"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."