“I know what happened took place a while ago,” Rafferty said, “so if you don’t remember that’s fine. Did Miss Flint tell you Mrs. Goodwin was a bad person, Robbie?”
“No.”
“Did Susan Dirks tell you to say Mrs. Goodwin was bad?”
“She said to tell the truth.”
“Who told you that Mrs. Goodwin did those things?”
“Miss Flint.”
“Miss Flint told you that—”
“I showed her—”
“Did Miss Flint show you first?”
Robbie looked up at Rafferty. “I showed
her,”
he said, scoffing, as if the question insulted his intelligence.
“Exactly what did Miss Flint ask you first?”
“Did the nurse touch you?”
“Miss Flint asked, ‘Did the nurse touch you?’ ”
“Yeah.”
“What did you say?”
“I showed her on the doll.”
“Did you ever see your mom doing some of those things with her—”
“Your Honor,” Mrs. Dirks cried, “we all know what Mr. Rafferty’s tack is here. He violates the dignity of this court, as well as the witness.
Mr. Rafferty is asking questions which are based on hearsay, which are argumentative—”
“Mr. Rafferty,” the judge said slowly, “you will remember the age of the witness. I am warning you, do you understand?”
“Yes, Your Honor.” Rafferty removed his foot from the chair and stood straight, with his hands clasped behind his back.
“What color pants were you wearing when that happened in the nurse’s office?”
He shrugged.
“You don’t remember?”
“I forget.”
“Did you wear a belt?”
“My dad gave me suspenders with Batman.”
“Did you wear your suspenders to the nurse’s office?”
“No.”
“Did you wear a belt?”
“I don’t got a belt.”
“Did your pants have a snap on them at the top?” Rafferty opened his jacket and pointed to his own waist. “Right about here?”
“Maybe.”
“Who unbuttoned your pants in the nurse’s office?”
“She always pushed me down.”
“Who unbuttoned your pants?”
“She did.”
“Who is she?”
“The nurse.”
“Did she unzip the pants first?”
“Yeah.”
“So she unzipped the pants first, and then she unbuttoned the pants.”
Most children would have said yes, I’m sure, to be done with it. Robbie appeared to think. “She unbuttoned the pants first,” he said.
“Where was the principal?”
“I don’t know.”
Rafferty asked where the guidance counselor was, where the secretary sat. For several minutes he asked Robbie to again describe his pants, if there were pockets, how the nurse got them down to his ankles, if she took them off, where she put them. For a good many of the answers Robbie said he didn’t know.
“On May eighteenth you had a beesting, Robbie, and your arm got
puffy. You went to see Mrs. Goodwin at her office because of the sting. Do you remember that day?”
“I think so.”
“Do you remember what she put on your arm to make the sting feel better?”
“She hollered at me,” he said in a monotone.
“What did she holler?”
“She called me bad names.”
“Bad names?”
“She said she was going to tie me to a chair.”
“Did she tie you to a chair?”
“She always pushed me down.”
“Did she treat you for the beesting that May eighteenth, when you got stung on the playground?”
He shrugged, his shoulders jerking up and down just once.
“Did she treat you for that beesting?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? You don’t remember?”
“I SAID, ‘I don’t know’!” Robbie glared at Rafferty for an instant before lowering his eyes back to the carpet.
“So you did, so you did. Why did Mrs. Ritter have to send you down to the principal’s office so often, Robbie?”
“Objection,” Mrs. Dirks called.
“Mr. Rafferty,” Judge Peterson said, “your line of questioning is argumentative. I am not going to tolerate badgering. Let’s get on with this hearing in a dignified manner.”
“Yes, sir,” Rafferty said, nodding his head and clasping his hands at his navel, altar-boy style. “Did you ever start fights, Robbie?”
No answer.
“Did you ever use words you weren’t supposed to use?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Mrs. Goodwin ever give you medicine?”
“Yeah.”
“So sometimes you weren’t feeling well, and she gave you medicine so you’d get better?”
“Yeah, right,” Robbie said, looking up again. “She gave me medicine so I’d get sick.”
Rafferty moved forward quickly. “Do you talk back to your teachers, to the principal, the way you’re talking back to me, young man?”
Mrs. Dirks called for a side bar. There was a short inaudible conference up front with the judge. When they were finished Rafferty went and stood the proper distance from the boy and his mother.
“Wasn’t Mrs. Goodwin trying to help you by giving you medicine when you were sick?”
“She pushed me down.”
“What did you do when you went to her office to get your medicine?”
“She push—”
“You’d walk in the door of her office, right?”
“She was always pushing me down.”
“When you got in the door?”
“Afterward.”
“After what?”
“After she made me go in the box.”
“What box?”
“In the dark room.”
“What dark room?”
“That place the sick people go.”
“Does your father live with you, Robbie?”
“No.”
“Does your mom bring her boyfriends around the house?”
“Objection,” Mrs. Dirks said. “Irrelevant.”
Rafferty spoke as he walked to the bench. “Your Honor,” he said, “I’d like to establish whether or not the witness has ever been exposed to adult sexuality at home.”
“I’ll overrule this time, Mr. Rafferty,” Judge Peterson said. “Be mindful that I’m prejudiced against you this morning.”
“Thank you, Your Honor. Ever any boyfriends around?” Rafferty asked again.
“I don’t know.”
“Does your mom have the same boyfriend all the time?”
Mrs. Mackessy now had that impassive look, identical to her son’s.
She was staring out into the empty courtroom. “Does your mom have the same boyfriend all the time?”
“Sometimes they’re the same.”
“Do you like some of them?”
Robbie’s occasional glower had been hostile all along. It was more and more poisonous as the questioning progressed. “They’re okay.”
“Are there some of them you don’t like?”
“I SAID, they’re okay.”
“Do your mom’s boyfriends play with you, Robbie? Maybe take you to the ball game, or the pool, or the park?”
“I got my own friends,” he snapped.
“You have friends? What do you do when your mom goes somewhere without you, and you stay at home?”
“Play.” He said this with a sneer, as if he was trying to match the sarcasm of “Pal.”
“Watch TV?” Rafferty asked.
Robbie did that quick up-and-down shrug. It was like a puppet’s motion, an invisible handler working the shoulder strings.
“Did you watch TV this morning?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you see?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you think of one program you saw this morning?”
“I said I forget.”
“You forget what you saw two hours ago?”
“I turn the channels back and forth.”
“Oh, so you don’t sit and watch one show for long?”
“My mom got us sixty-four channels.”
“So you can see a lot of different programs, I bet?”
“I just said, we have sixty-four channels.”
“What are your favorite shows?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you watch cartoons, shows like ‘Goof Troop,’ ‘Ninja Turtles,’ ah, ‘Tiny Toons’—what’s it called, ‘Loony Tunes’?”
“Yeah.”
“Now that you’re six do you stay up late sometimes?”
“Yeah.”
“And you watch TV at night, flipping through those cable channels?”
“Yeah.”
Each time Robbie said “yeah” he had more disdain in his voice.
“Does your mom get videos from the video store?”
“Yeah.”
“So sometimes at night you might see a video she brought home?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you ever see naked people on TV, Robbie?”
Susan Dirks shook her bangled fists, calling out again that Rafferty was asking irrelevant questions, tiring the boy, getting nowhere. “We’re not having a trial here, judge,” she yapped. “All I have to do is prove that the charge is reasonable.”
The judge seemed to have contracted a stiff neck. He turned his head with evident pain from Mrs. Dirks to Rafferty. “Your objection is overruled, Mrs. Dirks. Bring this to a close, Mr. Rafferty, before I lose my patience.”
“Did you ever see naked people on TV, Robbie?” Rafferty asked in the same even tone he’d used the first time.
“No.”
“The people you see on TV all through those sixty-four channels you’re flipping through always have every bit of their clothing on?”
“Yeah.”
“Do your mother’s boyfriends stay overnight—”
At the same time Susan screeched, “Objection,” Robbie stood up from his mother’s lap and shouted, “No!”
“Question withdrawn,” Rafferty said. “When you’re at school did you see the nurse about once a week?”
“I TOLD you I’m allergic,” Robbie said. “I get rashes and fevers sometimes.”
“When did you tell me you were allergic?”
“At the beginning.”
“Did you tell me what you’re allergic to?”
“I said, I’m allergic.”
“All right then, you’re allergic. When your allergies flared up did you go see the nurse?”
“Duh.”
“Isn’t Mrs. Goodwin’s office right next to the principal’s office?”
“I don’t know.”
“Isn’t it also next to the secretary’s desk?”
“Yeah.”
“And the counselor’s office? Mrs. Dirks just told you they were, if you didn’t know before. Did you ever think of going to the principal’s office right next door for help?”
“He would holler at me.”
“He also hollered at you?”
“She was always pushing me down.”
“There isn’t a door for the nurse’s office, Robbie. Wouldn’t the principal have seen what was going on in Mrs. Goodwin’s office?”
“He don’t see everything!” He was pouting. For the first time he looked like a child.
“Why did Mr. Henskin holler at you?”
“He has to make sure everyone is good.”
“Weren’t you good?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mrs. Goodwin’s job is like that too. Her job is to help children get well, if they’re sick. Did Mrs. Goodwin check your ears or your throat because you were sick?”
“She was always pushin’ me down, tying me—”
“Right out in the open, where the principal could see if he walked by?”
He lowered his eyes again. I thought then that if I’d had one hundred thousand dollars I would have paid it right there. I would have paid the money if I could have seen what Robbie saw, if I could have known what was true.
“It was dark in there. It’s like a cave.”
“Why didn’t the principal hear you?”
“I couldn’t make no noise.”
“Why not?”
“She said she’d cut me up.”
“Where did the nurse push you down?”
“On her bed.”
“Was she trying to give you medicine?”
“She wanted to look at me. She said she’d bite me.”
“Did she bite you?”
“She said she would if I moved. She said all my blood would come out of there.”
“Isn’t a nurse supposed to help you if you’re sick?”
“She hollered at me. She was always—”
“When you needed medicine did you cooperate with her?”
Robbie looked at Rafferty again. “Yeah.”
“If she had to check your throat did you help her out by sitting still?”
“I told you,” he said, whining now, “I tried to help but she was always pushing me down. She told me not to tell; she told me she’d come after me if I tattled.”
“You were so sick once Mrs. Goodwin had to sit with you all morning. She had to hold you while you threw up. She sat by your side until your mother came to get you—”
“She always pushed me down,” he cried.
“She put cool cloths on your forehead and tried to get you to eat little pieces of ice cube. You were that sick.”
He had turned into his mother and was sobbing. “She pushed me down. She always pushed me down.”
During the hearing I thought that nothing could shake me more than Robbie’s expression already had. But when he was finished the investigating officer testified. He quoted Alice. She had shouted at the police. She had said, “I hurt everybody.” I thought I must not have heard him. It was one thing to have the boy look hurt, and another to have my wife saying she’d done wrong. I continued to assume that I had not heard properly. For almost a full hour Rafferty grilled Officer Melby about technicalities, about why he hadn’t read Alice Miranda, under what circumstances he read Miranda, what other questions he had asked Alice, how long he’d been observing her in the lunchroom. I couldn’t think of any reason or excuse, no matter how ill a person was, to say to an officer, “I hurt everybody.”
Rafferty sat at his table for the short closing statement. He had taken
his suit coat off. It dangled behind him from his index finger as he spoke. He argued that the state hadn’t made out its case on all the charges. He stressed that Robbie didn’t have a very clear memory about the abuse, that he could come up with almost no specifics other than the anatomical details, which of course had been provided by Miss Flint. He concluded by asking the court reporter to please type up a transcript for him.
Mrs. Dirks, for her part, spoke about how a public health official is a person of trust in any community. Alice had violated that trust. Every school personnel was now going to be suspect, and parents would no longer feel safe sending their children off to learn their letters. Alice had spoken for herself to the police, and Robbie had merely corroborated her admission.
The work with the doll could not be undone. The judge mumbled about the serious nature of the charge. As if the angry women were present he urged parents who had complaints about Mrs. Goodwin to either formalize their charges or stop the rumor mills. He set the date for the formal arraignment and the court was dismissed. Alice got up right away. She stood on her toes, trying to see out the high windows. Then she turned to look at me. I don’t know what she expected to see. I wanted to cut over the pews and grab hold of her. She smiled, that pitying crooked smile, before the guard motioned her to go. I leaned forward, resting my chin and mouth against my sleeve. I must have chewed my lip all the way through. Later, when I took the shirt off, there were bloodstains along both of my cuffs.