Lucky

ELEVEN

In late April, a month after Easter break, I was on Marshall Street. It was midafternoon. Spring had finally come to Upstate New York in that peekaboo way that it does. There was still old snow on the ground. Each winter, the snow made Syracuse beautiful; it covered the gritty, Northeastern browns and grays of the buildings and roads. But by April, everyone had had enough of it, and the warmth was celebrated by the students. They wore shorts, despite the fact that goose bumps rose up and down their arms and legs, and the girls showed off their Florida tans. The street was crowded, and with the anticipation of the end of classes that meant the start of good times, students were smiling and laughing and buying SU paraphernalia in the stores on Marshall Street.

I had gone shopping for my sister. She was graduating magna cum laude from Penn. As I walked up Marshall, a group of fraternity boys and their girlfriends were coming my way. They were all bright spring smiles. Two of the boys flaunted their toughness by wearing white starched boxer shorts with the standard no-sock Docksiders on their feet. I looked at them because I had to; they were covering the sidewalk and begging for attention. But there was someone trying to get by them on the other side.

I grew up watching Bewitched, in which the Elizabeth Montgomery character was able to snap her fingers and freeze everyone but herself and her husband, Darrin. They continued talking while the frozen people stayed still in their awkward, formerly animated poses. That was how it felt that day. I saw Gregory Madison blocked by this crowd, and then, he saw me. Everything else stopped.

I don't know why I hadn't thought that this could happen. But I hadn't. I still envisioned him in jail, or, at least, not stupid enough to come back to the university area before the trial. But there he was. In October he had been cocksure when he spotted me. Now we saw each other, recognized each other, and nodded. No words. It was a split second. The happy frat boys and girls stood between us. We passed by them on either side. His eyes told me what I needed to know. I had become his opponent now, no longer merely his victim. This he recognized.

Lila and I had begun, sometime that winter, to call each other Clone. We both gained from it. By being my clone, she could seem a bit more daring and wild than she really was; I could pretend that I was a normal college coed whose life revolved as much around my classes and food runs to Marshall Street as it did a rape trial. As Clones we decided to room together off campus. The two of us, and a friend of Lila's named Sue, found a three-bedroom apartment in an off-campus area where many students lived. We were excited about living in a real house, and, certain the trial would have to be over by then, I saw this as a fresh start. We would take possession in the fall.

By the first week of May, I was packing to go home for the summer. I'd gotten a B in my Shakespeare class and said good-bye to Jamie. I had no illusions that I would hear from him.

I had taken a course called Cervantes in English in which, for the final paper, I took my revenge on the myth of La Mancha. I reinterpreted Don Quixote as a modern urban parable and made Sancho the hero. He was street smart where Quixote was not. In my version, Quixote drowns in a curbside puddle, unable to realize it is not a lake.

Before I left, I called Gail to let her know my schedule. All spring, the office of the district attorney had given me an "any minute now" rap and this time was no different. She thanked me and asked me about my plans.

"I'll get a summer job, I guess," I said.

"I'm hoping we'll go to trial soon," she said. "You will be available, won't you?"

"It's my number-one priority," I said, not putting it together until years later: In rape cases, it was almost expected that the victim would drop out of the process even if she originally initiated it.

"Alice, let me ask you something," she said, her tone shifting a bit.

"Yes?"

"Will you have someone with you from home?"

"I don't know," I said.

I had talked to my parents about this during the Christmas holidays and then again at Easter. My mother had spoken to her psychiatrist, Dr. Graham, about it, and my father fretted that the longer the trial was postponed, the greater the chance it would ruin his annual trip to Europe.

Until recently I believed that their final decision, that he would be the one who came with me, was based on her own inability to be there-the unpredictable chances of a flap. But as it turned out, Dr. Graham had counseled her to go despite her panic.

In the phone call in which my mother told me how the decision had ultimately been made, I stayed quiet. I asked the questions a reporter would ask. Numbly, I gathered the information. My mother was peeved at Graham, she said, because, of course, Graham would "support the professional, i.e., your father."

"So Dad didn't want to come with me either?" I asked, playing out what she'd begun.

"Of course not, his precious Spain awaited."

What I came away with was the fact that neither one of them had wanted to be at the trial with me. They had their reasons; I acknowledge these.

Finally, it was decided, my father would come with me. I held out a small corner of hope, up until the moment my father and I boarded the plane, that my mother would park her car in the long-term lot and rush in. No matter how tough my pose, I both wanted and needed her.

By the close of her senior year, Mary had mastered fifteen Arab dialects and won a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the University of Damascus in Syria. I was both jealous and in awe. I made my first, but not my last, joke about our respective majors. "Yours may be Arabic," I said. "It looks like mine is rape."

Mary excelled academically in a way I never could, perhaps in a way I was too distracted to ever attempt. But the truth was, Mary had been escaping via academics for a long time. Raised in a house where my mother's problems provided the glue of family, she patterned herself after my father. Learn a language of another country and then you can go to that country: a place where the problems of your family will not follow. A language they do not speak.

I had not quite given up on the idea of the blissful sibling relationship that my mother wanted for us, but events always conspired, it seemed, to make this impossible. The City of Syracuse scheduled testimony to begin on May 17, the same day as my sister's commencement ceremony at Penn. I continually stole her spotlight whether I wanted to or not.

I talked to Gail. They could not reschedule the trial, but they would lead with the other witnesses and somehow work it so I could testify on the second day. My father and I booked a flight for the evening of the seventeenth. Directly after Mary's graduation, my mother would drop us off at the Philadelphia airport. Until then, my mother, father, and I agreed, Mary's day would be our focus.

My mother, Mary, and I went clothes shopping-Mary for a dress to wear to graduation, me for an outfit for the trial.

Both my sister and I had strayed far from the way we were dressed as children, my mother having a penchant for the colors of the flag. Mary went toward dark greens and creams, I went to black and blue. But for the trial, I ceded my Gothic tendencies to my mother. I put her firmly in control. I would wear, as it resulted, a red blazer, a white blouse, a blue skirt.

In the evening, on the sixteenth, my father and I packed. On the seventeenth, we all dressed in our separate rooms and prepared for the drive down to Penn. I took a last look in my mirror. Whatever the trial's result, my part in it would be over by the time I saw myself there again. I was going to Syracuse and would meet and see many people, but all I thought about was the one appointment I had to keep. I had a date with Gregory Madison. As I opened the door of my bedroom I breathed deeply. I shut myself off. I turned myself on. I was Mary's little sister-excited, ebullient, alive.

At the ceremony, my father would march in his Princeton colors. Mary and he stood with us in the crowded lobby of the auditorium, where mothers and fathers fussed over the last-minute set of mortarboards, and one woman, unhappy with her daughter's mascara, spit-washed the black flecks from under her eyes. Extended families surrounded the happy graduates, flashbulbs popped, and self-conscious girls and boys tried to make mortarboards look less than nerdy by tilting them on their heads.

My grandmother, mother, and I found our seats on the main floor, to the side of the large body of graduating students. I stood on my chair to find Mary. I spotted her smiling beside another girl, a friend of hers I didn't know.

After the ceremony, we celebrated with a lunch at the Faculty Club. My mother took too many pictures of us on the concrete benches outside. My mother still has an enlargement framed and mounted from that day. I used to wish that she would take it down. But it commemorates an important day in our family: my sister's graduation, my rape trial.

I don't remember the airport. I remember the rush from a day of celebration into the onset of dread. Once in Syracuse, we were met by Detective John Murphy from the DA's office. This man, with prematurely gray hair and a friendly smile, approached my father and me as we located the signs for the main terminal.

"You must be Alice," he said, and extended his hand.

"Yes." How had he known me?

He introduced himself to my father and to me, told us his job-to act as our escort over the next twenty-four hours-and offered to carry my bag. As we walked briskly toward the exit, he explained our accommodations and that Gail would meet us in the cafe in the lobby.

"She wants to go over the testimony," he said.

Finally, I asked, "How did you know who I was?"

He looked blankly at me. "They showed me some photos."

"I would have hoped I looked better than that, if they're the photos you mean."

My father was tense; he walked at a remove from us.

"You're a beautiful girl, you can tell that even in those photos," Murphy said. He was smooth. He knew the answers to give and the things to say.

In the county car on the way to the hotel, Murphy talked over his shoulder to my father, making eye contact with him in the rearview at lights and turns.

"Follow sports, Mr. Sebold?" he asked.

My father did not.

Murphy tried fishing.

My father did his best here but had little to go on. If Murphy had gotten up at 5:00 A.M. to study Cicero, they might have had something to start with.

We ended up on Madison.

"Even in holding," Murphy said, "I might go up there and say 'thanks' to a guy, act all friendly with him. Then I leave. That gets them in trouble with the other inmates, makes them look like an informer. I'll do that to that puke if you want."

I don't remember my response, if I had any. I was aware of my father's discomfort and, in turn, aware that my own comfort with such talk had grown during the last year. I liked men like Murphy. Their quick, exact talk. Their no-bones-about-it demeanor.

"They don't like rapists," Murphy informed my father. "It can go rough on them. They hate child molesters the most, but rapists aren't much above."

My father acted interested, but I think he was scared. He found talk like this distasteful. He liked to be in control of a discussion and if he wasn't, he usually opted out. This meant his paying attention itself was something out of the ordinary.

"You know, my girlfriend's name is Alice," Murphy said.

"Really?" my father said, taking interest.

"Yep. We've been together for some time now. When I heard your daughter's name was Alice, I had a good feeling about this case."

"We're quite fond of the name ourselves," my father said.

I told Detective Murphy about how my father had wanted to name me Hepzibah. That it was only because of my mother's vehement objection that the idea died.

He liked this. It made him laugh and I repeated the name until he got it right.

"That's a doozy," he said. "You lucked out."

We turned onto the main street of Syracuse's downtown. In May, it was still light at 7:30 P.M., but the stores were closed. We passed by Foley's department store. The cursive script and old brass security gates comforted me.

Up on our left I could see the marquee for the Hotel Syracuse. It too belonged to a more prosperous past. The old lobby was bustling. John Murphy checked us in at the reservation desk and showed us where the restaurant was. He told us he would return for us at nine the following morning.

"Have dinner. Gail said she'd be by sometime around eight o'clock tonight." He handed me a blue folder. "This is material she thought it might be useful for you to go over."

My father thanked him earnestly for his escort.

"No problem, Mr. Sebold," Murphy said. "I'm off to see my own Alice now."

We parked our bags in the room upstairs and returned to the lobby. I didn't want to eat but I did want a drink. In the bar area of the restaurant, my father and I sat at a small round table. We ordered gin and tonics. "Your mother doesn't have to know," he said. Gin and tonics were my father's drink. When I was eleven, I had watched him drink an entire pitcher on the day President Nixon resigned. My father went off to call my mother. She and her own mother and my sister would be sitting tight, she said, waiting for any news.

While he was gone I opened the blue folder. On top was a copy of my testimony from the preliminary hearing. I hadn't seen it before. I read over it, covering the page as I went with the folder itself. I didn't want anyone there-the young businessmen, the older salesmen, and the sole professional woman-to see what I held in my hands.

My father returned, trying not to disturb me while I was going over my words. He pulled out a small book in Latin that he'd brought from home.

"That doesn't look like good dinner material!"

I looked up. It was Gail. She was pointing to the blue folder. At three weeks before her projected delivery date, she wore a blue maternity T-shirt, tan corduroy pants, and running shoes. She had her glasses on, which I hadn't seen before, and she carried a briefcase with her.

"You must be Dr. Sebold," she said.

Score one for Gail, I thought. I had told her once that my father was a Ph.D. and hated being called Mister.

My father stood up to shake her hand. "Call me Bud," he said.

He offered to get her a drink. She said water would be fine, and as he went to the bar, she sat down beside me, bracing her arm on the back of the chair as she lowered herself down.

"Boy, you're really pregnant!" I said.

"You can say that again. I'm ready for the arrival. Billy Mastine," she said, referring to the district attorney, "gets the case because the sight of a pregnant woman makes the judge nervous." She was laughing but I didn't like it. I never considered anyone else my attorney. She, not the district attorney, had driven over on her off-hours to review the case. She was my lifeline, and the idea that she was being punished for being pregnant seemed another anti-woman maneuver to me.

"You know, Husa, your GYN, she's pregnant too. Eight months. Paquette is going to bust. All us pregnant ladies surrounding him. Cross-examining us makes them look bad."

My father returned and we got down to business. She excused herself to my father, saying that she didn't mean to be rude.

"Billy and I think that his attorney might go with an impotency defense."

My father listened hard. He played with the two onions at the bottom of his second drink, a Gibson.

"How can they prove that?" I asked, and Gail and I laughed. We imagined them bringing a doctor in to testify to the fact.

Gail broke down the three kinds of rapists.

"In all the studies they've done it seems like Gregory fits into the most common one. He's a power rapist. The others are anger rapists and the worst, sadistic."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"Power rapists are often unable to sustain an erection and are only able to do so once they feel they've completely physically and mentally dominated their victim. He might have a bit of the sadistic thrown in. We found it interesting that he was able to finally have an erection once he'd made you kneel in front of him and give him a blow job."

If I noticed my father at all, it was only to will myself not to worry about him.

"I told him a lot of lies," I said, "about how strong he was, and when he lost his erection, I told him it wasn't his fault, that I wasn't good at it."

"That's right," Gail said. "That would make him think he had dominated you."

With Gail, I could be completely myself-say anything. My father sat beside us as we talked. Occasionally, if Gail sensed his interest or his confusion, she made a gesture of inclusion. I asked her how much time Madison would get if convicted.

"You know we offered him a plea."

"No," I said.

"Two to six, but he didn't take it. If you ask me his attorney is too cocky. It goes tougher on them if they refuse a plea and are then found guilty at trial."

"What's the maximum he can get?"

"On the rape charge, eight and a third to twenty-five."

"Twenty-five years?"

"Right, but he's eligible for parole at eight and a third."

"In Arab countries they cut off people's hands and feet," my father said.

Gail, who was of Lebanese descent, smiled. "An eye for an eye, huh, Bud?" she said.

"Exactly," said my father.

"Sometimes it seems fairer, but we have the law here."

"Alice told me about the lineup, how he could have his friend stand next to him. That doesn't seem right."

"Oh," Gail said, smiling, "don't worry about Gregory. Whatever he was given he might manage to screw up."

"Will he testify?" I asked.

"That depends on you. If you're as strong as you were at the prelim and grand jury, Paquette will have to have him take the stand."

"What can he say?"

"He'll deny it, say he wasn't there on May eighth, doesn't remember where he was. They'll create a story for October. Clapper saw him and Paquette's not stupid enough to have his client deny speaking to a cop."

"So I say it happened and he says it didn't."

"Yes. It's your word against his, and this is a non-jury trial."

"What does that mean?"

"It means Judge Gorman serves as both judge and jury. It was Gregory's choice. They worried about the superficials swaying citizens on a jury."

By this time I knew what the superficials were and knew they stood in my favor. I was a virgin. He was a stranger. It had happened outside. It was night. I wore loose clothes and could not be proven to have behaved provocatively. There were no drugs or alcohol in my system. I had no former involvement with the police of any kind, not even a traffic ticket. He was black and I was white. There was an obvious physical struggle. I had been injured internally-stitches had to be taken. I was young and a student at a private university that brought revenue to the city. He had a record and had done time.

She checked her watch and then, suddenly, reached out and grabbed my hand.

"Feel that?" she said, putting my hand up against her belly. I felt her baby kick. "A soccer player," she said, smiling.

She told me that mine was not the only charge Gregory faced. He had an outstanding charge for an aggravated assault against a police officer. While out on bail since Christmas, she said, he had also been arrested for a burglary.

We went over the preliminary and some affidavits dating back to the night of the rape. She told me that the police had already testified.

"Clapper got up there and talked about knowing Gregory from around the neighborhood, indicating he had former knowledge of him. If Madison takes the stand, Billy will try to go after that."

Here my father was paying close attention.

"So his record could be used?" he asked.

"Nothing juvenile," she said. "That's not admissible. But we'll make an attempt to establish that Greg is no stranger to the police. If he trips up and mentions it himself, then we can ask."

I described the outfit my mother and I had bought. Gail approved. "A skirt is important," she said. "I don't go anywhere near a courtroom in slacks. Gorman is particular on this point. Billy once got thrown out of his courtroom for wearing madras plaid!" Gail stood up. "I have to get this one home," she said, indicating her stomach. "Be direct," she said to me. "Be clear, and if you're confused, look over at that prosecution table. I'll be sitting right there."

That night was one of the worst in my memory for physical pain. I had begun, during the year, to have migraine headaches, although I didn't know they were migraines at the time. I had hid the fact I'd had them from my parents. I remember standing in the hotel bathroom and realizing I was going to have one that night. I could feel the drum beating in the back of my head as I brushed my teeth and dressed for bed. Over the rush of the water I heard my father calling my mother to report on Gail. Having met her, he was flooded with relief.

But that night, as my headache grew worse, my father became frantic. I felt the pain most acutely in my eyes. I couldn't open or close them. I was sweating intensely and alternated between sitting bent over on the edge of one of the beds, rocking my head in my hands, and pacing back and forth between the balcony window and the bed.

My father hovered. He fired questions at me. "What is it? Where is the pain? Should I get a doctor? Maybe we should call your mother."

I didn't want to talk, because it hurt. "My eyes,,my eyes," I moaned. "I can't see, they hurt so much, Dad."

My father decided that I needed to cry.

"Cry," he said. "Cry."

I begged him to leave me alone. But he was convinced he'd found the key.

"Cry," he said. "You need to cry. Cry."

"That's not it, Dad."

"Yes, it is," he said. "You are refusing to cry and you need to. Now cry!"

"You just can't will me to cry," I said to him. "Crying doesn't win a trial!"

I went to the bathroom to throw up, and closed the door against him.

Eventually, out in the other room, he fell asleep. I stayed in the bathroom with the lights on and then off, trying to soothe or shock my eyes back to their normal state. In the early-morning hours I sat on the edge of the bed as the headache began to lift. I read the Bible from the drawer beside my bed as a way to test that I hadn't begun to go blind.

The nausea hung on. Gail met us in the hotel cafe at eight. John Murphy arrived and sat with my father. Gail and Murphy tag-teamed me. I drank coffee and picked at the scales of a croissant.

"Whatever you do," Murphy said, "don't look him in the eyes. Am I right, Gail?"

I sensed she didn't want to get this aggressive this fast.

"He'll look at you real mean, try and throw you off," Murphy said. "When they ask you to point him out, stare in the direction of the table."

"Agreed," Gail said.

"Will you be there?" I asked Murphy.

"Your father and I will be sitting in the gallery," he said. "Right, Bud?"

It was time to drive to the Onondaga courthouse. Gail went in her own car. We would see her there. Murphy, my father, and I went in the official county car.

Inside the building, Murphy led us toward the courtroom, but stopped us midway down.

"We'll wait here until we're called," he said. "You okay, Bud?"

"Fine, thank you," my father said.

"Alice?"

"As good as I can be," I said, but I was thinking of only one thing. "Where is he?"

"That's why I stopped you here," Murphy confided. "To avoid any run-ins."

Gail came out of the courtroom and advanced toward us.

"Here's Gail," Murphy said.

"We've got a closed courtroom."

"What's that?" I asked.

"It means Paquette is trying to do what he did in the lineup. He's closing the courtroom so you can't have family sit in."

"I don't understand," my father said.

"He wouldn't let Tricia stay in the lineup," I said to my dad. "I hate him," I said. "He's a slimy asshole."

Murphy smiled.

"How can he do that?" my father asked.

"The defendant has the right to request a courtroom be closed if he thinks it will rob the witness of support," Gail said. "Look on the bright side, Gregory's father is here too. By closing the court, he won't have his father there either."

"How could he support a rapist anyway?"

"It's his son," Murphy said quietly.

Gail walked back to the courtroom.

"It might be easier for you without your father there," Murphy offered. "Some of what you'll have to say is harder in front of family."

I wanted to ask why, but I knew what he was saying. No father wanted to hear the story of how a stranger shoved his whole hand up his daughter's vagina.

Detective Murphy and my father stood facing me. Murphy offered words of condolence to my father. He pointed to a bench nearby, saying they could wait right there the whole time. My father had brought a small, leather-bound book along.

In the distance I saw Gregory Madison walking toward the courtroom. He had come from the hallway perpendicular to the one where I stood. I looked at him for a second. He did not see me. He was moving slowly. He wore a light gray suit. Paquette and another white man were with him.

I waited a second and then interrupted my father and Detective Murphy.

"Do you want to see him?" I asked my dad. I grabbed his arm to make him turn. "There he is, Dad."

But it was just Madison's back now, entering the courtroom, a flash of gray polyester suit.

"He's smaller than I thought," my father said.

There was a beat. A silence. Murphy rushed in.

"But wide. Believe me, he's all muscle."

"Did you see his shoulders?" I asked my dad. I'm sure my father had imagined Madison as towering.

Then I saw another man. He had a softer version of his son's build, white hair around the temples. He hesitated, for a moment, near the courtroom door, then spotted our little group down the hall. I didn't point him out to my father. Murphy's earlier comment had made me see him differently. After a second, and a look at me, he disappeared back down the other hall. He must have realized who I was. I didn't see him again, but I remembered him. Gregory Madison had a father. It was a simple fact but it stayed with me. Two fathers, both of them helpless to control their children's lives, would sit out the trial in their separate hallways.

The courtroom door opened. A bailiff stood in the open doorway and made eye contact with Murphy.

"You're up, Alice," Murphy said. "Remember, don't look at him. He'll be sitting at the defense table. When you turn around, look for Bill Mastine."

The bailiff came to get me. He looked like a cross between a theater usher and someone in the military. Detective Murphy and he nodded to each other. The pass-off.

I reached for my father's hand.

"Good luck," he said.

I turned. I was glad for Murphy. I thought suddenly that if my father were to go to the men's room, he might bump into Mr. Madison. Murphy would keep this from happening. I let it come now, the thing that had been burning at the corners of my temples the night before and boiled beneath the surface all that year: rage.

I was frightened and shaking when I crossed the courtroom, passed the defense table, the judge at the podium, the prosecution table, and came to take the stand. I liked to think I was Madison's worst nightmare, although he didn't know it yet. I represented an eighteen-year-old virgin coed. I was dressed in red, white, and blue.

A female bailiff, middle-aged and wearing wire-framed glasses, assisted me up onto the stand. I turned around. Gail was seated at the prosecution table. Mastine was standing. I was aware of other people, but I didn't look at them.

The bailiff held a Bible in front of me.

"Place your hand on the Bible," she said. And I repeated what I had seen on TV a hundred times.

"I swear to tell the truth… so help me, God."

"Be seated," the judge said.

My mother had always taught us to be scrupulous when wearing a skirt by smoothing it out before sitting down. I did this and as I did, I thought of what lay beneath the skirt and slip, still visible, if I lifted up the hem, through the flesh-tone stockings. That morning, while I dressed, I had written a note to myself on my skin. "You will die" was inked into my legs in dark blue ballpoint. And I didn't mean me.

Mastine began. He asked me my name and address. Where I was from. I barely remember answering him. I was getting the lay of the land. I knew exactly where Madison sat, but I didn't look at him. Paquette cleared his throat, rustled papers. Mastine asked me where I went to school. What year I had just finished there. He took a moment to close the window, first asking permission of Judge Gorman. Then he led me back in time. Where was I living in May of 1981? He directed my attention to the events of May 7, 1981, and the early hours of May 8, 1981.

I went into minute detail and, this time, did as Gail had told me to; I took each question slowly.

"Did he say anything to you by way of a threatening nature while you were screaming, and while the struggle was taking place?"

"He said he would kill me if I didn't do what he said."

Paquette stood. "I am sorry. I can't hear."

I repeated myself: "He said that he would kill me if I did not do what he said."

A few minutes later, I began to stumble. Mastine had led me up and now into the amphitheater tunnel.

"What happened there?"

"He told me to-that he was-well, I figured out by that time that he was-didn't want my money."

It was a shaky start to the most important story I would ever tell.

I began a sentence only to trail off and begin again. And this wasn't because I was unaware of exactly what had happened in the tunnel. It was saying the words out loud, knowing it was how I said them that could win or lose the case.

"… Then he made me lie down on the ground and he took his pants off and left his sweatshirt on, and he started fondling my breasts and kissing them and doing things like that, and he was very interested in the fact that I was a virgin. He kept asking me about it. So he used his hands in my vagina……"

I was breathing shallowly now. The bailiff beside me became more and more alert.

Mastine did not want the fact of my virginity to go by unnoted. "Stop for a second," he said. "Had you ever had sexual intercourse with anyone at that time of your life?"

I felt shame. "No," I said, "I had not."

"Continue," said Mastine, stepping back again. I talked uninterrupted for nearly five minutes. I described the assault, the blow job, talked about how cold I was, detailed the robbery of $8 from my back pocket, his kiss good-bye, his apology. Our parting. "… and he said, 'Hey, girl.' I turned around. He said, 'What is your name?' I said 'Alice.' "

Mastine needed specifics. He asked about penetration. He asked how many times it had occurred if more than once.

"It would be ten times because-or something to that effect, because he kept putting it in there, and then it kept falling out. So that is 'in there,' right? I am sorry. That is entering, right?"

My innocence seemed to embarrass them. Mastine, the judge, the bailiff beside me.

"So in any event, he did have penetration?"

"Yes."

Next, more questions on lighting. Then the photo exhibits. Photos of the scene.

"Did you receive any injuries as a result of this attack?"

I detailed these injuries.

"Were you bleeding when you left the scene?"

"Yes, I was."

"I am showing you the photographs marked for identification thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Look at those, please."

He handed me the photos. I looked only briefly at them.

"Are you familiar with the person depicted in those photographs?"

"Yes, I am," I said. I placed them on the edge of the stand, away from me.

"Who is tha-?"

"Me," I interrupted him. I began to cry. By trying not to, I made it worse. I sputtered.

"Are those photographs true and accurate portrayals of how you appeared after the attack on the evening of May eighth, 1981?"

"I was uglier, yes, but they are true portrayals." The bailiff went to hand me a glass of water. I reached for it but my grasp wasn't sure and it fell.

"I'm sorry," I said to the bailiff, crying more now. I tried to dab at her wet lapels with a Kleenex from the box she held.

"You're doing fine; breathe," this steely bailiff said. This made me think of the emergency room nurse on the night of the rape. "Good, you got a piece of him. " I was lucky; people were pulling for me.

"Do you want to continue?" the judge asked me. "We can take a short break."

"I will continue." I cleared my throat and wiped my eyes. Now I held a Kleenex balled up in my lap-something I had not wanted to be reduced to.

"Can you tell us what clothing you were wearing that evening?"

"I was wearing a pair of jeans and a blue work shirt and an oxford type of shirt and a cable-knit cardigan sweater that was tan, and moccasins and underwear."

Mastine had been standing near the prosecution table. Now he stepped forward holding a clear plastic bag.

"I am showing you a large bag which is marked exhibit number eighteen. Would you take a look at the contents of that bag and tell us if you are familiar with them?"

He held the bag in front of me. I had not seen these clothes since the night of the rape. My mother's sweater, shirt, and jeans that I had borrowed that afternoon were tightly packed inside. I took the bag from him and held it to one side.

"Yes."

"What are the contents of that bag?"

"They look to be the shirt and jeans and sweater that I had on. I don't see the underwear but-"

"How about where your left hand is?"

I moved my hand. I had borrowed a pair of my mother's underwear. She wore nude, I wore white. This underwear was stained so thoroughly with blood that only one clean patch reminded me of this.

"Okay. My underwear," I said.

They were received into evidence.

Mastine finished up on the events of that day. He established that I had returned to Pennsylvania after failing to pick a photo out of the mug books at the Public Safety Building. We moved to the fall, noting my return day in September for the beginning of my sophomore year.

"I direct your attention now to October fifth, 1981, the afternoon of that day. Do you recall the events of that day, that afternoon?"

"I recall one particular event, yes."

"Is the person who attacked you in Thorden Park, is he in court here today?"

"Yes, he is."

I did what I was warned not to. I focused my attention on Madison's face. I stared at him. For a few seconds, I was unaware of Mastine or of Gail, or of the courtroom.

"Would you tell us where he is sitting and what he has on?" I heard Mastine say.

Before I spoke, Madison looked down.

"He is sitting next to the man with the brown tie and he has a gray three-piece suit on," I said. I relished pointing out Paquette's ugly brown tie and identifying Madison not by his skin color, as I was expected to do, but by his clothes.

"Let the record reflect that the witness identified the defendant," Mastine said.

For the remainder of the direct examination, I did not take my eyes off Madison for more than a second or two. I wanted my life back.

Mastine spent a long time on the events of October 5. I had to describe Madison on that day. What he looked like, what he said. Madison raised his head from the defense table only once. When he did, and saw that I was still looking at him, he turned away and to the city of Syracuse outside the window.

Mastine questioned me in detail about what Officer Clapper looked like, where he was standing. Had I seen Madison approach him? From what direction? Where did I go? Who did I call? Why the time discrepancy between seeing him and calling the police? Oh, he pointed out, the discrepancy was because I had appeared at class to tell my teacher I couldn't attend? Had naturally called my parents and told them what had happened? Had tried to wait for a friend to walk me home? All the things a good girl, he implied, might do after running into her rapist on the street.

His purpose in all this was to make anything Paquette could go after in his cross moot. That was what made Clapper so important. If I had identified Clapper and he, in turn, had identified Madison, this made my case close to airtight. This was the key point of identification Mastine emphasized. What Mastine and Uebelhoer, what Paquette, Madison, and I all knew, was that the lineup was the weak link.

I had thought long and hard about what I was going to say. This time around I would not pretend a command I did not have.

Mastine had me detail my reasoning for ruling out the men I initially had. I took my time explaining the similarities between numbers four and five and how I hadn't been sure at the time I marked the box but that I had chosen five because of the eye contact.

"At the time that you indicated it was number five, were you in fact positive it was him?"

"No, I was not."

"Why did you mark the box, then?"

This was the single most important question of my case.

"I marked the box because I was very scared, and he was looking at me and I saw the eyes, and the way the lineup is, it is not like it is on television, and you are standing right next to the person and he looks like he is two feet away from you. He looked at me. I picked him."

I could feel Judge Gorman's attention heighten. I watched Gail as I answered the questions Mastine put to me, tried to think of good things, of the baby floating inside her womb.

"Do you know to this day who that depicted?"

"Number five?"

"Yes," said Mastine.

"No," I said.

"Do you know which position the defendant was in, in the lineup?"

If I told the truth, I could say that the moment I picked number five I knew I was wrong and had regretted it. That everything after that, from the mood in the lineup room, to the relief on Paquette's face, to the dark weight I felt on Lorenz in the conference room, had only confirmed my mistake.

If I lied, if I said, "No, I do not," I knew I would be perceived as telling the truth in my confusion between four and five. "Identical twins," I had said to Tricia in the hallway. "It's four, isn't it?" were my first words to Lorenz.

I knew the man who raped me sat across from me in the courtroom. It was my word against his.

"Do you know which position the defendant was in, in the lineup?"

"No, I do not," I said.

Judge Gorman held up his hand. He had the court reporter read over Mastine's last question and my answer to it.

Mastine asked me if there was any other reason I felt scared or hurried during the lineup.

"The attorney for the defendant hadn't let me have my rape-he wouldn't allow me to have my rape center counselor with me."

Paquette objected. He believed this was irrelevant.

Mastine continued. He asked me about the Rape Crisis Center, about Tricia. I had met her on the day of my rape. He emphasized the connection. All of this went to why, in his mind, I had made my one and only mistake. This mistake, he wanted to make certain, should not invalidate what occurred on October 5 and the corroborating evidence of Officer Clapper.

"Is there any doubt in your mind, Miss Sebold, that the person that you saw on Marshall Street is the same person that attacked you on May eighth in Thorden Park?"

"No doubt whatsoever," I said. And I had none.

"That is all I have at this point, Your Honor," Mastine said, turning to Judge Gorman.

Gail gave me a wink.

"We will take about a five-minute recess," Judge Gorman said. "I caution you, Miss Sebold, don't discuss your testimony now with anyone."

This was what I had been promised-a break between direct and cross. I was assigned to the bailiff. She led me off to the right, through a door, down a short hall, and into a conference room.

The bailiff was as friendly as she could be.

"How was I?" I asked.

"Why don't you sit down," she said.

I sat at the table.

"Can you just make a signal?" I asked. Suddenly I got the idea into my head that the room was bugged-a way to make sure that the rules were followed. "Thumbs up or down?"

"I can't discuss the case. It will all be over soon."

We were quiet. I could now make out the traffic noise outside. I hadn't heard anything other than Mastine's questions while I testified.

The bailiff offered me stale coffee in a styrofoam cup. I took it and wrapped my hands around the warm outsides.

Judge Gorman entered the room.

"Hello, Alice," he said. He stood on the other side of the table from me. "How is she, bailiff?" he asked.

"She's good."

"Haven't talked about the case?"

"No," the bailiff said, "quiet, mostly."

"So what does your father do, Alice?" he asked me. His tone was more gentle than the one he used in court. The voice lighter, more circumspect.

"He teaches Spanish at Penn," I said.

"I bet you're glad he's here today."

"I am."

"Do you have any sisters or brothers?"

"An older sister. Mary," I added, anticipating his next question. He went over and stood by the window.

"I've always liked this room," he said. "What does Mary do?"

"She's majoring in Arabic at Penn," I said, suddenly happy to have questions that were so easy. "She goes there free but I didn't get in," I said. "Something my parents really regret now," I said, making a joke.

"I bet they do," he said. He had been half sitting on the radiator and now he stood and adjusted his robe. "Well, you just sit here for a little while longer," he said, "and we'll call you."

He left.

"He's a good judge," the bailiff said.

The door opened and a male bailiff poked his head in. "We're ready," he said.

My bailiff stubbed out her cigarette. We didn't speak. I was ready now. This was it.

I reentered the courtroom and took the stand. I took a deep breath and looked up. In front of me was my enemy. He would do everything he could to make me look bad-stupid, confused, hysterical. Madison could look at me now. His man had been sent in. I saw Paquette approach me. I looked right at him, took him all in: his small build, ugly suit, the sweat on his upper lip. He may have been, in some part of his life, a decent man, but what overwhelmed me now was my contempt for him. Madison had committed the crime but Paquette, by representing him, condoned it. He seemed the very force of nature I had to fight. I had no trouble hating him.

"Miss Sebold, I believe that you testified that you were headed into Thorden Park on May eighth around midnight. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"You were coming from Westcott Street?"

"Yes."

"Did you go through an entrance through the park there, like a gateway?"

"There is a bathhouse and there is pavement in front of the house, and I went on the pavement and then it continues on a brick path by the pool and I walked on that brick path."

"So that the bathhouse, then, is at the perimeter of the pool, on the Westcott side?"

"Yes."

"The path you are talking about takes you right into the center of the park and right out on the other side, would it?"

"Yes, it would."

"You started to go down that path?"

"Yes, I did."

"You testified today that the whole area was surrounded by lights and that the lighting was quite good?"

"Yes, I did."

"Do you remember testifying in a preliminary examination on this case?"

"Yes, I did." I hated these questions. Who wouldn't remember? But I held my sarcasm in check.

"Do you remember saying that there were some lights on anyway from the bathhouse but-"

"What page?" Mastine asked.

"Page four, the preliminary exam."

"Is this the preliminary exam?" Gorman asked, holding up a group of papers.

"Yes," Paquette said.

"Line fourteen. I think there are some lights from my way to the bathhouse I could see behind. It was dark, but not black behind me.' "

I remembered my phrase "dark but not black."

"Yes, I said that."

"Isn't that a little bit different than saying you were surrounded by lights on all sides and quite good lighting?"

I knew what he was doing.

"It may sound more dramatic to say surrounded by lights. The light was there and I saw what I saw."

"My question is, was it dark but not black the way you testified in the preliminary, or was it quite good lighting, surrounded by lights, the way you testified today?"

"When I said quite good lighting, I meant quite good lighting in the dark."

"Okay. Now, you went about how far into the park before you were first accosted?"

"I went past the bathhouse and past the gate and the fence that is along the pool and about ten feet past that fence, and then I was taken by the man."

"How many feet or yards would it be from the entrance to the park until that point that you described as ten feet beyond?"

"Two hundred feet."

"About two hundred feet? You were into the park about two hundred feet when you were first accosted?"

"Yes, I was."

"Did that person come up from behind you?"

"Yes, he did."

"Grabbed you from behind?"

"Yes, he did."

"You struggled at that point?"

"Yes, I did."

"Did that struggle take a long time?"

"Yes."

"About how long?"

"About ten or fifteen minutes."

"Now, there came a point when this individual took you from where you were first accosted into another area of the park. Is that right?"

"It wasn't another area. It was just further in."

"Further into the park?"

"Not further into the park but-on and outside the-we struggled outside the tunnel and then he took me inside the tunnel."

"Could you describe this tunnel for me?"

The questions were fast and furious. I had to breathe quickly to keep up. I couldn't see anything but Paquette's lips moving and the beads of sweat above them.

"Well, I keep calling it a tunnel because somebody told me that it was a tunnel leading up to the amphitheater. From what I see, and it doesn't have-you can't go farther into it than a distance of about ten feet. It is more like a cave and an arch. It has got stonework above it and a gate in front of it."

"How deep does it go in there, from the gate to the wall?"

"I would say about ten, fifteen feet at the most."

"At the most?" he said. It felt like a sudden, unexpected parry in a fencing match. "I ask you to take a look at exhibit number four, which has been received into evidence, and I ask you, do you recognize that?"

"Yes, I do."

"What is that?"

"That is the path by which he took me to the tunnel and that is the gate in front of the tunnel, the opening of the gate."

"So if we were looking at this picture, and would he have taken you farther down that path walking, and I would call it into the picture, or am I misstating-"

"The tunnel is behind the gate, or the cave is behind the gate."

Suddenly it dawned on me what he was doing. All the gate and tunnel questions, the rapid fire on where I was coming from, going to, how many feet it was or wasn't. He was trying to wear me out.

"Could you point out to me any other spotlight or streetlights that you see in the picture?"

I sat forward on my seat and studied exhibit four closely. I was attentive; I waited to form the answers that would equal him move for move.

"I don't see any streetlights, except right up here on that tip there is alight."

"Way in the back of the picture?"

"Yes."

"Are there any lights there that weren't depicted in this photograph?"

"Yes."

"There are?" he said, again the same disbelieving tone, meant to imply that I was really a bit insane, wasn't I? "They are missing from the picture?" he said. He smiled up at the judge, bemused.

"They are not in the picture, no," I said. "That is because the picture doesn't show the whole area."

All of what wasn't said in every move of his-his insinuations, what he implied-I tried to answer by being as clear and controlled as possible.

Quickly, he pushed forward another photo. "This is exhibit number five, do you recognize that?"

"Yes, I do."

"That is the area where you were assaulted; is that right?"

"Yes, it is."

"Is there any lighting in that picture, any artificial lights?"

"No. I do not see any lighting and you could see the place, and you-there must be some light."

"The question is," he said, pressing in, "do you see any artificial lighting? Of course there are police lights flashing into the picture."

"I see no artificial lights," I said, "and it is only a picture of the stone, and there can't be lights in the stone," I said, looking up at him and at the rest of the court.

"That probably would be true." His lips curled. "About how much time would you say that you spent in that area?"

"I would say about an hour."

"About an hour?"

"A little bit more."

"I am sorry?" He cocked his hand to his ear.

"I said an hour or a little bit more."

"An hour or a little bit more? How much time did you spend on the pathway that led up to the area we are talking about in exhibit number five?"

"On the pathway about two minutes. Right outside the cave about fifteen minutes." I wanted to get it right.

"All right. So you were on the pathway for about two minutes?"

"Right."

"The area outside of the cave, as depicted in exhibit five, for about fifteen minutes?"

"Yes."

"The area actually in the cave for about a little over an hour?"

"Right."

I was exhausted, felt as if I was being dragged here and there. The course of this man's logic was beyond me, and it was meant to be.

"Now, you saw this person on one other occasion, I think, and on that evening? I believe that you testified that that was as he was walking down the path?"

"Yes."

"And that was about how far from you?"

"That was about a hundred and fifty feet from me."

"About a hundred and fifty feet?"

Hearing my words back was maddening. He wanted me to falter.

"Yes."

"About fifty yards? Is that fair? About half a football field?"

"I would say," I said, "a hundred and fifty feet."

I sunk a nail in, but he pulled it out.

"Your glasses weren't on then, were they?"

"No, they were not."

"When did you lose those glasses?"

"During the time-" But he didn't like where I might be going, so he phrased my answer for me.

"During the fight on the path, right?"

"Yes."

"So within the first two minutes of this altercation you lost your glasses?"

I remembered my own time breakdown.

"During the fight which was off the side of the pathway."

So did he.

"So you were two minutes on the path and then fifteen minutes outside the gate, and it was during this fifteen-minute period that your glasses came off?"

"Yes, it was."

"Now, did you fight on the path, or did he sort of spirit you over to the area in front of the gate?"

His choice of words, "spirit you over," and his gesture, a hula-dancer-like push to the side with his hands, infuriated me. I looked down at his shoes to dissipate my rage. Gail's words came back to me: "If you ever get lost or upset, just tell, as best you can, what happened to you."

"He put his arms around both my arms, down at my side, and the other around the mouth, and so I couldn't really fight, and I agreed not to scream, and when he let go of my mouth, and I screamed, that is when we started fighting."

"Were you stationary at the first spot that you stopped at, at that point, or had you been moved?"

We were not in sync. I kept listening to what I knew to be the truth and I spoke from that place. He used language like that you stopped at, as if I had free will-a choice in the matter.

"I was walking, yes."

"He was standing behind you; isn't that right?"

"Yes, he was."

"You gave a-quite detailed description today, and I believe that you testified that the person that was there was about five five to five seven, broad shoulders, small but very muscular, and you testified that he had a-I can't read my own writing-some kind of a line-"

"Boxer," I said.

"A pug nose?"

"Yes."

"Almond-shaped eyes?"

"Yes."

"Now, is it your testimony that you gave all of that information to the police on May eighth?"

"On May eighth, what I was to do was to put together a composite drawing from features."

"Did you give the police, who were going to go looking for the suspect, the information you gave us here today?"

"Could you repeat that?"

"Did you give the information that I just outlined, that you testified to today, did you give all that information to the police on May the eighth?"

"I don't recall if I gave them all of it. I gave most of it."

"Did you sign a statement on May eighth that set forth your version of the incident as it occurred?"

"Yes, I did."

"Would it refresh your memory if I were to show you the statement and give you an opportunity to review it?"

"Yes."

"I would ask this be marked as defendant's exhibit."

Paquette handed a copy to me and one to the judge. "I show you, to review the statement to yourself, and I guide your attention to the bottom paragraph, and I think that is where most of the description is, and review it to yourself and let me know when you are finished, and if your memory has been refreshed as to the description you gave to the police on May eighth, 1981."

He had succeeded in talking during the entire time I had to review the statement.

"Have you had an opportunity to review that?"

"Yes."

"Could you tell me what you told them on the eighth of May?"

"I said-'I wish to state the man I encountered in the park is a Negro, approximately sixteen to eighteen years of age, small and muscular build of one hundred and fifty pounds, wearing dark blue sweat shirt arid dark jeans with short Afro-style haircut. I desire prosecution in the event this individual is caught.' "

"That doesn't say anything about the jaw or pug nose or any almond eyes, does it?"

"No," I said, "it does not." I was not thinking fast. How, if I had not mentioned them, could the composite have been made? Why didn't the police take those things down? When presented with the insufficiency of my statement, I was unable to reason that the lack in it had not been my fault. Paquette had won his point.

"Now, you saw this-individual on Marshall Street again, and this was in October; is that right?"

"Yes."

"I gather from your testimony that you made a-correct me if I am wrong-you made an effort to remember the features of that person so that you could go back and reconstruct it?"

"Yes, I did."

"Then what you did was, you went back to your dorm and reconstructed those features that you recall from that encounter on Marshall Street; is that true?"

"Also from the encounter on May eighth," I said. Anticipating his point, I rushed on, "And I could not have identified him as the man who raped me unless he was the man who raped me."

"Repeat that?"

I was glad to.

"In other words, I am saying that I would not have spotted him on the street as the man who raped me unless he was the man who raped me. So I knew those features. I had to know those features and what they looked like in order to identify him in the first place."

"You were on Marshall Street, and you saw this individual for the first time on that day? What was he doing?"

"I saw him for the first time on May eighth, and I saw him for the second time on October fifth."

I noticed Gail; she had been leaning forward listening to the cross. With that answer she sat back in her chair with a force of pride.

"That is what I said, for the first time on that day. I was trying-"

"I don't want to get tripped up," I said.

"Okay."

"Now," I started again, "the first time that I saw him, and I knew for sure that it was him-the man who had raped me-was when he was crossing the street and said, 'Hey, girl, don't I know you from somewhere,' and the first time I saw the same body was on the other side of the street, when he was talking to the man in the alley between Way Inn and Gino's and Joe's." I was being as exact as possible. I had first spotted his body from the back-not becoming certain it was him until a few minutes later when he spoke to me and I saw his face."

"He was talking to someone in the alley there?"

"That is how far from where you were?"

"From where I was when?"

"Where you were standing when you saw him."

"I was walking, and when I saw him and it-it is just the street, he was on the sidewalk, and so it was just the street."

"You didn't say anything to him?"

"No. I said nothing."

"He didn't say anything to you?"

"He said, 'Hey, girl, don't I know you from somewhere?' "

Paquette was suddenly excited. "Did he say that? Are you saying that he said that then or after he came back down the street?"

"He wasn't in the alley," I said. I wanted to make certain of what I said now. I couldn't imagine the cause for Paquette's excitement. Wouldn't know for fifteen years that the defense had claimed Madison had been talking to Officer Clapper when he said, "Hey, don't I know you from somewhere?" I backtracked. There was something Paquette was after and I didn't know what. "He was talking to a man in the alley. He said that to me when I was on the other side of the street, the Huntington Hall side, and walking up and away from the Varsity. He said that as he was crossing the street and coming toward me."

"That would be the second time of that day that you saw him?"

"Yes. That was the first time that I knew for sure that that was the man who raped me."

"A lot of things happened," Paquette said. The tone he used was breezy, as if it had been a big and overwhelming day at the fair for me. As if I couldn't get my story straight because there was no straight story. "Did you contact the police and make a statement to the police on October fifth?"

"Yes, I did."

"That was the sworn statement that you signed?"

"Yes."

"You did ask the lieutenant to indicate that was full and accurate and complete?"

"Yes, I did."

"Did you tell the police on October fifth, 1981 that the man you saw on Marshall Street was the man who raped you, or did you say that you had a feeling that he might be the man?"

"I said that that was the man who raped me on May eighth."

"You are sure of that?"

He was setting something up. Even I could see that. The only thing I could do was stick to my story as he pinned me down.

"Yes, I am."

"So if the statement says something else, then the statement is wrong?"

I was in a minefield now; I kept walking.

"Yes, it is."

"But you signed the statement, didn't you?"

He was taking his time. I looked right at him.

"Yes, I did."

"Did you have a chance to read it over?"

"Yes, I did."

"Did they review it with you before you signed it?"

This was excruciating.

"They didn't review it. They gave it to me to read."

"Who are they?" he asked belligerently. He checked a note he'd made. He was grandstanding now. "You've had fourteen years of school," he said, "and you read it, and that was no problem, and you understood it all?"

"Yes, I did."

"Your testimony today is that you were sure that that is true. Even if the statement on October the fifth doesn't say that-"

Mastine objected. "Perhaps we could have a question and answer?"

"Sustained," said Gorman.

"Do you recall," Paquette began again, "saying in the statement to the police, 'I had a feeling that the black male-' "

Mastine stood. "I will object to the counsel reading from the statement or using the statement to impeach credibility; reading from the statement is improper, and in fact I object to it on that basis-"

"He could read from the statement," Gorman said to Mastine. "I believe, Mr. Paquette, you should form the question something like this, 'Do you recall giving the statement to the police, on such and such a date?' and read the statement. If you would, please."

"Sure," Paquette said. Some of his steam had been lost.

"Do you recall giving the statement to the police on October fifth?"

"Yes."

"Do you recall telling the police that 'I had a feeling that the black male might be the person that raped me last May in Thorden Park'?"

I had caught on to the game now. "I would like to see a copy of it just to be sure," I said.

"Sure, be happy to. I would ask that this be marked as defendant's C for identification, the statement made by Alice Sebold on October fifth.

"I ask you to review the statement and ask you if that refreshes your recollection as to the information you gave at the time?"

I scanned the contents of my affidavit. Immediately I saw the problem.

"Okay," I said.

"Did you advise the police in that statement that you were sure-"

I interrupted him. Suddenly I knew that the last few minutes were ones I could wrestle back from him.

"The reason why I said that I had a feeling at that point was because I had only seen his back and his mannerisms at that point. I was sure when I saw his face on the second time, when I was on the other side of the street. I had a feeling, because of his build and mannerisms on the first time, when I saw him from the back, but since I had then not seen his face at that time, I was not sure. When I saw his face I was sure that that was the man who raped me on May eighth."

"This statement was made after you had seen him both times on Marshall Street, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was. They asked me to describe it and in chronological order, which I did."

"Does that statement in any way reflect a change in your stance from 'might be' to 'is'?"

"No, it does not."

"Thank you." He acted as if he had won something. He wanted out of that line of questioning and he took what he could get. He opted to muddy the water. Wasn't it clear from all this feeling to sure, might be to is that I was too confused to be believed?

"By the way," he said, reapproaching again, "on the day of the lineup in November, were there people from the Rape Crisis Center present in the building?"

"Yes, there were."

"Had you had counsel with them just prior to the lineup?"

"Counsel?"

"Did you talk to them and were they available?"

"Yes. She accompanied me to the Public Safety Building."

"As soon as you left the lineup, were they still available to you?"

"Yes, she was."

"She was?"

"Yes."

"You talked to her before and you talked to her after; is that right?"

"Yes."

"Are they here today? Is there anyone from the Rape Crisis Center here today?"

"No, they are not."

"They are neither in the courtroom or in the building?"

"No."

Paquette hadn't liked the point Mastine had made earlier, that Paquette, by not allowing Tricia in the room, could himself have had a hand in undermining the lineup as evidence.

"Now, there was a lineup procedure held, wasn't there?"

"Yes, there was."

"I believe that that was on November fourth?"

"Yes, it was."

"Do you remember an Investigator Lorenz being there?"

"Yes, I do."

"Had you recognized him from seeing him before?"

"Yes, I had."

"Where had you recognized him from?"

"He is the man who took my affidavit on May eighth."

"Did he ever tell you that he didn't believe the statement that you made on May eighth?"

I did not stop. Neither Gail nor Mastine had told me that Lorenz initially doubted me.

"No, he did not."

"Do you remember him advising you in any way when you first came into the lineup room?"

"He told me that my duty was to look at the five men and mark the box as to which one was the man in question."

"Do you recall who else was in the lineup room?"

I went through my head, reimagining the room and the bodies in it. "Mrs. Uebelhoer, the court stenographer, or the room stenographer-I don't know what you call them-and the other man was sitting there, and he did something, and me."

"Do you recall-"

"Yes, you."

His tone had switched suddenly. He was fatherly, shepherding. I didn't trust him.

"Do you remember an Investigator Lorenz advising you to take your time and look the people over and feel free to move around?"

"Yes. I do remember that."

"Do you recall me asking the investigator to explain to you how to-"

"Excuse me?"

"Do you recall me asking the investigator to explain to you how you should use the form?" His smile was almost benevolent.

"I don't recall you specifically," I said.

"You remember he did tell you that?"

"Somebody told me how to use it."

"In fact," he said, his smile gone now, "you did stand up and move around the room?"

"Yes."

"Didn't you even have the suspects make some sort of a motion; I think you had each of them turn to their left? Do you remember that?"

"Yes, I did."

"The investigator had each do that-'Number one, turn to your left'-and you remember that?"

He was dragging this out; it was his job to.

"Yes."

"At the end of that procedure, what did you do? What was the next thing that happened?"

"I counted down to four and five, and I chose five because he was looking at me."

"You chose number five?"

"Yes. I put the X in the box for five." I would say it a thousand times; I had done it.

"You signed that?"

"Yes, I did."

"Did you express in words, in that room, at that time, to anyone, any concern in your mind over it not being number five?"

"I didn't say a word in the room."

"You knew that by marking number five that what you were indicating was that he would be a suspect or might well be a suspect in a rape trial?"

"Yes." It seemed the wrongs I'd done were endless.

"So it wasn't until after you left the room that you discovered that number five wasn't the person that you should have picked?"

"No. I went to my rape crisis counselor and I said number four and five looked like identical twins. That is what I did."

"You didn't express that to anyone beforehand?"

"I did it in the room, and before that I hadn't seen them and I couldn't."

He didn't wish to linger long enough to clarify. I had meant the conference room this time, not the lineup room.

"You picked number five?"

"Yes, I did."

"I believe that your testimony is, then, that you were raped on May eighth?"

"Yes."

"That you didn't see your assailant again until Marshall Street?"

"October fifth, yes."

"Then you saw him on Marshall Street?"

"Yes."

"There was a police officer right there, wasn't there?"

"Yes."

"Did you approach that officer?"

"No. I did not approach the officer."

"Did you go to the nearest phone and call the police?"

"I went to the Hall of Languages, where I had a class, and called my mother."

"So you called your mother……" He was snide. It brought me all the way back to the preliminary hearing, the way his colleague, Meggesto, had savored the words "Calvin Klein jeans." My mother, my Calvin Klein jeans. It was what they had on me.

"Yes."

"Then you talked to your professor?"

"I called my mother and then I called some friends, to try to get in contact with someone who could walk me back to my dormitory. I was very scared, and I knew I had to go to school. I couldn't get hold of anybody. I went upstairs to my teacher and told him why I wasn't attending class. I told him, and I walked to the library to find one of my friends to walk me the rest of the way home and go with me to the police and then I went back to my dorm and I had called the friend of mine who is an artist, so he could help me draw a picture, which he did not do. Then I called the police and they arrived with the Syracuse University security officers."

"Did you ever call security to give you a ride home?"

I began to cry. Was everything my fault?

"Excuse me," I said, apologizing for my tears. "They only do that after five or during night hours." I looked for Gail. I saw her staring intently at me. It's almost over, her look said. Hang on.

"How much time went by from the time that you saw him on Marshall Street?"

"Forty-five to fifty minutes."

"Forty-five to fifty minutes?"

"Yes."

"Now, you have not identified Mr. Madison from that moment until today; is that right?"

"Identified him, you know, in your presence?"

"Identified him here in the legal proceedings as the person that raped you."

"Not in legal proceedings, but I did today."

"Today you did. How many black people do you see in the room?"

Jumping the gun, knowing his insinuation. How many other black people, besides the defendant, do you see in the room? I answered, "None."

He laughed and smiled up at the judge, then swept his hand in the direction of Madison, who looked bored. "You see none?" Paquette said, emphasizing the last word. She really is quite incredible, he seemed to be saying.

"I see one black person other than-the rest of the people in the room."

He smiled in triumph. So did Madison. I wasn't feeling powerful anymore. I was guilty for the race of my rapist, guilty for the lack of representation of them in the legal profession in the City of Syracuse, guilty that he was the only black man in the room.

"Do you remember testifying about this lineup in a grand jury proceeding?"

"Yes, I do."

"Was it on November fourth, the same day as the lineup?"

"Yes, it was."

"Do you remember-looking at page sixteen of the grand jury minutes, line ten-'You picked him out of the lineup? Are you absolutely sure this is the one?'

" 'Number five; I am not absolutely sure. It was between four and five. But I picked five because he was looking at me.'

"So the juror says, 'What you are saying is you are not absolutely sure he was the one?'

" 'Right.'

" 'Number five is the one.'

" 'Right.'

"So you still weren't sure on November fourth?"

I didn't know what Paquette was doing. I felt lost. "That number five was the one? I was not sure five was the one, right."

"You surely weren't sure that number four was the one because you didn't pick him."

"He was not looking at me. I was very scared."

"He wasn't looking at you?" His syllables dripped with pitiless sarcasm.

"Yes."

"Did you notice anything unusual on May eighth, when you were accosted by this person, that you haven't told us about, about his features or scars or marks or anything, facial features, his teeth, fingernails, or his hands or anything?"

"Nothing unusual, no."

I wanted it to be over now.

"You said that you looked at your watch when you went in the park?"

What time was it?

"Twelve o'clock."

"You looked at your watch when you got to your dorm?"

"I didn't look at my watch. I-was very aware of what time it was because I was surrounded by police, and I may have also looked at my watch, and I knew that it was two-fifteen when I got back to the dorm."

"When you got back to the dorm? Were the police called when you got back to your dorm?"

"Yes."

"When you got back to the dorm, at two-fifteen, and there had been no police called yet?"

"Right."

"They came sometime after that?"

"Yes. Immediately after I got back to my dorm."

He had finally worn me down. It made awful sense that no matter how hard I tried, he would be left standing at the end.

"Now, you said, you testified that he kissed you; is that right?"

"Yes."

"Once or twice or a lot of times?"

I could see Paquette. Madison sat behind him, interested. I felt the two of them were coming in after me.

"Once or twice when we were standing and then, after he had laid me down on the ground, a few times. He kissed me." The tears were just rolling down my cheeks now and my lips trembling. I didn't bother to wipe them. I had sweat through the Kleenex that I held.

Paquette knew he had broken me. That was enough. He didn't want this.

"May I have a moment, Your Honor?"

"Yes," Gorman said.

Paquette went to the defense table and conferred with Madison, then checked his yellow legal pad and files.

He looked up. "Nothing further," he said.

The relief in my body was immediate. But then Mastine stood.

"A couple of questions, if it please the court."

I was tired but knew now that Mastine would handle me gently if he could. His tone was firm but I trusted him.

Mastine was concerned with working Paquette's former territory, going back to strengthen weak lines. He made a quick five points. First he established how late it was and how tired I was when I gave my statement on the night of the rape. He had me detail all the things I had been through and on no sleep. Then he moved on to my statement on October 5, the one Paquette had gleefully put forth to me-the feeling versus sure. Mastine was able to establish that, as I had said, it was an affidavit in which I retold the encounter with Madison chronologically. I first saw him from the back and had a feeling. I then saw him face-on and was sure.

Then he asked me if anyone was with me. He wanted to point out that because my father was present, I had elected to decline the presence of a rape crisis representative.

"My father is waiting outside," I said. This fact didn't seem real to me. Far away, in the hall outside, he was reading. Latin. I hadn't thought of him since entering the courtroom. I couldn't.

Mastine asked me how long I had been under Madison in the tunnel and how far away from his face I was.

"One centimeter," I said.

Then he asked me a question I felt uncomfortable with, one I had known he might ask if Paquette's approach warranted it.

"Could you give the judge an idea of how many young black men you would see on a daily average in your travels, or class or dormitory or at all?"

Paquette objected. I knew why. It went straight to his case.

"Overruled," said Gorman.

I said, "A lot," and Mastine had me quantify. "More than fifty or less?" I said that it was more. The whole thing made me uncomfortable, separating the students I knew by their race, pooling them into columns, and tabulating their number. But this wouldn't be the first time, or the last, that I wished my rapist had been white.

Mastine had no further questions.

Paquette got up only to have me repeat one thing. He wanted me to repeat the distance of Madison's face from mine during the rape itself. I did: one centimeter. Later he would try and use my certainty against me. Quoting this distance in his final statement as to why I couldn't be trusted as a credible witness.

"No redirect," Mastine said.

"You are excused," Judge Gorman said, and I stood.

My legs were shaky underneath me and I had sweat through my skirt and stockings and slip. The male bailiff who had led me in came toward the center of the room and waited for me.

He took me out.

Down the hall, Murphy spotted me and helped my father gather his books. The bailiff looked at me.

"I've been in this business for thirty years," he said. "You are the best rape witness I've ever seen on the stand."

I would hold on to that moment for years.

The bailiff walked back toward court.

Murphy hustled me off. "We want to get away from the door," he said. "They'll be breaking for lunch."

"Are you okay?" my dad asked.

"I'm fine," I said. I did not recognize him as my father. He was just a person standing there, like all the rest. I was shaking and needed to sit down. The three of us, Murphy, my father, and I, returned to their bench.

They spoke to me. I don't remember what they said. It was over.

Gail breezed out of the courtroom and over to us. She looked at my father. "Your daughter's an excellent witness, Bud," she said.

"Thank you," my father said.

"Was I okay, Gail?" I asked. "I was worried. He was really mean."

"That's his job," she said. "But you held up under him. I was watching the judge."

"What did he look like?" I asked.

"The judge? He looked exhausted," she said, smiling. "Billy is really tired. I wanted to get up there so bad. We have a break until two and then it's the doctor. Another pregnant lady!"

It was like a relay race, I realized. The leg I'd run had been arduous and long, but there were still others-more questions and answers-more key witnesses, many more hours to Gail's day.

"If I learn anything I'll contact the detective," she said, turning to me. She extended her hand to my father. "Nice to meet you, Bud. You can be proud."

"I hope the next time we meet it's under more pleasant circumstances," he said. It had just hit him. We were leaving.

Gail hugged me. I had never hugged a pregnant woman before, found it awkward, almost genteel, the way both she and I had to lean only the upper halves of our bodies in. "You're incredible, kiddo," she said quietly to me.

Murphy drove us back to Hotel Syracuse, where we packed. I may have slept. My father called my mother. I don't remember those hours. My attention had been so focused that now I let go. I was aware that my case was still continuing as we folded clothes and waited for Murphy to pick us up later that afternoon. My father and I sat on the edges of the twin beds. Putting distance between us and the city of Syracuse was our unspoken goal. We knew the plane would do it. We waited.

Murphy came early to meet us. He brought news.

"Gail wanted to be the one to tell you," he said, "but she couldn't get away."

My father and I were in the carpeted lobby, our red American Tourister luggage waiting nearby.

"They got him," he said joyfully. "Guilty on six counts. He was remanded to jail!"

I went blank. My legs felt weak beneath me.

"Thank God," my father said. He said this quietly, acknowledging an answered prayer.

We were in the car. Murphy was chattering. He was high off it. I sat in the back of the car while my father and Murphy sat in the front. My hands were cold and limp. I remember feeling them distinctly resting on either side of me, useless.

At the airport, while my father and Murphy sat off at a distance in an airport lounge, I called my mother from a pay phone. Murphy offered to buy my father a drink.

I pushed in my home phone number and waited.

"Hello," my mother said.

"Mom, it's Alice. I have news."

I faced the wall and cupped the mouthpiece in both hands. "We did it, Mom," I said. "All six counts except the weapons one. He was remanded to jail."

I didn't know what remanded meant yet but I used the word.

My mother was ecstatic. She shouted up and down the house in Paoli, "She did it! She did it! She did it!" over and over again. She could not contain her joy.

I had done it.

Murphy and my father exited the bar. Our flight was boarding soon. I found out what remanded meant. It meant Madison would not be released between conviction and sentencing. They had handcuffed him inside the courtroom as the charges were read. This made Murphy gleeful.

"I wish I could have been there to see his face."

It had been a long, good day for John Murphy, and, as my father confided on the airplane, Murphy could really pack the drinks away. But who could blame him? He was heady, celebratory, off to see his Alice.

I was drained. Though it took me a while to realize it, I, too, had been remanded. I would be held over for a long time.

On June 2, I received a letter from the probation department of the County of Onondaga. They wrote to inform me that they were conducting "a pre-sentence investigation of a young man who was recently found guilty after trial of Rape First Degree, Sodomy First Degree and other related charges. These charges," the letter stated, "stem from an incident in which you were the victim." They wrote to inquire if I had any input on the sentencing recommendation.

I wrote back. I recommended the maximum sentence allowable under the law, and quoted Madison calling me "the worst bitch." I knew Syracuse had been voted the seventh-best city to live in that year, and I pointedly stated that having men like Madison on the streets wouldn't bolster this reputation. I knew my best hope to be heard was by making the point that a maximum sentence would make the men who sentenced him look good. That way they wouldn't be doing it for me, but for the people who elected them and paid their salaries. I knew this. Whatever skills I had, I used.

I closed my letter by signing it over my title: victim.

On July 13, 1982, in a court where Gorman presided, and Mastine, Paquette, and Madison were in attendance, Gregory Madison was sentenced. It was the maximum for rape and sodomy: eight and a third to twenty-five years. The larger sentences, along with lesser ones given for the four remaining charges, would run concurrently. Mastine called to tell me. He also informed me that Gail had given birth. My mother and I went shopping for a gift. When I saw Gail fifteen years later, she brought the gift along to show me she remembered.