Perry Mason Defends Christine Blasey Ford at Brett Kavanaugh Hearing

“Trauma is like a pie. Pieces of it come up over time when you are ready.”

By Claudia Susan Gold

Raymond Burr groans from the after-life, I imagine, wishing he could have spoken at the Senate Judiciary Hearing a year ago when Christine Blasey Ford testified that Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school when he was drunk. Even now, one year later, I imagine Perry Mason standing up in the somewhat small Senate hearing room and in his commanding voice, booming forth, “Isn’t it true…?! Isn’t it true…!?”

He is shaking his head at the process which will lead to the vote. Thousands of us tune in as Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testifies with courtesy and poise, on our TV’s, phones, car radios, computers.

Dr. Blasey Ford describes a party in Montgomery County in 1982 where Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge, both “stumbling drunk”, led her into a bedroom. She testifies that Kavanaugh held her down and “fumbled with her clothes”, and notes that she was wearing a one piece bathing suit under her clothes from swimming that day.

Brett Kavanaugh, she explains, had his hand over her mouth and she had trouble breathing and was scared she might accidently be suffocated and die. (I recall now that when I was sexually assaulted, although I knew on a peripheral level that there was a sexual layer, the main experience was of being under a canopy, in a deep freeze of terror that I could die).

Dr. Blasey Ford testifies that Mark Judge, who was standing across the room, “laughed maniacally” and turned up the music to drown out her cries. She says that Judge then decided to jump on Ford and Kavanaugh twice, which toppled over Brett Kavanaugh, freeing Ford to run out of the room. A lot of details. This would be a hard story to make up. And it looks and sounds like a hard story to tell. (As a sexual assault survivor it sounds familiar, and the bizarre parts too normal).

Dr. Blasey Ford tells the committee that she thought Mark Judge might intervene (as many women including me hoped someone or something would intervene with some terrifying aspect of the assault). But “Mark was urging Brett on, although at times he told Brett to stop,” she says. “A couple of times I made eye contact with Mark and thought he might try to help me, but he did not.” The account bespeaks betrayal upon betrayal.

The President calls for a week long narrow investigation by the FBI responding to a request for further investigation by Senator Flake.

“Isn’t it true, Honorable Senators,“ I hear Perry Mason saying courteously, “that such investigations can take weeks, even months? Isn’t it true that you cannot arrive at the truth of this investigation within a week? Have you not watched my show? What do you consider as the reason for this hasty scheduling?”

I am afraid Perry will get kicked out of the hearing room. “Furthermore, Honorable Senators,” he bellows, “I’d like to ask the court what is the reason for excluding the only alleged witness Mark Judge from testifying at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing? Isn’t it true that there is circumstantial evidence that both were in the same high school class and both known for drunken behavior?

“Is this Senate Judiciary Committee, which is sworn to impartial discovery of facts, being deprived of their right to examine the only witness to this alleged crime?! Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is being deprived of her rights to get a fair hearing, and the public to a demonstration of justice, if you do not call the only witness!”

I hear Della saying softly to Perry, “It looks like they want to preserve his career but don’t care a whit about hers.”

He glances at her with a knowing look and continues. “Isn’t it true Honorable Senators,” Perry says, “that Mr. Judge might have stood to face criminal proceedings had he incriminated himself?

“Moreover, though we cannot know what questioning by the Judiciary Committee may or may not have revealed, isn’t it true that he may have been fearful to make political enemies had his testimony confirmed the allegations of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford?”

“Oh, Perry,” Della says, “that’s no reason for him not to testify. Most of our witnesses for the last nine seasons have wanted to protect themselves.”

“Maybe that’s not the only person, Della, who needed protecting.”

“I need a large cup of coffee, and some therapy,” Della quips.

During the following seven days of the FBI investigation we hear on the various news medias, veiled tidbits of information: that during the week-long investigation not all witnesses were interviewed, that not all women who came forward corroborating the reports of misconduct of Brett Kavanaugh were considered credible and testimony was dismissed.

Several people have had trouble reaching the FBI to tell their stories. News reports mention a man contacting a senator to say he was a witness to Brett Kavanaugh’s sexual misconduct at a party. Christine Blasey Ford is not interviewed. We learn that Brett Kavanaugh’s old high-school-mate Mark Judge, author of, among other works, “Wasted: Tales of a GenX Drunk”, has denied the allegations.

Before the hearing resumes, as the senators on the judiciary committee are taking their seats, Paul Drake whispers to Perry and Della, “Maybe today they will bring in the expert witness on black-outs.”

“Let’s see,” Perry answers.

With some embarrassment I walk up to Perry Mason, and speak above the roar of conversations and sounds of senators coming and going, “Excuse me, Perry, I mean Raymond.

“I watched your show as a child. Because of how you acted,” I tell him, “while viewing this hearing, I’ve felt a void, a sense that something is missing. I think it is because I’ve seen your passion and perseverance in seeking justice, your probing to the heart of the matter.” I look at Paul Drake, sitting beside him and add, “With the help of Paul Drake, of course.”

Perry shakes my hand, and smiles assuring me, “You are right. Paul would have interviewed every relevant witness, and pursued every lead.”

The votes are in.

Friends who I respect agree with the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh as an Associate Justice, saying some men have been unjustly accused in the past. One says Dr. Blasey Ford is “nuts”, which stuns me.

I have a weak spot for sincere, smart, reputable women coming forward about assaults that caused them traumas over decades. I have a weak spot for Dr. Blasey Ford and for Dr. Anita Hill, before her, whose allegations that Clarence Thomas harassed her with inappropriate discussion of sexual acts and pornographic films after she did not agree to date him preceded him being voted in as Associate Justice.

Alone in my bedroom, I consider that maybe my sense that the hearing was over before it was over is due to a bias, my projection onto Dr. Blasey Ford that she is honest because I too have been a university professor, am a woman who knows the emotional terrain of sexual assault, and has had to testify about it.

I too cannot remember how I got to the location that led to my being assaulted so many years ago. I recognize the wulnerability and terror in Dr. BlaseyFord’s voice, in her telling of it. Do you you ever get a gut feeling when looking at someone’s eyes and hearing them speak about whether they are truthful and sincere?

Or perhaps my leaning in for every second of the proceedings is also because I’m the same age or older than many of those on the Judiciary Committee voting at the hearing, and my innocence about office politics, way and means of covering mistakes, and corporate euphemisms wore off in the years since listening regularly to the compelling theme music introducing the Perry Mason show. Then I believed in heroes and justice every week that I watched the show.

Although Perry, Paul Drake, Della and I still groan a year later at the anniversary of the hearing of the second woman testifying to sexual misconduct of a nominee who is appointed subsequently to the Supreme Court, and despite my deep disappointment in the process, I have an extraordinary experience at this psychodrama hearing, “my bi-partisan healing”.

Hearing senators on both sides of the aisle, Senators Blumenthal and Flake express compassion for Dr. Blasey Ford, for us, opens tears and a healing of a piece that had been frozen from the assault when I was a teenager. (I document this at: https://medium.com/@claudiagold_30620/after-the-hearing-i-had-a-bi-partisan-healing-7a1b31de4223)

I was not shocked that the hearing opened up a piece of that trauma, because I was told by a counselor two decades after my assault, “Trauma is like a pie. Pieces of it come up over time when you are ready, as a natural defense to protect you from being overwhelmed.”

I hope other women and men, are finding, or will find, pieces of pies of their healing, too, as a result of the courage of Christine Blasey Ford and Anita Hill telling about their vulnerable, painful, experiences — regardless of what anyone confirms or denies.

“I certainly hope in the future there will be more women on the Senate Judiciary Committee,” Della sighs.

“Seventeen men and five women!” Perry raises his eyebrows. “It would behoove them to hire brilliant women with integrity like you, Della, and like Christine Blasey Ford and Anita Hill as consultants to that Senate Judiciary Committee.”

After they are seated in a Culver City restaurant, for an outing where they will reflect and find something to laugh about to end the show, Della opens the clasp on her black purse and pulls out a TIME magazine.

“It didn’t happen during our life-time, but changes are definitely happening. Look,” she says to Perry and Paul, opening the magazine on the table, flipping the pages to an article. “This is promising. Christine Blasey Ford was selected as one of the 100 most influential people of the year 2019.”

The theme music of the Perry Mason show plays, concluding another journey in the realms of justice.

________

• The prequel to this article is “After the Hearing: I Had a Bi-Partisan Healing” .
• RAINN, a national anti-sexual violence organization, is a resource to call if this account triggers tears and/or past trauma in you. 800–656-HOPE.
• The character Perry Mason was originally conceived in fiction by Erie Stanley Gardner, a lawyer.
• The theme music of the Perry Mason show
• “Time names Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh on 100 most influential people list”