I scribble as fast as I can.
“So what did she do?” I ask, knowing there are a hundred details to fill in. But Dade seems in no mood at this first meeting to write a book on the subject.
He looks at a spot on the ceiling and says emphatically, “She wanted it. She came over to the sofa and took this paper out of my hand and sat down by me. She started writing on it, and talking, kind of bumping against me on the sofa. Hell, I knew what she wanted and I kissed her.
And before I knew it we were in the shower and damn she was hot! Shit! What else could I do? I only fucked her once, and then she got out of bed and took off like a bat out of hell. It was like she got what she came for, and that was all she wanted. While we were doin’ it, she didn’t complain or tell me to stop or nothin’.”
I look at Dade carefully, knowing he has had almost forty-eight hours to come up with this story. It could have easily been a form of “study rape.”
“When you say she was ‘hot,”
” I ask, neutrally, “try to remember exactly what she did or said.”
He shrugs, “She was all over me. Kissing me, rubbing my dick, hugging me. She even washed me. All the time talking ‘bout how she liked me and what a good body I got.”
I wish I had remembered to bring a tape recorder. Obviously her statement, which I should get tomorrow, is going to be quite a bit different.
“Is she going to be able to testify you hurt her in any way?”
Dade scratches his left armpit. He hasn’t had access to a shower in over forty-eight hours. I’ve had clients who contracted lice in jail.
“She didn’t holler or anything.”
“Did you use a rubber or any kind of birth control de vice?”
Dade admits candidly, “I never even thought about it.
It wudn’t like we stopped to talk about it.”
I write, “no rubber” relieved at least his story seems consistent. I can see developing an argument that Robin was simply curious and decided to scratch an itch and felt overwhelming guilt afterward. Why shouldn’t she be attracted to him? They were friends; he’s a hunk. As routine a part of the culture as casual sex has remained, despite the threat of AIDS, it is not out of the realm of possibility that though Robin felt extremely ambivalent about what she was doing, curiosity and youthful desire got the better of her. Hormones and alcohol have been used to explain the behavior of young males since some body first slipped on a fermenting grape. If women expect to be treated like men, why doesn’t the same rationalization apply to them? A decent argument may be that it now does, but the difference is that they haven’t learned to stop feeling bad about behavior men take for granted. In concrete terms, ladies and gentlemen, my brain preaches, Robin Perry had a few glasses of wine beforehand, and wanted to see what it was like to sleep with an African-American who was a star football player.
He accommodated her, but by the next day she was feeling so terrible about it she claimed it was rape.
I go over his story again and realize I am convinced he didn’t rape her. There is something I find myself responding to in this boy. I might change a few things about him, but I would change a few things about myself as well.
“Assuming Coach Carter is willing to talk to you,” I say, putting down my notebook, “we need to decide if you should talk to him and tell him your story. It’s possible that he may let you stay on the team if you can convince him you’re innocent. Whatever you say can be used against you. The cops will talk to him, and if you contra dict yourself, it’ll be used against you.”
“I want to keep playing!” he says, his voice anguished.
“That’s what I want for you,” I say.
“But there’s a risk involved each time you talk.” I do not say that if he plays out the season and continues to do as well as he has done thus far, he will be worth a lot more money (assuming he is found innocent) to whoever negotiates his pro contract.
“What do you think I should do?” he asks, his brown green eyes searching mine as if I had been representing him all his life instead of just the last couple of hours.
Damn. Lawyers have too much power over other people.
“I think,” I say slowly, hoping I am not acting too much from greed, “that if you get the chance you should talk to your coach and tell him the same things you’ve told me.”
He nods affirmatively. I’ve told him what he wanted to hear, and I know it, too. In a year or two, I hope I can look back on this and not come to the conclusion that I exploited him. Shit, I may be so rich that I won’t even think about it.
“What is Coach Carter like?”
Dade grins.
“He’s pretty damn tough. I’m in shape though. I was dogging it in two-a-days in the beginning, and he chewed my ass out good till I got with the program. I didn’t think I was, but he was right. If you give it a hundred percent, he doesn’t get mad if you screw up.
He just comes over and shows you what you did wrong.
My grandmother died on Monday the week of the South Carolina game. He told me to go home and not worry about it that I’d start and have a good game. I did. If he doesn’t like you though, you might as well quit. He’ll run you off if he thinks you’re bullshitting him.”
Coaches. They are the closest things to dictators the United States has. Nazis, most of them. Probably the worse they are, the better their records. Frustrated drill sergeants and about the same level of intelligence. I hated my track coach at Subiaco. Hell, he wasn’t the one running 880 yards in ninety-degree heat. Still, I was the Class A state champion my senior year, the only thing I ever won in my life, outside a racquetball game at the Y. While we are talking, the phone rings. It is Carter, who tells me to bring Dade to his office at seven tonight.
Hoarse, as if he has been shouting, he asks me not to talk to the media. They will know soon enough. I call Sarah back and leave a message on her answering machine to meet me a five-thirty at the Hilton.
Dade understandably is anxious to get back to his room and take a shower, and I drop him off at Darby Hall, agreeing to meet him outside Carter’s office promptly at seven.
“Don’t talk to anybody about this,” I say, knowing it will be difficult for him to keep his mouth shut.
Sarah, who is not usually punctual, is waiting for me.
Though I saw her two weeks ago (for only a few minutes after the Memphis game, my blood quickens just seeing her face. She has been off at college for over a year, but still I haven’t completely adjusted to her absence from the house. During the few weeks she was home before and after the summer term I saw how much she had matured; with too much time on my hands, probably I have regressed.
“Hi, Daddy,” she says, in a re strained voice that signals her lack of enthusiasm for the object of my visit.
Despite her misgivings, she returns my hug. She needs me more than she thinks.
“You look thin,” I criticize.
“It’s obvious you’re not eating right. I want you to order a steak tonight.”
Actually, she looks great. In her striped tank top and white slacks and with her usual exotic earrings (tonight metal in the shape of musical notes), Sarah will ensure that we get excellent service from the male employees at the Hilton.
“Oh, all right,” she says, in mock protest. When we sit down, she says, “You probably eat worse than I do, judging from what was in the refrigerator when I was home the last time.”
A waiter, obviously a student, comes over to check out Sarah.
“Would you like something to drink?” he says to me, unable to resist staring at my daughter.
With Dade’s interview with his coach looming ahead of me, I resist ordering a beer, though I would love one.
A sign of my less than successful coping skills now is that I drink more. Easy to recognize, but hard to do much about. The house has been too quiet with just me and Woogie. Several nights in the past year I have waked up on the couch in the den in the middle of the night after having an extra shot of bourbon I didn’t need or even want.
“Iced tea,” I say reluctantly.
