What No One Else Can Hear (18 page)

Kyle started his case by addressing the hardest-to-believe elements. He put me on the stand.

“Mr. McKinnon, can you explain when and where you met Stevie Liston?”

“Six years ago, in a dream. He called me to a forest in his mind.”

The entire court erupted. One of the jurors said, “Are we sure this shouldn’t be a mental competency hearing?”

The judge pounded his gavel. He’d already been given briefs from both attorneys outlining their arguments, so he knew this was coming.

Once the court was quiet again, Kyle said, “Could you explain that, please, in layman’s terms.”

“Certainly.” Then I looked at the jurors and started my tale. “Near as I can ascertain, Stevie is really an empath. He has the ability to ‘hear’ other people’s emotions. This causes him to have behaviors that closely mirror those of children with autism. The times when he acts out and self-abuses are when he is overwhelmed by others’ emotions. When he is in a trancelike state, he actually goes into his own world. A mindscape, or spirit world, if you will. His happens to look like a forest. Probably because there is a forest behind the center that he especially likes looking at.”

The courtroom got noisy again, and the judge had to intervene. This time the DA interrupted.

“Objection, Your Honor. None of this has anything to do with the point of the trial.”

The judge looked at Kyle, so he answered. “It has everything to do with it, Your Honor. Several key points of our defense rest on this information. Even if the jury doesn’t believe it, they at least need to know that Jesse and Stevie believe it.”

The judge nodded. “Overruled.”

“Mr. McKinnon, can you offer any proof that you’ve known the boy, somehow, before you ever arrived in Washington?”

“Yes, sir. Numerous people I’ve talked to about him along the way could vouch for me. Professors I’ve asked for advice about empathy, librarians who helped me research, and in one case, the brother of a lady who had similar symptoms, who was a self-proclaimed empath.” The jury seemed unimpressed. “Also, Stevie himself has been drawing beautiful pictures of me since he was four. Stevie draws well above his developmental age. Even in the very early pictures it’s obvious he’s drawing me. He captured the mole on my cheek and the scar above my eye, along with my long hair and scruffy attempt at a beard. He drew my suede jacket with every scuff and tear in place. I have photos of myself from that time, and when compared to Stevie’s early pictures, it could be no one else.”

Kyle addressed the jurors. “We’ll show the pictures themselves, as well as video of Stevie drawing them, later in the case.” He turned back to me. “And what have you been doing to try to help Stevie be less overwhelmed by the emotions of others?”

“We’ve been using visual imagery. I figured since he’s already able to build an entire forest in his head, he could build a wall if we worked on it. We use it as a shield. He sometimes needs real blocks to get the image started, or he has to draw it. But sometimes he is able to erect a wall in his mind that shuts others’ emotions out. That helps him get himself under control.”

“Objection. The witness is talking like he has documented proof that this happens in another person’s head. Complete hearsay.”

“Counselor?” The judge addressed Kyle.

“Again, Your Honor, it’s not as important for the jury to believe this is actually happening as it is for them to believe that Jesse and Stevie believe it. We’ll present video later that shows Stevie using this method, so the jurors need to know the background. But, right now I’m just establishing what Jesse believes. We’re not claiming he’s an expert witness.”

“Overruled,” the judge said, but Kyle was finished with that line of questioning anyway.

I wasn’t sure the jurors believed me, but at least we had introduced the ideas.

He then went on to rebut everything the opposition had said—until they got to the fact that I had violated the restraining order on at least two occasions. This wasn’t nearly as damaging as I had feared. It gave us an opportunity to show the video Hank had made during my phone conversation with Stevie.

The video opened with Stevie naked and clawed to pieces, sitting on the floor in his room, banging his head against the wall. Hank had taken great care to show Stevie only from the chest up, but since his knees were in the picture too, the jury got the sense that it was at least possible he was naked. Kyle stopped the video right away to note that this was another example of a time where Stevie undressed himself due to a sensitive period that made his skin itch and hurt.

Then he continued the tape. My voice could be heard coming from the phone.

“Hey, buddy. Stevie, it’s me, Bear. Can you hear me, big guy?”

Stevie looked up, confused. “Bear?” He looked around, and when he couldn’t see me, he started to get even more agitated. “Bear? Where are you?”

“Hey, buddy. I can’t be there in person right now, remember? I’m on the phone. See, Drew has the phone. That’s where I am, sport.”

“Bear! Help me!”

He looked at the phone, and consequently at the camera, with such an expression of longing that Kyle paused the tape again.

“This doesn’t look like the face of a child who is frightened of Mr. McKinnon,” Kyle commented.

“Objection,” the DA threw out. “Defense is drawing a conclusion, not just showing a video.”

“Sustained,” the judge agreed. “Just show the video, Mr. Williams. Leave the conclusions to the jury.”

“Certainly, Your Honor,” Kyle agreed, but smiled knowingly. The jury had already heard the comment and drawn their own conclusions.

Kyle restarted the tape.

“Hey, big guy. How’s your walls, bud?”

“No wall, Bear. Blocks don’t work. I can’t build one. They don’t work anymore, Bear.”

“It’s harder, buddy, but they still work. Let’s try, okay? We’ll try together.”

At the time, I hadn’t really known for sure if I would be an effective anchor for him when I was that far away, but I’d had to try.

“Okay, Bear. Together.”

“Where are your outside blocks, buddy?” I meant the bag of actual blocks he sometimes used to focus on while trying to build the one in his mind. “Who has them? Drew?”

Stevie nodded but then started banging his head again. Drew had told me what he was doing since I couldn’t see him.

“Hey, buddy, you need to stop doing that, okay? No headbanging. Slap the floor instead. Remember we’ve done that before? No headbanging, big guy.”

Stevie started slapping the floor but was rocking and obviously still very distressed. “No wall, Bear. I need my wall.” I knew Stevie was upset in his own right, in addition to all the emotion he must be feeling from the other students, and even the staff, in this stressful situation. I believed Stevie’s own emotions were largely what was keeping him from building his wall.

“I know, buddy. Okay, Drew is going to build a row of wall. Do you see him?”

He looked at Drew but started to shake his head. “No, Bear. It’s not there. There’s no row in my head. No wall.”

Drew looked at the phone, just in front of the camera. “What do I do, Jesse?”

“Keep building the wall, Drew.” And then I turned my attention back to Stevie. “Okay, let’s try again. Think real hard, big guy. We’re building layer after layer of wall. See it getting taller and taller in your mind. It’s getting harder and harder to hear all the noise in your head, right, bud?”

I heard one juror gasp and stage-whisper, “He’s hypnotizing him.”

I looked at Kyle. Surely we should stop the tape and explain. But he just let it play. I was starting to think maybe he just hadn’t heard her, but he looked at me and whispered, “Trust me.”

I could do that. I was pleased with how he had handled things so far. I turned back to the tape.

“No,” Stevie was saying, “it’s not there.”

We tried seven distinct times to build that stupid wall, but we finally got it. Once he was able to get the first row done in his head, he built the rest quickly, and on the tape, everyone could see him as he calmed down. At the time, Drew had to tell me when it was working.

“There you go, buddy. Good work,” I said on the tape.

Stevie looked at the camera with an expression of absolute adoration. “Thanks, Bear.” Kyle stopped the video. The opposing lawyer got ready to object if Kyle so much as opened his mouth to make a comment, but it wasn’t necessary. Every single juror was staring intently at that little face. Even Mr. Liston seemed somewhat moved by it. It obviously wasn’t the face of a child who was scared of me. You can’t prompt that kind of emotion in a child. You can’t scare it into him, or threaten him if he doesn’t show it. It was pure, innocent, raw emotion from a child who obviously loved me as much as I loved him, and who was incredibly grateful for the help. The jury saw that.

Kyle started the video again. “Thanks, Jesse,” Drew whispered into the phone.

“Better now, buddy?” I hadn’t been able to see him at the time.

“Good now, Bear. Scratches hurt, though.”

“Yeah, I bet they do, big guy. Can you get up and crawl in bed and let Hank or Drew put something on them?”

Hank swung the camera away until Stevie was standing, then zoomed in on his face. Drew put on some ointment that magically appeared on camera. I don’t know which of the staff brought it in. Hank kept the camera above Stevie’s waist, but took great care in documenting Drew putting the ointment on Stevie’s face and neck and upper torso, then asking him to put it on the rest of the scratches. The last thing we needed was for Drew to get charged with abuse too.

Hank didn’t move the camera, and Stevie bobbed in and out of view, but finally he looked up with a big smile and said he was finished. Drew took Stevie’s brushed flannel pajamas over to him and asked if he thought he could tolerate them now. He nodded and began to put them on. Hank kept the camera at head level, so when Stevie bent down, he disappeared out of the frame. But he eventually finished dressing, crawled into bed, and spoke to me again.

“Still there, Bear?”

“Sure thing, buddy.”

“Why can’t you be here? I need you
here
.”

“I’m working on that, bud. Remember I told you in the forest I have to talk to a judge first and see if he thinks I can be with you again?” I wouldn’t have put it past Liston to try to figure out a way to use the visits in the forest as a violation of the restraining order too, even though I was pretty sure he didn’t actually believe in them.

“Because the police officers took you away,” he said angrily.

“They were doing their job, big guy. Remember we talked about that?”

“I don’t think I want to be an officer anymore. Maybe an art person instead. No art person would take my Bear away.”

I chuckled on the phone. “Probably not, big guy, but the officers thought they had to do that to keep you safe. That’s what police officers do, buddy. Try to keep people safe.”

“But, I’m
not
, Bear. Not with you gone. The noises in my head are too loud, and they make my skin tingle and tingle until it hurts, and I try to scratch it off, but only my skin comes off, and the tingle goes deeper and deeper. When you’re here I can build the wall and it’s not so bad, but I can’t build it when you’re not here, Bear. I can’t.”

“Aw, buddy.” Everyone in the courtroom could hear the anguish in my voice. “I’m working on it just as hard as I can, Steve. I’ll be back as soon as they let me.”

Stevie erupted, angry again. “That judge is
mean
, Bear. He needs to tell you
right now
that you can come back. Why is he making me wait
so long?”

“We talked about that too, remember? Judges are
very
busy. A lot of people have to ask him things. He’s going to give us our turn just as soon as he can.”

I glanced at the judge at that point and caught a little grin. I guess he approved of how I explained that. I hadn’t realized or cared that night that the judge might actually see this, so I’m glad I didn’t say anything negative, but I had been really careful throughout this whole thing to stay as positive as possible with Stevie. Drew had said I would be justified to tell Stevie this was Chuck’s doing because he was a vindictive asshole, though he did say I shouldn’t use that word with Stevie and that I should tell him his father was getting all the mileage out of this he possibly could and the only reason he even cared was because it would have looked bad if Chuck had leaked the fact that Mr. Liston had this “evidence” of horrible child abuse and did nothing about it. Fortunately Drew didn’t say any of that on the tape.

Throughout this whole ordeal, though, I couldn’t say any of that. It wouldn’t do Stevie any good to be even angrier than he already was. So I stayed positive. Drew finally said he liked that way better. He just didn’t think he would be able to do it in the same situation.

I knew he could, though, because he was positive, and he always stayed positive around Stevie too.

The video was still going. Stevie was snuggling in bed, starting to look really tired. The doctor had given him a pill to take, and he had, though at the moment it didn’t look like he’d needed the sedative. I knew, and Kyle had explained to the jury earlier, that Stevie couldn’t control the level of sensitivity once he was asleep, so even though he was comfortable enough right then to fall asleep, he would need the sedative to
stay
asleep once the scratches and the head wound started to hurt again or any emotion on the hall leaked in to him.

“I’ll wait, Bear. But that judge better hurry up. I’m running out of skin. I’m all scratches now.” He curled up and was all but asleep. “Can I see you in the forest, Bear?”

I had known Stevie wouldn’t be meeting me in the forest that night. He couldn’t on the nights he took a sedative, but I hadn’t told him that to this day, because the doctor only prescribed the sedative when absolutely necessary, and the last thing we needed was for Stevie to refuse to take them because he wanted to meet me in the forest.

“I don’t know, buddy. But if I don’t see you there, you know I love you and I’ll see you just as soon as I can, right?”