"Gregory Madison was arrested at two P.M."
I made the papers for the second time. VICTIM POINTS FINGER was the headline for the small, five-paragraph item in the Syracuse Post-Standard of October 15. Tricia, from the Rape Crisis Center, mailed this to me, as she would all subsequent articles.
A preliminary hearing was scheduled for October 19 at Syracuse City Court. The defendant was Gregory Madison, the plaintiff the People of the State of New York. It was a hearing held to determine if there was enough evidence in the case to support a grand jury. I was told that witnesses being called might range from the medical doctors who had completed the serology report the night of my rape, to Officer Clapper, who had seen Madison on the street. I would testify. So might Madison.
I needed someone to go with me to the hearing, but Mary Alice was busy, and Ken Childs was obviously not the right choice. Lila was my new friend; I didn't want to ruin that. I approached Tess Gallagher and asked her if she'd come. "I'm honored," Gallagher said. "We'll have lunch in a good restaurant. My treat."
I don't remember what I wore, only that Gallagher, who was known on campus for flamboyant dress and just the right hat, wore a tailored suit and sensible shoes. Seeing her hemmed in this way, literally, made me know she had prepped for battle. She knew how the outside world judged poets. I know I wore something appropriate. In the halls of the courthouse we looked like what we were: a coed and her youthful mother figure.
My greatest fear was the possibility of seeing Gregory Madison. Tess and I walked through the halls of the Onondaga County Courthouse with a detective from the Public Safety Building. He was meant to guide us to the correct courtroom, where I would meet the attorney chosen to represent the State. But I had to use the ladies' room and he had only a vague idea where it was. Tess and I went off in search of it.
The old part of the courthouse was marble. Tess's low heels clicked against this in a staccato beat. We finally found the bathroom, where, fully clothed, I sat in a stall and stared at the wooden door in front of me. I was alone, however briefly, and I tried to calm down. The walk from the Public Safety Building and into the courthouse had left my heart in my throat. I had heard the phrase before but now I literally felt as if something thick and vital were jammed in my throat and thumping. Blood rushed to my brain and I put my head down, trying not to heave.
When I emerged 1 was pale. I did not want to look at myself in the mirror. I looked at Tess instead. I watched her readjust two decorative combs on either side of her head.
"There," she said, happy with the way they set. "Ready?"
I looked at her and she winked back at me.
Tricia was standing with the detective when we returned. Tricia and Tess were a study in opposites. Tricia, who represented the Rape Crisis Center and signed her notes to me "In sisterhood," was the one I didn't quite trust. Tess was my first experience of a woman who had inhabited her weirdness, moved into the areas of herself that made her distinct from those around her, and learned how to display them proudly. Tricia was too interested in drawing me out. She wanted me to feel. I didn't see how feeling was going to do me any good. Onondaga County Courthouse was not a place to open up. It was a place to hold fast to what I knew to be the truth. I had to work at keeping every fact alive and available. What Tess had was mettle. I needed this more than an anonymous sisterhood; I told Tricia she could go.
Tess and I sat on a wooden bench outside the courtroom. It reminded me of the benches in the closed-in pews at St. Peter's. We waited for what seemed like hours. Tess told me stories about growing up in Washington State, about the logging industry, about fishing, and about her partner, Raymond Carver. My hands were sweating. I had a short bout of uncontrollable shaking. I heard less than half of the words Tess said. I think she knew this. She wasn't actually speaking to me, she was singing a kind of lullaby of talk. But, eventually, the lullaby stopped.
She was irritated. Looked at her watch. She knew she couldn't do anything. A diva on campus and in the poetry world, she was just a small woman with no power now. She had to wait it out with me. Our lunch treat seemed very far away.
Since that day, if I am made to wait long enough for something I dread, my nervousness dissipates into a steely boredom. It is a mind-set and it goes like this: If hell is inevitable, I enter what I call trauma Zen.
So by the time ADA Ryan, assigned to the case that day because ADA Uebelhoer was in court with another matter, walked up to introduce himself, Tess was silent and I was staring at the elevator six feet away.
Ryan was a young man in his late twenties or early thirties. He had reddish-brown hair in need of a comb. He wore a sort of nubby sport coat with suede elbow patches, which seemed more in place on the campus I'd just left than inside a courtroom.
He called Tess "Mrs. Sebold," and, after being corrected and informed that she was one of my professors, he grew flustered. He was embarrassed and impressed. He stole little looks at her, trying both to include her and figure her out at the same time.
"What do you teach?" he asked her.
"Poetry," she said.
"Are you a poet?"
"Yes, actually," Tess said. "What do you have for our girl here?" she asked. I wouldn't understand it until later, but the ADA was flirting with Tess and she, swiftly and with a skill developed from experience, deflected him.
"First up, Alice," he said to me, "you'll be happy to know that the defendant has waived his right to appear."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that his attorney has agreed not to contest identification."
"Is that good?"
"Yes. But you still have to answer any questions his attorney has."
"I understand," I said.
"We're here to prove it was a rape. That the act with the suspect was not consensual but forcible. Understand?"
"Yes. Can Tess come with me?"
"Quietly. Don't speak once you walk through that door. The professor will slip into one of the seats in the back near the bailiff. You'll approach the stand and I'll take it from there."
He went into the courtroom doors to our right. Across from us, a group of people got off the elevator and started walking toward us. One man, in particular, took a good, long look at both of us. This was the defense attorney, Mr. Meggesto.
A while later, a bailiff opened the door of the courtroom.
"We are ready for you, Miss Sebold."
Tess and I did as Mr. Ryan had instructed. I walked to the front of the courtroom. I could hear papers shuffling and someone clearing his throat. I stepped into the witness stand and turned around.
There were only a few people in the room and only two rows near the back, which composed a gallery. I saw Tess to my right. I looked at her once. She gave me a "go get 'em" smile. I didn't look her way again.
Mr. Ryan approached me and established my name, age, address, and other vitals. This gave me time to adjust to the sound of the court reporter's machine and to the idea that all of this was being written down. What happened to me in that tunnel was now something I would not only have to say aloud, but that others would sit and read and reread.
After asking a few questions about how the light was that night and where the rape took place, he asked me the question he had warned me I would have to answer.
"Can you tell us in your own words what happened at that time?"
I tried to take my time. Ryan frequently interrupted my account. He asked about the lighting again, whether there was a moon out, whether I struggled. He wanted details of whether blows struck were open-handed or close-fisted, asked whether I feared for my life, and questioned me about how much money the rapist had taken from me, and whether I had given it willingly or not.