'Doesn't have a clue.'
The old buzzard sliced his chicken, then said, 'You're quite caught up in this trial.'
'It's what I do, Charlie.'
'But are you prepared to lose?'
'What does that mean?'
'Emotionally, are you prepared to go on with your life when… if you lose?'
He had that father-to-son look of worry I get only from Charlie. 'Okay,' I said. 'I'm living and breathing this one. It's the most important thing in the world to me.'
Charlie sighed and neatly lined up his knife and fork on his plate. 'Jake, did you know that at this very minute, the Swift-Tuttle comet, a chunk of rock six miles in diameter, is hurtling through space on a collision course with the earth? On its present course, traveling at sixteen miles per second, it will crash into our insignificant little planet on August 14, 2126.'
'Most of Uncle Jake's clients will still be in prison,' Kip said.
'What's the point, Charlie?' I asked.
'It's a doomsday rock!' he thundered. 'The explosion will be a billion times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. It will create a cloud of dust that will encircle the earth for decades, cutting off all sunlight, killing all crops, destroying the global climate, causing worldwide famine and perhaps the extinction of the human race.'
'Holy Star Wars!' Kip said.
I polished off the beer. 'I get it, but I don't buy it. You're telling me that in the scope of things, what happens in our day-to-day lives doesn't matter. As individuals, we are nothing, and as a species-'
'We're doomed,' Charlie said with finality.
'Then why do anything?' I asked. 'Why not just hang out at the beach and windsurf and fish and chase women?'
'I like the fishing part,' Kip said, his mouth painted with marinara sauce.
'As I recall, you tried that,' Charlie said, 'and found it unfulfilling. There has to be a balance. You have to find fulfilling work, what Mortimer Adler called play, or what Joseph Campbell called finding your bliss. At the same time, you cannot wager your entire worth, your self-esteem, on something so fleeting as the whims of a judge or jury, not when everything we call civilization can be extinguished in-'
'One swell foop,' Kip said.
30
After lunch, Dr. Lawrence Schein told the jurors that each of us has a secret compartment in which traumatic memories are locked away. 'My job is to unlock that compartment, open the gateway to the mind, and release the memories. Only by remembering can we heal.'
I kept the questions open and easy and let him talk. I wanted him relaxed and confident. It would make the contrast even greater when I broke him. If I broke him.
'All memories are stored somewhere in the brain,' he said. 'Some are accessible, ready to be called up at any time. Others are frozen, as if in a glacier. I use my training to warm up that glacier, to melt the ice, to let the memories run free as a river in the pristine woods.'
He was up to his ass in picturesque wordplay, but I let him continue the spiel. Like a fish on a line, he would run a while before I set the hook. He told the jury about hypnosis, imagistic recall, psychodrama, free association, age regression, and gestalt therapy. He talked about patients in denial and the sensory flashbacks of abuse survivors. The words 'remember' and 'heal' came up repeatedly, as did the initials PTSD.
'Posttraumatic stress disorder-you may be familiar with the term,' Schein said, with just a touch of condescension, turning toward the jury. 'We called it Vietnam syndrome when our soldiers suffered it. Whatever term we use, it means the patient has sublimated the horrors of the past.'
He talked about Chrissy Bernhardt's history. The eating disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, destructive relationships with men, the blocks of missing memories from childhood, the feeling of being out of control. He described the differences between traumatic experiences that are remembered in intricate detail and those we cannot remember at all.
'A Type I trauma is a short incident that leads to a brilliant, indelible memory,' he explained. 'A Type II trauma is caused by multiple, repetitious acts and may not be remembered. The mind anticipates the abuse- physical, sexual, or emotional-and represses the memory as a way of continuing to function. Of course, this defense mechanism does as much harm as good. The victim is not spared the agony of the abuse. She only feels it in different, self-destructive ways. Chrissy suffered Type II trauma and hence could not remember it until I unlocked the gate and the healing process began.'
'She had no memories of the alleged abuse until you told her she was abused, is that correct?'
'No, not at all. I didn't tell her anything.' Indignant and better prepared now that he knew where I was going. He gave the jury a little smile that said he was in control of this wily shyster.
'You suggested that her father abused her?' I said.
'No, I helped her remember what had happened so that she could heal. This is a little girl who had been raped, time and time again.' He hit the word 'rape' hard. An ugly word, and one of the woman jurors seemed to cringe. 'To combat the pain and the shame, she had put herself into a trancelike state each time she was abused. Afterward, she told no one. Not her mother, not her teachers, not even herself. She didn't remember because she wouldn't let herself remember.'
He was assured and convincing. He was either a brilliant practitioner of the latest advances in psychotherapy or a complete bullshit artist. I thought I knew which, but could I prove it? Then I played the tapes.
'How old are you, Christina?'
'Eleven.'
'Are you a happy girl?'
'Oh, yes. I have everything a girl could want. '
The jurors sat transfixed, listening to that childlike voice.
'What do you have?'
'Toys and friends and a wonderful mommy.'
''What about your father?'
'He gives me everything.'
'Does Mommy love him?'
'I don't know.'
'Christina, I'm Dr. Schein. I'm a friend of your mommy's.'
'I know. You take care of her. She likes you. She told me so.'
'Your mother is a wonderful woman. Tell me about your father.'
'He hits her. He hits her a lot and calls her names. Mommy got sick, so she stays in her room. Daddy moved down the hall, next to my room.'
'Does your father ever hit you?'
'No. Never. Not even when I'm bad.'
'When are you bad, Christina?'
'When I don't do what Daddy says.'
'Does he ever touch you in ways that frighten you?'
'No.'
'Does he ever come into your bedroom and do things to you?'
'No. I don't remember anything like that at all.'
I pushed the Stop button. 'Now, Dr. Schein, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Chrissy just deny having been abused by her father?'
'Yes.'
