A Good Neighborhood

by Therese Anne Fowler

  * * *

  Julia was sick about this. Her daughter had made a vow, after all, and from everything Julia had seen, she took that vow seriously—and now look what that rotten, selfish boy had done to her.

  Lottie, too, believed Brad’s interpretation one hundred percent.

  And when the details came out later bit by bit, the story passed along house to house and person by person as with a bucket brigade, a few of us thought that interpretation could be true.

  Juniper, meantime, was not convinced. Ignorant of the unfolding plan for Xavier’s immediate arrest, hopeful that when he was questioned he’d prove to the authorities he was exactly the person she believed him to be, and deprived of computer and phone, she was desperate to communicate with him, so she did what she’d been doing: She wrote to him. When Lily got home a little later that evening, Juniper sent her running out into the backyard, through the gate, under the dying tree, and out to Xavier’s car, with the note in a plastic bag to stick under his wiper blade or wherever she could reach.

  Swear not to tell, she said to Lily.

  I swear.

  Juniper couldn’t stand the thought that Xavier might be sitting at home hating her for not standing up to Brad, for letting Brad run him off, for her not finding him the first possible moment upon her return. He’d see the note in the morning or, if not that early, soon. Whenever he got in his car again.

  * * *

  Three news trucks were on Valerie Alston-Holt’s street at 8:15 the next day. The reporters stationed themselves at the curb and prepared to give breathless reports of the alleged situation while they waited for Valerie to answer her phone (as if) or to come outside and make a statement (not), and meantime wondered why Xavier Alston-Holt, the black man whose mother was suing the city, its favorite HVAC company owner, and a prominent residential developer would—allegedly—rape an underage white girl, when every account they’d been able to dig up so far painted him as solid, a top student, a talented musician with a promising future. Were there other terrible acts he might have been hiding all this time?

  Whatever the case, the public would be relieved to hear that he was off the streets for the time being. They would be glad to know that the city’s parents of young (white) girls had nothing to fear from him, at least for now.

  Valerie’s door opened.

  She came outside.

  She walked to her car.

  She got inside and drove away.

  Ms. Alston-Holt refused to speak to the media was the first response reported, Valerie’s rigid silence creating a hole that filled in fast with words like hostile and haughty and uncooperative because, as we all know, the news media is a monster perpetually hungry for red meat.

  And this lede, from the highest-rated news station’s top-of-the-hour broadcast:

  Breaking news this morning: A local black man is accused of the assault and rape of an underage white girl …

  * * *

  Really, that’s all it takes.

  40

  And speaking of ravenous institutions:

  The criminal justice system is designed for efficiency (of a kind), not comfort. When being booked you are officially presumed innocent and yet at the same time treated as though you’re the mass murderer the cops have been after for months. There’s no eye contact. There’s no conversation. The processing rooms are as blank and sterile and cold as the employees and the guards who process you. And when we say process, we mean you come out at the other end of booking feeling as ground up as yesterday’s cows when they exit the slaughterhouse.

  Mug shot.

  Fingerprinting.

  DNA swab.

  Surrender of all clothing and accessories.

  Full body search, cavities included.

  Orange jumpsuit, in your size if they’ve got it.

  Then an interview. Questions, lots of them. A cooperative type will want badly to answer, to give his side of things, to point out the mistakes that have been made, are being made. A cooperative type, when he hears, “All right, son. Why don’t you tell us what happened?,” will feel desperate to clear it all up.

  Xavier, shaking with rage, forced himself to respond politely to the minimum number of questions possible. He gave his name, his health status, his preference to say nothing else until after he’d seen his attorney. In return, he got smirks and derisive remarks about how much nicer it would be for both of them if he’d be more forthcoming. “Why the hostility, son, if you’ve got a clean conscience?”

  And then if it’s a felony you’ve been arrested for, as was the case for Xavier, you are eventually herded into a blank, cold, not-as-sterile-as-you’d-like-it-to-be community cell—a too-small-for-so-many-bunks chamber full of many other frightened or hostile men, men who smell like fear and anger and the gases that result from eating jail food when your stomach is already in revolt.

  Here you wait for arraignment—two days, usually, though Xavier would wait three. Three days of stewing in silence, trying to work out how and why what happened at the cabin had resulted in this.

  No sleep to speak of. One brief and terrible phone call to his mother, who assured him she’d find someone who could help. Her tight, anguished voice. His recollection of her warnings. He’d heeded every one of them until this summer. Until Juniper.

  Well, Jesus, how could he heed that one? He couldn’t.

  * * *

  We’ve all seen enough cop shows to have a sense of what life is like inside a county jail. And if you’ve read a John Grisham or Jodi Picoult novel, you’ve been to court. This story isn’t a police procedural. It’s not a legal thriller. Is it a cautionary tale? We think it is—but we wish it weren’t.

  Xavier had been in jail for nine hours when a mealy skinhead type sidled up to his bunk just before breakfast call and said, “What a pretty little nigger you are. Whoo, boy! You get to the big house, they will have a time with you.”

  Nigger. Pretty. A time.

  Xavier managed to wait until the cell had cleared before he vomited into a stainless-steel toilet bowl, the sight and odor of which made him vomit again.

  He had been in jail for sixty-three hours when he was pulled from the holding cell and taken to a room with two chairs and a table and told, “Wait here.”

  “Is it my lawyer?” he asked the guard.

  No reply. Why? Was it really so difficult or somehow wrong to show some humanity? Or did spending all day every workday in the company of nameless, faceless men in orange jumpsuits, an endless parade of angry or fearful or angry and fearful men, dehumanize you after a while? Or did the county deliberately put these automatons in the job so that on the occasion when some inmate lost control they could respond quickly with brute force, no need to waste even a second taking into account why the man might have cracked? Xavier had just spent sixty-one post-booking hours, give or take, amid those angry, fearful men; he was one of them; he could understand, now that he thought about it, how no person of sensitivity could last long in here, whether guard or inmate.

  A guard, though, could quit.

  The door opened and a trim, youngish black man in a navy blue suit came in. He had a lineup buzz cut, very clean. He set a valise on the table and took the chair opposite Xavier. “Carl Harrington,” he said, extending his hand. “Your mother has retained me to represent you.”

  Xavier shook his hand. A black lawyer for a black defendant. It had to be a deliberate choice. She must know what she’s doing, he thought. Or maybe Harrington was the only one she felt they could afford. Or the only one who’d take the job.

  How old was this guy? Early thirties? He couldn’t have been in practice very long. Did it matter? Xavier hoped it didn’t. This should be a simple case, right? Clear up the misunderstanding, get him out of here, end of story.

  Harrington said, “I’ve had a little time to look over the police report, and I won’t sugarcoat it: We’ve got a serious challenge on our hands.”

  Fuck.

  “I can tell you everything that happ
ened,” Xavier said. “I didn’t rape her.”

  “Even if so, the eyewitness account is going to be a difficult hurdle.”

  Even if?

  Xavier’s voice rose as he said, “You don’t believe me? Then get out and tell my mother to find—”

  “Whoa, brother. Slow down. Let’s keep our head here. All I’m saying is that Brad Whitman as an eyewitness and assault victim carries a lot of weight. People love him. They trust him. That thing he does where he looks straight into the camera and says, ‘You are my favorite customer and that’s a fact’? It’s cheesy but it works.”

  “Whatever he said happened, he lied. He’s—I don’t know, I guess he thinks that since Juniper made that vow to stay a virgin, she had to be forced. But she wasn’t! She … we…”

  Xavier pressed his hands to his face for a moment, took a couple of breaths.

  Then he said, “We’ve been going out. We planned to, you know, have sex.”

  Have sex. It sounded as sterile and cold as this room. They hadn’t planned to have sex, they’d planned to make love together—though neither of them had used those words, either, or any words. They hadn’t needed to. They’d both known it was the next step, a culmination of their desire for each other. At work they’d stood together in the parking lot, hidden from sight, kissing, yearning for more. He’d said, “Maybe we could think about doing … better than this. More. You know.” And she’d said, “Yeah. I’m thinking, maybe, you know, we could go out to the park?” And he’d said, “I’ll bring all the supplies. Including protection, if that’s how it goes.” Red-faced, she’d said, “Okay, good.”

  Now Harrington told him, “They have the girl’s statement, too.”

  Had she changed her mind?

  “And she said I didn’t rape her, right?”

  “Let me see the actual language, here … She said, ‘It wasn’t rape. I could have stopped him, but I didn’t.’”

  “Exactly. So why am I even in here?”

  “Physical evidence. Eyewitness account. Assault accusation. Whitman provided some photographs that show a very distressed young woman along with a large knife left at the scene—”

  “You aren’t serious, right? She was very distressed because Whitman walked in on us! We— I sliced salami and cheese! I’m supposed to use a butter knife?”

  “I understand your frustration, but I have to be plain, here. The DA’s got a case. The simplest, cleanest way out for you—and where my fees are concerned, cheapest, but that isn’t why I’m saying this—is to let me try to negotiate a lesser charge. I’m thinking we could ask for second-degree rape and get them to drop the assault. Then it’s a Class C instead of B1. Makes a big difference in sentencing.”

  “Hold up,” said Xavier. “Way out? That’s not a way out, that’s me going to prison. I’m not guilty, okay? Not of any degree of anything. Why would I say I am?”

  Harrington leaned forward, his fingertips pressed together. “You are a black man accused of raping an underage white girl. If you put yourself in front of a jury, you’ve got twelve strangers who’ll be literally sitting in judgment of you while the prosecution busts their ass to show how to that white girl that knife equaled a threat of death unless she cooperated with you. Some of those jurors will be women. Some of them will be white. White fathers of teenage girls, if the prosecution can manage it.” He leaned back. “You want your fate in their hands?”

  “Juniper isn’t going to say she felt threatened. Jesus Christ. I can’t even believe I’m sitting here having this conversation.”

  Harrington said, “Okay. Let’s say that all of this is just some big misunderstanding, as your mother described it to me when we spoke. The sex was consensual. You have an explanation for the knife, et cetera—”

  “It’s true.”

  “Let me be the devil’s advocate for you here: Miss Whitman doesn’t have to testify. In fact, if I was the DA, I wouldn’t even have her in the courtroom.”

  “The supposed victim doesn’t testify? That’s fucked up. Can’t you make her? She’d tell the truth.”

  “The prosecution will assert that she’s afraid of you, or that her mental state is unreliable due to the trauma. They’ve got angles, trust me.”

  Xavier was trying to get his mind around this insane situation. He said, “Then … Then if they think she wouldn’t help her own case—which no way is her case to start with—”

  “What do you think happened, then? How did your romantic interlude turn into a rape charge? I want your operating theory.”

  “Her stepdad’s pissed is all it is. He’s mad that my mom is suing him, and he thinks I ruined his perfect little girl.”

  Harrington said, “And believe me, he’ll say so in court.”

  “And I’ll say what’s true. And you get Juniper to somehow back it up. My mom, too. She knows we’re dating. I don’t see how Whitman can get away with this bullshit, once people see what he’s doing.”

  “The dating thing is no help—they’re asserting it’s date rape.”

  Harrington went on: “Let me lay this out for you more specifically: If you go to trial and the jury likes solid-citizen Whitman and his story better than big black you and yours—because that’s what it’d come down to—you are looking at a prison sentence of twenty-five years, minimum. Twenty-five years, my friend. Could be double that. Could be life, if Tony Evans persuades a judge that you’re an aspiring murderer who just got interrupted. I want to think that won’t happen. Still, it’s a genuine risk. Judges have a lot of latitude with sentencing. Plead down, we should be able to get you, say, nine plus parole. And the sex offender registry. That part’s unavoidable, I’m sorry to say.”

  Xavier felt like his head might explode. “Yes, it is avoidable, damn it! I’m innocent and I can prove it!”

  Harrington was calm as Gandhi. “How? How can you prove it?”

  “That’s what you’re supposed to be the expert on. I give you the facts and you prove them in court. That’s what we’re paying you for!”

  “And I will fight for you with every tool I’ve got, if that’s the route you choose,” Harrington said. “Look, I can’t blame you for your outrage or your naiveté. In your place, I’d be saying all the same things. But defense attorneys are not, unfortunately, the magicians you see on TV.”

  “I shouldn’t need magic. Just good representation. Just a chance to show how it’s not what Whitman made it look like.”

  “Good representation is me helping you navigate this realistically and getting you the best outcome possible. I don’t want to see you locked up till you’re fifty, or worse.”

  Xavier leaned over and put his forehead against the table. The surface was gray from a distance but speckled up close. Grains of sand. He breathed in … breathed out … in … out, and then, head still down, he said, “Do I have to decide what to do right now?”

  “No. We’ll get you arraigned and, I hope, out on bond, and then we can talk some more.”

  “Okay.”

  Harrington laid his hand on Xavier’s back. “I know it’s hard, but try to let go of that righteousness and think practically. A lot of brothers are dead because they were righteous when they needed to be smart.”

  “Sure.” Xavier spoke to the tabletop. “How much is bond?”

  “Let’s see what the judge has to say on that.”

  * * *

  Much shuffling of paperwork while Xavier stood, with wrists and ankles shackled, before the court. A sea of indifferent faces—save for one, his mother’s. Xavier glanced at her but couldn’t hold her gaze or he’d lose his shit right then and there. He did have some pride.

  The judge was a middle-aged white woman wearing blue earrings shaped like fish.

  The attorneys identified themselves for the record. The charges were read: first-degree rape, kidnapping, assault.

  Kidnapping? Xavier thought in alarm. He looked at Harrington. What the actual fuck?

  More conversation he couldn’t make out. Then, “Mr. Harrin
gton, how does your client wish to plead?”

  “The defendant pleads not guilty.”

  “So entered. Proceeding on to the defendant’s request for bail…”

  Some back-and-forth between the judge and the clerks. Everyone acting like this was no more important than ordering a fast-food hamburger. Ketchup? Yes, but no pickles. Onion. Mustard. Add cheese?

  Finally the judge said, “Very good. I’m setting one hundred fifty thousand on the rape charge, seventy-five for the kidnapping, twenty-five for the assault. Bail is set at two hundred fifty thousand dollars.”

  Xavier looked at Harrington again. Harrington was not looking at him.

  The guards led him out of the courtroom. Harrington joined him in the corridor and told the guards, “Let us have a minute?”

  A quarter of a million dollars was outrageous, but Xavier’s first remark was “What is this kidnapping bullshit?”

  “Apparently the DA had a closer look and thinks there’s maybe enough evidence, so he tacked it on. It’s a strategy to raise the stakes, elevate the case for maximum media attention. Makes you look like a dangerous criminal.” He shook his head in disgust. “He really is gunning for this one.”

  Xavier had an odd ringing in his ears from the blood rushing to his head, his face. Gunning for this one.

  “And two hundred and fifty thousand? Where am I supposed to come up with that?” He couldn’t do it. He’d have to rot here for as long as it took to get on the schedule for a trial. And possibly longer. Possibly always.

  Harrington said, “You don’t have to raise all of it. We’ll get a bail bondsman to front it. You pay ten percent.”

  Valerie had joined them in the corridor. She said, “Twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  “Correct,” Harrington told her.

  “But then we get it back after the trial, right?”

  The lawyer shook his head. “No. Straight-up bail you’d get back if you paid it yourself. Most of it, anyway. If you have to use a bondsman, the ten percent is their fee for fronting the rest of it.”