Sacred Monster

Flashback 18

The courtroom, a large traditional place of gleaming dark wood benches and railings, high pale ceiling, large side windows, judge seated on a tall impressive banc flanked by the flags of the United States of America and the state of California, was crowded with onlookers but was almost perfectly still. The six jurors sat in somber intensity, deeply aware of the solemnity and import of their work here. The judge, white-haired, stocky, fatherly, fondled his gavel and gave his full attention to the questioning of the witness.

That witness. The plaintiff, in fact: Rubelle Kallikak. A filthy slattern of seventeen, already spreading in hip and thigh, dressed in cast-off garments a year from their last cleaning, her hair a mare’s nest, her nose snot-smeared, her dull eyes a monument to a lifetime of improper diet, she sprawled in the witness chair with a filthy baby shlurping at her sagging breast. Before her was spread the courtroom: in the seats on one side of the aisle her family, dozens of Kallikaks (of whom Rubelle was the beauty), and on the other side the media, eyes and ears wide open. To her left stood her attorney, a slick-haired sleazeball in a maroon leisure suit and bright blue wide tie. Seated at the defense table were Jack and Lorraine, hand in hand, with their battery of brilliant and expensive lawyers all in pinstripes.

The sleazeball attorney spoke: “And do you, Rubelle Kallikak,” he demanded, in a voice which would have been thrilling were it not so nasal, “do you see in this courtroom the man who lavished such promises upon you, ravished you, and left you with child?”

Rubelle waited a moment to be sure the flood of words had spent itself, and then she nodded and smeerped the back of her hand across her nose and nodded again and said, “Uh-huh.”

The sleazeball attorney nodded. His worst fears, it seemed, had been realized. “And would, you Rubelle Kallikak, point out to this court and the jury that deceiver?”

Snot glinted from the back of the hand Rubelle raised. Her finger pointed directly at Jack.

The baby started to snivel. Lorraine gave Jack an I’m-with-you pat on the shoulder. Jack smiled at the jury. The jury did not smile back.

I am still irritated, years later. “This defective little bitch,” I tell O’Connor, “swore she and I spent three days and nights in a riverside cabin up by Stockton. Buddy swore he and I were deer hunting in Colorado all that time. But we didn’t have any witnesses — any more than she had, the bitch — and Rubelle’s lawyer made a big point of Buddy being my closest friend in all the world.”

“I vaguely remember that case,” O’Connor says, tapping his pen against the notebook. “Several years ago, wasn’t it?”

“Fame is fleeting,” I point out, this being a sentiment of more than passing interest — fleeting interest? — for me, as you might imagine.

“I don’t remember how it came out,” O’Connor says.

“I do,” I say. “Rubelle had three things going for her. Ignorance, poverty, and the general assumption that in all such matters it’s the man who’s lying. On the other hand, I was encumbered by money, brains, talent, good looks, and the finest legal talent money could buy. I couldn’t pretend to be poor or stupid or ugly, and I couldn’t very well go out and deliberately hire second-rate attorneys. As you can see, things looked pretty black for me for a while.”

“So she won the case?”

“Wait for it, Michael,” I say, waving a finger at him. “The fact is, I could see for myself how badly things were going. I could see the way the jury looked at Rubelle, and the way they looked at me. I could read the write-ups in the papers and watch the news reports on television. I saw the slippery slope I was on, and I knew where it ended. So, when it came my turn to testify, I decided on a desperate gamble.”