by Gae Polisner
We are bound in tragedy, bound against some common enemy together.
Even if we don’t know who the enemy is.
As if to confirm this, the number of American flags have multiplied. They hang everywhere, tied to benches and trees, to the railings, flapping wet, yet patriotic, in the breeze. I press the lock on Uncle Matt’s wheelchair and put my hand on his shoulder. He shakes his head and says, “Goddamn … fuh-kers, Ky-uh.” It’s the first thing he’d said to me Tuesday morning.
“I know. Come on,” I say. “Let’s go over to where she is.”
Because the girl has wandered away. Not far, and I watched her go. I figured she needed some privacy. But she only moved a few yards down to a section of ground that’s less crowded with stuff than where we stand.
I roll Uncle Matt closer, stopping a few feet away.
The girl kneels on the ground. She opens the paper bag, and pulls out two candles, lights them, and says a prayer.
When she’s finished, I walk over and hold out my hand.
We leave the candles burning, side by side.
VI
Friday Evening, 9.14.01
CHANGE
Change comes in two ways. The first is the blindside way that comes without warning. Like Uncle Matt’s motorcycle accident. Or the Twin Towers collapsing one Tuesday morning as you’re minding your own business in school. Or a girl showing up out of nowhere, covered in ash, and wearing some costume wings.
That kind of change takes your breath away.
But other times, change comes gradually, in that sure, steady way you can sense coming a mile away.
Or maybe a day away.
Or, maybe, a few short hours.
And, since you know it’s coming, you’re supposed to prepare. Brace yourself against the stinging blow. But just because you plant your feet wider, doesn’t mean the blow won’t take you down.
I could tell you all the mundane things the girl and I do for the rest of the day trying to prepare, but they don’t matter. All that matters is she’s still here.
By dinnertime, Dad is home. He chats excitedly with Uncle Matt, over a casserole that Karina made for us, about President Bush’s visit. It has boosted morale, he says, given everyone something to work for.
After dinner, he heads to his study to call Mom. Mom, who has a cell phone now. Who, apparently, won’t be the last holdout on Earth.
They’re at the airport on standby, which doesn’t mean much. There’s a long waitlist, so they could be there for another twenty-four hours.
The girl has gone to Kerri’s room to lie down. I think she needs her space, so I join Uncle Matt in the living room. He’s watching some news magazine show, a rerun of Dateline from the summer.
I sigh and sit. “This all there is, Uncle Matt?”
Six months ago, he would have tossed the remote at me, said, Put on whatever you want.
Now, we both sit and stare.
Onscreen, a reporter stands on a beach doing a story about how the number of shark attacks in the U.S. is on the rise.
“The last thing eight-year old Jessie Arbogast was expecting last weekend as he frolicked on a beach on Santa Rosa Island,” she says, “was to be attacked by a seven-foot bull shark while his uncle watched helplessly from shore.”
The reporter moves toward the water, hair blowing, mic in hand, and gestures at the wide ocean. The screen turns to white and a title runs: SUMMER OF THE SHARKS: TREND OR HYPE?
I vaguely remember hearing about that during the summer, how some kid lost his arm wading in the shallow surf. Soon after, a tourist from New York, vacationing near the Cape, had also gotten bitten while surfing. Beachgoers claimed to have seen a great white shark near the area. It was right before Mom and Kerri left for California, because I remember Dad saying they should both stay out of the water. Then he had hummed the music from Jaws, and they had laughed before the two of them launched into some lame old comedy sketch from Saturday Night Live.
Dad: (making a doorbell sound)
Mom: Who is it?
Dad: (talking in a weird voice) Flower delivery.
Mom: (looking suspicious) I didn’t order any flowers.
Dad: (long pause, funny voice again) Plumber, ma’am.
Mom: I didn’t call for a plumber.
Dad: (weird voice) Candygram, ma’am. Candygram.
They both die laughing as Kerri and I roll our eyes.
I ask Uncle Matt if he wants a snack and rummage through the snack closet, deciding on an unopened package of Fudge Stripe cookies. I pour two glasses of milk and stick a straw in one.
“Got milk?” I say, putting his glass on the table in front of him.
I rip open the package and dig in, pulling three cookies out for myself and one for him. I break his into a few smaller pieces, kneel in front of him, and hold out my hand to him. His eyes move to mine.
“Go on,” I say. “You know you want to.”
“Ky-uh…”
I shake my head, but move my hand closer and keep it there, waiting, refusing to do anything to help him.
Tough love.
“I know it’s hard, Uncle Matt, but you can.”
He opens his mouth to say something, in protest maybe, but then he just lets out a faint grunt, his eyes falling to his own hand in his lap. At first, I think he’s annoyed, but after a second I can tell he’s actually concentrating.
After another few seconds his hand moves! Only a twitch at first, then a little bit off his lap, into the air.
I hold my breath. Another twitch, and slowly, slowly, shaking from the effort, Uncle Matt brings his hand up and drops it onto mine, slapping the piece of cookie to the floor.
But he moved it! By himself!
“Close enough,” I say, trying not to sound too overanxious. I put another piece in my palm, my hand trembling as I hold it out to him. “Go on. Do it again. I know you can.”
I see something in him shift, change. He seems determined now, as he makes his hand twitch, then twitch again. Then he raises it slowly, up onto my hand.
I reach out and grab his arm now, to help hold it steady, while he makes his fingers close around a piece of cookie.
“You did it,” I say, nodding. “It’s good. It’s really good, Uncle Matt. I knew you could. It’s a start.”
I take his hand now and guide the piece of cookie to his mouth. He takes it, lets his head fall back, and chews his reward.
I can’t believe it. He moved his hand, his whole arm, on his own! I need to tell Dad!
I say, “I’ll be right back, Uncle Matt,” my mind buzzing with so much excitement as I stand up to go, that I barely notice what’s being said on the television at first. But, then, I do. I turn back and stare at the screen.
It’s not the shark story anymore or the female reporter onscreen, but that Stone Phillips guy, the one with the perfect hair. He’s talking to a man in a conference room. A lawyer. The shelves behind him are lined with gold-covered books.
The original air date flashes in the upper right-hand corner. August 18, 2001.
But it’s not the man’s voice, or the date, or even his face, that stops me.
It’s his name.
What Stone Phillips just called him.
M CC II
I turn up the volume and stand, eyes glued to the set, waiting for Stone Phillips to say his name again.
“Mr. Marconi, as you know, a lot of people are skeptical about this defendant, your client, Mr. Highfront. So, we’d like to hear your side, what led you to take on his matter. Because you have to admit, you’re up against a lot of negative public opinion.”
Marconi.
Marconi.
I don’t hear the name so much as see it, in my mind, broken down into its letters, as if written on a sheet of paper.
A small, waterlogged rectangle, to be more exact.
M CC N I
MARCONI
Marconi.
I was going to tell him, but now it’s
too late.
My father’s voice.
My father’s name.
Marconi wears an expensive, dark gray suit and striped tie, has slicked-back black hair and strong features.
Does he look like the girl?
Maybe a little. Who can tell?
But there can’t be a hundred Marconis in the world.
The type under him, at the bottom of the screen, confirms it again: David Marconi, Esq., Counsel to Harrison Highfront, III.
“Harrison Highfront,” I say to Uncle Matt. “Do you know that name?”
“Wash … Square … ray case … Why?” And now I get what Stone Phillips is talking about. Highfront is one of those prep-school kids accused of raping the exchange student in the park.
The story from the magazine the girl moved.
“Oh, right,” I say, trying to sound nonchalant, to keep my voice level until I’m sure.
I walk closer to the television, wondering if Uncle Matt realizes what’s going on. But how could he? He doesn’t know about the ID, or the photo, or the letters.
I’ve been withholding all sorts of information.
“If you knew Mr. Highfront like I do,” Marconi is saying, “you might not be so quick to judge. But it doesn’t matter what you think, or what the public thinks. That’s the beauty of our system. A person is innocent until proven guilty.
“My client is entitled to a fair trial based on the facts. My job is to ensure that he gets it. I assure you, Stone, there are facts that we’ll present to the jury that you and your viewers don’t know.
“For example, I know the press has mentioned my client is an honor student, but did you know he also went to Nicaragua last year with his youth group, to help build affordable homes for the poor? People see his clothing, his house, his background, and they make assumptions. But that’s what our legal system is for. To dispel them. Don’t let the Polo shirt fool you.”
Stone holds up a hand as if he needs to interject, but Marconi says, “No, first let me finish, please. You imply I can’t represent this defendant in good conscience, and you wouldn’t be alone in your hasty assumptions. But you will all soon see that Mr. Highfront isn’t at all who the media has made him out to be.
“He’s a good kid, honest and remorseful. He doesn’t for a minute deny he was there in the park that night. He doesn’t deny that he picked the wrong group of friends, or that he made a deadly decision to stay out with those friends so late.
“But he was not the perpetrator here, I assure you. On the contrary, he was actually a second victim. He fled the scene only after he tried to stop the event from taking place—the evidence will, in fact, show this and more, when we have our day in court.
“I will demonstrate that Mr. Highfront is nothing more than a young man bullied by his peers. Peers who labeled him a coward and hoped to frame him.”
Stone uncrosses his legs, leans forward. “With all due respect, Mr. Marconi, isn’t that what all defense lawyers say about their clients?”
Marconi doesn’t squirm. There’s something likable about him, actually. Something I might not have noticed if I had watched this before. He seems passionate and sincere. As if he genuinely believes what he is saying.
“On the contrary, Stone. I’ve had many clients I have represented to the best of my ability, but, if pressed, I couldn’t have said one nice word about them. That is not the case with this young man, I promise you. No one wants the truth to come out more than we do. And one more thing: To the extent Mr. Highfront was present for a single moment of the heinous proceedings, he’s deeply remorseful. He wants to right any omission and suffer the consequences. But I’m confident the evidence will speak for itself, that a jury will acquit him when given the opportunity to hear his story in his own words.”
There’s a long silence during which Marconi seems almost to be moved to tears. When he speaks again, his voice is little more than a choked-up whisper.
“Life is short, Stone, sometimes brutally short, and way too often brutally unfair. If you knew me—if you knew—” He shakes his head, wrings his hands. “Well, the only thing I want here is justice.”
Stone Phillips flips a page on his notepad, reads something, then leans in thoughtfully and says, “Mr. Marconi, are you referring to your client, or to the very recent death of your wife? Perhaps it might be helpful to our viewers to share a bit of personal information here, if you are willing.”
Marconi shifts uncomfortably, and Stone turns to a cameraman offscreen and says, “Shut that off, will you, Mike? Let’s go off the record for a minute, here.”
The camera feed cuts out, then comes back on again.
Stone says to the camera, “My apologies to our viewers. We’re not lying when we say we have no scripts for these things. At any rate, Mr. Marconi has agreed to make a brief statement.”
The camera zooms in on Marconi’s weary face.
“As I’ve made clear, it’s not really relevant to the proceedings,” he says, “and I don’t care to speak much about the details. All I’ll say is this: Yes, I lost my wife recently—a few weeks ago—to ovarian cancer. And my daughter, Hannah, and I, we—”
Marconi stops, choked up again, though you can tell he’s frustrated with himself, that he wasn’t intending to cry on national TV. It doesn’t matter, though. I’ve heard enough. He just said Hannah. His daughter’s name.
“My wife was not only a talented dancer in her own right, and the creative director for the New City Ballet, but she was the light of my life. The light of my daughter’s life.
“And she and my daughter were both angry at me for taking this case. Yet, at the risk of their wrath, Stone, well, that is how very much I believe in this young man. How much I believe in his defense…”
Marconi’s voice trails off, then returns, but I stop listening.
Her mother died months ago.
Around the time of Uncle Matt’s accident.
And her father? What? I’m guessing he was in one of the Twin Towers.
But what if, by some chance, he wasn’t?
Or what if he was, but made it out alive?
Isn’t there a chance he could still be alive?
Then again, if he is alive, why isn’t he looking for her? Why hasn’t he found her yet?
I turn to the article in the magazine
I slipped behind Kyle’s sister’s bed,
and stare at the boy’s face.
Harrison Highfront.
Then
I turn the page.
Another inset photograph:
My father on the courthouse steps,
standing next to the kid.
I tear it out and
shred it
into a hundred
tiny pieces.
I knock on the door, open it slowly.
She’s sitting on Kerri’s bed, her face wet with tears, pieces of paper torn and scattered around her.
“Hannah,” I say.
She flinches and turns.
“I hated that case, Kyle,” she blurts, “especially after my mother died. I hated the news cameras and interviews, hated how it made them both fight, and how he kept working on it no matter how ill she became. Even when she was dying. I hated what it made people believe about my father. But I realize this now: He really believed in the kid. And he was doing his job. God, he was just doing his job.”
A sob escapes her throat, and she shakes her head as if she’s refusing to let herself cry.
“And still, I screamed at him, Kyle. That very last morning when he headed off to work, I screamed at him. I said horrible, terrible things…”
She can’t help it, begins to weep now, so I move toward her, to comfort her. But she turns away, her whole body wracked with sobs.
The tears come so hard I can’t catch my breath,
can’t stop my body from shaking.
Kyle hugs me, and I fight him off.
I’m so angry and broken, I can’t even bear to be
hugged,
don’t deserve to be hugged.
But then I give in, because I’m so,
so
lonely and
scared.
I let him wrap his arms around me as if I am good.
Let him hold me as if I am worthy of being held.
Which only makes me
cry harder.
“My mother is gone,” I whisper through tears,
“and, now, my father is gone, too,
and I can never, ever fix the awful things I said.”
Kyle rocks me as I sob and tells me kind things.
Says he knows,
says he understands,
says he promises.
Still, I can’t stop crying.
I feel like I will never stop crying.
I pull her in tighter, not knowing what else to do.
Maybe I should get Dad to help.
Maybe I should get Uncle Matt.
Finally, I say, “Hannah, listen to me. I fight with my dad all the time. I say stupid shit I don’t mean all the time. People do that when they’re mad. When they’re hurting. When they’re sad. You didn’t know—you couldn’t have known—all the things that were going to happen on Tuesday. None of this is your fault. And I’m sure he knows you loved him. Do love him. Please, you don’t know for sure that he’s gone.”
It takes a while, but she finally calms down, cries herself out or something. And when she does, she says, “You don’t know, Kyle … but go ahead, type in his firm. There’s no way…” She shakes her head. “No way he got out of there alive.”
I walk her back to my room and we sit at my desk, each on half of my chair.
“You’ll see, Kyle,” she says, hiccuping back more tears. “Spencer and Marconi. Type it in and go to the site.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. One World Trade Center. Please.”
I type the names into the search engine, but my hands shake so much it takes me a minute to get it right. I keep hitting the wrong keys. When the links finally come up, I scan through them, praying there’s no gruesome photo of her father. No missing persons poster, or obituary.
A bunch of links come up related to the Washington Square rape case, news stories and interviews, so it takes a minute for me to find the actual link for his law firm.