return that evening?” “ I went to the motel.” “ Now, which motel was that, Pony?” The confusion over the motels becomes more cloudy: one’s called The Crest, the other The Quest. Pony continues his testimony confidently. I all makes perfect sense to him. “And what happened when the defendant came to get you?” “ He s ta r te a s c re am in g at my girlfriend.” I mentally add another person to my list; the girlfriend in question at the moment is not the same one Pony had been with at the City Beat parking lot. “What did he say to her?” “ Something like, he’d cut off her ear if he ever saw her with me again.” That doesn’t particularly surprise me, at least not at this point. Already admitted as State’s exhibits are the two shotguns the defendant had in his possession at the time of his arrest, as well as the .38 caliber pistol he allegedly kept tucked Pony proceeds to ramble o f f a litany o f streetpeople, rental houses, Aurora Avenue motels, expeditions to and from Second and Madison, sex acts, drug deals, and violence. The sheer amount o fgoingfrom place to place over a period o f only days seems mind- boggling. behind his waistband. One of the shotguns, Pony has told us, the defendant used to break open a locked door to a room occupied by his girlfriend—the defendant’s girlfriend, that is. The defendant beat her up that night. I’ ll learn more about her during deliberation, when I’ ll read the letters from her that were stuffed in the defendant’s billfold. There were several of those letters, postmarked over a two or three month period. The girlfriend had penned them during her breaks as a nightclub dancer. In each were the words, “ I know I had it coming,” or “ I really deserved it,” always followed by “ I’m your woman” and “ I love you.” But that no longer shocked me either; by then the trial had inured me to such rituals. “ You said you were afraid of the defendant, isn’t that right?” the defense atto rn e y a sks Pony upon c ro s s - examination. “Yes,” says Pony. “ But isn’t it true ,” The defense attorney continues, his voice rising in calculated disbelief, “ that after you’d left the defendant you phoned him the next night to bail you out of jail?” Pony pauses. “Yes,” he admits. “ If you were so afraid, why’d you call him to come get you?” The defense attorney sneers in contempt. They’re all willing participants in this sordid affair, he seems to be telling us, witnesses and defendant alike. Don’t single out his client for special treatment—they’ re all scum. The trial lasts four days. We deliberate for a day-and-a-half, the first few hours of which we devote to wading through the State’s evidence. I've never handled guns before, but there’s something about these—the tarnished metal, the worn handles—that tells me they're cheap and secondhand. The defendant’s intravenous drug kit—his outfit—is in an imitation-leather pouch. I open it and spill the contents onto the table: three hypodermic syringes, a razor blade, a plastic bag containing cotton swabs, and a bent stainless-steel spoon with a sticky brown residue in its bowl. The next night, after we’ve reached a verdict and have gone home, I’ ll hear on the late news that it’s the anniversary of another court decision. As I watch the coverage of a Right-to-Life group staging a protest rally in commemoration of Wade vs. Roe, I’ ll think of my own past few days in court. I’ ll recall one of the motel rooms Pony described. The one where Kenny stayed, and Baby Spike and Lauri. And Lauri’s baby. Writer John Frank lives in Kirkland, Washington. This is his first story in CSQ. A la zo t - czA itzo logy - A Alzin^ A^zLuats. A o u n i A & f ^ z o Rosemary Ardis 3819 SE Belmont Portland, OR 97214 ( 5 0 3 ) 2 3 8 - 1 6 0 4 Clinton St. Quarterly—Winter, 1987 29
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