The Case Against William by Mark Gimenez

in the debates among the candidates for governor. So the D.A.
pressed forward with the case. His only hope for conviction was to break
Bradley's fiancée on the stand.
    Sarah
Barnes was cute and Christian. She wore a cross on a chain around her neck and
swore to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so
help me God" and meant it. She sat in the witness chair. Frank asked a
few preliminary questions regarding her relationship with the defendant, and
then he asked the only question that mattered.
    "Sarah,
was Bradley Todd with you at your apartment from six P.M. on the night of Saturday, October the eighth of last
year through the following Sunday morning?"
    "Yes,
sir."
    "No
further questions."
    The
D.A. attacked.
    "Ms.
Barnes, did Bradley tell you that he had had sex with Rachel that same
afternoon?"
    "No, sir."
    "So
he lied to you?"
    "He
didn't tell me. But, yes, that's the same as a lie."
    "He
betrayed you."
    "Yes."
    "But
you still love him?"
    "Yes."
    "Even
though he lied to you and betrayed your love?"
    "Yes."
    "Why?"
    "He's
a good man. Or he'll be a good man when he becomes a man."
    "He's
six feet eight inches tall. He's not a man?"
    "No.
He's just a big boy who happens to be able to play a silly game called
basketball. Which, for some reason I don't get, makes him very attractive to
college girls. Look at him—does he look like Brad Pitt? No, he does not. But
girls, they'll drop their shorts for him—for any of the players—any time. I
feel sorry for them."
    "The
players?"
    "The
girls."
    "For
girls who've had sex with Bradley?"
    "Yes. I pray for them."
    "Why?"
    "Because
they need something. Something he can't give them."
    "What's
that?"
    "Love."
    "And
you think he loves you?"
    "I know he does. But he's just a twenty-year-old boy. I'm
going to stick with him because when he grows up, he'll be a fine
forty-year-old man. He'll be a fine father. And a fine doctor."
    She
turned to the jurors; her eyes did not waver.
    "Bradley
was home with me that night. All night. I swear to God."
    The
all-white jury acquitted Bradley Todd.
    Truth
of the matter, Bradley Todd was a wholesome, clean-cut white boy who said
"yes, ma'am" and "no, sir." His alibi witness was a pretty
white Christian girl. If Bradley had been a tattooed black gangbanger with
dreads who said "yo" and " 'ho" and whose body was covered
with tattoos and whose pants sagged below his butt and whose alibi witness was
a drug-addicted hooker, they'd have sent his ass to prison in a heartbeat.
Frank knew that. But he also knew that Bradley Todd was innocent.
    William
sat in his room watching pro football on TV. The playoffs. Not the Dallas
Cowboys. They had missed the playoffs again. He imagined himself wearing the
silver-and-white uniforms with the number twelve on his back and a star on his
helmet and leading the Cowboys to the Super Bowl. They had won two Super Bowls
when Roger Staubach was their quarterback back in the seventies and three Super
Bowls in the early nineties when Troy Aikman was their quarterback, but they
had never won a Super Bowl since William had been alive.
    That
was still his dream, to be the Dallas Cowboys quarterback. To be rich and
famous. But he first had to play college football at a Division I-A school.
Which meant he had to get a football scholarship. You don't walk on and start
at quarterback on a D-I football team. Would D-I coaches come to the Academy
to recruit William Tucker? Even if he was good? Really good? When his team
was really bad?
    His
middle school team had gone 0-10. He hadn't really cared about losing, not at
first, but by the end of the season, he was really tired. Of losing. Of being
the best player on the field, every game, but losing every game. He hated
losing. He figured he'd love winning, but he didn't know because he had never
won a game. And the varsity team had lost every game, too, so it wasn't as if
things would change next year. Or the year after that. Or ever. At the
Academy, the athletic