Рейчел Кушнер - The Mars Room

“You will not take the stand,” he said.

What those twelve people knew was that a young woman of dubious moral character—a stripper—had killed an upstanding citizen, a veteran of the Vietnam War who had sustained a job-related injury and was permanently disabled. Because there was a kid present, they tacked on a charge of child endangerment. Never mind that it was my child, and the person endangering him was Kurt Kennedy.

Johnson’s lawyer had tried to convince me to take a plea. I refused. I knew how the system worked, at least vaguely. Most cases never went to trial because prosecutors scared defendants into taking pleas, and lawyers encouraged that route for their own reasons of not wanting to lose a case. My situation was different. It had circumstances. Anyone who was there and knew the history would have understood what happened, and why, although no one was, or did.

What I didn’t realize, at the time, was that most people took pleas because they did not want to spend their life in prison.

I never thought of him as my own lawyer. He was always Johnson’s, even as I never knew Johnson or thought about what happened to him; he was just another body jammed through the system, a Johnson of thousands. Still, I liked Johnson. His girlfriend’s mother was a sheriff and to hell with anyone who questions that.

In court, Johnson’s lawyer kept saying, “Strike that,” after half his sentences, “Strike that.” Maybe it was normal. I didn’t know. But every time he said it, my heart sank.

The jury did not learn what Kurt had done to me, the tireless stalking, the waiting, the following, the calling, the calling again, the surprise appearances. None of it was to be spoken of in court. What the jury knew was that a tire iron was used (People’s Exhibit #89). That the victim had been sitting in a patio chair when he received the first blow (People’s Exhibit #74), and that he had been heard crying out for help (Witness #17, Clemencia Solar).

How many autopsies have you performed, the prosecutor asked the coroner, his first witness.

“More than five thousand, sir.”

“How many with head trauma?”

“Hundreds, I’d estimate.”

The coroner located and pointed out in photographs two fatal wounds. The declared cause of death was severe cranial cerebral trauma. The coroner noted that Mr. Kennedy seemed to have vomited up a large amount of blood on the defendant’s porch.

“How many impacts did Mr. Kennedy’s head receive?” the prosecutor asked.

“At least four. Possibly five.”

“Would there have been a fair amount of pain for Mr. Kennedy, receiving these injuries?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Are these other injuries on his arms and hands typical when someone is trying to defend himself?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“Isn’t it true that a person in his mid-fifties will require less force to fracture the skull than someone much younger?” This was asked by Johnson’s lawyer, on cross-examination.

“I suppose so, but—”

“Objection. Hypothetical.”

“Sustained.”

The prosecutor called one of my other neighbors as a witness. Clemence Solar would say anything to get attention, such as tell them she heard Kurt cry out for help. She was a liar. A witness for the defense, a guy named Coronado, lived one house over from Clemence. He and I had never had a conversation. He only spoke Spanish and I only speak English. I remembered seeing him out there working on cars. Once, a car that belonged to him leaked an entire tank of gasoline onto the street, and another neighbor yelled at him. He had told the police he’d seen Kurt Kennedy pull up on his motorcycle, park, and wait. He heard arguing and was sure that what happened was self-defense. That was the plan. Johnson’s lawyer had interviewed him and the man was agreeable. He would provide testimony.

“Mr. Coronado has bench warrants in San Bernardino County,” the prosecutor told the judge. “He’s had a series of DUIs over the years, and has done mandatory treatment.”

An interpreter translated for the witness, my witness, my neighbor, Mr. Coronado, who turned to the judge and spoke. The interpreter translated.

“Your Honor, I want to clear this up right now. I’m ready to clear it up. I will do whatever is necessary.”

The judge and a court clerk consulted loudly about the man’s warrant, and which court took walk-ins, or didn’t.

“Sir, your legal troubles are in San Bernardino County. You’ll have to take it up with them. It’s Friday and they don’t take walk-ins today. Go there on Monday morning.”

The man spoke again, seeming not to have absorbed what the interpreter told him.

“Your Honor, I’m ready. I will pay the fees and serve the time. I want to clear this up right now. I’m ready, Your Honor. I want to clear this up.”

That was our witness. A man who wanted to help me, but couldn’t.

On the day of closing arguments, Johnson’s lawyer seemed drunk. He shouted at the jury and stomped his foot. He addressed them in a scolding voice as if they, the jury, had done something wrong. The jury didn’t want anything to do with him, or me. They completed a form and handed it to the judge. There are two boxes on the form. The foreman checked one.

Children must be supervised, quiet, and behaved at all times, or guardians will be asked to remove them from the visiting area

Inmates cannot handle vending machine cards

Vending machines do not accept cash. You must buy a prepaid card in Visitor Processing

Cards cost five dollars. Two dollars and fifty cents will be returned if your card is in reusable condition

Inmates can stand no closer than three feet from vending machines

One short hug is acceptable at the beginning of your visit, and one very brief hug at the end of the visit. No sustained bodily contact or the visit will be terminated

Holding hands is sustained contact and not tolerated

No high fives

No hands under the table during your visit. Visitors and inmates must keep hands where officers can see them at all times

No hands in pockets

No yelling

No raised voices

No arguments

No “horse play”

No loud laughing or boisterousness

Keep crying to a minimum

The road to Stanville prison is straight. It goes toward the mountains, which can be seen from the main yard on low-smog days. In winter their caps are dusted white. The snow is far away. It never falls on the valley floor where Stanville is. We see those caps of white through the baked layers of valley air. The snow is as remote to us as home.

Only people who should be on the road to Stanville are on that road. The morning of our arrival, no one was on it but us. The road was lined on both sides by almond orchards. I would not have known what was growing, or cared, except that Laura Lipp was awake and talking again, and she said what they package as almonds are not real almonds, but instead poisonous fruit seeds, did I know, and that one of her children had almost died from eating them.

“You ever split open a peach pit?” Laura Lipp said. “That’s where they come from. They aren’t actual almonds. They’re the poisonous part of a peach. A neighbor once gave my kid some without asking me first and if it weren’t for the paramedics she would have killed him.”

“ You killed him,” a woman behind us said.

I felt a wave around me, people tsking in disgust.

White women in prison have two crimes, baby killer or drunk driving. Of course they have many more crimes, but those are the stereotypes, which help to impose an order among the women, the races.