[The above paragraph is also reprehensible.]
Little or no respect
Q. AS I UNDERSTAND IT, THIS WAS AT ABOUT the time that you got a part-time job as a bookkeeper at Anthanna Air Conditioning and Motorcycle?
A. Correct.
Q. You worked for a man you occasionally referred to as a “guinea bastard”?
A. Yes, well, but he, Tony Mari—
Q. No names need be mentioned, Miss.
A. Yes, I did, I’m sorry to say, and sometimes I called him a cruel person, too, and an insensitive person, irregardless of race, because he was often terrible and cruel to me on days when I was hemorrhaging massively with various infections and a distorted coccyx.
Q. What is, please, a “distorted coccyx”?
A. Distorted. Distorted, you know? Sort of like twisted, so that a typical sufferer has to lay down on the floor in agony.
Q. I’m still not clear on what—
My client is not a medical doctor! Let’s just leave it at distorted, all right?
Q. Is your doctor’s report, or letter, among these papers that you’ve submitted in support of your filing?
A. Right. Correct, yes. But he’s a New York doctor and we, he, hasn’t gotten the good files from the clinic and hospital in California, from my California doctors, who are recognized experts on infections and my type of distortions and hemorrhages. They have the good files, the case … things.
Q. You don’t, then, are you saying that you don’t then vouch for the accuracy or completeness of the medical information submitted here today through your attorney?
Don’t answer that!
A. All I can assert is that my coccyx is just as the medical information says it is, just as distorted now as it has been since my ordeal at Anthanna, and that I have infectious bleeding and some swollen internal organs.
Q. Swollen internal organs? I don’t seem to recall that you mentioned swollen internal organs earlier, or that, they, for that matter, are mentioned—
Can we expedite this deposition, please? My client had a hemorrhage just this morning on the way over here which I barely stanched all over the upholstery of my new BMW.
Q. I’m merely trying to determine what “swollen internal organs” your client is referring to, and just what “infectious bleeding” might be. Not to mention our old friend, “distorted coccyx.”
Don’t answer the question, and there’s no need for you to be a wise guy, either. “Our old friend!”
Q. I didn’t ask a question, sir. I am not asking at this time, a question, sir. I merely want—
Well, you’re supposed to be asking questions, not “merely” making snideish comments.
Q. All right. We can clear up these details of, ah, description later. Fine. Now, Miss, you claim that your employer often leered at you?
A. It is a demeaning memory of absolute horrible fear and humiliation that totally ruined my ability to do my tasks, as well as making a very bad climate in the work area and also place.
Q. Of what did this leer consist? I’m sorry, let me be clearer. Can you, that is, describe this leer?
A. It is very difficult to remember clearly because of my current condition of post-dramatic stress, but it was a very dirty kind of look, as if he was looking improperly at my bosoms and private limbs and other organs right through my garments.
Q. Did he leer at you on what you might consider a regular basis, or were his leers irregular and occasional?
A. He began his objectionable leering activities from the minute I walked in the office every morning like he was looking, like Superman’s x-ray vision, through my dress and intimate garments. He gazed a lot at me, all day, in fact, that’s all I know, and I was rended terribly nervous.
Q. Had you ever apprised him of your discomfort and feelings of embarrassment and anger as the recipient of these suggestive leers?
A. He was my boss, the absolute boss, even though he was nothing but a greaseball pervert! Excuse me for that ethical slur, I’m sorry. I was, sir, deeply afraid that I’d lose my position and so tried to ignore his perverted activities even though the workplace atmosphere became intolerable for me. How I longed, really longed to talk to another woman about my boss, but the only other woman in the office was his sister-in-law, and she was a real bimbo, believe you me.
Q. All right, Miss. If you didn’t talk with this sister-in-law there is no need to mention your opinion as to what you believed to be her loose morals. Your characterization of this woman as a “bimbo” somehow doesn’t really … surprise me.
I object to the tone here taken, and the implication that these sexual tortures in the workplace can be brushed off, when, as scientific tests have shown, such experiences can cause victims to become completely disgusted with normal sex.
Q. Noted. All right. You have said that after your employer leered at you, he also subjected you to what you call the “male gaze.” As a matter of fact, I think, yes, you just stated a few moments ago that your employer “gazed a lot” at you.
A. That is correct.
Q. Uh-huh. What is this male gaze? Can you describe it? Is it different from a leer? Is it more like a stare? An ogle? A glance? Is it, perhaps, a wink?
A. It’s like here and now, yes! here and now! with YOU trying your leveled best to look up my skirt all morning, even though I am in considerable pain with my coccyx swollen and inflamed, and on the verge of a kind of emotional collapse, I am still a sexual object to the male gaze and dirty leer!
Q. I have not! — I have, Miss, I assure you, I have not been — this is outrageous! — trying to, good Lord! trying to look up your skirt, I assure you!
A. Oh, really? You can hardly take your eyes off my limbs, as if it is not my right, a woman’s right, to wear a short skirt and expect a gentleman to refrain from gazing so as to inflame his brutal lust! It is not my fault if my short skirt has given you an erection!
A. What!? What!? I am simply astonished at — again, I assure you, Miss, I have no intention of subjecting you to embarrassment, I’m outraged at your suggestion that — that — I’m outraged and insulted!
A. Well, perhaps I’m mistaken. Perhaps it’s your glasses that make your eyes look all googly like they’re popping out of your head staring.
Q. I’ll … I’ll accept that, Miss, as an apology.
That was not an apology! Let’s not subject my client to any more patronizing cracks, all right?
Q. In your original complaint, you stated that your employer touched your leg above the knee? Would that be, would you say, would that be your thigh that he touched?
A. Yes, it was. He fondled my thigh both on the outside and the inner portion, while suggesting that we could go to the Acey-Five Motel and relax for a few hours, is what he called it, and then he suggested that I take a look at his aroused bulge in his pants, “take a gander at this prize,” was his actual lewd remark.
Q. And yet, in your earliest complaint of this occurrence you stated that your employer, and I quote, “touched my forearm, like, my wrist, in a more than just friendly way.” Is that correct?