Benjamin Markovits - You Don't Have to Live Like This

“Did he say anything to you about it?”

“Of course he did. We had to break them up.”

“Well, what did he say?”

“I don’t know. We talked about it.”

“Was he angry with you?”

“Yes.”

“Why was he angry?”

“He thinks I should have stepped in.”

“Did he say anything else? Did he make any kind of request?”

“Yes. He did. Tony said he didn’t want his son hanging out with Nolan’s son anymore.” I looked at Nolan, who was looking at me, so I looked away. “I don’t know why you’re asking me about all this.”

“You let me worry about that. Did you tell Nolan what happened?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t have told Tony, except Tony walked in.”

“Is that the whole reason?”

“I don’t know.” After a minute, I said, “I didn’t want to get Clarence in trouble.”

“Do you think Clarence would have got into trouble?”

“I didn’t want to make Nolan any more pissed off than he already was.”

But we talked about Robert James, too.

“Did he ask you to say something to Nolan about the Meacher case? Did he ask you to intervene?”

“What do you mean, intervene?”

“Were you aware that Nolan was talking to Dwayne Meacher’s family, that he was talking to lawyers and trying to drum up publicity?”

“I guess so.”

“Did Robert James ask you to intervene?”

“I still don’t know what you mean by intervene.”

“Did he want you to stop Nolan from doing the things he was doing?”

“You can’t stop Nolan from doing something if he wants to do it. I told Robert that. But Robert just wanted me to pass on some information.”

“What information was that?”

“About the medical attention Meacher was getting.”

“Did you pass it on?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Did you or didn’t you?”

“I went to see Nolan about it, but I don’t know if I said what Robert asked me to say. I guess when I saw him it didn’t seem — appropriate.”

“What about this case?”

“What about it?”

“Did Robert James ask you to communicate something to Nolan about this case?”

“No.”

“Did he ever express any opinion to you about it?”

“Of course, he’s a friend of mine. This case is a big deal in my life.”

“I’m glad to hear it. So what did he say?”

“He said that it’s the job of Nolan’s lawyers to make sure it doesn’t go to trial.”

There was a little laughter at that, and Barrett smiled when he said, “And why was that?”

“Because he didn’t think Nolan would win.”

“Did he have any other reasons, do you think?”

But here Larry Oh stepped in and I didn’t have to answer. Barrett kept pushing, though. He asked me about Beatrice, too. He wanted to know if she ever told me to talk to Nolan.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“We had a conversation about Nolan, and maybe she wanted me to say something to him, but it wasn’t clear.”

“But she had, let’s call it, misgivings about the trial, which she expressed to you?”

“Yes.”

“Can you describe for me what those misgivings were?”

Larry Oh stood up again, but the judge overruled him. It gave me a minute to think of an answer, and eventually I said, “This isn’t the kind of publicity they want for what we’re doing here.”

There was a lot more on these lines; it’s all in the transcript. When I was talking to Gloria about my testimony, I had this idea that all I had to do was tell the truth. She thought I needed to do more than that. I needed to edit and shape what I said, for Nolan’s sake. The fact is, I found it hard enough just answering the questions. Answering them honestly, I mean. Partly because there were things I wanted to be dishonest about, but also because the answers seemed so limited, they left so much out. I was too caught up in the whole thing to exercise any control over how I came across. I wasn’t telling the story, Barrett was. I didn’t get to say what I wanted to say.

“Tell me about the guns,” Barrett said. “How many you got?”

“Two. A Remington and a Smith & Wesson.”

“Can you tell me why you bought these weapons?”

Larry Oh tried to step in again. “Objection, Your Honor, to this whole line of questioning. The witness is not on trial here. .”

But Judge Westinghouse overruled him and I said, “That’s all right. I want to answer this. I want to address this. When I came to Detroit, I didn’t know anything about it. Just the stuff you see on TV, I read the news. People said to me, do you have a gun. I thought I needed one.”

“But after coming here, you got better information, is that right?”

“Something like that.”

“After you came to Detroit you realized you had nothing to worry about. Did you register the guns?”

“Yes.”

“The Smith & Wesson. That’s a police gun, right?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you get one of those?”

“A friend of mine is an officer, and you can pick up used guns pretty. . cheaply, if you’re in the loop.”

“And you registered that one, too?”

“Yes, he helped me.”

“How did you meet this guy? What’s his name?”

“Mel Hauser. He’s a friend of Tony Carnesecca. He lives on Tony’s street.”

“And when did you meet Mel Hauser? I mean, after you came to Detroit?”

“Towards the beginning.”

“What does that mean? How long after you came to Detroit did you register the second gun?”

“Maybe six months.”

“Six months? Mr. Marnier, these are legal documents. Do you want me to look them up?”

“Maybe eight months.”

“All right, all right.”

It wasn’t just that I felt manipulated, though I did. After a while, you start to lose track of what you actually think — I mean, they begin to persuade you. Barrett said, “There’s a few things I need to get straight in my own head, there are a couple of things I’d like you to clear up for me. When everybody was standing around in your apartment, shouting at each other. You and Tony Carnesecca and Nolan Smith.”

“I wasn’t shouting at anybody.”

“That’s fine. Tony and Nolan. And you said, Nolan was barring the door.”

“I don’t think that’s what I said.”

So Barrett asked the court stenographer to repeat what I said, and eventually she found her place in the transcript and read it out. “And then when Tony wanted to leave Nolan blocked the door.”

“How do you know Tony wanted to leave?” Barrett said.

“I don’t know; you know.”

“Did he try to leave?”

“He couldn’t. Nolan was blocking the door.”

“I guess what I’m asking you is, how did you know Nolan was blocking the door?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m trying to get a sense of what the difference is, in your mind, between standing in the doorway and blocking the door.”

“I don’t know what the difference is. You’re asking me these questions like I can watch it on instant replay. I haven’t seen it again, I don’t know what happened. I know what it felt like at the time, I know what it seemed like. Nolan’s a big guy, he was angry, you just have to be in the room with him to realize. . and Tony was pretty pissed off, too. I’m not sure you can blame him. I don’t really know what you’re getting at.”

“I’m not getting at anything, and I’m not blaming anybody. I leave that to the prosecution. I’m just trying to understand what happened here. That’s hard enough. But this is what it looks like to me: you’ve got two guys with a history of antagonizing each other brought together by someone with a history of miscommunicating between them.”