The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-27)

FRIDAY, MAY 27 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE C3

made of duct tape with a number written on it in Sharpie when they arrived. For a time, that seemed to work peacefully. Unfortunately, neither Dusty nor the numbering system could claim any official power, which ticked off fans who were not getting stickers. It fell apart earlier this week when a woman showed up and said she had no intention of following the system and, according to eyewitnesses and video clips, caused such a ruckus that deputies eventually made everyone get out of line and wait across the street. This reor- dered everything, to the dismay of those who were shuffled out of the first 100. Though people speak lovingly and quietly of the number system, it had its flaws. (The deputies don’t even want to hear about

night stay on the sidewalk. They want to see him in person and show their support. Rumors fly about how early some showed up, in some cases more than 24 hours ahead of the court session. “We had a great numbering system for a while. Did you know about that?” Scott Cardinal of New York asked, somewhat wist- fully, Wednesday morning. In- deed, the number system has a legendary reputation in the line: According to lawyer and YouTu- ber Ian Runkle, a woman named Dusty recently created it because she saw “chaos manifesting” and wanted to prevent line-cutters. Screaming matches occurred when latecomers tried to sneak in, while others posted their pic- tures on social media to shame them. Thanks to Dusty, each person received a colorful sticker

nalists are treated no differently than any other spectator. To be in the courtroom, everyone has to wait in line. In the early days, a few people showed up at dawn, but you could arrive close to 9 a.m. and get a wristband without a problem. As Depp’s turn on the witness stand approached in April, the lines got longer, and people arrived earlier and earlier. The first day Heard testified this month, the 100th person allowed in arrived just after 5 a.m. Then, people started camping overnight. Soon, if you were not lined up by around 10 p.m. the day before, you were out of luck. Though some people say they are neutral and just curious about a celebrity trial, Depp’s most loyal fans make up much of the line, undeterred by an over-

pretty strange by the time our medieval heroine, a girl with a bird — specifically, and signifi- cantly, a curlew — on her shoulder and a smithy’s tools in hand, mysteriously appears in our present-day heroine’s house. We’re prepared for a modicum of magic from the start, when we find Sandy en- tertaining Cerberus, the mythi- cal three-headed guard dog of the underworld. This, under the nonplussed gaze of Shep, the dog Sandy is taking care of for her father, who’s in the hospital — not the virus, she is

and in particular, the manager had no idea what happened be- hind closed doors. “I’ve heard a lot of people say a lot of things to be involved in the Johnny Depp show,” Heard said. There was also a back and forth about Morgan Tremaine, a former TMZ employee who testified Wednesday that in May 2016, when Heard filed for divorce and a temporary restraining order against Depp, Tremaine dis-

patched a camera crew to a Los Angeles courthouse to capture photos of Heard “leaving the courthouse and [of] an alleged bruise on the right side of her face.” Tremaine strongly suggest- ed that Heard sent the website a video clip of Depp slamming cabi- nets and pouring a large glass of wine, which was later published. Heard denied knowing anything about paparazzi at the courthouse and said that although she

took the video, she did not send it to TMZ to make Depp look bad during their divorce proceedings, calling the accusation “absurd.” When Vasquez brought up more opposing testimony from witnesses and asked Heard if they were all liars — including Kate Moss, who testified Wednesday that Depp did not push her down the stairs as Heard had alluded to — Heard said that given that Depp is a powerful man, she’s not sur-

fruitful wasted nourishing un- dernourished common individual lives, who were suffering or dying right now or had died over the past year and a half in what was after all just the latest plague and whose gone souls swirled invisible in shifting murmurations above every ev- eryday day that we wandered around in, below these figura- tions, full of what we imagined was purpose. “What is there to say to that loss?” Plenty, as it turns out. Be- cause, if in the end Sandy won’t say what happened to the girl or to the bird, or “if any of this ever happened, if either of them ever existed,” Smith writes, “one way or another, here they both are.” And here we are, too, with Sandy, and Smith, “today on the surface of things,” making our way with words.

Ellen Akins is the author of four novels and a collection of stories, “World Like a Knife.”

tale told later, of an orphan taken in by a blacksmith and his wife and taught the craft but abused and cast out when her mentors die, forced into va- grancy, a crime according to the laws of her plague-ridden time. All these hundreds of years later, might the brilliant Booth- by Lock be her work? Sandy, like her author, is a word person (an artist, to her father’s chagrin, who does vis- ual representations of poems by painting one line atop another), and her narration is alive to the music and light of language, whether she’s parsing an E. E. Cummings poem for Martina or explaining the etymology of a word like curfew or making sly allusions or silly puns. And in language there’s the possibility of grace. Recall San- dy’s despondency starting out, reflecting on “the deaths and fragilities of any of the millions and millions and millions of individual people, with their detailed generic joyful elegiac

her, maskless, prompting her to flee to her father’s house with Shep. The accumulating Pelfs, with their presumption of San- dy’s interest, their insouciant appropriation of her house, and their acronym-peppered talk (en bee dee = no big deal, e.g.) give the book a funny farcical momentum, against which “Companion Piece’s” other stories incidentally unfold. There are glimpses of Sandy’s life with her father, going back three hours, 12 hours, two years, three decades, half a century; stories of her errant mother as a child and as a woman on the verge of leaving; and the case of the girl and her curlew, who was not a vision, Sandy insists to Martina, but “a real person in my house, really stealing, really wasted, really filthy, really strong-smelling, really hurt, and with a burn on her collarbone that was really weeping.” That visitation pro- vides an outline, and Martina supplies footnotes, for the full

quick to say, heart stuff — though of course the virus infects everything. What sets the plot in motion, or at least starts Sandy out of her doldrums, is a late-night call from a woman she hasn’t spoken to for decades: Martina Pelf has had a peculiar experience that wants deciphering, and so she thinks of Sandy, a college acquaintance who “knew how to think about things that everybody more normal would dismiss as a bit off the planet.” Martina’s story involves her transporting the 16th-century Boothby Lock, “a very important historical arte- fact and a stunning example of workmanship in blacksmith- ery,” for a museum and ending up in a locked room in an airport where a bodiless voice says to her, “Curlew or curfew.” Then it adds: “You choose.” Unpack that. Well, Sandy tries. And for her trouble somehow ends up with the whole weird Pelf family descending on

BY ELLEN AKINS

When we first encounter
Sandy Gray in “Companion
Piece” she is in a sorry state,
beyond caring, even about a bit
of wordplay, though all her life
she’s “loved language, it was my
main character, me its eternal
loyal sidekick.” So it’s a measure
of her recaptured mojo, or more
likely of Ali Smith’s unfailing
wizardry, that by the end of this
brief novel the mere word “hel-
lo” had me near tears.
Coming on the heels of
Smith’s seasonal quartet, which
somehow kept up with the
blitzkrieg of current events,
“Companion Piece” takes place
in our pandemic-inflected
world, an all-too-familiar terri-
tory that Smith characteristi-
cally renders wonderfully
strange. This she does, in part,
by blending Sandy’s 21st-centu-
ry story with another set in the
plague-haunted England of the
late Middle Ages.
Actually, the story’s already

BOOK WORLD

‘Companion Piece’ is a novel for people who love language

COMPANION PIECE By Ali Smith Pantheon. 240 pp. $28

it anymore.) Last week, num- bered people were waiting in a parking garage, but another crowd was waiting on the lawn. “They didn’t know about the garage people, and the garage people didn’t know about these people,” said Cardinal, compar- ing the scene to “Mad Max: Be- yond Thunderdome” and other dystopian works. “So everybody’s mad at each other. But you almost can’t be mad. Because we were organized, and they were organized, so how do you say our system was the right one?” Ceisler, from the sheriff’s office, said: “Regarding the numbering system created by people in the line, that was not the sheriff’s office numbering system. In fact, it was not the numbering system for all the people in line. The system was reportedly unfair and chaotic, and only some in line chose to participate.” Despite the frustration of many in these final crowded days of the trial, those who stay overnight say they have no regrets, and it can be a nicer experience than expected. Yes, they are camped out on concrete in the cold for hours, but they talk and play games and hang out with YouTubers, some of whom live- stream the activity in the line. Others order pizzas and doughnuts and coffee for everyone, or pass around snacks. They go in pairs to the bathroom in the detention center. In this way, are they all that different from people who have camped out for Spring- steen tickets, Star Wars movies or iPhones? Has obsession offered them a new sense of belonging? “It was like an adult slumber party,” said K.B. Plesnik of Balti- more on Monday, waiting in her car and hoping the deputies wouldn’t kick her out of the garage. “We’re taking care of each other.”

courthouse wall — it seems open to interpretation. Spectators say they have been told different things by different deputies about what time they can actually line up. A 10-minute difference determines who gets in and who doesn’t. “They still don’t just have anything figured out,” said Marcia Billingy of Baltimore County, who said she got there at 7 p.m., was ordered to leave, and returned at 1 a.m. to find the line full. “They can’t even communicate what time we’re allowed to be here officially, and I feel that just says a lot.” Andrea Ceisler, public infor- mation officer for the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office, could not verify specific issues from line- standers because she did not know the sources. “We are doing the very best we can in an unusu- al case and have received very positive and complimentary feed- back from people around the world,” Ceisler said. The sheriff’s office, she added, is experiencing a “serious staffing shortage” with a vacancy rate of nearly 15 percent, and is commit- ted to operating the adjacent Adult Detention Center and pro- viding security for the courthouse and judicial process. Depu- ties responded to an altercation in the line Sunday night, she confirmed. It was not always like this. When the trial started on April 12, the line was uneventful. Deputies set up a table in front of the courthouse at 7 a.m. and give out 100 spectator wristbands until 9:30 a.m., or until they were all distributed. Fifty wristbands are available for an overflow room with a live feed of the courtroom, but those are much less coveted. The same rules apply to report- ers, causing some chagrin. Judge Penney Azcarate ruled that jour-

numbering processes, decent
manners. Yet chaos has a way of
taking over.
“People are running from here,
they’re running from the garage,
they’re running from under the
stairwell,” a sheriff’s deputy said
Wednesday morning to one un-
happy fan, who explained repeat-
edly that she was told she could
line up no earlier than 1 a.m., but
around 12:45 a.m., people started
lining up anyway and then all the
spots were quickly taken. “We
can’t control where they run
from.”
“I follow the rules,” the woman
pleaded. “I don’t break the rules, I
follow the rules.” The deputy,
though appearing mildly sympa-
thetic, was unmoved.
Sean Worth, who drove in from
Doylestown, Pa., had a similar
experience. He arrived at 8 p.m.
and was told he could not line up
on the sidewalk next to the build-
ing before 1 a.m. or risk getting
kicked out and banned from the
courtroom. So he left and re-
turned around 12:30 a.m., only to
see a huge crowd of people on the
grass across the street. Some
were clutching pillows, blankets
and sleeping bags, and they sud-
denly started running toward the
building.
By the time he parked and
walked over, another group was
sprinting over. “It was just chaos,”
Worth said. “People were running
to get in the front but there were
already people there, yelling, ‘Go
to the back! Go to the back! Get
out!’ So we just ended up in the
back.”
Although the 1 a.m. rule was
recently established in print —
“The line for the Johnny Depp
and Amber Heard case spectators
are not permitted to loiter or
camp out on the judicial complex
before 1 a.m.” reads a sign on the

LINE FROM C1

Depp-Heard watchers meet the end of the line at the trial

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES Deputies patrol the line outside the courthouse in Fairfax, Va., where the defamation case involving Johnny Depp and Amber Heard is being tried. Some of the people above got in line at 1 a.m. Monday.

BY EMILY YAHR

Amber Heard returned to the
stand Thursday morning in the
final hours of testimony in the
six-week defamation trial against
her ex-husband, Johnny Depp.
The judge sent the jury home at
noon after the actress’s testimony
and said closing arguments will
take place Friday morning.
Depp sued Heard for $50 mil-
lion, alleging defamation over a
2018 op-ed she wrote for The
Washington Post, in which she
referred to herself as a public fig-
ure representing domestic abuse.
Heard countersued Depp (who de-
nies all abuse allegations) for $100
million, after his lawyer Adam
Waldman told the media that her
allegations were a hoax.
One of Heard’s attorneys, Ben
Rottenborn, asked the actress how
she has suffered as a result of the
“Depp-Waldman statements.”
Depp’s side has argued that Wald-
man’s actions are separate from
his client.
Heard started crying as she re-
sponded. “I am harassed, humili-
ated, threatened, every single day.
Even just walking into this court-
room, sitting here in front of the
world, having the worst parts of
my life — things I’ve lived through
— used to humiliate me,” she said.
“People want to kill me. And they
tell me so, every day. People want
to put my baby in the microwave.
They tell me that.”
“This is horrible, this is painful,”
she added. “This is humiliating for
any human being to go through.

And perhaps it’s easy for you to forget I’m a human being.” She noted the social media cam- paigns against her and the mock- ery she has received while testify- ing about her assault, as well as the overwhelming support for Depp in the courtroom. Heard added that Depp previ- ously threatened her and prom- ised that if she ever left him, she would think about him every day for the rest of her life; she said she just wants him to leave her alone. Rottenborn asked what she hopes to reclaim when the trial is over. “Johnny has taken enough of my voice,” she said. “I have the right to tell my story. I have the right to say what happened to me. I have the right to my voice and my name.” On cross-examination, one of Depp’s lawyers, Camille Vasquez, continued to paint Heard as a liar. “You just testified that this case has been very hard for you,” she said. “Your lies have been exposed to the world, right?” “I haven’t lied about anything,” Heard responded. Vasquez pointed out that during a much-discussed vacation to the Hicksville Trailer Palace in Southern California, Heard said that Depp threatened a woman who cozied up to Heard and that the actor trashed their trailer. Vasquez noted that witnesses — including Heard’s former best friend and a manager from Hicks- ville — disputed Heard’s version of events; the actress said that they didn’t see the same things she did,

prised. “That’s why I wrote the op-ed,” Heard said. “That phenomenon — how many people come out in support of him.” Earlier in the day, Depp’s side wrapped up with a final rebuttal witness, New York orthopedic sur- geon Richard Gilbert. The case returned once more to Depp’s sev- ered finger from 2015; Depp says that it was cut off when Heard threw a bottle of vodka at him, which she denies. Gilbert said he believed a vodka bottle could have done the dam- age, given that the injury looked like a “sharp laceration.” He dis- agreed partially with earlier testimony from Heard’s witness, who didn’t think a vodka bottle could be the culprit, in part because there were no other cuts on Depp’s hand — but Gilbert said that wouldn’t be uncommon with thicker glass. Before Heard took the stand, the actress’s defense called two witnesses for rebuttal: Julian Ack- ert, a computer forensics who re- butted earlier testimony that photos of Heard’s injuries were prob- ably run through an editing pro- gram. And psychologist Dawn Hughes returned to dispute another psychologist who called her methods into question when she diagnosed Heard with post-trau- matic stress disorder. Hughes said that Heard did not exaggerate her symptoms on the PTSD test, and while her score was in the “moder- ate” range, that’s still enough for “functional impairment.”

‘I am harassed, humiliated, threatened, every single day,’ Heard says

MICHAEL REYNOLDS/POOL/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK Amber Heard, whose ex-husband, Johnny Depp,accused her of d efamation, took the stand again. Closing arguments in the trial at the Fairfax County Courthouse will be made on Friday.

The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-27)

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