David Ellis - Jury of One

“Bullshit. He wouldn’t walk around with drugs like that.” Ronnie looked away in anger. “No way.”

An interesting response. Denying the drugs but not mentioning the weapon. Shelly had had the same response about the drugs, though. It didn’t fit. She wondered how much Ronnie knew. Was he aware, for instance, that Alex had been arrested by the F.B.I.? She assumed so, but she hadn’t even spoken with Alex yet on the subject.

“Just”-Ronnie shook his hands-“just tell me what to say. I’ll say anything.”

She ignored the offer for the moment. She certainly would not take him up on it. “I thought he was going to stop, Ronnie,” she said, not hiding her disapproval, as if Ronnie were to blame for Alex’s transgressions. “I thought he was going to find another way to make some money.”

Ronnie struggled in the chair. “That was the plan. Didn’t seem to work out. Your guess is as good as mine.” Ronnie was acknowledging the same feeling that Shelly had experienced of late with Alex-he was keeping his friends at a distance.

“What in the world was Alex doing with a gun?” she asked.

Ronnie opened his hands. He appeared to be giving a poker face, but he wasn’t a natural. In her job, Shelly had seen plenty of them. Bottom line, he wasn’t going to answer. Everyone was playing it close to the vest. “Did you ask him that?” he asked.

Actually, no, she hadn’t. It hadn’t seemed the time for twenty questions. She looked at this young man, the boy of whom Alex had spoken so affectionately, and she felt as if she really didn’t know Alex Baniewicz at all.

“He was playing hoops at the open gym,” said Ronnie. “City Athletic Club. He was coming home afterward.”

“You were home?”

“Yeah. When he didn’t come home, y’know-with all this shit he was up to, I got worried. I knew something like this would happen.” He shook his head. “Can you fix this?” he asked her. “Make this go away?”

She looked at him a moment. “I can try to help him.”

“But you know people, right?”

“Ronnie, this isn’t something where you make a phone call and erase what happened.”

He received that statement like a stubborn child. He was feeling helpless, she could see. Surely, he didn’t think that she could snap her fingers and get Alex out of a murder charge.

Ronnie brought his hands together. “Tell me what to say and I’ll say it.”

She waved a hand and sighed. She wouldn’t know where to start.

A routine procedure, she has been told. Not difficult, they must mean. Not risky, they must mean.

It should just take a minute, she is told, for the anesthesia. Count backward from one hundred.

100…99…98…

He can’t know. No one can ever know. No one, but especially not him. Not Daddy.

Church confirmation, three years ago, when Shelly was thirteen and was upset over the dress Mother had chosen for her, a dispute that escalated into an argument about Christianity and God. How could there be a God? she asked her father, who as always had intervened. With famine and war and poverty? How can there be a-

93…92…91…

When you were born, Shelly, he said. That’s how I know there is a God. When you have a child of your-

We don’t advocate abortion, Shelly. We simply provide this procedure as an option for young women. You were sexually assaulted. This isn’t your-

Your father will never know. This is your body. Your constitutional-

87…86…

He can’t ever know. It would kill him.

Move on with your life.

Daddy?

Eighty-seven, eighty eighty I’m sorry eighty sorry Daddy but I can’t only sixteen years old please don’t stop loving me please forgive me you can’t ever know if you ever knew-

Can’t…ever…know…

Shelly was late for her class. Thoughts of Alex Baniewicz in detention, his life suddenly interrupted and steered in a different, uncertain direction, filled her as she walked into class.

No. Interrupted, steered were the wrong words. He was a good kid, but he’d been playing with fire. She had warned him. Damn it, she had warned him.

They were at the gym where Shelly worked out. Eleven women this week, ages ranging from nineteen to forty-seven, sat in chairs. Shelly did not know their backgrounds, did not even know their names, but she was relatively sure that many of them had been victims. That was why they were here, for a three-session seminar.

Shelly had changed into sweats in the locker room. She walked into the small room with nothing, stepped onto the gym mat in the front of the room. “My name is Shelly,” she told them. “Write my numbers down and use them whenever you need them. Whenever.” She listed her home, office, and cell phone numbers. Most of the women had brought pen and paper and wrote them down.

“Every minute of the day, every day of the year, a woman is sexually assaulted,” she said. “And that’s just rape. Add in muggings and break-ins, and the numbers go up exponentially.” She looked at the women but kept her eyes moving. She wasn’t going to confront anyone. Many of these women carried the secret deep within, something Shelly could certainly understand. “It’s okay if you’re afraid. I can’t keep that from happening. But what I can do is help you be prepared. For every ten women who are attacked, at least nine of those could have been prevented. If not all ten.”

A couple of the women nodded. Shelly always started with encouragement.

“Self-defense and protection starts with the three A’s. Awareness, attitude, and action. In that order.” She tapped her head. “It starts up here. It starts with being smart. Being aware. There’s a difference between paranoia and awareness. If you’re aware, you don’t have to be paranoid. Okay?”

Some answered audibly, others simply nodded. She needed to empower these women. She needed to fill them with confidence.

“Over these three evenings, I’ll teach you how to fight. Not like in the movies, and not for black belts, but in real life. And I’ll teach you how to think, if you’re attacked. But you only fight if the attacker is in a position to harm you. The key is never to allow that to happen. That’s what tonight is about. Awareness. Awareness in your home, awareness on the street, awareness in the car.” She paced, ticking off points in her hand.

“Someone in a uniform comes to the door and wants to use the phone, don’t let him in. Tell him you’ll make the call for him and he can wait outside. Don’t advertise your name, or your address, on anything you wear or carry. Check every part of your car-even the backseat and underneath-before you get in. If you’re at a bar, keep your drink with you, and if a stranger gives you a drink, don’t drink it.” She stopped. “We’ll cover all sorts of things like that tonight. I’ll teach you how to answer the phone. How to turn a corner. How to carry a bag. Nothing challenging. Nothing that’s hard to remember. Understand that attackers are looking for an easy target. If you make it tough for them, they’ll move on.”

She would cover other details tonight that hit closer to home. Don’t get drunk and lose control. Don’t go to a party where you don’t know anyone, in a city where you don’t know anyone. She would show them how to convert their fear and shame into discipline and focus and, later, solace and confidence. They would practice her tips until they were part of their lives, part of a routine, and someday, maybe, the cries that lay dormant deep within them, that haunted them in the still of the night, someday those cries might dissipate. Shelly would try to convince herself as much as them.