When I was eighteen and my sister was sixteen, my views of the law, justice system, and my father changed dramatically. When he passed the Bar, he worked for a few more years with my grandfather gaining experience, but ultimately decided that he wanted to be a state prosecutor. Living in Harlem, we saw so much poverty and crime that my dad thought the best way he could help would be to get the criminals off the street. For the most part, he loved his job. Until that day. The day that is still etched into my mind. The day that horrified me to the point that to this date, I can still hear the agony in my dad’s voice. The reason I dropped out of law school and never looked back.

  Nobody - not my parents, sisters, or closest friends - know the real reason why I dropped out. They all think that I couldn’t hack it. They think I just wanted to party or have open access to pussy. They don’t know the nightmares I experience. They don’t know the lengths that I have gone through to try to forget what I heard. What I visualize. What anger I feel.

  So, let’s go back those twelve years again, to when I was eighteen, and see if you agree with me. I had actually just turned eighteen and it was the summer before my senior year, and I was working at my grandfather’s firm, making a little extra spending money as well as gaining experience for when it would be time to apply to law schools.

  It was after 6:00 pm by the time I got home, and I was exhausted. I climbed the stairs to my bedroom, needing to pass the master suite in order to get there. My parents are rarely home before 7:00 pm, so I was surprised when I heard them speaking softly. I was just about to burst into their room when I turned the corner and heard an angry growl. When I realized that it was my father, whom I had never once heard raise his voice, I was frozen in place. My heart sank, and my mind was coming up with a thousand different scenarios as to what could possibly be that horrible. I did a mental check of all of my family members and they were all alive and healthy, so it couldn’t be that. Maybe he lost his job? Nah, that wouldn’t cause him to act that way. Maybe someone is sick? Oh my god! Is my sister ill? My mother?

  Knowing that I shouldn’t be eavesdropping on my parents, I tried to move past their room quickly and quietly so that they didn’t know I was there, but even though my brain told me to move, my feet just were not listening. I continued to stand there, stuck, listening to the most horrific story. It was so bad that I had actually convinced myself that he was talking about a movie. Certainly, nothing like that could happen in real life. I was so fucking wrong, so naïve, but it wasn’t actually confirmed until I hit law school. The reason I dropped out. The reason I refuse to practice law. The reason I opened a “sex” club.

  My dad’s head was in his hands, hunched over his lap, elbows on his knees. My mom sat wordlessly, just rubbing his back soothingly. “We have a legal system, but certainly not a justice system,” my dad whispered. I heard those words repeatedly in my dad’s tortured raspy voice for weeks after. Waking me in the middle of the night, a cold sweat covering my teenage body. Shaking from the reality of what happened to that girl. To her father. The nightmares came less and less, coming fewer and farther apart, but I would be lying if I told you that it doesn’t happen anymore. I can’t imagine what they had to live through, what she has to live through.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” my mom asked gently. He took in a deep breath, but then shook his head “no.” I let out a quick rush of air, not realizing that I myself was holding my breath. Do I really want to know? I kept asking myself, but curiosity got the best of me. I slid down the wall as gently as possible and took a seat. At eighteen, I was already maxed out at 6’5”, but I sat there, awkwardly, my arms leaning on bent knees, hoping he would change his mind. I was surprised when he began to open up.

  “She was just a young girl, about the same age as Carla. I would have done the same thing.” My dad started, but got angry again. He was ranting and raving and all I could hear over his exasperation was my mom consoling him. I rubbed my hand into my chest absentmindedly. My heart breaking at the pain in my dad’s voice. A minute or so later he continued.

  “The victim. She was only sixteen when it happened – less than a year earlier. We had an eyewitness and irrefutable evidence, so the case was fast-tracked, and the trial was this morning. I wasn’t the lead prosecutor, but it was my responsibility to do the direct examination on the sole witness – her father.” He stopped again and took a few deep breaths. I leaned closer to the door to see what was going on since I didn’t hear him speaking anymore. Hearing it is one thing, watching the pain in his face was what tipped me into a place I never came back from.

  He looked into my mom’s eyes when he began to speak again. “She was a sophomore in high school, dating the star basketball player, the defendant, DeShawn Jackson. He was a senior at the time, already eighteen, already an adult, should have known better. The same age as Calvin.” He stopped again, bowing his head, shaking it side to side. I think he was thinking about Carla and me.

  “According to her, he came over to her house that afternoon to study. Her parents were both at work, so they were alone. I don’t want you to have to think about this, so without going into details, I will just tell you this. Before he came over, she was a virgin. She no longer holds that virtue.” My mom gasped, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. Bile started rising into my throat, my eyes welled unshed tears for a girl I never met. It could have been Carla, and I thought I was going to vomit on the spot.

  “Believe it or not, that wasn’t the worst of it,” he said. His eyes were pleading with my mom, as though he had no desire to finish this story, but she nodded her head, pretty much asking him to continue.

  My dad took another deep breath, and with a shaky voice, continued. “As fate would have it, her father came home early from work that day. Little did he know that when he climbed those stairs to his little girl’s room, the rest of their lives would be shattered. According to her father, the sole witness I was examining on the stand, he heard his daughter scream ‘no’ a few times. At first, he thought it was the TV, but when he realized that it was her voice, he bounded up the stairs as quickly as he could, bursting through her door. What he saw…” my dad choked out. I took a quick peek around the doorframe and tears were streaming down his face. My mother was now bawling. “…what he saw he can never un-see. His little girl being mauled by this disgusting waste of human flesh.” I wrapped my arms around my stomach trying not to hurl. I desperately wanted to hear how this ended. Of course, the girl got justice, right?

  “What happened, Cal? Did you nail his ass to the wall?” my mom asked, never one to mince words. She may be a professional woman, a doctor, but she isn’t afraid to tell it like it is.

  My dad patted her on the leg. “Give me a minute, dear. This is not easy for me. The worst is still to come.” I leaned back against the wall, my head thumping just hard enough to sting, but not loud enough to draw attention to myself. Thank god Carla isn’t here to hear this.

  “He beat the shit out of the asshole.” My dad let out a chuckle, but it was laced with sadness. So that’s what he meant when he said he would have done the same thing. Then he laid the bomb on us. Well, on my mom, they still had no idea I was listening in. “He beat him to an inch of his life for raping his little girl, and this morning, after DeShawn’s trial was over – and he was sent to prison - I had the repulsive job of prosecuting the father for aggravated battery. With his little girl watching from the gallery. I can barely stand myself. There is no way I can look at myself in the mirror.” His head lowered in shame and I almost puked on the spot.

  I couldn’t take another word. Through sheer reflex, my body moved faster than I knew it could, and before I knew it, I was in my bathroom, vomiting the entire contents of my stomach. Then I vomited again even though there was nothing left in there. I dry heaved a few more times, before crawling into my bed. I grabbed my pillow like it was my only life preserver, smashed it into my face, and screamed every obscenity that I knew. And that was many considering I lived in Harlem. Then, I did the most natural thing, I cried like a baby. For hours. That was the last time I ever shed a tear. And it was for a girl that I never knew, or would ever know. I wonder what ended up happening to her father? To this day, nobody knows that I heard that conversation.

  Needless to say, my dad quit his job with the prosecutor’s office that day and became the second King on the letterhead. But they still live in that same house, still trying to do some good.

  I was still convinced that law school was the right place for me. So after graduating that year, I moved to the City to attend Columbia University, and subsequently Columbia Law – where I met my boys, Nick and Parker. I thought I could change the legal system, right all of the wrongs. Until the semester that I took Criminal Law. Until I was assigned my case to brief for class the next morning. Until I saw it in black and white. It was no longer just a story. I didn’t want to exist in that reality, where there is a legal system, but no justice. I closed my Criminal Law textbook, and never went back.

  Charlotte

  “We, the Jury, find the Defendant…Guilty.”

  The first time I heard that statement, relief washed over me. I felt like I was able to breathe again. I may have even been happy. I think I cracked a smile for the first time in almost a year. The second time I heard it, is a completely different story. My mom was holding onto me so tightly, I could barely breathe. She was rocking back and forth, whimpering and mumbling under her breath. No, No, No, this can’t be. My brother sat on the other side of me, tears sliding down his face. I grabbed his hand and squeezed, reassuring him that he was not alone.

  Numb. That’s all I felt. Then came the disbelief. And lastly, anger. How could they find my dad guilty? He was protecting me. Defending me. Saving my life. But the law doesn’t see it that way. The law is objective, free of emotion. Fuck that! I was a sixteen-year-old girl; don’t tell me to be free of emotion.

  When I finally got the courage to look at my father, he was staring back at me. Adoringly. Huh?

  “I would do it again in a heartbeat,” he mouthed to me.

  “I love you,” was the only response I could muster. I felt so guilty. This was all my fault.

  Seconds later, my dad’s public defender – who looks like he was still in high school, by the way - shot up from his chair and shouted to the Judge, “The defense requests a Judgment notwithstanding the verdict!” What the hell is that? I looked at my mom and she shrugged her shoulders, my dad looked just as bewildered, and I chanced a glance at the prosecutor, and he had sort of a smile going on. Again, I asked, what the hell was going on? I reached for my mom’s phone and turned it on as quickly as possible so I could do some research. I Googled that notwithstanding term that I heard the public defender use, and landed on Wikipedia. “… is the practice in American courts whereby the presiding judge in a civil jury trial may overrule the decision of a jury and reverse or amend their verdict. In literal terms, the judge enters a verdict notwithstanding the jury findings. This intervention, often requested but rarely granted, permits the judge to exercise discretion to avoid extreme and unreasonable jury decisions…”

  Rarely granted. That’s the only term my brain was able to focus on. That’s probably why the prosecutor was smiling. The Judge took a deep breath and started to speak.

  “You know, Mr. Public Defender (there is no reason to give him a name because that’s all I ever called him), I realize that you are a little new at this, being that you are only out of law school for a few months, so I am going to give you a little safety rope. Try not to hang yourself with it.”

  “Yes, Sir,” the public defender responded. I saw sweat forming on his upper lip. If my nerves weren’t already shot, I would have been freaking out even more than I already was.

  “A JNOV applies solely to civil cases. We have just heard the verdict from the jury of a criminal trial.” The Judge looked pointedly at the public defender, as if he was trying to hint at something without actually saying it.

  All of the sudden, the public defender’s face lit up and he shot from his seat. “The defense motions this Court to Set Aside the Judgment!”

  “Interesting, Counselor. You do realize that a Motion to Set Aside the Judgment is similar to a JNOV in that it is rarely, if ever, granted?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. But if there were any case in which I thought granting it would be appropriate, this would be it. I wouldn’t request it unless I was absolutely confident that you would agree.”

  The Judge spoke again, this time addressing the prosecutor. “How about you, Mr. King? What’s your take on this?”

  I held my breath. I think. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. My mom was gripping onto my arm so hard, her nails digging in so deeply that she drew blood. It was an out of body experience to say the least. At the same exact time, the entire courtroom turned to look at Mr. King.

  He stood, buttoned his suit jacket, and smiled again. “I have no objection, Your Honor.”

  There was a collective gasp amongst the entire courtroom, including the court reporter who was typing away on her stenography machine. Then there was silence. Dead silence. All I heard was my heart beating in my ears.

  The Judge cleared his throat. Was he really going to do this? Was he going to overturn the jury’s guilty verdict? My cynical and completely jaded mind said no. He was a silver haired, middle-aged white man. Probably part of some men’s club. Golfing with his other snooty buddies then dining at “the club” with a cigar in one hand and a whisky in the other. My dad’s a middle-aged, working-class, black man who beat the shit out of a young kid. We are screwed.

  “This is very unorthodox. In my twenty years on the bench, I have never granted a Motion to Set Aside a Judgment. Certainly not one in which the Prosecutor didn’t try to vehemently oppose.” He paused again, and I wanted to kill him. “Just spit it out,” I wanted to scream at him.

  He leaned back in his reddish-brown leather executive chair and steepled his fingers. “What you did, Mr. Fisher, was illegal. You are not permitted to put your hands on another person, unless your life is in grave danger, and you certainly are not permitted to beat him to this degree. I am a Judge, and my job is to objectively enforce the law.” He paused again. Shoot me!

  After that little speech, I was completely deflated. There was no way that he was going to let my dad off the hook.

  “HOWEVER…”

  My mom and I looked at each other in the eyes and didn’t look away. We couldn’t risk the earth shattering disappointment.

  “…I am also a husband, father, and grandfather. And if I would have been in your shoes that day, Mr. Fisher, I would have been on trial for murder, not battery; therefore, I find myself torn. I cannot condone what you did. Violence begets violence, and it is never the answer.”

  I finally broke eye contact with my mom and peered at the Judge. He was looking back and forth between the prosecutor and the public defender. “Don’t get any ideas here boys; this will most likely never happen again.”

  “No, Sir,” they both responded in unison.

  What the hell just happened? Was the prosecutor fighting for us, too?

  “With that being said…”

  The whole courtroom again collectively turned to face the Judge. Eyes wide as saucers, I didn’t want to blink in case I missed it.

  The Judge picked up his gavel. “Request for the Motion to Set Aside the Judgment …Granted! Mr. Bron Fisher, you are free to go. Court is adjourned.”

  The last thing I heard was his gavel…BAM BAM BAM…before I fainted.

  A bit more Charlotte…

  Nothing was ever the same after that day. Bron and I became inseparable. When he wasn’t at work, we would do everything together. He was my father, my best friend, and my hero.

  The whole rape/trial ordeal wreaked havoc on my social life. The kids at school pretty much tortured me every day. They accused me of lying, being a whore, and bringing down their star basketball player. The “nice” girls were mean, and the “mean” girls became intolerable. Thank goodness, it was almost summer vacation.

  My parents were sympathetic to the torment they saw me going through. They also understood that I could never feel safe in that house again. I had been sleeping in Tommy’s room with him since it all happened because I was afraid of being alone in a dark room. Knowing that we could no longer live there, the summer before my senior year of high school, my mom and dad decided it was time for a change of scenery and moved us to Brooklyn. It may not have been a cross-country move like last time, but it still felt a world away.

  Two life-altering events happened that summer. Well, three if you count DeShawn’s trial. Crap, four if your count my dad’s trial. Anyway, first, I met my best friend in the entire world, Delilah Sampson. We have gotten each other through a lot of shit. From bullying to cheating exes to her mom’s sudden death, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for that girl. And other than my family, she is the only person in my new life that knows what happened to me, in full detail.

  Second, I decided that Charlotte Miller no longer existed. I spent the first sixteen years of my life honoring my biological father. I am going to spend the rest of my life honoring my hero, my father, Bron Fisher. So, I officially, legally, and excitedly, changed my name to Charlotte Fisher. But I go by Charlie. Only Charlie. Not Charlotte. Never Charlotte. Charlotte was destroyed in my bedroom that afternoon. Charlie is who is left - wearing a sarcasm fueled, kick ass, take no prisoners, big girl panty wearing, yet still very vulnerable, protective mask. Take it or leave it.

  Chapter One

  Calvin

  I never thought that I would see the day. Family and friends are gathered here at my club - Club Masquerade - tonight in celebration of my best friend, Nick Santino, and his girl, Delilah Sampson’s engagement. Not that I never thought I would ever see him engaged, but rather, I never thought I would see friends and family gathered together. In my club. Without masks. You see, Club M is an exclusive club that you can only attend by invitation or through a very extensive background check. Once approved, the rules of the club are very strict. Anonymity is paramount, therefore, everyone must be masked, and nobody is allowed to speak. So you can see why being surrounded by an unmasked, boisterous crowd could throw me for a loop. Throw my family into the mix, and this is sorta fucked up. In my opinion.