Flesh and bones

7

If you're a lawyer in a TV show, you handle only one case at a time, wrap it up by the last pitch for Pepto-Bismol, after which you're toting your briefcase down the courthouse steps with a beautiful client congratulating you for a wonderful job.

Real life is different.

After lunch, I avoided three phone calls from Roberto Condom, who was leaving messages with Cindy on how to plea-bargain his gator-poaching case, the gist being that he would give the Wildlife Commission fifty-seven live gator eggs to replace the grown animals he'd killed. Next time he called, I'd ask him just where he'd get the eggs without stealing them or hatching them himself.

I also spent an hour not answering my mail, not drafting pleadings, and not attending a partners' meeting intended to choose new artwork for the office. The choice was between Wins-low Homer sailboats and Pablo Picasso nightmares. I once suggested that the conference room be decorated with several Jacques Cousteau shots of sharks in a feeding frenzy. No one took me seriously, except the managing partner, who slashed my bonus in half at the annual meeting where we devour thirty-two-ounce porterhouse steaks and carve up the profits. Firm motto:

We eat what we kill. The spoils are divided (and eaten and drunk) at the Fiscal Year Banquet, as the firm brochure describes it. Pig Pool is a better description.

Cindy was away from her desk, so I inadvertently accepted a call from Silvio Sanchez at the jail. He'd taken a fall as a serial diner, eating in expensive restaurants, just to get room and board on the county when he couldn't pay the tab. Now he wanted to sue because they don't serve decaffeinated coffee behind bars. All the caffeine was keeping him up, and surely that must violate his constitutional right to a good night's sleep.

I interviewed a new client, a man wearing leather pants, loafers without socks, an open-necked silk shirt, and a gold chain. If they were doing a remake of Saturday Night Fever, maybe Morris Gold could get a part, even though he was fifty-three years old and his shiny black toupee was out of kilter.

After he plopped down in the client chair, he asked, "Can I show you my dick?"

"Let's get to know each other first," I said. "Now, how did you come to visit Dr. Pedro Cordeon?"

"I saw his ad on TV. Right after American Gladiators."

I nodded appreciatively, as if this were an act of great diligence worthy of praise.

"So then I called the toll-free number, 1-8OO-BIG-COCK, for more information." Morris Gold pulled out a clipping and handed it to me.

"Circumferential Autologous Penile Engorgement," I read aloud. "What the hell is that?"

"CAPE. They liposuction fat from your stomach, then inject it into your dick. Makes it thicker." He winked and added with a little tune, "It takes two hands to handle the Whopper."

"Clever," I said. "What seems to be the problem?"

"You wanna see?"

"Later we'll take photos, put you on Hard Copy, whatever you want. For now, just tell me what's wrong. Have you become impotent? Is it misshapen? Why do you want to sue for malpractice?"

"It looks shorter."

"Looks? Is it or isn't it?"

"No, it's an optical illusion. By getting bigger around, my dick looks shorter. The doc should have warned me."

Should have warned.

Sure, we need to be warned not to stand on the top rung of a ladder, or not to crawl under the wheel when changing a tire, or that objects are closer than they appear in a rearview mirror. We are a fundamentally stupid people in the eyes of the law, and if we are surprised by perfectly logical risks in our lives, well… sue the bastards.

I buzzed Cindy, interrupting her weekly routine of painting her toenails fuchsia. At my request, she ushered Morris Gold out of the office, but not before taking him up on the offer of a sneak peak. She also advised him to eat more legumes and cut out all lactose, but I haven't the slightest idea why.

Having cleared my desk by simply placing everything on the floor, I opened Dr. Lawrence Schein's file and began reading. The notes corroborated what he had told me about Christina Bernhardt. Complaints of headaches, nightmares, feelings of dread. Bouts of insomnia alternating with patterns of lethargy and excessive sleep. Bulimia while a teenager, booze and cocaine by the time she hit twenty-one. A general, indefinable malaise for as long as she could remember. Blocks of missing memories from childhood.

I slipped a cassette into a portable player on my desk, pushed the Play button, stood, and walked to the window. From the thirty-second floor, I could see the beach at Virginia Key. A steady line of whitecaps, corduroy to the horizon. Twenty knots from the southeast. A few boardsailors were on the water, their outhauls pulled taut. I imagined the multicolored sails crackling in the wind, the whistle of a steady breeze through the boom. But the next sound I heard wasn't the wind at all.

"Do you feel you have to control your emotions?" Dr. Lawrence Schein asked.

A pause. Then Chrissy's voice. "Doesn't everyone?"

"No, not really. Do you overreact or misdirect your anger when you're frustrated?"

"I suppose so. Sometimes."

The scratch of pen on paper. Then, "Do you space out or daydream inappropriately?"

Another pause, and I found myself daydreaming about windsurfing. Maybe inappropriately, who the hell knows?

"Yes, I think so. I drift off sometimes."

The questions kept coming. "Do you feel different from other people?… Do you feel you have to be perfect?… Do you use work or achievements to compensate for inadequate feelings in other parts of your life?"

Chrissy answered tentatively but affirmatively, and so did I. And so would a large portion of the American public, I was reasonably sure. Still, I had an open mind. I am tolerant of what I don't understand, and even if it sounded like a Cosmo self-help quiz, maybe there was a defense to murder hidden in these tapes.

It took several sessions to get down to it. From daydreams, the discussion turned to nightmares. Chrissy was having trouble remembering her dreams, and Dr. Schein was helping her out. "Can you recall any locked doors or hidden passageways?"

"I don't think so," she said, her voice small and distant.

"Waterfalls or rivers with dangerous rapids?"

"No." In my mind's eye, I could see her shaking her head, a strand of blond hair falling across a cheekbone.

"What about snakes?"

A pause. "I've always been afraid of snakes-"

"Aha!" Sounding like it's a major medical breakthrough. "Go on."

"Yes. I've dreamed of snakes."

"Were they nightmares? Did the snakes frighten you?"

"Yes."

"Now we're getting somewhere," Schein said. "Snakes are a phallic symbol, of course."

Aw, come on. I've never had any training, but I would have asked if she had ever been frightened by a real snake. My neighborhood between Kumquat and Poinciana in the South Grove is home to a variety of reptiles, some of which are not even members of the Florida Bar. There's a four-foot-long jet-black Everglades racer that makes me jump every time I go out to pick mangoes. And yes, afterward, I've dreamed of snakes, too. The Lassiter Theory has it that dreams can reflect literally real incidents, not just metaphorical ones. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

"Christina, I must ask you to dig deep into the recesses of your memory."

"All right."

"What we're looking for won't be on the surface and may not be easy to find…"

Now I pictured her nodding.

"Were you sexually abused as a child?"

The answer came quickly. Twice, in fact. "No. No."

"Not so fast. You gave yourself no time to think, to dredge the waters."

"But I'd remember. I wouldn't have to think about it."

"Not necessarily," the doctor said. "In fact, there are only two correct answers to the question 'Were you sexually abused?' There's 'Yes' and 'I don't know.' You simply can't rule it out, particularly not with your symptoms."

Oh, brother. I hear a lot of leading questions in court, but this breaks new ground. Encouraging a different answer by "dredging the waters" of memory. I saw where this was going. The doctor was going to dig up memories Chrissy couldn't produce on her own. I could imagine how it would play to a jury. A part of me, the not-so-ethical part, was telling the rest of me, the semi-ethical part, that burning the tapes wasn't such a bad idea. Schein had known just what he was doing when he hinted he could deep-six them. Having Chrissy testify to the abuse would be a helluva lot better than showing how she had recovered the memories.

"I don't understand," Chrissy was saying. "If I'd been molested, I can't imagine forgetting it."

"You didn't forget. It's still there, but survivors of incest are frequently in denial. You have to work hard to break through the walls your mind has created. There are locked doors. We've got to find the keys to turn the latch, and it won't be easy. It can take weeks or years, and when the memories come, they will be painful. They may float up like bubbles or be disgorged like lava from a volcano."

Bubbles? Lava? As my granny would say, malarkey!

"Who abused me?" Chrissy asked, her voice weak.

"We don't know that, do we?"

"Was it a stranger or someone I knew?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't know. I just can't understand why I wouldn't remember."

"Your inner child is protecting you from the memory. But that denial only creates other problems. To cure those problems, we have to get that child to tell us the truth."

"I'm afraid," Chrissy said.

"I'll hold your hand on this journey. The road to recovery is treacherous and filled with pain, but at the other end is renewal and life."

I heard Chrissy sigh. "All right. What now?"

"Have you ever been hypnotized?" Dr. Schein replied.

"Focus on your breathing and relax," Dr. Schein said, his voice soothing and melodious. In the background, New Age music played softly, a piano tinkling with single notes like a light rain on a tin roof. "Breathe from way down. That's it. Sink deeper into the chair. Allow your face and neck to relax. Let yourself go. Now visualize a brilliant white light. The light will move from your head throughout your body, relaxing everything it touches. Every cell, every muscle, every organ will be touched by the beautiful, brilliant light. You are calm and serene as it moves through your blood vessels, through every part of your body. See the light. Feel its peacefulness as it fills your lungs and your heart, deepening your state of relaxation, reaching everywhere."

I didn't know about Chrissy, but I was getting sleepy. Either Schein was good at this, or I shouldn't have had two Grolsches with my cheeseburger at lunch.

"Free up your mind from the normal limits of time and space. Soon you'll be able to remember everything, to heal yourself."

Dr. Schein stayed quiet a moment, and I visualized Chrissy lying there, her eyes closed. Then the doctor began counting backward. "Ten, nine, eight-getting deeper and deeper-seven, six, five-so peaceful and calm-four, three-totally relaxed-two, one. You're in complete serenity, in another state altogether."

My head dropped forward, startling me as I awoke, and for a moment I was in another state, Pennsylvania, sleeping through Poli Sci 101.

"Visualize yourself walking down a beautiful staircase into the deepest recesses of your mind," Dr. Schein said, "a place with no time or space, a place of connection and oneness, a place of wisdom where you can remember everything. Can you see it?"

From Chrissy, a sleepy "Yes."

"Now you see a tunnel with a brilliant light at the other end. You begin walking through the tunnel toward the light. When you emerge into the light, you'll be in a different time and different place, and you'll be able to remember everything. The knowledge is within you, the wisdom, the memories. Your inner child is ready to speak."

Another pause with no sound except the monotonous repetition of the low-key piano, now joined by a nearly inaudible flute. Then, the doctor's voice. "How old are you, Christina?"

"Eleven."

"Are you a happy girl?"

"Oh, yes." The words came slowly but clearly, the sweet voice of a child. "I have everything a girl could want."

"What do you have?"

"Toys and friends and a wonderful mommy."

"What about your father?"

A pause, then, "He gives me everything."

"Does Mommy love him?"

"I don't know."

"Christina, I'm Dr. Schein. I'm a friend of your mommy's."

"I know. You take care of her. She likes you. She told me so."

"Your mother is a wonderful woman. Tell me about your father."

"He hits her," Christina said, beginning to sob. "He hits her a lot and calls her names. Mommy got sick, so she stays in her room. Daddy moved down the hall, next to my room."

"Does your father ever hit you?"

"No. Never. Not even when I'm bad."

"When are you bad, Christina?"

"When I don't do what Daddy says."

"Does he ever touch you in ways that frighten you?"

Silence. Then, "No."

"Does he ever come into your bedroom and do things to you?"

"No. I don't remember anything like that at all."

"Christina, memory is a funny thing. There are memories we recall and some we just feel. What do you feel?"

"I don't know. Strange things."

"Ah, that may be the beginning. Do you know what sex is?"

"Yes."

"Did you ever have sex with your father?"

Another sob. "I don't remember that."

"But you're crying. Why are you crying?"

"I don't know."

"Christina, have you ever seen the tracks of a wild animal in the woods?"

"Not in the woods, but I've seen turtle tracks on the beach."

"And did you see the turtle, too?"

"Not always. Sometimes just the tracks."

"But you knew the turtle had been there."

"Yes."

"I can see the tracks of the animal all through your life. The monster has been there. I think you see it, too, but you've covered it with layers of dirt. Can we scrape through that dirt, can we uncover the monster?"

"I don't know."

Click. What the hell was that? The faint sound of the recorder being turned off.

Then Schein's voice. "Let's talk about your father."

Wait a second! I stopped and rewound the tape. The same click, and then Schein continued. How long was the gap? A second, a minute, eighteen and a half minutes? Who knows? And what happened then? What did Schein say in the darkness of his office to the troubled young woman, groggy under hypnosis? And what was he saying now?

"Let's talk about your father."

"I always loved my daddy. Always."

"Good Chrissy. That's a good girl."

"And my daddy always loved me."

"Did he?"

"Daddy told me I was his best girl, and now that Mommy's sick, I.."

"What, Christina?"

"I remember now. I remember."

"Very good, Christina. Very good. What do you remember?"

"I make Daddy happy. I pretend I'm Mommy."

"Does he come to your bedroom?"

"Yes."

"Do you have sex with your daddy?"

"Of course I do, silly. I'm his wife."

I listened to the rest of the tapes. The memories became more vivid and graphic. Chrissy's little-girl voice re-created the nighttime whispers with her father. "Our little secret," he had told her. Her adult cries reflected her anger. She was in and out of a hypnotic trance. I heard her sobs when she described the pain she had felt in her "peepee." I heard her voice waver between the innocent confusion of a child and the angry cries of a woman.

The male of the species. His chromosomes tuned for survival of the fittest, he wages war and slaughters his fellowman. His soul shriveled, he defiles the earth, mocks his Creator, and lives by no code other than his own. At the low end of the evolutionary scale, he lords his physical superiority over women, beating and raping. At the very bottom, this reptilian cousin of Homo sapiens neander-thalensis, this horned beast of hellish evil, is the father who would rape his own child.

I felt sick and angry and, for a moment, felt like killing Harry Bernhardt myself. Which made me think. Whether the memories were real or not, they sounded authentic. And though I knew that the prior abuse was not a defense to murder, I wondered if a jury might not be persuaded to come back on a lesser charge of manslaughter or even to acquit.

On the final tape, Chrissy wasn't hypnotized at all. She was telling Dr. Schein about her adult life, the failed romances, the drug and alcohol abuse, and thanking him for opening the door to her past. "I've thought more about what we discussed yesterday," she said.

"The need for goals?" he asked.

"No. What we talked about afterward."

There was a pause. "Oh, that."

"I've made a decision that you're not going to like."

"Maybe you shouldn't tell me," he said.

What the hell was this all about? What were they dancing around?

"But I've told you everything else. I can't imagine not telling you first."

"All right then. But first, let me…"

I heard papers rustling and the sound of a chair squeaking.

Click.

Again. Damn! I waited, but this time, nothing. Just a faint mechanical hum as the tape wound out. I looked for another tape, but there was none. I checked the date on the plastic box: June 14, 1995.

I considered all the things Chrissy might have said to her psychiatrist two days before shooting her father, and I didn't like any of them one bit.