Chapter Four
No Witnesses, But Hey, Still No Contact
“When they come, they’ll come at what ya’ love.”
--- Al Pacino in the role of Michael Corleone, Godfather III, 1990
Straight up: Dr. Herod Edinsmaier has tried – unsuccessfully – since Christmastime 1992, when the last
state district court order fell down upon us, to strike a deal for his fable with the Hollywood – based – on –
a – true – story industry.
“I saw the contract, Ma. It was for $100,000 plus 5% of somethin’. What’s that mean, 5%? It was really,
really thick. It has many, many pages,” Jesse recounted.
Zane’s voice lowered. It seemed to trail away from my ear as, in that itty bitty park with one shelter and
two picnic tables, he confirmed to me a day after I’d hooked up with Jesse, “Well, yeah, ya’ know, Ma, it
would have made you out to look like the … murderer.”
I white – knuckled the steering wheel. Jesse continued, “But you knew that, didn’t you, Ma? ‘Cuz the
movie company, they’ve been talkin’ to you about the deal, too, haven’t they, Ma? You knew that ‘cuz it’s
‘cuz of you that the deal fell through, isn’t it, Ma?”
That one ear that works was struck as if stoned. What had he been up to now? It was 08 April 1994. I
thought I could anticipate anything from him. After all, he was so predictable, Herry was. I thought there
was nothing he could do, no trick he could pull, no lie he could tell – inside or out of a courtroom even –
that I wouldn’t be prepared to learn of by now.
After all, every single evening six evenings a week for five years, I had practiced a meditative routine,
Zen – like, at my mailbox. A self – survival and protection thing Mehitable hadn’t taught me, that’s for
sure. I would drive up the street to my freezing and vacant icebox of a home and begin the deep, slow
breathing to neutralize the epinephrine surge that would begin involuntarily and daily at the top of the turn.
After the 04 October 1988 knocking knell at the door and the William Conrad – sized, but surly, private
detective, my first encounter with this genre of professional ever, had served me up the divorce papers
jacketed in their cozy periwinkle cardstock instead of my just getting them thrown through the mail slot of
the palatial 5221 Othello Drive family dwelling, this catch in my chest had swiftly gotten to be a Pavlovian
response. Swing onto Havencourt Drive – and it materialized.
So my mind had taught itself to focus on something that would emanate warmth and light, like the western
sky of the setting sun, as I continued up the block to the driveway. And by the moment that I reached into
the standard black - flap mailbox for the small bundle of envelopes there, I had then had sufficient time to
prepare for and insulate myself from the ones with letterhead return addresses of the various lawyers and
the various state district and appellate courts. When there were such letters there, I had already by now
mentally run through the worst – case scenario of what was on their pages and could detach my mind from
the physical pain that would come from actually reading then what was on the inside of such envelopes
when I finally got inside the house. This ritual occurred daily. It had to. This was the way I could take on
the hits. Except on Sundays when, of course, the mail didn’t come. Sundays were a reprieve day.
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Here I was at last, 3½ years since Saturday, 13 October 1990, since the Boys’ judicially sanctioned
abduction, here I was in Montclank, West Virginia, now, April 1994, risking it all. Whatever the ‘it’ was
that I might have even had. I mean, when I can no longer have any contact whatsoever with my kids, what
exactly is the ‘it’ I am risking now anyhow? For one clandestine meeting with my own children.
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I was so overjoyed. I had actually found one – Jesse – in training and practicing with other freshmen at the
cinder track beside the high school in an adjoining burg, Grubtrop, West Virginia. After practice we had
driven over to some park he knew of and directed me to in nearby Montclank for secrecy.
One tear silently tracking down my drawn cheek in Ol’ Black’s front seat packed to the hilt on its passenger
side. I looked through the rear – view mirror at Jesse sitting just right behind me and quietly stated out of
the clear blue, “Before I die, Jesse, I am getting this down on paper. I have to write this down. I am not
going to be dead an’ve had no way of leaving my Truth for you three to know. All you know now is what
the judges ordered and what Herry and Ms. Fannie Issicran McLive have told you. So then … you don’t
know. I have to write a book, Jesse.”
… to which, just as much out of that blue, Jesse replied, “ … Okay sure Ma, but the TV movie deal fell
through ‘cuz of you, didn’t it?”
I didn’t think there existed a maneuver of Herry’s about which I wouldn’t be prepared to learn. That is,
until Jesse’s innocent, few – word revelation about some made – for – TV film contract.
“Always prepared” now and without skipping a beat, I nonchalantly declared, while gripping the wheel to
keep from shaking and showing it, “Well, ya’ know, Jesse, those movie contracts, they’re all pretty
standard. Nothing, ya’ know, unusual now really.”
Nothing unusual? Nothing unusual?! M’god, I had just learned that this man, Dr. Edinsmaier, had been
trying to sell his soul and those of his three Boys and mine to the highest bidder! And when I, in that very
split second, realized that, it all made perfect sense. Of course, he had been. Of course, he had tried to do
this. Had tried to get more money into his life again. First, by not having to pay out child support ‘cuz
he’d gotten the kids, now a movie deal that paid fairly well. Certainly well enough to recover any previous
court and lawyer outlays. With some profits left over to boot. Of course, he had done such a thing.
After all, this is the exact same individual who had gotten clean, slick away in an American courtroom in
the third trial of this matter back in October 1992, WITHOUT CALLING ONE SINGLE WITNESS TO
THE STAND to testify for his side or on his behalf. NOT EVEN HIMSELF! And yet had managed to
maneuver ‘the court’ therefrom, the State of Iowa’s Second Judicial District Court, the far less than
‘honorable’ Judge Harley Butcher, which, of course, is the real name of ‘the Court’, to order that the Boys
and I have ABSOLUTELY NO CONTACT WITH EACH OTHER.
Obviously, it doesn’t take too many witnesses to maneuver ‘the court’ when you are a white male bigwig
pillar of a middle - class American community. Precisely like the pillars that are that same community’s
lawyers and judges. Actually, it takes exactly zero witnesses. Did you catch that? Does the incredulity of
that ‘finding of fact’ sink in to you, Reader, yet?
Why, these pillars are masterful schmoozers on the golf greens, the racquetball courts and in the steam
room Wednesday and Friday afternoons after allegedly smashing each other about first in morning sessions
on those courts that are laid out inside little American county seats. It’s their usual manner of declaring
‘respect’ for each others’ legal genius and prowess.
More money in his life, too, because this feat involved no paying off whatsoever by Dr. Edinsmaier.
He hadn’t even needed to consider doing that. Besides being messy and risky, that just wasn’t necessary.
‘The Court’, Judge Butcher, given the same set of Dr. Edinsmaier’s circumstances would have
accomplished the same thing had he been the children’s father and been pissed off by such a pussy as
obviously was the former wife of the good, good doctor’s, that piece of pussy cunt named Legion True.
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Absolutely no contact with each other. Now that is unusual, you say?
Not really. Not at all. O, sure, it was a precedent. A precedent, mind you!
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But that didn’t stop a district court, a court of appeals or a supreme court. They knew they had no need to
explain away themselves and their rulings to a peon female with absolutely no money and … no attorney.
What is she going to do? Demand an explanation of how it is that they all can, in the State of Iowa, in any
state of America, legally, let alone, morally nail her and her Boys? Yeah, right. Like, sure she is. They
just do it, no explaining, no need to.
The good doctor wants her to have no contact? The good judges, who look like they come from, which
they ‘course do, the same Pendleton wool bolt that the good doctor comes from, order up what he wants
them to. What they would want him to order up if they were in his very white, white shirt, its collar
trimmed and secured with the diamond – studded gold clip, and in his glove - snug Armani oxfords instead.
No witnesses. But, hey, still no contact Judge Butcher carved out. And so ordered.
“And you know better?” Detective Sunday queries the American Gigolo.
“Some people are above the law,” Julian Kay responds coolly.
“Well, how do these people know who they are?”
“They know. They ask themselves.”
Case closed.
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