What To Do?

He-Who-Should-Be-Slapped has a court date on Wednesday.

Some very important people have assured me that I would be kept apprised of the legal proceedings at every step of the way.  The Attorney General of the United States held my hands and promised to keep track of me.  The United States Attorney for the District of Arizona is coming to my house this week to talk about the case.  My-Guy-At-The-DOJ calls with alarming regularity, answering my questions and offering a sympathetic ear.  He tells me that his job is to be my advocate.  

I have an advocate at the Department of Justice.  

There's another sentence I never thought I would type.

I'm still not looking at the mug shot smirking back at me from the television or the newspaper.  Up until this week, when the superseding indictments were true billed by the Grand Jury, I allowed myself to think that I didn't have to care because I didn't have a stake in the pending indictments.  I wasn't named, nor was Christina-Taylor.  The whole Law'n piece could wend its merry way through the system without me.  

But then My Guy called me to tell me that he would be calling me later that afternoon or early the next morning with some news.  (I'm not kidding - I am being kept informed of every shiver and shake in this situation.)  He wouldn't tell me any details, though I tried my best to wheedle it out of him.

Will it be good news?

I think so

Is he going to plead out and make this all go away?

(long pause) I understand how you and some others could want that, but it's unlikely.  His lawyer......

And that's when I realized that resistance was futile. There is publicity to be had, a juicy story to be told, and the media would be back once more.  Lawyers would posture in front of the Federal Courthouse.  Cameras would be at every doorway.  My phone would ring - AP and Fox Radio and NBC and the Arizona Daily Star and KGUN and on and on - and everyone would want to know what I thought and how I felt and what I wanted to happen.

What I want is impossible - C-T alive and well and helping me water my containers.  My hip not held together with baling wire.  My Cuters not touched by tragedy and my life not tainted with evil.  The courts cannot give me that.

Nor can they give me peace of mind.  The world is a scarier place to me right now, and probably will be for a while.  I am physically vulnerable and emotionally uncomfortable.  Cracks in the sidewalk loom larger from my walker-hopping perspective.  Distances and dark nights have taken on a tinge of despair -- it's too far,  I'm so sad, I just .....


I just what?  I really don't know.  


The system knows, though.  I am counts 38 and 39 in Case 4:11-cr-00187-- United States of America, plaintiff vs Jared Lee Loughner, defendant.  The paperwork was filed on March 3rd, and all the players will gather at the Federal Courthouse on Wednesday to do whatever it is that the rules of criminal procedure dictate that they must do.


I don't know what it is that they must do, but it must be awfully nice to have the next step clearly outlined for you.  Life isn't being that obvious for me right now.  Not at all.


Initially, I didn't want to hear of him or look at him or know anything about him.  I shielded my eyes from his image, and friends learned to change the channel or warn me about a headline before I opened the paper.  I was protected, and nobody looked askance at me for hiding from the truth.  The truth was ugly and evil and incomprehensible -- who knows somebody who got shot? let alone who is somebody who got shot.  I can't even say it with good grammar. 

"Was shot" is probably the best example of why the passive voice is frowned upon by writing teachers.  There's a distance between the act and the telling that pushes the reader away.  It's also not true.  I am still shot; I have the scars to prove it.  On January 8th I "got shot".... the only other phrase that comes close is "took three bullets" but that's much harder to type and to look at.  And why is that?  Because I am trying to keep what happened on that sunny Saturday morning in a little box with a lock on it hidden away in the corner of my brain.  I've been concentrating on healing, and that has been enough effort for one lifetime.

Up until now, every turn, every reach, every motion had to be carefully considered.  If I went laterally, was my mid-line seam protected.  If I bent forward, was my hip centered and fixed.  Taking something over my head involved everything; it was better not attempted at all.  And don't even think about getting into bed or rolling over or being comfortable.  

But this last week has seen yet another step on my healing staircase.  For the first time in nearly 2 months I've had long periods of time where my body was not the center of my attention.  I can sleep on my side and it doesn't take 5 minutes and 2 pairs of hands to adjust the blankets and the supporting pillows.  I can put on my own socks (when I'm just out of the shower and feeling limber) and I can open the refrigerator door without feeling like I am ripping myself in two.


These are all good things, no doubt about it.  They reassure me that the end is in sight.  I have aches and tugs but I don't have pain.  I didn't think this day would ever come.


But with progress comes responsibility; I can no longer hide behind healing and deny the fact that I am a defendant in a criminal trial.  All of you, represented by Wally Kleindienst and cohorts, are going about the business of proving that an Attempted Assassination of a Member of Congress took place as did the willful murder of a child... all with a Glock 9mm semiautomatic pistol.  Somehow, compared to with premeditation and malice aforethought did unlawfully kill Gabriel M. Zimmerman my inability to read a newspaper article about the case seems awfully puerile.


With that thought in mind, I opened the paper and read the reporter's story.  I survived.  I didn't start to squirm or shake or cry.  I finished the article and turned to the rest of the local news and life went on.  I was moderately proud of myself; progress is progress, regardless of how small.


But there's the issue of this hearing on Wednesday.  It's fairly certain that I will be called to testify at some point.  We will be in the same room.  I really and truly most sincerely do not want this to happen, but I have no choice.  Since it's coming anyway, why should I put it off?  Should I start to desensitize myself to his presence?  Will that make it better or worse?  I have no memory of seeing him at Congress on Your Corner; will being in the same space awaken memories I have comfortably suppressed?


And what about the issue of participation?  I was trying to demonstrate that to Christina; am I going to let fear dictate the parameters of my citizenship?  The people of the United States are taking on my assailant.  I ought to be there to show my support.


It's a quandry, denizens.  It really is.