Business as Usual
March 5, 2001
I’m waiting for O.J. Simpson, but Peter Beard is on my mind. An exhibit of Beard’s photographs, “50 Years of Portraits,” decorates the walls of the a-d Gallery in the Miami Design District. The photos, images of naked women, torn bodies and bloody limbs, are in black and white, accented with snake skins and blood stains.
As I wait to interview O.J. in the neighboring law office of Brand & Fernandez, I try to study a hastily prepared collection of the latest O.J. news stories, but Beard’s images of predators and death hang before my eyes.
Stained images of violence are inseparable from my thoughts of O.J. Simpson.
This is an interview from a business angle, an exploration of O.J.’s life in South Florida. No questions about June 12, 1994. No questions about Nicole Brown Simpson, a former interior designer who might appreciate the eclectic offerings of the Design District, if she were alive to see them.
O.J., in his 50s, is fit and trim. He doesn’t step out of the elevator; he explodes from it, his booming laughter preceding him from two floors below. He is debunking a recent tabloid story of a pornography fling, with the ease of a man who believes he has truth on his side.
“Will this ever end?” he asks, but he is having so much fun, I get the impression that he would be happy if the attention never ends.
Many people might not like being accused of having hotel-room sex on film for money, but considering the accusations O.J. has faced, it is probably flattering, a welcome bit of comic relief.
Dressed casually but noticeably expensively in a taut white undershirt and an unbuttoned purple shirt, O.J. is with several lawyers and 25-year-old Christine Prody, his on-and-off girlfriend.
During the interview, O.J. openly talks about being a single man who has quite the history with women, a single man who can “have sex with whoever I want to.” He alludes to experiences past, present and future, with simultaneous multiple partners, in front of Ms. Prody, with a boastful cavalierness that suggests he doesn’t have much concern for how she feels.
If a man can think of women in such dehumanizing terms, and show such disregard for her status as an individual, it’s not a stretch to think that man could hurt her with little remorse.
Business questions are asked, but O.J.’s conversation drifts back to his personal and legal problems like the tide returns to the sands of South Beach — and just as fondly, with a caress of familiarity that might be termed loving, if that weren’t too hellish to contemplate.
The biggest shock about meeting O.J. Simpson is that he’s boring. He’s a lousy listener, and talks with unyielding self-fascination. It’s not surprising O.J.’s Dream Team kept him off the witness stand; he can’t shut up. He talks, talks and talks.
I expected echoes of evil; I expected Hannibal. Instead, I faced a villain from a Scooby-Doo cartoon. In a few days, I will realize that to meet O.J. is to experience Heisneberg’s uncertainty principle in reverse; he wasn’t affected or changed by my observations. I was.
But at the time, I had to struggle to keep from reaching across the table, patting his hand and saying, “Yes, O.J., I know; you didn’t do it. You didn’t hurt Nicole. You didn’t exhibit road rage. The media’s not fair. You feel like you are still being chased, but by lawyers and bill collectors instead of linebackers.”
Simpson’s denials are as familiar as the grooves in an old record, and just as worn.
During the interview, which is more like a confessional session for O.J., attorney Craig Brand grows increasingly restless and begins tapping my business card on the table. It’s an innocent up-and-down gesture, not remotely threatening, but in the shadow of O.J. Simpson, everything has a scary connotation.
On a television in the conference room are two O.J.-autographed footballs. One reads, “To Craig Brand, my favorite lawyer, O.J. P.S. You’re better than Johny.”
I think that’s what it says. Like O.J., the ball is at an odd angle, so an accurate reading is impossible. I’m guessing Simpson is referring to Johnnie Cochrane, the rhyming lawyer who got him acquitted. If so, that’s the ultimate testament to O.J.’s obliviousness; he owes his freedom and life to Cochrane, but he can’t spell his name. Lucky for O.J., Cochrane’s mantra isn’t, “If you cannot spell, you get the cell.”
I ask O.J. if he has anyone watching the online auction sites, patrolling for fraudulent material. He says he has two people who watch the sites, but before he finishes, he is prompted into talking about the white Ford Bronco ride.
“The police knew where we were going,” he says, answering a question that was not asked. “There are a lot of details they never released.”
This leads to a toothless tirade about California, and the troubles he had there with the press and the police. O.J. indicates he does not miss the spotlight and attention of California, but why would he? With his continued misadventures in South Florida, he brings the attention and spotlight with him.
I ask O.J. if he is still involved with askoj.com, but before he can finish his answer, Brand closes the interview and I am back in the sunlight, walking past the windows displaying Peter Beard’s bodies and predators.
Six years ago, I interviewed Nicole’s sister, Denise Brown. I followed her for a day of radio interviews and battered women’s shelters, and saw her tears and frustration. At the end the day, she gave me the guardian angel pin from her lapel. It has been pinned to my portfolio for six years. It was sitting there, three feet from O.J., during our interview. The pin is tarnished, showing the wear and tear of time. It looks much older than it is, much older than it feels.
As I stand four floors beneath O.J., in the reflection of Peter Beard’s gallery of death, so do I.
Lighting the fuse 