Robert Tanenbaum: Fury

The monitors cut away to a taped interview with Villalobos, wearing a gray inmate jumpsuit and sitting in what was obviously a prison setting with a sterile, white cinder block wall. "All I can say is that a positive prison experience has left me a changed man," he said with a lisp to an off-camera interviewer. "I was a terrible sinner, but I have accepted Jesus Christ the Lord as my savior and know that I will be forgiven… My conscience troubled me and so I have decided to come forward now to tell the truth, and that is I alone did these horrible things to that woman. I ask her forgiveness and that of the young men whose lives were stolen to pay for my sin."

The camera returned to Fitz, who had molded her face into a mask of moral indignation with a trace of anger. "During the trial, the prosecutors lightly brushed over the fact that the only DNA evidence found on the victim's body did not belong to any of the young men who had been charged. Instead, they chose to concentrate on the so-called Coney Island Four, presumably because they'd been involved in a minor altercation that night in the boardwalk area, as well as the questionable confessions.

"However, in a startling revelation, Brooklyn District Attorney Kristine Breman, who will appear on this show later this week"-Fitz had a hard time keeping the gloating look off her face…Emmy, here I come-"announced last spring that the mysterious DNA matched one man…and one man only…Enrique Villalobos.

"Hailed by civil libertarians as having made a 'bold move in the cause of justice,' DA Breman agreed to the demands of one of my guests tonight-noted Manhattan attorney Hugh Louis"-the camera panned to Louis, who nodded solemnly-"and released the Coney Island Four and followed that by exonerating the young men. The prosecutors who led the charge to convict the four teenagers and, it would appear, jumped to a tragic conclusion, have since been placed on administrative leave pending a full investigation of the Brooklyn Sex Crimes Bureau's actions, as well as those of the New York police officers and detectives assigned to the case."

Camera One cut to Fitz's face. "Not too close…soften the shot…we don't want those crow's-feet showing," the producer whispered into his mike for the cameraman. Fitz's expression changed to one of deep regret, as if what she was about to say offended her journalistic sensibilities. "We should point out that the prosecutors in this case-assistant district attorneys Robin Repass and Pam Russell-were asked to appear on this show, or to at least grant an interview in the interests of fairness. But regrettably, perhaps understandably, they've declined."

Fitz let the moment sink in and then turned to her right to face her guests as the camera panned back. She smiled. "Good evening, Hugh."

Louis allowed himself a small can't-we-all-just-get-along smile. "Good evening, Natalie."

Fitz shook her head. "I guess your counterparts from the Brooklyn DA's office didn't want to talk to us, but we're glad to see you and your client tonight."

Louis combined a laugh with a sneer. "And the liars shall be known by their…lies," he said, patting his forehead with his handkerchief and hoping that he'd gotten the biblical phrase right. "Perhaps they're afraid that the truth will be exposed beneath these bright lights."

Fitz nodded as if she'd just been listening to Solomon himself. She looked beyond Louis. "Indeed. And good evening and welcome, Mr. Sykes, we're glad you could join us."

Jayshon Sykes looked at the camera and smiled shyly. "Good evening, Ms. Fitz," he said. "And thank you for your interest in justice. I'm afraid not all of your counterparts in the media are as willing to admit that the justice system might not be as color blind as we'd like. Unfortunately, it cost myself and my friends ten years of our lives. Ten horrible years that can never be reclaimed."

Ten miles away across the East River, sitting on a swaybacked mattress in a dark, shabby hotel room on the island of Manhattan, a haggard, gray-haired woman recoiled from her television, clutching her stomach as if she'd been punched. She gasped and fumbled for the channel changer, but it slipped from her hands and bounced off the floor and under the bed.

She should have known to turn off the television when the pitted face of Enrique Villalobos had first appeared…a positive prison experience…but she'd turned away as if slapped. However, as though forced, she'd slowly looked back and then watched in horror as Jayshon Sykes smiled at the camera, and she looked into those eyes for the first time in ten years… Ten horrible years that can never be reclaimed.

Unable to move or look away, she'd watched as the big black lawyer went on with comments about the "lazy white cops and venal white prosecutors" who had conspired to deprive four innocent young men "of their liberty and the flower of their youth." No amount of money could give them what had been stolen, he said, "but they will be asking-no, demanding in the interests of justice-$250 million to give these African-American men a fresh start and to punish the system that perpetuates the sin of racism."

As the man talked, a series of memories like slides from a projector flashed into her mind. She remembered waking up that morning when the world was still a good place…the warmth of her husband's body…the sweet-and-sour smell of her child.

After that the images grew more jumbled. She recalled jogging along the beach toward Coney Island. A pier, then shadows moving in the dark beneath the pier. Daylight on the other side, if she could just reach it. Hands reaching for her. Black faces…drunk…shouting…laughing. "Hey, bitch, want some of this?" The daylight on the other side of the pier. Safety. Hands groping, pulling at her clothing. Scratching at that face…the face on the television. Maybe not. I don't know. A brilliant flash of light, the horrible pain. Impossible to fight them all. Their voices like crows in the cornfields of Iowa…"Fuck her, homes, ain't you a man?" Violation.

The face of the other man from the television, a face cratered like the moon, only greasy. "Show you boys how to treat these bitches. If you want to teach them a real lesson, you got to fuck them dirty."

Violation…feeling so filthy, hoping they would kill her, disappointed when she realized they were gone and she was still alive…staggering into the ocean and washing and washing and washing and never getting clean…never again clean…

In the motel room, Liz Tyler's body shook as if she were being beaten again. The memory slide show stopped just in time for her to look again into Jayshon Sykes's eyes as he repeated his assertion-this time prompted by the fat man-that a terrible crime had been done to him and his friends. Another blow to the solar plexus. She couldn't breathe.

Tyler forced herself up from the bed and staggered toward the bathroom. She got only halfway there before she fell to her knees and vomited. Her stomach kept heaving as she hovered on her hands and knees above the growing pool on the filthy carpet. Finally, she had nothing left in her stomach and the dry heaves subsided. She shuddered and whispered to no one, "They're going to get away with it."

Saturday, December 11

Roger "butch" Karp looked up sharply from his sunday New York Times when the door to his Crosby Street loft in lower Manhattan flew open. A hooded figure stepped into the room accompanied by a draft of frigid air. He shivered but also felt a familiar warmth when the woman in the doorway stripped off her sweatshirt.

The woman, his wife, Marlene Ciampi, brushed a dusting of snow from her dark curly hair and stomped the moisture off her running shoes. She flung the sweatshirt with its faded Cal Berkeley logo at the coatrack; she missed but left it lying. Turning toward her husband, she blinked the moisture from her one good eye-the other having been lost many years before to a letter bomb. She caught the approving, puppy dog look on her husband's otherwise tough and craggy face and assumed a tough girl from Queens stance.