Great Is the Truth by Amos Kamil

Author:Amos Kamil
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780374711566
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

8

MEDIATION

On March 10, 2013, the night before the mediation was to begin, a small group gathered at the Tribeca loft of one of the survivors. F., who had flown in from California, brought candy-filled piñatas with photos of different perpetrators pinned to them and hung them from the ceiling: Here was the face of Somary on a sparkly five-pointed star; there was Tek Lin hanging on a string. There was even a bright Mylar-covered Inky piñata that would have complemented one of his loud sweaters.

After a few drinks and some remarks about finally having their teachers where they wanted them, various members of the Survivors’ Group took turns attacking the piñata with their particular abuser’s face on it. “It was kind of a bizarre and wacky exercise,” said one participant, who admitted to smashing the Somary piñata with gusto, “but I have to admit, a strangely satisfying one.”

“What I really remember,” said F., “is the sound of the baseball bat connecting.”

After what became a primal frenzy, grown men swinging with abandon at the images of teachers who had harmed them long ago, there was a lot of candy lying on the floor. No one touched any of it. They swept it up and then headed to Midtown and their evening’s ultimate destination: the cavernous basement ballroom of the Third Church of Christ, Scientist, on Park Avenue. Gloria Allred’s team had rented the space for “some casual downtime” prior to what was to be a two-week mediation process. There was no agenda other than for the survivors and lawyers to get to know one another. The dozen or so survivors, their attorneys, and some spouses were served elegant food out of chafing dishes by white-jacketed waiters. The relatively few people in the luxurious, dimly lit room only added to the clumsiness of the evening.

“It was like a cocktail party from hell,” recalled one person. “It was a nice gesture, but it couldn’t have possibly been more awkward. A buffet table, drinks. I wanted to have like eight drinks. I ended up talking stiffly with Gloria about her summer house in Malibu. It was pretty strange.”

* * *

It had been mutually agreed upon that the mediation would take place at the spacious Manhattan offices of Horace Mann’s legal counsel, Schulte Roth & Zabel, a respected white-shoe law firm that had handled, among many other transactions, the sale of Chrysler Financial to the TD Bank Group.

The next morning, March 11, two groups of survivors began assembling at the Schulte Roth offices. The larger group, representing twenty-five survivors, was represented by the Allred team. M., who said he was abused hundreds of times over three years by Johannes Somary, was represented by Rosemarie Arnold. All insisted the negotiation should not be just about money. They wanted Horace Mann to agree to an independent investigation and to campaign in favor of changing the statute of limitations laws.

As the survivors gathered, there was trepidation but also a sense of accomplishment.

“It was odd, I gotta admit,” said one.

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