“Your honor. That isn’t right. He’ll have to file like the rest of us did.” The judge leaned back in his chair and seemed to be thinking as Jefferies continued. “Besides, we can’t repute his claim or his charges against this nice family.”
“You saying you want to throw your hat in with this man? You know what will happen if he were to lose, don’t you? You’d not be able to come back on him or the nice family over there.” He made it sound as if he didn’t believe they were any nicer than they were telling the truth. But the man, Donnie James, said he wasn’t worried. Just as he sat down, handing a file to his attorney, another man stood up and asked the same thing.
After the third man stood up and was given permission to join Mitch’s side of the table, the judge asked how many more there were that were going to come along for the ride. Roger, his own attorney, stood up and cleared his throat. The judge grinned, but Mitch was beginning to worry about this.
“In here, sir, there are nine more men.” He asked him what he meant by in here. “There are about a dozen or so more out in the hall. There wasn’t enough room for them all to come in, your honor.”
“So you’re saying that you now have over two dozen men that want to be a part of the suit against the Bruces in the same venue as this man here?” Roger nodded and asked to approach. “If you tell me that you’re part of the alleged abuse, I’m going to be highly pissed off, just so you know.”
“No, sir, I’m not. But I do have affidavits from each man, with dates and hospital records as well. They were nice enough to bring them with them today, as I had no knowledge of their coming forward.” The judge just cocked a brow at him, but neither of them said more. As they stood there, staring at each other, Mitch looked over at the Bruces. He wondered how many others they might have abused in the name of whatever the fuck was going through their minds at the time.
They were squirming. Not only that, but arguing as well. Carol looked like she was telling her husband to go on with this, there was no way they could lose, but Mark was saying no way. Their attorney, Jefferies, put his hands on both their shoulders and told them to wait. The judge picked up his gavel when the room started to erupt in voices again.
“Now see here. You want me to clear this room?” No one answered him, and the room was suddenly quiet. “Good. I’d like as many people as we can get in here to see this. This is...this has got to be the worst case of work for the system as I have ever seen.”
After turning to the bailiff and telling him to bring in the rest of the men, no one said a word, but Mitch was thinking this was going to be disastrous. As they came in, one by one handing a file to Roger, they lined up around the back of the room all the way to the front. There were more than five dozen men standing around the room.
“Your honor, I had no idea.” The judge only nodded and asked to see the files. Making two trips to the dais, Roger gave the judge the files and then asked for them to wait. He had looked over a few of them when Jefferies finally spoke.
“Your honor?” The judge told him to wait. “Your honor, my client would like to see this trial ended. There is no proof whatsoever that what these men are claiming is even real.”
“I’m thinking you might want to shut your trap and let me read here. And as for proof, I’m looking at some pretty damaging proof right here.” The judge said a name, and the man stepped forward. “You claim that you have a video of the alleged rape from the Bruces. You have it here?”
“I do, your honor. I wasn’t sure if it would help or not, but I did make a couple of copies. The night this was taken was...I was eleven, sir. And I had only been with them for a few days when I found this cell phone on one of my trips to the yard.” He asked him what he meant by that. “Daily, sir, they would take us to the yard, hose us off, and give us a bottle of dish detergent. Then they’d hit us with the water to make it so that we’d be—”
“They were fucking nasty.” When Mark stood up and screamed at the judge, no one made a sound, not even his lawyer. Mitch could hear Vinnie laughing in his head, but was too shocked to see what she thought was so funny. “Do you have any idea how smelly they were every day? There was no way I wanted them in my bathroom to piss, much less to shower.”
“You made them do their business outside too?”
Before Jefferies could tell him to sit down and shut up, Mark answered the judge. “You bet I did. And they’d have taken their meals out there too if...if....” He seemed to have realized in that moment what he was saying. He paused long enough to let a mask—and that was what it looked like—seem to fade over his entire body. “I’ve been ill lately, dealing with all of this. You’re going to have to forgive me of my ramblings. Sometimes I say things that aren’t true. Like this.”