the glorious morning of May 25, 2010, I was able to phone and tell them that, barring some procedural snafu in the next couple of hours, it was over.

  They both just wept. No words. There were just no words to say. Until finally Dad asked me to repeat again what I’d said. And Mom said “thank goodness” over and over. It was a short phone call. I prayed that the 28 seconds hadn’t taken too much off their lives.

  A couple more calls to make. My sister Janine, also in Victoria, choked, wept, and seemed to collapse. She repeated “oh Michael, thank god,” a few times. I got my brother Alan’s voicemail, and he called back, with a catch in his voice. He had checked in regularly from his workplace in Memphis over the past nine months. Little did I know, I would have the opportunity to watch over him too, soon enough, in another terrible ordeal to hit my family. More on that later.

  Susan’s father, Henry, had also been quite indignant and defensive of me, which was uncharacteristic, and her mother, Arlene, had always been great to me, so they were also relieved to get the news. From across the room, and up the stairs, I could hear Arlene’s reaction through the telephone. Something between a sigh and a whoop and a little Yiddish.

  So the day of May 25th began with a mix of domestic routine, the cautious spreading of relief and happiness, and preparation for what was to come. In short order, Marie Henein arrived to pick up Susan and me, and the three of us drove to Old City Hall and our date at the Ontario Court of Justice. On arriving there, we did that stage-managed walk the media require for their shots. Marie whispered to me, “Take your wife’s hand” as we headed to the court. As usual, I was kind of lost in my thoughts and was oblivious to stagecraft.

  There were a couple of people from the fellowship of recovery, folks who had shown up completely unsolicited, to support me. Professor Pina D’Agostino, a friend of Susan’s and mine from Osgoode Hall Law School, was there as well for moral support. She must have heard the news story and raced from the law school to Old City Hall, in rush hour. When we greeted Pina with surprise, she just shrugged her shoulders and said, “I’m Italian,” like that should explain it.

  I was still worried. I knew that anything could go wrong. I knew of Judge Paul Bentley, although obviously I hadn’t appointed him. I remembered he had been in a very serious bicycle accident and had had to take a long leave of absence. He was highly respected as the founding justice of Toronto’s Drug Court.* But I wasn’t sure if he’d been involved i
n a case with this kind of profile. I knew that sometimes judges could unknowingly, almost subconsciously, behave differently with cases with significant profile. If the judge was paranoid about appearances, paranoid of being misjudged as biased, then he or she could lean too far the other way, to the detriment of the accused. All this stuff was running through my head.

  Anything could happen.

  I was also worried about bike couriers making a scene and some kind of protest overtaking the legal proceedings. I had read very little over those nine months, especially not the blogs that had sprung up angrily denouncing me, which I learned about only later. I’d had very little contact with or awareness of the outraged community of bike couriers—with a couple of exceptions.

  One of the exceptions arose a couple months after the 28 seconds. For a time, I kept seeing couriers giving me double-takes as they rode by, whenever I went to Marie Henein’s office, which I visited probably three times a week. But that was the extent of it: some recognition, and nothing more. I wondered if I was imagining the double-take. Paranoid, maybe.

  One day in late October, I came out of Marie’s office and was walking through a downtown alley toward a friend’s office. I became aware of a female courier following me. Was she? Was I being paranoid again? I sensed that maybe I’d seen her before.

  When I came outside again after my visit, about ten minutes later, she was still there. Waiting.

  She said, “Michael Bryant?”

  “Yeah?” (It never occurs to me to just lie in those situations. Maybe I’m reflexively hoping that my ego will get stroked by the recognition.)

  She said, “I’m a real admirer of your work.” Bright smile, bright eyes.

  “Oh, that’s nice … thank you.” Bright smile returned.

  “How do you do it?”

  Then I noticed that the smile was forced, constipated, painful. And her hands were trembling.