Kramer vs. Kramer (22 page)

Paul Gressen was a suave man in his late forties, wearing a smartly shaped suit with a matching silk handkerchief and tie. He had a soft voice and an ironic smile, which he used tactically. John Shaunessy was not to be outlawyered in pose or tailoring. He was a tall, imposing figure with his gray hair and his own courtroom uniform, a three-piece blue suit with a white carnation in his lapel. But in the end, the lawyers’ poses and their legal maneuvering did not alter what Shaunessy had predicted earlier would be the result—a hearing. The judge expressed his interest in expediting the matter, due to “the young age of the child.” He then set a date for the hearing to be held in three weeks.

Shaunessy stepped out into the corridor with Ted and apologized for not leaving with him, but he had other clients’ business to conduct here. They would talk in the morning. Ted, alone, headed for the lobby and walked down the steps of the courthouse, to be hereafter considered by the court as “the respondent” in the action brought by “the petitioner.”

T
HE JUDGE APPOINTED A
psychologist to investigate the respective homes and personalities of the parties in the dispute. The psychologist came to Ted’s apartment on a weekday night, a chubby lady in her forties who never smiled. Dr. Alvarez walked through the house, opened cupboards, the refrigerator, bedroom closets, the bathroom medicine chest. She asked if Billy could play in his room for a few minutes, and she took out a clipboard and pen to interview Ted. She wanted to know how he spent his day, how his time with Billy was distributed, what activities they shared together, what he did when he was alone, did anyone else stay in the house with him. He mentioned Etta, but the intent of the question was purely sexual, which he learned when she followed up by asking directly:

“Mr. Kramer, do you have sex here with anyone?”

When I can, lady. Did you have anything in mind?

“Doctor, I attempt to conduct my social life discreetly. At the moment, I am not seeing anyone in particular.”

“Does that distress you?”

“Not unduly.”

“What does?”

“Distress me?”

Your being here, this hearing, Joanna, her lawyer, the judge, being judged on the most fundamental part of what I am.

“I don’t know how to answer that. The normal things that distress people. The cost of living, my child being ill …”

“Very well. I’d like to talk to the child, if I may. Privately.”

In the doorway of Billy’s room, he had a metropolis in progress, toy cars being driven by superheroes, his leather belt as a highway, blocks stacked into buildings, all of which prevented the door from being closed. Ted was able to listen from the living room.

“What do you have here, Billy?” she asked.

“Detroit.”

“Have you ever been to Detroit?”

“No, but I’ve been to Brooklyn.”

Ted was curious if she was writing all this down.

She asked him what his favorite games, activities, people were. For people he mentioned Kim, Thelma, Mrs. Willewska, Daddy, and Batman.

“What about your mommy?”

“Oh, sure. My mommy.”

“Do you like to be with your mommy?”

Ted began to get uncomfortable. He wanted to break in and tell her she was leading the witness.

“Oh, sure.”

“What do you like best about her?”

“Lunch in a restaurant.”

“And what do you like best about your daddy?”

“Playing.”

“Tell me, does your daddy ever hit you?”

“Lots of times.”

This brought Ted right outside the door.

“When does he hit you?”

“When I’m bad.”

Billy, what are you doing?

“He hits me on the Planet Kritanium when I steal the buried treasure from the famous peanut butter factory.”

“In real life, when does he hit you?”

“My daddy doesn’t hit me, silly. Why would my daddy hit me?”

The interview ended right there. Dr. Alvarez said goodbye, took a last look at the environment, and the night concluded for Ted and William Kramer with the flying of Fred Flintstone in Batman’s plane into Detroit.

O
N A MONDAY, THE
day before the hearing, Ted went in to see the advertising manager at work and said he needed a few days off, they could take it from his vacation time, but his ex-wife was contesting the custody of his child. He had held off telling anyone in the office in order to eliminate gossip or doubts about him, and now he would have his job through the hearing. He went through his work day, making sales rounds, diffidently now, his ability to be attentive breaking down by the hour. At 5
P.M.
, he went home to his son, who still did not have any sense that the following morning at nine-thirty,
Kramer v. Kramer
was on the court calendar.

O
N THE FACADE OF
the courthouse it said, “The True Administration of Justice is the Firmest Pillar of Good Government.” Good government? All I want is my boy.

Ted Kramer entered the courtroom for the hearing. When he looked around, he was very moved, seeing the people there, his people who had come to help. Thelma, Charlie—God, Charlie, what is it costing you to be here?—Thelma and Charlie sitting next to each other, joined for this moment by Ted’s need, Etta, wearing an Easter bonnet of a kind, Larry’s wife, Ellen, who thought that because she was a teacher her presence might be useful, Sandy, his sister-in-law, who had flown in from Chicago, and Jim O’Connor with a haircut and a new shirt and tie, all here out of love to help him keep his son.

Joanna entered, looking beautiful in a wool knit dress, accompanied by Ron Willis and her lawyer. She and the lawyer took places at the table facing the judge’s chair. Ted began to move forward to join his attorney at their table when the door opened and in came Joanna’s parents. They looked away from him in what appeared to be deep embarrassment. His former in-laws were here apparently to testify against him. They took seats to the back, on the other side of the family.

The room was stately, a high ceiling, oak benches and mahogany furniture in good condition, “In God We Trust” on the wall facing the courtroom, an American flag to the side. The judge arrived in his robes, the guard announced, “All rise!” the stenographer took his place in front near the witness chair and they were ready to begin. Ted took a long, probing breath, searching for air.

J
OANNA AS THE PETITIONER
had the right to the first round, and her lawyer placed her on the stand immediately as a witness in her own behalf. They would not be bothered building a case with secondary characters. Motherhood, the mother, was their main argument, and her persona was placed in evidence.

Joanna’s testimony began slowly, her lawyer carefully established dates, an outline of the years with Ted, and then with Billy, up to the present. Ted found himself remembering—wild stray thoughts, the first time he and Joanna made love, this beautiful woman whom he no longer knew, wrapped her legs around him. The first time he held Billy, how tiny the boy seemed. The first time he watched Joanna breast-feeding the baby. She did breast-feed him. That would not be in the testimony. He had forgotten that.

Gressen then began to ask Joanna about her job and her responsibilities at work. He linked this to an earlier time.

“Mrs. Kramer, did you work in a job before you were married?”

“I did.”

“And after you were married?”

“I didn’t work after my son was born.”

“Did you wish to?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever discuss with your ex-husband your desire to work?”

“I did. He said no. He strongly objected to my working.”

They began to focus on Ted, a man who resisted his wife’s personal growth. They were seeking to justify Joanna’s leaving. Ted
had
said no to her working. It did not seem possible to him that he could have been so narrow. He could hardly recognize himself from the testimony. Yet he knew he had been that person they were describing, even though since then he had changed. The judge called a lunch recess, and Ted watched Joanna conferring with her lawyer. He wondered if she, too, had changed, if there were two different people in this room than had been in that marriage, and what if they were attracted to each other, what if they met now, as the people they were now—would they end up in this room?

Shaunessy began to gather together paper that was on the table in front of them—copies of the petition, the psychologist’s report, paper all around, the stenographer’s record spilling out of his machine like a long tongue, note paper, legal documents.

Joanna was the first to leave the courtroom with her lawyer. After a diplomatic delay so they would not be in the same elevator, Ted left the room with his lawyer—the petitioner separated from the respondent by people, by paper, by legal jargon, by time, as they took a recess from this stately courtroom, this marital graveyard.

J
OANNA’S LAWYER CONTINUED TO
work on the apparent soft spot in her case, the fact of her leaving. He was attempting to convert it into a strength—that her decision was evidence of the depth of her frustration, caused by the respondent, who had left her no choice.

“Would you tell the court, did you enjoy playing tennis?”

“Yes.”

“And your ex-husband, how did he respond to your enjoyment of tennis?”

“He resented it. He called himself a tennis widower in front of people.”

Emotionally confined, she found herself with the additional burden of a small child.

“Did you love the child?”

“Very much.”

“When he was an infant, how did you feed him?”

“I breast-fed him. So I could be closer to him as a mother.”

This was not a circumstance where one side overlooked any possible advantage.

“And yet you chose to leave your child?”

“My predicament was overwhelming. If my husband had been open to my having my own interests, I would not have been in such despair.”

“That’s only true in part,” Ted whispered to his lawyer. “She didn’t
have to
leave.” Shaunessy nodded. He had been here before. “I even asked that we seek help.” “Shhh,” the lawyer said and placed his hand on his client’s arm to reassure him.

“Everything became one—the marriage, my husband, the pressure, the child. It was all one to me because it was one. My husband had cut off my options.”

“And what did you do next?”

“I took the only action I could see for myself under the circumstances. Since everything was one to me, I couldn’t pick the parts out of the whole that needed to be fixed. I had to free myself of the whole, of all of it. And I left to make a better life for myself.”

“So you gave up your child?”

“No, not my child per se—my marriage, my husband, my frustration, and my child. I was leaving this entire package my husband had tied up so tightly.”

“Mrs. Kramer, why have you set up residence here in New York?”

“Because the child is here. And his father is here. As a mother, I don’t want my child to be separated from his father.”

“Goody two-shoes,” Shaunessy muttered to his client.

Gressen queried her as to the time when she first began experiencing a sense of loss regarding the child. She fixed this at the morning after her leaving.

“What did you do about this sense of loss?”

“Nothing then. I hadn’t purged myself yet of my frustrating marriage experience.”

“Objection. The witness is giving an opinion.”

“Sustained.”

“Did you ever call your husband to express your feelings about the child?”

“Yes, I did. Christmas, a year ago.”

Gressen introduced into the record Joanna’s telephone bill, which listed phone calls made to Ted from California, and Joanna stated that the purpose of the calls was to arrange a meeting with the child.

“What did your ex-husband say about this meeting?”

“He was hostile to it. At first, he said he would have to let me know. Then when he consented, he asked me if I intended to kidnap the boy.”

“Did you kidnap the boy?”

“No. I bought him a toy he wanted.”

The psychologist’s report was placed in evidence. Dr. Alvarez had not drawn any negative conclusions on either side. Joanna was characterized as “self-assured” and the environment she planned for the child was “suitable for the child’s needs,” which the lawyer used as testimony to Joanna’s fitness. Then the circumstances of her last meeting with Billy were recounted, Joanna telling how pleased the boy was to be with her.

“Did the child say that in so many words?” Gressen asked.

“Yes. He said, ‘What a really good time this is, Mommy.’ ” Billy’s enthusiasm had been introduced as evidence.

Finally, Gressen asked her, “Can you tell the court why you are asking for custody?”

“Because I’m the child’s mother. You said to me, Mr. Gressen, when we first met, that there were instances when mothers were granted custody of their children even when they had signed away custody. I don’t know the legal wisdom of that. I’m not a lawyer, I’m a mother. I know the emotional wisdom. I love my child. I want to be with him as much as I can. He’s only five. He needs me with him. I don’t say he doesn’t need his father. He needs me
more.
I’m his mother.”

Gressen had worked his client and the clock. Joanna’s testimony had run to four-thirty in the afternoon. Judge Atkins called a recess for the following day, leaving the case in behalf of motherhood, delivered by a poised attractive mother, to stand unchallenged overnight.

“Don’t worry, Ted,” Shaunessy said. “Our case is still you. But we’ll try to move her some tomorrow.”

D
IRECT EXAMINATION BY THE
petitioner’s lawyer was essentially a series of prearranged questions to arrive at a conclusion agreed upon by lawyer and client. Joanna was less poised under cross-examination. Where Gressen’s style was sly, Shaunessy worked from the position of the gruff, older wise man. He cut into Joanna’s testimony, made her account for the blocks of time that had passed after she first left to the Christmas phone calls, from the Christmas meeting to her most recent return.

“When you originally left, and you had this sense of loss you referred to, did you send the child letters, gifts?”