The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir

by Griffin Dunne

We buckled up for what we expected to be a brutal closing from Adelson, and he was as advertised. He found a way to again describe Sweeney as an “ordinary, reasonable person” three times, stealing from the playbook of corrupt politicians who believe if an accusation is denied enough times, it will eventually be believed. “This was not a crime,” he told the jury. “This was a tragedy,” a lie he’d been hammering home since the start of the trial. By now I had learned the hard way that in the judicial system, perjury is a crime, but when a lawyer lies for his client, it’s perfectly legal. He told the jury that what Dominique and Sweeney once had was “that old-fashioned thing: romantic love.” If he quoted Kahlil Gibran again, I thought I would leap off the bench and grab his throat. Instead he managed to do something even worse: he quoted made-up dialogue as if it were something Dominique had actually said: “I, Dominique, reject you, John Sweeney,” he cried out. “I lied to you!” At the break, Dad sidled up to Adelson and whispered in his ear, “You piece of shit.” Adelson turned on his heels so fast his toupee shifted, and ran back to the bench to tattle to the judge. When Dad told Mom what he had just called Adelson, she said, “That was very stupid, now you’ll get kicked out of the courtroom.” “If the judge calls me up, I’ll lie and say I didn’t say it. Everybody else is lying. Why shouldn’t I? It’s his word against mine.” When Dad told Barshop what he’d done and asked if he wo...