Perception >Reality

He walked up onto the front porch and rang the doorbell. The house seemed pleasant enough–with red brick along the front and wood siding painted olive green down the sidewalls and on the soffits. But sections of the fascias had rotted and needed replacing. The new coat of paint covered the weathered areas well, however, and gave proof the owners had decided to wait another year before replacing the rotten trim. Randy Johnson waited for someone to open the door while he admired the simple elegance of the home.
+++++A man appeared behind the screen. Randy saw the man was not much bigger than himself, which was good, although size meant nothing.
+++++“Are you Mr. Merriwether?” Randy adjusted his tie and waited for the man’s response.
+++++“Yes,” he said.
+++++“My name is Randy Johnson. I am the attorney appointed to represent the man charged with raping your daughter. You are under no obligation to speak to me, and if you ran me off your porch with a shotgun right now, well, I might do the same. But I’d like to speak to you about this case if you could spare a few moments of your time.”
+++++“Lauren is gone to school right now,” Mr. Merriwether said.
+++++“I know. I wanted to speak to you and your wife, if you have the time.” Randy watched as Mr. Merriwether looked at his clothes and his briefcase. When interviewing witnesses Randy usually wore a suit: today he wore Levis and a button-down Oxford shirt. But this day was different. These people were not witnesses.
+++++After a few moments hesitation, Mr. Merriwether opened the screen door and waved the attorney in.
+++++“Would you like some coffee, Mr. Johnson?”
+++++Randy nodded and sat down in the recliner next to the front door. This wasn’t the first time Randy had chosen a seat in a room because of its proximity to an exit, and every time he did so, he reconsidered his chosen profession. An indigent appointment from the circuit court paid $500 for a case Randy would have charged a $5000 retainer just to get started, and here he sat, risking his life, for $500.
+++++Mr. Merriwether brought him coffee, forgetting to ask if he wanted any cream or sugar. The old man seemed nearly as nervous as the attorney.
+++++“Would you give me just a moment to get my wife? She’s still upstairs.”
+++++“Of course,” Randy said.
+++++He wanted to jump up and run through the front door and escape with his life. Randy wondered if the old man was going upstairs to get a gun. In tomorrow’s paper the headlines would read: Attorney Slain by Victim’s Father. And no one would care. The only people who cared about one less defense attorney were the hoodlums who needed one every other week. They believed they could do whatever they wanted, pay their lawyer $500 and not even pay court costs. They didn’t understand that cutting their losses was the only thing an attorney could do in most cases.
+++++Like this one.
+++++Looking around the room he saw pictures of the girl his client had engaged in sexual relations with before she turned fifteen. Her name was Lauren, but she didn’t look like any fourteen year-old Randy had ever seen. As he shifted to rise and look at the picture, he heard noise from the stairs. If Meriwether had gone upstairs to get a gun, Randy knew he was better off seated than ogling a picture of the man’s daughter.
+++++“This is my wife, Amber. I thought she might need to sit in on this conversation,” said Mr. Meriwether.
+++++“Of course,” said Randy as he rose and stepped forward to shake the lady’s hand.
+++++“I wish I could say it was a pleasure to meet you. I know why you are here; I just don’t understand your purpose,” Amber said.
+++++Randy sat back down and began to explain himself.
+++++“Jimmie Cupp, the prosecuting attorney for this district, has a policy that he will accept any plea agreed to by the victims. I’m here to talk to you about the possibility of a plea for Tony Landis. I have no problems with you tape recording everything that we say here; because I won’t say anything I wouldn’t repeat in open court. But I wanted to talk to you about the case, and make sure you knew everything that I knew before you made your decisions. If you will talk about this with me, I’ll continue. If not, I promise I’ll get up and leave and there will be no hard feelings.”
+++++“We’d like to hear what you have to say, Mr. Johnson,” Amber said as she sat on the sofa next to her husband. “No one will talk to us at the sheriff’s office, and we can never catch the prosecutor when he isn’t in court.”
+++++“Have you seen the police report about what happened?” Randy pulled a copy of the report from his file and offered it to Amber.
+++++“No. We haven’t. All we know is what Clara has told us,” Amber said. She took the paper. Randy watched as her eyes trailed along the lines of the report. The color drained from her face.
+++++“Apparently, Tony, his wife, and Nancy, her younger sister; the Jackson girl, and your daughter Lauren, all piled up in bed that afternoon with nothing better to do. Lauren was the only one that was fourteen. The other girls were sixteen and eighteen, and of course his wife is eighteen. When Tony finally wore out and could do nothing more, the girls took turns with each other as he watched.”
+++++“The deputy who wrote this seems to have enjoyed describing the events in some detail,” Amber said as she handed the report to her husband.
+++++“Apparently so,” Randy said. “He even asked my client what brand of cologne he wore that day.”
+++++The room fell silent as Mr. Merriwether read things about his daughter that no man should ever know. Randy sat in his chair and waited. He had done this before–seeking out the victims of the crimes his clients had committed, asking their approval for the plea bargains he negotiated with the prosecuting attorney. But this was the first time he had done so for a rape charge. Knowing the acts were consensual–and illegal only because of the age of the girl involved–gave Randy a boldness that he would have lacked had the crime been one of violence. But still, he felt as though he were shattering their world once more.
+++++He could also believe he was doing the right thing; but if this were right, why did his sweaty palms grip the arms of the Lazyboy? If the case went to trial, Clara Merriwether’s willingness to engage sexually with the girls in that bed gave Randy an opportunity to focus attention on the victim instead of his client. The prosecuting attorney had refused to charge anyone else even though two other participants in the orgy were old enough to face the charge. Randy knew he could portray his client as the victim–if he could seat a jury full of men with no daughters.
+++++But was his client his only responsibility? Randy did not want to see the Merriwether girl punished for pursuing her sexuality. He remembered the first time he had been with a man–the shame and confusion he felt. He could only imagine if the experience had been revealed in a court of law.
+++++Exposing the Merriwethers to their daughter’s activities–expanding their realm of knowledge as Randy called it–would benefit both his client and the victim if a trial could be avoided. But did the Merriwethers truly need to know all that had happened? What if someone felt that Randy’s wife, Monica, should know about his affair? The lies he told and the efforts he made to cover up his weakness? The money he spent to take his red-headed secretary to Cancun so he could meet with Cameron, the male prostitute he had met in Boston? Monica’s world seemed perfect to her, and Randy’s partners all believed he was having an affair with Karen, his secretary; and wasn’t the perception more important than the reality? Being exposed for an affair with his secretary would ruin his marriage, but exposure of his bisexuality would cost him his practice.
+++++Maybe Randy sought the approval of these parents because he knew too well the addiction their daughter suffered. He loved his wife. He shook his head after the thought. Yes. He loved her. But he loved himself more, and he knew he could never settle for sex with a woman. Maybe he wanted the Merriwethers to give Clara the approval he would never receive.
+++++“I have not been told of any of this,” Mr. Merriwether said after he finished reading the report.
+++++“If this case goes to trial, all of this will come out. I am sitting here in your living room having a nice conversation with you, and you might even think I am a nice man. But I’m more like a rattlesnake that’s quit rattling. That doesn’t mean I won’t still bite. When this goes to trial, I will offer testimony that your daughter went down on everyone in that bed, not just the man charged with statutory rape. She had oral sex with three other girls, and allowed them to have oral sex with her. I was pretty sure the sheriff’s department hadn’t told you about this.”
+++++Amber leaned over toward her husband and reached out to squeeze his hand. “No. They did not tell us about this, or even let us see this report. This would have been a complete surprise.”
+++++“If I am forced to take this to trial, you are going to hate me. I will have a field day with this report. All of the girls gave statements admitting what went on, so there is no way anyone will be able to lie. We’ll spend more time in court going over what happened between the three girls than we’ll spend talking about what my client did. And I have already sent a letter to the prosecutor asking him why the girls who had sexual contact with your daughter were not charged with statutory rape. After all, two of them were eighteen. Both of them are guilty of the same crime my client is charged with, and the two sisters should have been charged with incest.”
+++++“But your client had sexual intercourse with our daughter,” Mr. Meriwether said.
+++++“Under Arkansas law, what the girls did is legally defined as deviant sexual activity. That carries the same penalty as intercourse. I have a copy of the statute, and I would encourage you to go see Mr. Cupp and ask him, or even better, go see your own attorney and make sure that everything I am telling you is the truth.”
+++++“I promise you, Mr. Johnson, we plan to do exactly that,” Amber said. “Because I just don’t see how we can trust you. How do we know your intentions? You act like you are concerned for our daughter, but your only goal is to get your client off.”
+++++“My client will not walk away from this, Amber. He will go to prison. Many times, practicing law is not about winning or losing. It’s about cutting your losses. My brother has a daughter just a few years younger than Lauren. Our children are sexual beings and will experiment and make mistakes. Those mistakes are usually family secrets–buried deep within the memory of the one who walked in and caught them as they experimented after school with their boyfriend or girlfriend when they thought no one was home. But when that happens, parents counsel or punish or try to educate their children; the incident is never published.”
+++++Randy leaned forward to emphasize his point.
+++++“This is a mistake in judgment for all of these kids. My client is just eighteen. He had his wife and her own sister in bed with him. His wife watched as he had sex with her sister, then she did the same. They both watched as the other girls—”
+++++“We read the report. I know what went on. Get to your point, Mr. Johnson,” Amber said.
+++++“These mistakes are about to make the front page of the daily newspaper.”
+++++“What can we do?” Mr. Meriwether leaned forward and offered the report back to the attorney.
+++++“You can cut your losses, too. Here is the plea I propose. My client will plead guilty to one count of rape. That charge is a Y felony that has a ten-year minimum sentence. He will be sentenced to serve ten years.”
+++++“But he won’t serve ten years. How much will he serve?” Amber leaned forward in her chair as she asked her question. “By the way, Mr. Johnson, can I get you some more coffee?”
+++++“Please,” Randy said as he offered her his cup.
+++++“Don’t stop now,” she said as she walked into the kitchen. “I can hear you just fine.”
+++++“Under normal circumstances, he’d serve a year. With this being a “Y” Felony, he’ll serve 25% of his time before he’s eligible for parole. The other charge will be merged into this one.”
+++++“What other charges were there?’ Amber brought his coffee and set it down in front of him.
+++++“He was charged with one count of carnal abuse for his actions with the seventeen year-old girl. Her age kept if from being rape, but also kept it from being legal.”
+++++Mr. Meriwether leaned back in his chair and ran his hand through his hair. “What have the other parents agreed to?”
+++++“The father of my client’s wife, and his wife’s sister, is a deputy at the sheriff’s office. He is happy with the deal and has all ready signed off on it. So have the mothers of the other girls. Their names and telephone numbers are listed on the back of that report. You can call them and ask them anything you’d like to know.”
+++++“I know rape trials are hard on the victims,” Amber said.
+++++“They are hard enough when the victim hasn’t been as actively engaged as your daughter. I have a video I want to leave you of a movie titled The Accused. Watch it tonight, without your daughter. Your daughter doesn’t need to see this until you have a chance to decide for yourself if it’s suitable for her. But this movie will give you an idea of what goes on. Your daughter is a victim here, but when I get started in that courtroom, she will be anything but a victim.”
+++++“If you are so reluctant to do this to my daughter,” Amber said, “Then why do you do this for a living?”
+++++Randy picked up the cup of coffee, and as he took his final sip, he carefully thought of a good answer to her question.
+++++“I was a Deputy Prosecutor up in Sharp County, and I worked closely with the Department of Human Services on child molestation cases. The case worker up there asked me the same question after I moved out and began a private practice. She asked me how I could represent these people.”
+++++He set the cup down and stood. “The only way to become a successful lawyer is to win and be successful on cases like this.”
+++++“Then why come to us? Why not go to trial and win your big case? Prove my daughter is a lesbian? Get your name in the papers so you can handle more rape cases and make more money,” Amber said.
+++++Randy gathered his things as if he were preparing to leave. “I told that caseworker she could go to bed at night and sleep, because the lawmen of this state knew that when they came to court, I’d be there waiting for them, to make sure they did everything by the book. I don’t do it for them. I do it for every other law abiding citizen who will ever need me.”
+++++Mr. Meriwether stood. “Bullshit. Do you expect me to believe that?”
+++++“No. I don’t. But I sure don’t take these appointments for the money,” Randy said as he stood and picked up his briefcase. “Maybe it’s best that even I don’t know why I do this. It’s my job; my chosen profession. It’s too late to go back to school and become a doctor, so I have to do the best I can with the cards I’m dealt. I can’t change who and what I am. And then I have to try to sleep at night, which sometimes isn’t easy.”
+++++“We’ll let you know what we decide,” Amber said as they walked him to the door.
+++++Randy walked out the door and got into his Chevy Blazer. He would wait for word from the Merriwethers before he spoke to his client about this meeting. As he drove away, he looked again at the house. From the road he couldn’t tell the trim was rotting and about to fall down. Whoever painted that house knew well how to hide the dry-rot and termite infested wood. If Mr. Merriwether would still speak to him after this ordeal ended, he might ask for the name of the contractor.
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For the summer of 2010, CD Mitchell lives in Mammoth Springs Arkansas where he is finishing a memoir titled This, Too, is Vanity, working on a text book, and trout fishing every day. This story belongs to his collection Stud Fee.
CD can be reached at mitchell461961@yahoo.com.