Twilght

by Anna Deavere Smith

  with lawsuits and all the other things that are associated with it.”

  Indelible Substance

  Josie Morales Clerk-typist, city of Los Angeles uncalled witness to Rodney King beating, Simi Valley trial

  (In a conference room at her workplace, downtown Los Angeles)

  We lived in Apartment A6,

  right next to A8,

  which is where George Holliday lived.

  And, um,

  the next thing we know is, um,

  ten or twelve officers made a circle around him

  and they started to hit him.

  I remember

  that they just not only hit him with sticks,

  they also kicked him,

  and one guy,

  one police officer, even pummeled his fist

  into his face,

  and they were kicking him.

  And then we were like “Oh, my goodness,”

  and I was just watching.

  I felt like “Oh, my goodness”

  ’cause it was really like

  he was in danger there,

  it was such

  an oppressive atmosphere.

  I knew it was wrong—

  whatever he did—

  I knew it was wrong,

  I just knew in my heart

  this is wrong—

  you know they can’t do that.

  And even my husband was petrified.

  My husband said, “Let’s go inside.”

  He was trying to get me to come inside

  and away from the scene,

  but I said, “No.”

  I said, “We have to stay here

  and watch

  because this is wrong.”

  And he was just petrified—

  he grew up in another country where this is prevalent,

  police abuse is prevalent in Mexico—

  so we stayed and we watched the whole thing.

  And

  I was scheduled to testify

  and I was kind of upset at the outcome,

  because I had a lot to say

  and during the trial I kept in touch with the

  prosecutor,

  Terry White,

  and I was just very upset

  and I, um,

  I had received a subpoena

  and I told him, “When do you want me to go?”

  He says, “I’ll call you later and I’ll give you a time.”

  And the time came and went and he never called me,

  so I started calling him.

  I said, “Well, are you going to call me or not?”

  And he says, “I can’t really talk to you

  and I don’t think we’re going to be using you because

  it contradicts what Melanie Singer said.”

  And I faxed him a letter

  and I told him that those officers were going to be acquitted

  and one by one I explained these things to him in this letter

  and I told him, “If you do not put witnesses,

  if you don’t put one resident and testify to say what they saw,”

  And I told him in the letter

  that those officers were going to be acquitted.

  But I really believe that he was dead set

  on that video

  and that the video would tell all,

  but, you see, the video doesn’t show you where those officers went

  and assaulted Rodney King at the beginning.

  You see that?

  And I was so upset. I told my co-worker, I said, “I had a terrible dream

  that those guys were acquitted.”

  And she goes, “Oh no, they’re not gonna be acquitted.”

  She goes, “You, you,

  you know, don’t think like that.”

  I said, “I wasn’t thinking I had a dream!”

  I said, “Look at this,

  they were,

  they were acquitted.”

  Yeah, I do have dreams

  that come true,

  but not as vivid as that one.

  I just had this dream and in my heart felt …

  and I saw the

  men

  and it was in the courtroom and I just

  had it in my heart …

  something is happening

  and I heard they were acquitted,

  because dreams are made of some kind of indelible substance.

  And my co-worker said, “You shouldn’t think like this,”

  and I said, “I wasn’t thinking

  it was a dream.”

  And that’s all,

  and it came to pass.

  Your Heads in Shame

  Anonymous Man Juror in Simi Valley trial

  (A house in Simi Valley. Fall. Halloween decorations are up. Dusk. Low lamplight. A slender, soft-spoken man in glasses. His young daughter and wife greeted me as well. Quietness.)

  As soon as we went

  into the courtroom with the verdicts

  there were

  plainclothes policemen everywhere.

  You know, I knew that

  there would be people unhappy with the verdict,

  but I didn’t expect near

  what happened.

  If I had known

  what was going to happen,

  I mean, it’s not,

  it’s not fair to say I would have voted a different

  way.

  I wouldn’t have—

  that’s not our justice system—

  but I would have written a note to the judge saying,

  “I can’t do this,”

  because of

  what it put my family through.

  Excuse me.

  (Crying)

  So anyway,

  we started going out to the bus

  and the police said

  right away,

  “If there’s rocks and bottles, don’t worry

  the glass on the bus is bulletproof.”

  And then I noticed a huge mob scene,

  and it’s a sheriff’s bus that they lock prisoners in.

  We got to the hotel and there were some obnoxious reporters out

  there

  already, trying to get interviews.

  And, you know, the police were trying to get us into the bus and cover

  our faces,

  and,

  and this reporter said,

  “Why are you hiding your heads in shame? Do you know that buildings

  are burning

  and people are dying in South LA

  because of you?”

  And twenty minutes later I got home

  and the same obnoxious reporter was at the door

  and my wife was saying, “He doesn’t want to talk to anybody,”

  and she kept saying,

  “The people wanna know,

  the people wanna know,”

  and trying to get her foot in the door.

  And I said, “Listen, I don’t wanna talk to anybody. My wife has made

  that clear.”

  And I,

  you know, slammed the door in her face.

  And so she pulled two houses down

  and started

  filming our house.

  And watching on the TV

  and seeing all the political leaders,

  Mayor Bradley

  and President Bush,

  condemning our verdicts.

  I mean, the jurors as a group, we tossed around:

  was this a setup of some sort?

  We just feel like we were pawns that were thrown away by the

  system.

  I mean,

  the judge,

  most of the jurors

  feel like when he was reading the verdicts

  he …

  we thought we could sense a look of disdain on his face,

  and he also had said

  beforehand

  that after the verdicts came out


  he would like to come up and talk to us,

  but after we gave the verdicts

  he sent someone up and said he didn’t really want to

  do that then.

  And plus, he had the right and power to

  withhold our names for a period of time

  and he did not do that,

  he released them right away.

  I think it was apparent that we would be harassed

  and I got quite a few threats.

  I got threatening letters and threatening phone calls.

  I think he just wanted to separate himself …

  A lot of newspapers published our addresses too.

  The New York Times published the values of our homes.

  They were released in papers all across the country.

  We didn’t answer the phone,

  because it was just every three minutes …

  We’ve been portrayed as white racists.

  One of the most disturbing things, and a lot of the jurors

  said that

  the thing that bothered them that they received in the mail

  more

  than anything else,

  more than the threats, was a letter from the KKK

  saying,

  “We support you, and if you need our help, if you want to join

  our organization,

  we’d welcome you into our fold.”

  And we all just were:

  No, oh!

  God!

  Magic

  Gil Garcetti District attorney

  (Gil Garcetti came into office as district attorney of Los Angeles in 1992. He followed Ira Reiner, who had been in office during the unrest. He is a very handsome man with prematurely white hair and a lot of energy. He is in very good physical shape. We met one morning in his office. It is a large, brightly lit, immaculately kept office with a good view. The seal of the state of California is behind his desk as well as an American flag and the flag of the state of California. He is wearing a bright-colored tie. The head of public relations, Suzanne Childs, sat in on the interview. She was an elegant, simply dressed attractive blond woman. Both she and Mr. Garcetti were very upbeat, friendly people. We met in the spring of 1993.)

  It goes back to what I said about jurors.

  Much to most people’s surprise,

  they really very seriously take their oath.

  For the most part

  thee [sic]

  the burden of proof in most criminal cases

  is really extremely high,

  and if you take it seriously, your oath seriously,

  you really have to look at it.

  I mean, you really have to look carefully at the evidence.

  For the most part people have a respect for police,

  even people who are annoyed by police.

  At least in a courtroom setting

  that magic comes in.

  You want to believe the officers,

  because they are there to help you,

  the law-abiding citizen,

  because most jurors have not had contacts

  with police—

  if they have

  it’s a traffic ticket

  or they did a sloppy job

  investigating their burglary

  but not enough that it sours them on the police.

  They are still there to help

  and to protect you.

  That’s what we’ve been sold all our lives,

  so when an officer comes in

  and tells you

  something from the witness stand

  there is something magic

  that comes over that individual

  as opposed to you or Suzanne or me,

  uh, going to testify.

  And perhaps—

  this is my trial experience …

  seen it …

  and it can be dispelled very easily.

  I mean, if a cop, for example, comes in with a raid jacket

  and guns bulging out

  he’ll wipe himself out very quickly,

  because he’ll look like he’s a cowboy.

  But if you have a man coming in

  or a woman coming in—

  you know, professionally dressed,

  polite

  with everyone—

  the magic

  is there

  and it’s a …

  it’s an aura,

  it’s aye [sic] feeling

  that is conveyed to the jury:

  “I am telling the truth

  and I’m here to help you,

  to protect you,”

  and they want to believe that,

  especially today they want to believe it,

  because everyone is living

  in a state of fear,

  everyone.

  I think you’re seeing across the country

  the credibility of the police

  is

  more uncertain,

  but still for the most part

  people want to believe the police officers

  and do believe the police officers

  unless the police officer

  himself

  or herself

  gives ’em reason not to.

  But you walk in with magic

  and only you can destroy that magic.

  Hammer

  Stanley K. Sheinbaum Former president, Los Angeles Police Commission

  (A beautiful house in Brentwood. There is art on all the walls. The art has a real spirit to it. It is the art of his wife, Betty Sheinbaum. There is a large living room, an office off the living room which you can see. It is mostly made of wood, lots of papers and books. The office of a writer. There are glass windows that look out on a pool, a garden, a view. Behind us is a kitchen where his wife, Betty, was, but she eventually left. Stanley is sitting at a round wooden table with a cup of coffee. He is in a striped shirt and khaki pants and loafers. He has a beard. He is tall, and about seventy-three years old. He seems gruff, but when he smiles or laughs, his face lights up the room. It’s very unusual. He has the smile and laugh of a highly spiritual, joyous old woman, like a grandmother who has really been around. There is a bird inside the house who occasionally chirps.),

  Is this on on?

  Is this tape on now?

  Uh.

  In the middle of the afternoon

  I was at a lawyer’s office in West LA.

  Uh.

  Then when I heard about the verdict—

  which was not until about five-thirty,

  ’cause I was just,

  y’know, wasn’t a radio or TV—

  I immediately headed downtown.

  When

  I got down to Parker Center,

  or on the way down, I heard it on the radio,

  and I had one interesting mini-experience

  that told me there was gonna be trouble—

  very simple thing.

  As I was driving down the Santa Monica Freeway

  there was a,

  uh,

  nice black recent BMW,

  small car,

  in good shape,

  and there was an Afro-ican,

  uh,

  African-American woman

  driving it,

  and a man

  next to her,

  also African-American,

  and she …

  her window was open.

  As she was driving,

  she had a hammer in her hand,

  and this was a very

  dramatic thing,

  in a minor way,

  and it said to me:

  trouble.

  As I pulled into the garage—

  and it’s now

  close to

  six-thirty—

  there’s Daryl Gates

  getting into his car,

  and I ask him,

  “Where you goin’?”

  “I got something I gotta do.”

&
nbsp; That was the only answer I got.

  As you may have heard,

  turned out

  that he was

  on his way to a fund-raiser

  up here,

  two blocks over from here,

  where he was lobbying,

  campaigning against Prop.

  F,

  which I assume I don’t have to give you the details.

  The heart of Prop. F

  is that it limits the chief’s terms to five years,

  with one renewable.

  Under the old charter

  the chief was in for perpetuity.

  In the meantime,

  after he heads out,

  I get through with that

  wondering what the hell

  was going on with him.

  He’s the chief and this thing

  very well

  may be falling apart.

  I start drifting around the department

  and I heard screams down the hall.

  Now, we have a bunch of people

  working for the commission,

  mainly women,

  and it’s seven o’clock already,

  and a scream:

  “They’re coming in!”

  I don’t know if you want this kind of detail.

  So I then went out toward the front

  and there are plate-glass panes up above,

  maybe seven or ten feet high,

  and a rock comes through …

  Characters

  “Twilight Bey”

  “Reginald Denny”

  “Big Al”

  “Stanley Sheinbaum”

  “Katie Miller”

  “Theresa Alison”

  “Angela King”

  “Anonymous Man #2” (Hollywood Agent)

  “Sergeant Charles Duke”

  “Elaine Brown”

  “Mrs. Young-Soon Han”

  War Zone

  Riot

  Chung Lee President of the Korean-American Victims Association

  (A conference room in an office in Korea town. A man in his sixties. His son translates. Afternoon. The following is a phonetic transcription.*)

  guda-ume o, uri,

  gage ne-ibohant’e jonhwaha nikkani,

  o, uri gugagega da t’olligo

  guyangbanhanun, gusaramhanun yegiga

  (And next I called my neighbor’s store

  and the gentleman—uh, the man told me,

  “Your store’s been completely looted!)

  nohi mulgoni gilgonnos’o p’uraja-e jonbuda,

  ap’e p’urajande p’urajallo jonbuda

  gonnowa itta hanun jonhwarul badas’ o,