both become, and asked the next question.
“If I could pick a moment when my life changed, this was it.
I don’t mean the next question I asked. I’m not sure I even remember what it was. I mean this time, this point in the trial, when without quite realizing it I had taken that one decisive step that decides forever who you are. Everything up until then had been training, instinct, the combination of things that lets you react, lets you adjust to everything that is going on around you.
I had been practicing for about three years, and I was good at it—at least I had thought I was. I hardly ever lost, and that was the way everyone else seemed to measure things—did you win or did you lose. But now, really for the first time, I knew what I was doing. I was conscious of myself, of the effect I had, of the way everyone else involved in that trial was reacting to me. It was not ego, though I’m sure there was plenty of that; it was something more. I could not have explained it then, and I probably can’t explain it now, but I understood what everyone was doing and why. I understood the reason for things. I learned to trust myself in that trial and not care what anyone else might think.
It was either that, or let Jeffries help the prosecution convict a woman who had never done anything wrong of the worst crime with which any mother could ever be charged.
“Finally finished with Edward Larkin, the prosecution called the boy’s psychologist, who had believed and reported what he had been told. Then they called the police officer who had reported, and claimed to believe, what the boy had said.
” ‘How old are you?’ I asked the officer on cross.
” ‘Thirty-eight,’ he answered.
” ‘And are you married?’
“When he said he was, I asked if he had children. He had three and was obviously quite proud of it. I picked up my copy of his report off the table and turned to the page I wanted. ‘You wrote this?’ I held it up at arm’s length, a bewildered smile on my face.
“He was not sure where I was going. ‘Yes,’ he answered.
“I looked at him a moment longer, as if I was not sure whether I should believe him. ‘I see,’ I said, as I brought the document close enough to be read. After a few moments, I looked up. ‘You wrote this part? “According to the boy, the sexual intercourse with his mother usually lasted one and a half to two hours.” ‘ I lifted my hands, and shrugged. ‘Between one and a half and two hours?’ I asked skeptically.
“He seemed not to understand the question. ‘Didn’t it strike you as—what shall we say?—unusual?’
” ‘That’s what the boy said,’ the officer replied as if that had been my question.
“I looked at the jury and let my gaze settle for a moment on each of the men. ‘Between one and a half and two hours.’ I repeated the phrase like an awestruck spectator.
” ‘Do you have a question, Mr. Antonelli?’ Jeffries snarled.
” ‘Oh, I think I do, your honor,’ I said cheerfully as I walked back to the counsel table. ‘But not of this witness.’
“It was an amazing thing, the way everyone had been drawn into that boy’s story. All of us understand how something like a rape can take place. We can understand how someone, driven by the same impulses and desires that drive us all, can become so twisted, so violent, that he attacks a woman. It is much more difficult to understand how anyone can attack a child, and next to impossible to imagine how a mother could do anything like this to her own son. And that, I’m convinced, is what gave his story a strange kind of credibility. It was so utterly bizarre, so far beyond the range of anyone’s experience, everyone was afraid to express any doubt about what the boy had said. The only way they could distance themselves from an act so completely obscene was to denounce it, and the only way they could do that was to believe that it had really happened.
“The boy was the prosecution’s star
“If I could pick a moment when my life changed, this was it.
I don’t mean the next question I asked. I’m not sure I even remember what it was. I mean this time, this point in the trial, when without quite realizing it I had taken that one decisive step that decides forever who you are. Everything up until then had been training, instinct, the combination of things that lets you react, lets you adjust to everything that is going on around you.
I had been practicing for about three years, and I was good at it—at least I had thought I was. I hardly ever lost, and that was the way everyone else seemed to measure things—did you win or did you lose. But now, really for the first time, I knew what I was doing. I was conscious of myself, of the effect I had, of the way everyone else involved in that trial was reacting to me. It was not ego, though I’m sure there was plenty of that; it was something more. I could not have explained it then, and I probably can’t explain it now, but I understood what everyone was doing and why. I understood the reason for things. I learned to trust myself in that trial and not care what anyone else might think.
It was either that, or let Jeffries help the prosecution convict a woman who had never done anything wrong of the worst crime with which any mother could ever be charged.
“Finally finished with Edward Larkin, the prosecution called the boy’s psychologist, who had believed and reported what he had been told. Then they called the police officer who had reported, and claimed to believe, what the boy had said.
” ‘How old are you?’ I asked the officer on cross.
” ‘Thirty-eight,’ he answered.
” ‘And are you married?’
“When he said he was, I asked if he had children. He had three and was obviously quite proud of it. I picked up my copy of his report off the table and turned to the page I wanted. ‘You wrote this?’ I held it up at arm’s length, a bewildered smile on my face.
“He was not sure where I was going. ‘Yes,’ he answered.
“I looked at him a moment longer, as if I was not sure whether I should believe him. ‘I see,’ I said, as I brought the document close enough to be read. After a few moments, I looked up. ‘You wrote this part? “According to the boy, the sexual intercourse with his mother usually lasted one and a half to two hours.” ‘ I lifted my hands, and shrugged. ‘Between one and a half and two hours?’ I asked skeptically.
“He seemed not to understand the question. ‘Didn’t it strike you as—what shall we say?—unusual?’
” ‘That’s what the boy said,’ the officer replied as if that had been my question.
“I looked at the jury and let my gaze settle for a moment on each of the men. ‘Between one and a half and two hours.’ I repeated the phrase like an awestruck spectator.
” ‘Do you have a question, Mr. Antonelli?’ Jeffries snarled.
” ‘Oh, I think I do, your honor,’ I said cheerfully as I walked back to the counsel table. ‘But not of this witness.’
“It was an amazing thing, the way everyone had been drawn into that boy’s story. All of us understand how something like a rape can take place. We can understand how someone, driven by the same impulses and desires that drive us all, can become so twisted, so violent, that he attacks a woman. It is much more difficult to understand how anyone can attack a child, and next to impossible to imagine how a mother could do anything like this to her own son. And that, I’m convinced, is what gave his story a strange kind of credibility. It was so utterly bizarre, so far beyond the range of anyone’s experience, everyone was afraid to express any doubt about what the boy had said. The only way they could distance themselves from an act so completely obscene was to denounce it, and the only way they could do that was to believe that it had really happened.
“The boy was the prosecution’s star
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