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Jennifer Thompson-Cannino - Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption

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Jennifer Thompson-Cannino Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption

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PICKING COTTON

PICKING COTTON . Copyright 2009 Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, Ronald Cotton, and Erin Torneo.
All rights reserved.
For information, address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Thompson-Cannino, Jennifer.
Picking Cotton: our memoir of injustice and redemption / Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton with Erin Torneo.1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-6215-5
1. Thompson-Cannino, Jennifer. 2. Rape victimsNorth CarolinaBurlingtonBiography. 3. RapeNorth CarolinaBurlingtonCase studies. 4. Cotton, Ronald.
5. ForgivenessCase studies. I. Cotton, Ronald. II. Torneo, Erin. III. Title.
HV6568.B87T56 2009
362.883092'2756dc22
[B]

2008035449

For all those whose voices may never be heard
the victimson both sides of wrongful convictions

Prologue

September 2006

RONALD COTTON stands a few rows behind Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, watching as she cranes her head through the crowd, looking for him among the faces of the parents who have come out to watch their children play soccer. All of the fields at Northeast Park in Gibsonville, North Carolina, are occupied on this bright autumn afternoon: Its tournament day, with a parking lot crammed full of yellow school buses, SUVs, and station wagons to prove it.

Where are you? she says into her cell phone, unable to find him.

Im right here, Ron says, enjoying the joke. Then he reaches out and touches Jennifers arm, causing her to turn and jump.

Its so good to see you, she says, laughing and moving close to embrace him. Youd think I wouldve spotted you! Wearing a blue baseball hat, Ron at six foot four towers over her. Hes got to lean waay down to hug Jennifer, a tiny blonde with bobbed hair. The sun catches the sterling medallion he always wears around his neck: an eagle in flight.

Ron immediately gets into the game. Cmon! Dont let em take that ball! he shouts, clapping his hands.

Beside him, Raven, his nine-year-old daughter in neat braids he helped do that morning, shoots him a look. Daddy!

What? Am I embarrassing you? She nods, which only makes Ron yell louder. Lets go!

He is cheering on Jennifers sixteen-year-old daughter, Brittany, who plays center-midfield, the link between offense and defense. Her brown ponytail bopping behind her, she keeps her cleats close to the ball, switch-backing across the field to try to keep it away from the other side until shes got a clear path to pass it to her fellow players. When she sees her opening, Brittany makes a strong, sure kick and sends the ball to her teammate, who takes off for the goal. The crowd yells for the black and white ball to make it into the net as if nothing could matter more.

The Reds, Brittanys team, win the first game of the tournament, and then they break for lunch. Brittany, spotting Ron and Raven with her mom, jogs over and hugs them both, happy they are there. The four of them head over with the other parents to the parks pavilion. With his Burger King bags picked up from the drive-in, Ron isnt part of the usual soccer parent crowd: moms like Jennifer who unpack neatly prepared sandwiches and snacks from Tupperware and coolers. After the kids eat, Brittany heads off to the grass to show Raven how to kick straight and dribble, while Jennifer and Ron catch up. One nosy mom cant resist and comes over to say hello.

Jennifer, Brittany was just great today! she says. Too bad your husband missed it. Where is he?

Hes with my son, doing guy stuff, but they should be here any minute, says Jennifer.

The mothers eyes dart over to Ron and back to Jennifer. She cant figure it out. So how do yall know each other? the mom says, motioning to Ron.

Jennifer and Ron look at each other, smiling. They let the moment settle between them, hanging in the air like the sweet green smell of freshly cut grass, ready for hordes of high school girls to trample it.

We go way back, Ron says, in his characteristic way of understating things.

What they dont say is that twenty-two years ago, Jennifer sat in a jailhouse just five miles down the interstate, looked at seven black men standing in front of her, and picked Ronald Cotton as the man who had brutally raped her eleven days before.

Conquered they can never be
whose spirits and whose souls are free.

Inscription on the Confederate Soldier statue
outside the Alamance County Courthouse
where Ronald Cotton was convicted

PART 1
Jennifer

CHAPTER 1

I USED TO WALK three miles to campus and back every day from my apartment in Burlington. There werent any sidewalks on West Front Street, so during the summer I hugged the edge of the road, trying to stay in the patches of shade when the magnolia trees provided them. I didnt know many people in my neighborhood, although I passed their houses and proud lawns every day. I dont know if I ever even noticed the brick home with white trim just beyond my apartment complex, but on the night that I ran through the damp grass, wearing only a blanket, it was that door I pounded on.

On my way to school, my head was always buried in index cards. I had stacks and stacks of them, careful notes all hole punched and ring bounda different ring for every class. Just across from campus was a Hardees, where Id stop and get a coffee, then sit outside and keep studying. I didnt look over my shoulder or pay too much attention. My focus was on what lay ahead: I was going to graduate in the fall with a perfect 4.0, and my boyfriend, Paul, and I were talking about getting married. He was in his first year of business school at UNCChapel Hill. Thats all my life was really about: college and my boyfriend. I was twenty-two years old and those were the kind of crystal-clear pictures I carried in my mind.

One night coming home in the darkit must have been the beginning of JulyI noticed a small orange glow as I was walking up to my door. It was just a pinprick of light cutting through the branches. The dry burn caught in the back of my throat. In the tree across from my bedroom window, someone was smoking a cigarette. I couldnt see who it was, but someone was there. I told myself it must be a kidsomeone who had climbed up the tree to sneak a smoke. I gave it no further thought.

But thats the picture that flashed in my mind afterward, a snapshot uncovered by my brain as it was reeling for answers to what happened later that monthJuly 1984.

Burlington, North Carolina, is like most college towns: It swells during the school year with kids from Elon College, and contracts during the summer, when many of them return to their hometowns, to their parents, to the summer jobs theyve had since they were in high school. Id decided to stay that summer because I was taking classes, and because Paul was from Burlington, and would be home for the summer break from his classes in Chapel Hill. His parents ran a barbecue place in downtown, or what was left of it. Already the little mom-and-pop stores were emptying out or moving closer to the newly built mall near Huffman Mill Road, right off of I-40. But people still came to J.J.s BBQ no matter what. They came for the vinegared pork and sweet tea that were as much a part of the Burlington summer as the humidity.

Most days I taught aerobics at Spa Lady, and on Saturdays, when I finished teaching, I would stay to lift some weights and put in a few hours at the sales desk. That Saturday was no different. When I got off, Paul and I spent the afternoon together, browsing at a shopping mall and eating lunch nearby until the heat finally got to us. We ended up back at my apartment, napping in the comfort of the air-conditioning. In the early evening, it cooled off enough for us to play tennis at the Alamance County Country Club, where he and his family were members. We were famished when we finished our showers, so we headed over to China Inn Restauranta favorite of ours. It was one of those all-you-can-eat deals, and I loaded up on fried rice, spring rolls, and refill after refill of sweet iced tea. Im sure all the MSG had something to do with itby the time we got to his friends party, a fierce headache was blooming behind my eyes. We didnt stay very long.

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