It was during the Wednesday night poker game when they officially announced
that the case against Kobe Bryant had been dropped. The girl wasn't going to
testify. It wasn't like O.J. with the whole room erupting in either anger or
jubilee. It was just a bunch of grumbles and half-raised brows. You didn't know
which way to sway - you felt guilty about siding with a woman on this issue,
but at the same time: you are a
huge Dallas Mavericks fan. For the
past year and a half, the entire city was only twelve jurors and a dominant
center away from a championship.
But he got off. To me, the biggest issue at stake was a season's damnation
of watching Bryant-to-Divac pick-and-rolls every night on SportsCenter. But to
the men in that room, it meant something else entirely.
"I knew she was lying," says Tyson. Tyson hadn't won a hand all
night, so his demeanor was shorter than it was as we were setting up the game.
He usually gets this way about an hour into every game. He is what we call
dead
money.
"We don't know that she was," says Kennedy Smith. He's a lawyer,
so his perception is often a bit more skewed. "Just because she dropped
the case doesn't mean he's not guilty. I think you have to pay attention to the
fact that the public servants that were in charge of prosecuting a rape case in
a little town like Eagle, Colorado had to go up against the best defense that
Kobe could buy.
That cased was doomed
from the start.
The sad thing is that we
may never know and this could have terrible repercussions for women in the
future that are raped by athletes and too scared to come forward."
"It's your bet, Kennedy," says Tyson impatiently.
He's folded already and dying for the hand to
finish so he can see if the next deal gives him the fingers to go all-in.
"She stood to make a lot of cash if she won," I say.
I had folded too and the hand, which had
temporarily been disrupted by the breaking news, had already gone on too
long.
"Imagine the money she would
have taken from Kobe if she would have gone through with it and won."
A reverent moment passes among the men as they contemplate the money, some
of them looking at their stacks of chips as if to put it into perspective.
"It makes you almost wish you were a woman," says Jackson
Michaels.
"I'd get raped for a
couple million dollars.
If I had to sit
through bad sex for three minutes just knowing that at the end of it, I'd be a
millionaire, I'd find a way to enjoy it."
"I'd let Lisa Leslie rape me for free," says Tyson.
"I would give her
carte blanche in violating me however she wants."
"Men can't be raped," I say.
"It's impossible.
Physically, it's impossible."
"Like hell it is," says Kennedy, the lawyer.
"The same endorphins that activate a
hard-on are produced when fear is induced.
That, compounded by the blatant insinuation of sex from a dominating
woman in a position of complete control, would activate you expediently."
I'd known this guy for years.
Just
because he went to law school gave him the right to be a pain in the ass while
Jeopardy! was on or a crossword puzzle
was in sight.
"So a man can be raped?" I ask.
"Sure," says Tyson.
"Haven't you ever seen
Oz?
Or the
Shawshank
Redemption?"
"I mean, by a woman?"
"Certainly," says Kennedy.
"It's entirely possible.
In
fact, I fantasize about it all the time."
