The Thirst for Justice

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Early September is one of my favorite times of the year in the mid-Atlantic; the weather simmers down, school crossing guards smile at you on your morning commute, the early mornings and late nights greet you with gentle gusts of air that whisper “don’t forget to leave home without a sweater.”

The city exhales.

Because the summer heat and humidity is suffocating. The stickiness of sunblock combined with sweat is downright unpleasant and staying hydrated becomes a part-time seasonal job somewhere between a camp counselor and lifeguard.

I have a temperamental relationship with heat. It reminds me of the year I lived in Austin, Texas, from July 2017 to August 2018. I still mourn a part of my youthful innocence that languished, fried, dried up, and died there.

9 years ago in the early days of September, something happened there. Something life-altering, dreadful, haunting. A violent sex crime.

I have processed the topic exhaustively in therapy and written about it to the point where the amount of tears I have cried is likely equivalent to the amount of ink I have emptied onto the page. I am lucky to have relationships in which I can speak openly about trauma; relationships where the people who love me have come to understand this particular life event by a phrase that requires no further explanation: What happened in Texas.

They know what I mean. And every September, when the heat begins to subside the memories flood in because my body remembers.

There are also memories of Texas that fill my heart with joy.

I moved there for a job opportunity at Rawson Saunders School and to this day, I consider it one of the best jobs I have ever had. I worked 1-on-1 with elementary students with dyslexia, teaching them reading skills so they could find their way into words, sentences, and books. I was guiding them to read the words so they could better read the world.

The community, faculty, parents, and students were best-in-class. They practiced a standard of excellence I didn’t know existed.

I met genuine, salt-of-the-earth people there whom I admire, people I respect, people who showed me kindness without limits. People who reminded me that goodness exists in the world because they embodied it. I have friends from Texas I have kept in touch with for years. They have full, healthy, fruitful lives, and I am grateful that our paths crossed.

Texas gave me some of the best people I have ever known. Texas gave me one of the worst experiences of my entire life. Both of those statements can be true.

Rawson Saunders was a safe place for me; a personal sanctuary. In December 2019, after spending more than 90 minutes on the witness stand enduring grueling questioning, it was the first place I went. The crime happened more than two years earlier in September 2017. A few weeks later #MeToo became a cultural earthquake.

When I returned to Rawson Saunders, I wasn’t a witness. I was a teacher.

The trial still didn't produce a verdict.

The squeaky wheels of justice turn slowly. In the system that currently exists, there is no oil to be applied to the rickety, brittle machine on which it functions with painful friction.

The odds are stacked extraordinarily high against victims of sexual violence. The fact that the case made it to trial was a statistical improbability.

The Enliven Project helps visualize the narrow funnel. Of every 1,000 rapes, approximately 100 are reported, 30 reach trial, and 10 result in incarceration.

These figures have limitations and are not a precise accounting of every case. The larger point is difficult to ignore: the majority of sex crimes never make it into a courtroom.

The case that eventually went to trial was built from a series of encounters with the justice system and the people who helped navigate it. The heroes on the witness stand included me; the friend who received my first outcry; the police officer; the detective who investigated the case; and the nurse examiner who conducted the forensic examination at SAFE’s Eloise House.

Legally, I was a witness. I was also the victim. But that word doesn’t sound right.

I choose the word survivor.

The investigation uncovered another woman who had filed a police report against the perpetrator. I will call her Z.

Z was 19 when he found her intoxicated and trapped her in a bathroom. Her experience was separate from mine, and her case ultimately fell apart due to the inability to move forward because of the lack of evidence.

Her case revealed a wide gap in the justice system. Because her case had been dismissed, it could not be introduced in the prosecution. The law offers protections against evidence that could be considered prejudicial to the character of the accused.

The justice system had a mechanism to protect the offender so the jury wouldn’t hear the story of an affected woman, and perhaps other unidentified women. Somehow I was the one woman who was the one to tell my story in open court.

On the day of the trial, Z was there with her mother. I remember looking at her and knowing she understood.

The jury was deadlocked, and the judge declared a mistrial. The eventual outcome came at the end of January 2020 when he pleaded guilty to assault. He served no time behind bars and was not required to register as a sex offender.

A painful realization materialized in the moments after the trial ended.

Two women, the jury foreperson and another juror approached me. They asked if they could hug me. I said yes.

One of the women recognized Z’s mother, who had been sitting in the courtroom. She asked her why she was there.

Z’s mother answered, “My daughter was raped by this man.”

The woman looked at me wide-eyed and looked at Z.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” she said,

“We failed.”

That week in Austin I saw a mural painted in Spanish: NOS QUITARON EL MIEDO which translates to, “They made us less afraid.”

I took a photo of the mural because after all that, I did feel less afraid.

When I reflect on my experience in Texas, I think about a lot of things. Late-night frito pies, irreversible sun damage, Terry Black’s juicy brisket, diving boards in Barton Springs, disco lights at Barbarella, the warmth of new friendships, the El Arroyo Taco sign, the bats under the Congress bridge, Ellsworth Kelly’s Chapel at the Blanton Museum of Art, and my students’ brave attempts writing cursive.

I wasn’t a Lone Star out there. I had people who helped me swim when I thought I would drown. In a place that was as hot as it would feel to enter the devil’s door to hell, there were angels offering tall glasses of lemonade.

The pricks from the thorns of my time there have left scars. But a cactus survives because it has learned how to survive in scarcity.

Do you think tears alone could keep a cactus alive?

Because damn, I’ve shed so many of them. But I can acknowledge they’ve helped me grow.

Suffering is not necessary for growth. I would have chosen a different way to become the woman I am. Alas, I am here, still vibrant, curious, tender. Still capable of joy, uncontrollable laughter, and waking up excited for the day.

Violence does not get the final word.

I have learned that resilience comes from living life to the fullest, by allowing yourself to feel your emotions like water finding its way from the sky to the ground.

Water is softly powerful.

My resilience is like water because strength is not about being unbreakable it’s about remaining in motion; flowing, becoming.