If she had to spend as much money on clothes as she does. Unless she shaves her head, she’s going to be gorgeous, no matter what. I scan the letter again. I never knew she worried about being fat. She never has been even close to being five pounds overweight. And if researchers have proved a direct casual link between pornography and physical violence against women, I’ve missed it. Up until now it’s always been the right wing that wanted to ban porno shops and movies. This is ridiculous! My apolitical daughter becoming left wing and going so far around the bend she’s meeting conservatives on the other side. I can’t believe she’s quit cheerleading. Regardless of the cost, I was all set to make every home game for the next two years just to see her.
Damn these groups! They get their teeth in you and won’t let go until you’re a carbon copy of them.
Desperate to find out what this all means, I call Amy and launch into a feverish description of what Sarah has been doing.
“It just sounds like they’re trying to make her feel guilty about being who she is,” I say, without letting Amy get a word in edgewise.
“In one paragraph she goes from screaming about the cosmetics industry to pornography.
I don’t get it. It sounds like if you’re beautiful, you should burn yourself at the stake to make these women happy. What the hell’s going on up there?”
“Whoa, boy!” Amy commands, giggling at my hyperbole.
“I suspect you’re like a lot of people, including women, and are pretty confused by what’s going on today in what passes for the women’s movement. I’ll grant you it’s pretty weird. At one end you’ve got
people like Catharine MacKinnon, a law professor, who truly believes there is a relationship between pornography and violence against women and would ban it; but, then there’re women like Camille Paglia who say that women are buying into a victim psychology that wrongly defines us as weak and powerless. I can identify especially with the part about her physical appearance. I’ve spent my whole life trying to look, as my mother says, perky and cute, since I don’t have a chance of looking like the Sarahs of this world. As a case in point I’ve barely eaten anything since I gorged myself Saturday night, so I know how Sarah feels.”
“But she’s never been fat a day in her life!” I say, remembering all the times when Sarah complained about her appearance although she looked perfect.
“Society has made us worry about it constantly,” Amy responds.
“You’d have to be a woman to really under stand it.”
I sip at my beer, which I have brought into the kitchen.
“I don’t see why she quit cheerleading,” I gripe.
“That seemed harmless enough to me. It’s not like they got out there naked.”
“I admire her for it,” Amy claims.
“It took guts to give it up. Most of us don’t do anything but talk.”
A lot of people are better off that way, too.
“When this dies down,” I predict, “she’ll regret it.”
Amy says, quietly, “It sounds to me like you don’t take Sarah too seriously.”
“I do, too,” I reply hastily.
“It’s just that I don’t want her to be overly influenced and do things
she’ll wish she hadn’t” “Gideon, you want her to make mistakes you approve of and not her own. Don’t forget she’s twenty years old.”
That must sound old to Amy.
“She’s still a child,” I respond
“I know her. She’s like a lamb being led to the slaughter.”
“How ridiculous!” she says affectionately.
“I forget how melodramatic you are.”
“When it comes to Sarah,” I confess, “I don’t have much perspective. I guess it’s just that I’ve got her close to being grown up, and I don’t want her to blow it.”
“Are you crazy?” Amy says, sounding almost smug.
“You know there’s no magic age when humans stop screwing up. Look at us.”
In the last couple of days Amy and I have talked on the phone, and I have probably confided in her more than I should. I find myself telling her about Rosa, Sarah, even discussing my relationship with Rainey. She seems wise beyond her years, but it comes as no surprise to me that most women have more insight into relationships than men. But, as she says, it doesn’t keep them from messing up their lives. Her abortion was a case in point. Only last night she told me about an affair she’d had with one of the men in the prosecutor’s office when she worked there.
He was terrible, but she’d fallen head over heels in love with him.
“I thought you’d be more sympathetic,” I complain. Rainey, with a daughter older than Sarah, would have been reassuring.
“I am sympathetic to her,” Amy says dryly.
“You don’t want her to grow as a woman because it threatens you. I think you should be proud that she’s involved in some thing more than
boys or cheerleading. She’s trying to deal with things that are important to women, and she’s willing to challenge you. Lots of girls her age would keep their mouths shut and their hands out.”
“Sarah’s never done that,” I say.
“She’s always been on my case.”
“Poor Gideon!” Amy teases.
“What a hard life he has!”
“Wait’ll you have children,” I say irritably.
“It’s not as easy to raise them as you apparently think.”
“Don’t be such a baby!” Amy says uncharitably.
“Sarah’s doing great. If you have any sense, you’ll sup port her in this.”
I’m ready to end this conversation and am rescued by Woogie, who is scratching at the front door. I hang up after telling her that I will call her when I get back. We’re supposed to go out again this weekend.
While I am giving Woogie his dinner (a good reason not to be a dog), the phone rings again.
“Mr. Page,” Dade says, his voice anxious, “I’ve been trying to get hold of you. I got something in my mailbox telling me there’s gonna be a hearing on Friday at ten” “Who’s it from?” I ask, thinking how inevitable it was that the university would get involved. Despite the signs, like an idiot, I had harbored the hope that somebody would make the decision to let it be resolved in court. I should have started preparing for this last week.
“A woman named Clarise Dozier. It says she’s the Co ordinator of Judicial Affairs. It says to contact her for a pre hearing conference where she’ll explain my rights.”
“I want you to call her tomorrow first thing and tell her you and I’ll be in her office at ten. Find out where to go.”
“Am I gonna be kicked out of school?” Dade asks.
“Can they do that?”
He is scared. I can hear it in his voice. That damn group WAR. The university couldn’t stand the heat. Yet, if I were the father of the girl, I’d be screaming they should have done this five minutes after criminal charges were filed.
“No,” I tell him, “you’re not going to be kicked out of school. Let Coach Carter or one of the coaches know what’s going on. I’ll call you about nine thirty tomorrow morning and find out where to meet you.
By the way,” I add, trying to relax him, “you had a great game against Tennessee. Think y’all can beat Georgia?”
“I don’t know,” Dade mumbles.
He sounds as if he is in shock.
“Listen to me,” I say sharply.
“Until somebody in authority says otherwise, you’re still on the team. So you have to make the most of it. How you did last Saturday is going to affect some of the people who will be sitting in judgment on you, no matter how much they’ll pretend it doesn’t. I’ll try to get it delayed so that you can keep playing. Maybe we can drag it out until after the season is over. You’ve got to practice and stay focused like you’re playing for the SEC title this weekend, you hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” Dade answers. I can barely hear him.
After he hangs up, I realize I didn’t even ask him what else the notice said. I try to call him back, but his line is busy. It doesn’t matter what the paper says. We both know what can happen. The university can do whatever it wants if it takes the trouble to go through the motions.
Yet, who is really the boss hog? The chancellor? Hell, the governor may be calling the shots for all I know. I fight down a panicky feeling. If he does get kicked out of school, the effort to keep him playing will have backfired. Maybe I should have advised Dade to request a suspension from the team until after his trial. That might have headed off this hearing. I call Barton’s number to find out the name of the lawyer I blew off last week. No answer. Shit. Four days. This is a rush job if there ever was one. I dial Sarah’s number but get her answering machine.
Relieved (I don’t know what I would have said), I leave a message that I will call her tomorrow.
I hang up and realize I was going to drop Woogie off at his kennel on my way out of town. Now I won’t have time. I call Amy, who says she’ll be glad to take him.
Would she be calling me to ask me to do the same thing for her? Probably not. I hate to use Amy, but the truth is, she is so damn user-friendly.
Clarise Dozier’s office is on the second floor of the Student Union across from the library. She is a tall, smiling woman of about my age, but her gray hair, pulled back in a bun, and the vanilla-colored shawl she has draped around her shoulders make her look distinctly grandmotherly. She takes my hand and looks me in the eye.
“I’m glad you could come with Dade, Mr. Page. Unless you’ve done one of these cases before, the hearing Friday will probably be quite a bit different from anything you’ve experienced. Please have a seat. Can I get either of you some coffee?”
Dade shakes his head, but I say, “Thank you,” taken slightly off guard by her unexpected courtesy and friendliness.
We could be here to dispute a parking ticket. If she is uncomfortable at being in the presence of an alleged rapist, I can’t tell it. I look around her office and notice mainly photographs of campus architectural projects under construction. I recognize Bud Walton Arena, the new home of the Razorback basketball team. Seating about twenty thousand people, it is a magnificent structure. A good omen, I tell myself.
After handing me my coffee, Ms. Dozier warns me, “Frankly, lawyers find our hearing procedures a little unsettling.
Are you at all familiar with what we do?”
I do not say I received and mostly ignored a mini lecture on the subject from a Fayetteville lawyer just last week and ask for a full explanation. Rubbing her hands together as if she knows she has her work cut out for her, she nods.
“Well, we view the hearing process as a part of the educational mission of the university. Punishment is not our goal here, education is, and, if warranted by the facts, that can entail correction.”
She makes this statement with a straight face. Doubtless, this message is appropriate when someone has been accused of playing his stereo too loud, but I suspect that if the board finds that Dade is guilty of what he’s been charged with, it will entail more than writing one hundred times on the blackboard: I won’t rape Robin anymore.
“What is the burden of proof?” I ask, looking down at the form that Dade handed me on the way over. It lists Robin as one of four witnesses. The other three are identified as Robin’s roommate, a woman from the local Rape Crisis Center, and a nurse from Memorial Hospital. It has already occurred to me that this proceeding will be useful for discovery purposes. Arkansas does not require witnesses to talk to opposing counsel in criminal cases be fore trial. Depositions are not allowed, so I can’t force a witness in a criminal case to say a single word. All I can do is get the statements they gave to me prosecutor.
“The same as in civil court cases,” Ms. Dozier says.
“Fifty-one percent. I’ll just run through the procedure, if you don’t mind, and then you can ask questions.”
“Fine,” I say, feeling like a school kid in front of this woman who surely was a teacher at one time.
Ms. Dozier refers to a sheet of paper on her desk and says: “Let me start with the individuals who will hear this case. The All-University Judiciary is made up of nine people five faculty members, one of whom is the chair person, and four students. Dade will have a right to have present two counselors who may advise him but who can’t speak or ask questions. This isn’t like a case in court where the judge acts like a referee for the lawyers.
It is much more informal than that. We aren’t bound by hearsay rules or rules of evidence, though, of course, the T Board takes the source of information into account in assessing credibility. The hearing is closed to the public and confidential. The complaining party and respondent each have the opportunity to make an opening statement.
The members of the board and the opposing parties can then ask questions of the witnesses and each other. Dade will be allowed to summarize his position at the end, a closing statement, if you will, and so will the complaining party. I’ve written down the names and positions of the witnesses who’ll be called by the complaining party.
They include her roommate, a woman from the Rape Crisis Center who met the complaining party at the hospital, and a nurse there.”
As the woman drones on, I realize quickly why this procedure drives lawyers crazy: we don’t get to do anything to help our clients except whisper in their ears.
Dade could hang himself if we aren’t careful.
“What is the range of possible punishments?” I ask.
“Educative sanctions,” Ms. Dozier insists on saying, “range from probation to expulsion. The board also could suspend the student from representation of the university in intercollegiate activities.” She hands me some papers labeled, “Student Judicial System Procedural Code,” and the list containing the names of the witnesses and adds, “This contains everything I’m saying and more. You’ll notice that appeals go to the vice-chancellor and chancellor, but there is no rehearing of the facts by them.
Finally, the chancellor reviews the decision of the vice-chancellor.”
I flip through the papers.
“How do I formally request that the hearing be postponed?” I ask.
“Three days isn’t much time to prepare when so much is at stake.”
Ms. Dozier’s smile disappears.
“You could ask Dr.
Ward, the faculty member who presides over the board, but I don’t think you should expect it to be postponed. Actually, it is in the university’s discretion to require immediate expulsion and have a hearing later.”
Her tone leaves no doubt that had the decision been left up to her, Dade would have been living off campus by now. I may still ask for a postponement.
“Are you a member of the board?” I ask.
“I’ll be there,” she assures me, “but only in my capacity as coordinator. I have no vote.”
Good, I think but do not say.
“Dade,” I ask, “do you have any questions?”
Dade shrugs.
“No.” He seems intimidated by Ms.
Dozier, whose voice has become increasingly stern. I have my doubts about his ability to ask any meaningful questions at the hearing. Of course, that is what lawyers are for.
I stand, followed by Dade.
“I’ll call you if I have any questions,” I promise Ms. Dozier, whose smile has re turned now that we are leaving.
“That will be fine,” she says.
“The hearing will be down the hall in room two-thirteen.”
“We’ve got a lot of work to do between now and Friday,” I tell Dade once we get outside.
“I want you to get in touch with Eddie Stiles and the four people who you told me were at the party last spring with you and Robin.
Tell them you need them to meet me at the Ozark Motel at ten tomorrow. Try to see if any of your friends know anything about Robin and her roommate. And let your mother know about the hearing. Tell her I’ll be calling her, okay? ““Yes sir,” Dade replies, his voice listless.
“Come on now!” I snap at him.
“It’s really going to be just your word against hers. This isn’t going to be any picnic for her either. You can do this.”
“She talks real good,” Dade says, not quite looking me in the eye.
A pretty black girl, dressed in a beige sweater and tight jeans, yells in our direction: “Come here, Dade!”
This is not the time or place for a pep talk. Students, several of them black, look over at us from a huge bulletin board where they are gathered. This must be where the black students hang out. I see more here than I have on the rest of the campus combined except for Darby Hall, the athletic dorm.
“Believe me,” I whisper, “she’ll be a lot more nervous than you will. I’ll see you tonight.
I’m going to the prosecutor’s office and see if I can get the statements she and the others have given.”
Dade nods again perfunctorily, and I head for my car, wishing I knew what I could say to him that would get his head off his chest. Yet, I have the same discouraged feeling that is registered on my client’s face. If Dade were going to appear before a group of kids like himself, he would have more of a chance. Instead, I have no doubt the students on the “J” Board will resemble Robin (in more ways than just skin color) instead of him. Surely, there will be one black face, but all it will take to “discipline” him will be a majority vote. As I unlock the Blazer, I think of Marty’s comments about blacks and nearly laugh out loud. I don’t think she would choose to trade places with Dade right now.
Binkie Cross, the Washington County prosecuting attorney, has the bearing of a hillbilly-not the wormy, inbred sodomite who buggered poor Ned Beatty in Deliverance, but the rugged, lean, born individualist to whom the law is at best a painful necessity. At six-five he towers over me in an ugly brown suit that is too short in the sleeves and pants. Oblivious to his appearance, he sticks out his hand and swallows mine in his.
“Sorry, I missed you last week,” he says.
“I was on vacation. Call me Binkie, by the way. Everybody else does.”
“That’s all right,” I say, deciding not to mention that I heard his vacation was being cut short. He may feel he needs to protect his assistant, and I don’t want to make him defensive.
“I’d just like to get a copy of the file, and I was told only you could let me have it.”
Binkie winces as if he had been reminded of an un pleasant conversation. He invites me to sit down, then says candidly, “I would have preferred that my deputy wait until I was back in town to file a charge that serious.”
I nod, delighted to hear him say this.
“I wish he had too, because I don’t think my client is guilty of anything but some incredibly bad judgment.”
“How do you mean?” Cross says casually, as if we were colleagues instead of on opposing sides. He looks about my age, and I wonder if he went to school up here.
“To hear him tell it,” I respond, “sex was her idea, more than his. If you’ve seen this kid, you realize in a hurry he’s not lacking for female companionship.”
“How come he didn’t talk to the police?” Binkie asks.
“If he had, I doubt if Mike would have been in such a hurry to charge him.”
“Kids have seen a million cop shows on TV where the Miranda warnings are given,” I say.
“It probably wasn’t such a bad idea at the time. I’ll bring him down to talk to you anytime you want. I’d like to get this university hearing out of the way first though.”
Binkie reaches into his desk and pulls out a manila folder and hands it to me.
“I had this made for you Monday,” he says.
“I think it’s up to date. The girl’s statement is near the top.”
“I appreciate it,” I say, genuinely relieved I’m not getting another runaround. He knows that I don’t want Dade talking to him until I’ve seen the evidence against him.
“How was your trip?” I ask, deciding I like this guy. He doesn’t seem as if he is going to make me jump through any unnecessary hoops. To impress the voters, some prosecutors will make you play games with them from start to finish. Maybe he’s not going to run again. That would be fine with me.
A slow smile spreads to Binkie’s sunburned face.
“Damn, it was wonderful!” he says enthusiastically.
“My wife and I were bushwacking through a provincial park outside of Vancouver and we walked right up on this big of brown bear. I guess the look on our faces scared him because he took off the other way. If he hadn’t, we would have become permanent residents. God, it’s pretty country up there,” he adds wistfully.
“The closest I’ve come is a nature program on TV,” I confess, “but I’ve heard it’s wonderful.” Poor guy. He sounds as if he had died and gone to heaven. I’m lucky he didn’t come back mad. I would have if my vacation had been interrupted.
“I’ll be happy to produce Dade for some blood, hair, and saliva samples the first of next week,” I say, trying to appear equally cooperative.
“You don’t need to file a motion.”
“Why don’t you bring him in next Wednesday at eleven?” Binkie says, looking down at his calendar.
“I’ve got some time that day to take his statement.”
I pull out my calendar. Hell, I might as well move up here.
“That’s fine,” I say, eager to leave so I can go over the file.
Binkie looks at me square in the face.
“I knew Chet Bracken,” he says.
“You must have been pretty good if he wanted you to work with him.”
Now I understand the reason for the respect I am get ting. I don’t say that if he knew the circumstances of my relationship with Chet he wouldn’t be impressed.
“Chet was the one who was pretty good,” I say.
“He was the best damn trial lawyer I ever saw,” Binkie says flatly.
I don’t disagree, but at the time I knew him Chet was riddled with cancer and couldn’t think straight for more than an hour at a time. I stick out my hand again.
“Maybe in the next couple of weeks we can figure out what really happened. I know the last thing a prosecutor wants to do is to send an innocent kid to jail.”
As I hoped, Binkie does not give me an automatic response He clasps my hand and looks me in the eye.
“If I’m not convinced this boy raped her,” he says earnestly, “I’ll dismiss the charge. You can take that to the bank.”
“I’ll hold you to it.” Maybe I’m a fool, but I believe this man. He doesn’t seem the type who needs any trophies on the wall. Indeed, he doesn’t display even a single diploma. Behind him are pictures of him and presumably his family in the mountains. If he is as decent as he appears, we might not have to try this case.
In my room at the Ozark, I begin to have some real hope. Robin’s statement, and that of her roommate, Shannon Kennsit, aren’t as strong as I feared. Robin’s ex planation of why she waited a full nine hours
to go to the hospital comes across, on the printed page, as vague and not particularly believable. According to her, she was afraid that she would get in trouble with her parents be cause they would think she had been dating someone black, when, in fact, they had only been friends. Too, she was afraid nobody would believe her because of the incidents involving athletes in the past. What incidents? She doesn’t say. According to Shannon Kennsit, it was she who convinced Robin that she had to go to the hospital and report the rape. On this point, Robin seems to suggest that she had been planning to go to the police when the shock of what happened had worn off. She claimed to be in a daze when she had returned to the Chi Omega House that night and had gone straight to her room and had taken a shower, telling no one what had happened until four that morning when she had awakened Shannon with her crying. She didn’t remember if anybody had seen her when she came in.
On some points, with the exception of the sexual encounter itself, her story resembles Dade’s, but, of course, here it differs dramatically. He was the aggressor; he grabbed her arm and said, “Don’t make me have to hurt you.” He forced her to undress and get in the shower with him. The questioner, a Detective Parley, got her to state there had been penetration (as he had to for there to be a charge of rape), but she was vague on other details. All she had come over to do was to work on the speech with him. They had been friends since the spring. She’d had nothing to drink. It was obvious that Dade had a couple of beers at least, but she hadn’t thought he was too drunk to work on the speech. He had let her go afterward with the warning that if she told anyone, no one would believe it was rape, and he would smear her name all over cam pus.
The statements of the Rape Crisis counselor and the hospital nurse are predictably supportive. They were al ready preprogrammed to believe Robin and accordingly interpreted her every act and emotion as consistent with someone who had been raped. It crosses my mind that by the time she went to the police she may have convinced herself that Dade had raped her. Consensual sex became an act of force. If people can convince themselves they’ve been kidnapped by aliens and then returned safely to earth, concocting a rape story and then believing it should be a simple enough task for a college girl who has all night to dream it up.
My stomach growls, letting me know it is already past noon. I walk across College Avenue to a Burger King and order a Whopper. I sit next to a window in relative peace, mulling over the possibilities of what actually happened. Robin could easily be telling the truth; yet, for all I know, this could be the tenth lie she’s told this year.
It would be nice to know what her credibility level is.
How do I find out about her? Dade may or may not be much help. I doubt if he spends a lot of time at the Chi Omega House. Sarah must know a dozen kids who are at least aware of Robin’s reputation if she doesn’t already know it. I get up and call her from the pay phone and leave a message on her machine that I’m in town. It should be an interesting conversation if I ever get hold of her. I got your letter and think you’ve lost your mind.
Typically, a no-win situation with my daughter. She won’t be satisfied with anything short of total surrender.
I pick up a copy of the Democrat-Gazette and see an article in the second section on Dade’s hearing. So much for confidentiality. WAR will probably hold a rally out side the Union calling for Dade’s castration, I think gloomily. Yet how could I expect that information to re main a secret? I myself told Dade to tell the coaches.
Suddenly, it hits me that Coach Carter would make a perfect character witness for Dade at the hearing. Even if the faculty and student members of the “J” Board pretend that it’s no big deal for the Razorback football coach to appear before them, it would be, and some of them will be influenced whether they admit it or not. If Carter had a losing record, it might be a different story, but the Hogs for the first time in years are now ranked in the top ten, thanks to the win over Tennessee. There can’t be five people on the campus who don’t know about the game this weekend with number one ranked Alabama.
Back at the Ozark, I call Carter’s office and am told by his secretary that he is in a meeting. Undoubtedly he is with his assistant coaches drawing up a game plan for the Crimson Tide. The best time to get him, I realize, is late at night. I leave my name and number and say it is important.
Then I call the Cunninghams collect and report on the upcoming hearing. Roy, who takes the call in his store, asks the same question as his son: Is Dade going to be kicked out of school? I assure him, without the slightest evidence to back me up, that his son is in no danger of
being separated from the campus. I know he and Lucy will be talking to Dade before Friday, and any lack of confidence I convey to them will get back to Dade. Acting in effect as his own lawyer at the hearing, Dade must not panic. I promise to let them know as soon as we get a decision and hang up, knowing how helpless they both must feel.
Resigned to a sickening long-distance bill, I call Clan and ask him for some names of kids at the university who might know something about Robin.
“Doesn’t Brenda have some friends who have kids up here who are sorority types?” I ask. Brenda, not Clan, had family money in the beginning of the marriage. She has always struck me as the kind of woman who still goes up for alumnae weekends and bores the girls to death.
“I need to get the inside skinny on the girl and I can’t get my own daughter to do any of my legwork for me.”
“Brenda and I haven’t spoken to each other for weeks,” Clan laughs.
“What else is new?” I say half seriously. I never know how to take Clan on the subject of his marriage. He and Brenda appear to me to have a terrible relationship, but seem determined to outlast each other. He has me on the speakerphone. I hear a crackling sound. As usual, he must be eating something and needs both hands. If he doesn’t die of heart disease, nobody should.
“Hell, I know a couple of kids who are up there,” Clan says.
“Want me to call ‘em and see if they’ll talk to you?”
Bless Dan’s soul. Of course, he owes me for taking on his prostitute.
“If you would,” I say sincerely, “I’d be grateful. Dade’s got a university administrative hearing Friday, and it’d be nice to find out
that the victim was a known pathological liar. Apparently, they’ll let in the worst gossip imaginable. You ought to be up here. This is your kind of law practice.”
Clan snickers appreciatively.
“What’s your number?
I’ll call you back when I hear something.”
I tell him and get off the phone. It’s my dime. While I am working on some questions that Dade can ask of Robin and her witnesses, I get a call from Carter’s secretary telling me to hold on for him. Normally, I can’t stand people who are too self-important to make their own calls, but I make an exception for Carter. We need him too bad.
“Carter,” he barks.
“Is this Page?”
“Coach,” I plunge in, “we need your help at the hearing.
I’d like for you to be a character witness for Dade.
As you know, they could kick him out of school, not just off the team.”
For an instant I think I’ve lost the connection, but Carter comes back on after a moment and says, “I’ll have to think about it. They’re scorching my butt over this.”
I don’t doubt it.
“You’re getting a lot of support, too, though” I guess, although my actual knowledge is limited to the two letters in the paper.
“Some,” he admits.
“But I haven’t exactly made myself popular with the university bigwigs. A lot of ‘em wanted me to suspend Dade the rest of the season. It’s not just pressure. I’ve had some calls from administrators who sincerely believe he shouldn’t be playing until he’s had his trial. Hell, my own wife thinks I did the wrong thing.”
This confession is alarming. If it gets out that Carter is having second thoughts, Dade won’t have a chance.
“I’ve finally gotten the statements of the witnesses if you want to see them,” I tell him, trying not to sound as if I’m begging
“I’m even more convinced now that Dade didn’t do anything the girl didn’t want done. She corroborates everything Dade told you except for the alleged rape it self. It’s just her word against his. Her roommate sure doesn’t help her, and the nurse and the Rape Crisis woman just say what you’d expect. What you said at that press conference last week is truer today than when you said it. He shouldn’t be punished until he’s had his day in court.”
“Bring the statements by in an envelope and drop ‘em off with my secretary,” Carter instructs.
“I suspect we both want this kept confidential, so I’ll burn ‘em when I’m through.”
“I’ll get them to you in the next hour,” I promise. I hang up, wondering how cynical Carter’s decision to keep Dade on the team really was. Maybe, down deep, there’s a little bleeding-heart lawyer trying to get out.
Somehow, I doubt it. Coaches at this level know the public wants only one thing and that’s to win.
As I look through the Yellow Pages to find a copy place, the phone rings. It is Sarah.
“I got your letter, babe,” I say carefully.
“It was interesting.”
“Dad!” she yells into my ear.
“I blew your mind! You can admit it. Have you thought about what I asked you to do?”
Anxious to drop off the statements, I plead a standard excuse.
“You mean withdraw? I haven’t had time, but I will.”
“At least come to the rally tonight, okay?” Sarah says.
“You’ve got to hear Paula. Even if you don’t agree with her, I think you’ll be impressed. It’s at seven in front of the Student Union.”
“I’m running around like a chicken with its head cut off getting ready for this hearing on Friday,” I explain, trying not to sound irritated.
“But if I can come, I’ll drop by” “It’s the last one being permitted on campus this week,” Sarah says.
“There’s a rumor that Robin is going to speak.”
“Be identified publicly?” I ask, skeptical.
“I thought she had quit cheerleading because of all the trauma.”
“She probably felt ashamed,” Sarah says, “until someone explained that it was Dade who ought to feel too ashamed to show his face in public. That’s what our society does to women.”
Maybe I will come after all.
“Are you sure you did the right thing in quitting?” I ask, unable to keep my mouth shut.
“You really seemed to enjoy it.”
“Absolutely,” Sarah assures me.
“I was willingly participating in my own exploitation.”
For God’s sake!
“What do you mean?” I ask, knowing I don’t want to hear this answer.
“For example,” Sarah says earnestly, “women who act in pornography films are often physically and emotionally coerced into it. They don’t have a choice. I have a choice in whether I should take part in a spectacle that glorifies violence, the passivity of women, and male dominance.”
And all this time I thought it was just a game. Why did I think the University of Arkansas was a safe place for her? First, it’s blacks in the Delta, now it’s women-what next? But I am living proof a person can get into trouble up here. Except my trouble was more traditional. Too much Southern Comfort, too many girls, and not enough elbow grease.
“We’ll have plenty of time to talk about all this,” I say, “when you come home Thanksgiving.”
“Thanksgiving weekend,” Sarah says promptly, “I want us to drive over to Bear Creek and talk to Dade’s great-grandmother if she’s still alive. I know you say it’s gossip that your grandfather had a child by her, but I want us to check it out.”
How did this conversation get so quickly out of control What has gotten into her head?
“That’s fifty-year old gutter talk,” I say, knowing the hold on my temper is going.
“The last thing that poor old woman needs is to be stirred up.”
“Then I’ll go myself.”
“You will not!” I yell, horrified. I can just see Sarah running from house to house telling my old classmates she’s looking for one of our relatives.
“Dad, I’ve got to go,” she says.
“I’m almost late for work. We’ll talk about this later.”
Great. I don’t know who is worse Professor Birdbath or Paula Crawford.
“Okay,” I say, suddenly feeling weary.
“Maybe we can have dinner one night. I’ll call you.”
“I love you. Daddy.”
“I love you, too, babe,” I say, grateful for small favors.