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A Life Shattered

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By GEOFF FOX

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 29, 2008

ZEPHYRHILLS - ZEPHYRHILLS - Most people probably wouldn't throw a party commemorating the worst day of their lives.

But, most people aren't Mark Stokes and haven't endured the physical and psychological torment the 37-year-old has in the last two decades.

Wednesday - 20 years to the day after Stokes was attacked - about 100 people gathered at the Alice Hall Community Center at Zephyr Park to share laughs and memories with a mellow man who loved skateboarding, basketball and bowling before a stranger's fists left him partially paralyzed.

As people trickled in, Stokes rolled toward them in a motorized wheelchair, his left hand extended for an enthusiastic shake.

"What's up, dude?" he said to friend Paul Tew.

"How are you, man?" Tew said.

Stokes' response was lost in white noise, but the smile on his face spoke volumes. He was doing better than he had in years, and he wanted his friends, some of whom he hadn't seen in years, to know it, to see it firsthand.

On June 25, 1988, Stokes, then 17, was in Melbourne for a bowling tournament. After a day at the lanes, he, several friends and adult chaperones, including his father, Clayton, were at Bobby Rubino's Place For Ribs, waiting outside for a table.

Stokes said he was in good spirits, gesturing with his hands as he spoke about the day's bowling when Edward Sanders, then 35, passed the group, wife by his side. For years, Stokes, then a gangly, 6-foot-tall high school student, denied saying anything when the woman passed.

"I was looking at her," he says now. "I was a teenager. I did say she looked good."

Stokes maintains, though, that he wasn't talking loudly and didn't use profanity.

"He came up and tapped me on the shoulder," Stokes said of Sanders. "I turned and said, 'Yes, sir?' He said, 'You just said something to my wife.'"

Stokes denied it, and there wasn't much more to the ensuing disagreement, which lasted about 10 seconds. But, as Sanders turned to leave, he wheeled around and hit Stokes twice.

The first blow knocked out two of Stokes' teeth; the next crashed against his left temple.

The punches didn't drop him, but made him fighting mad.

He wanted to go inside, where his dad was checking on the table, and "settle" things with Sanders, but the sight of a police cruiser stopped him. As he gave a statement to police, he started feeling bad: The punch to the temple had caused his brain to hemorrhage.

"I started to sweat profusely, and everybody said I was throwing up," he said. "They put me on the gurney. I remember going down the hall to the emergency room. Boom! We hit the double doors, and that's the last thing I remember."

Thinking Of Revenge

These days, Stokes lives in the modest Zephyrhills duplex where he's lived all his life. Many of his high school friends have moved away and gone on with their lives. But Stokes can't seem to find a job or a girlfriend. Disability checks are his only income.

The right side of his body is partially paralyzed, and simple tasks, such as bathing, can be difficult.

He will never walk again.

He had to relearn to swallow.

For almost 20 years, he would lay awake at night, fantasizing about what he might do to the man who left him paralyzed.

"I didn't want to kill him, because he didn't kill me," Stokes said. "I just wanted to put him in the same position he put me."

His mother, Lenora Stokes, has had similar thoughts.

She has watched her son struggle since the day Sanders punched him.

She said she didn't recognize Mark when she first saw him in the hospital. His head was wrapped in white bandages; breathing tubes were connected to his face, and water-filled pads covered his body to regulate his temperature.

At first, it was unclear whether he would survive emergency brain surgery. He spent weeks in a coma, and for months he was transferred from one hospital to another. Over the years, he has endured hundreds of surgical procedures on limbs left bent from lying in a coma.

Eventually, he was able to move back home and return to high school, but it took him three years to complete his senior year.

Lenora Stokes doesn't know if she can ever forgive Sanders, although she has tried. She said the only time she ever heard him express remorse was at his sentencing.

"I think a lot will depend on whether or not I ever can talk or speak to him," she said. "I want to know how he feels about this situation, and not just in front of a judge, because he just wanted sympathy before, I believe."

Momentous Meeting

Lenora and Clayton Stokes, who own Princess Carpet Service in Zephyrhills, were visiting family in Roanoke, Va., recently, when Mark called to say he was going to meet Sanders, whom he'd found on the Internet.

"I went into orbit," Lenora Stokes said. "I didn't know if this man might try to hurt Mark again."

Her son's mind was made up, though, and he met Sanders several weeks ago at a Hooter's restaurant in Lakeland.

"When he walked in, he had gained some weight, and I barely recognized him," Stokes said. "When he came to the table, I started crying. All the rage - I didn't want to do this - all the hurt and pain came out. I let him have it. I came unglued.

"The first thing I asked him was, 'Why?' What the heck were you on? I could see his eyes tearing up. He apologized up and down, backward and forward, in and out."

They talked for two and a half hours.

"I think that was a turning point," Stokes said.

In May 1989, a jury found Sanders guilty of aggravated battery. He was ordered to spend 52 weekends in jail and pay $33,000 in restitution. He could not be reached for comment for this story, but he spoke to The Tampa Tribune in 1999.

"This whole thing has changed my life," he said. "There isn't a day that goes by when I don't think about Mark. Some might think there was no caring, no concern ... but that was never the case, from the second this thing happened."

Sanders said he overreacted.

"He was just being a teenager, and things escalated," he said.

Friends Brighten His Spirit

Chad Galloway drove three hours to attend Stokes' party Wednesday night.

Galloway, who now lives in Daytona Beach, has known Stokes since they were 12. He recalled long days of skateboarding on a half-pike ramp in Stokes' yard, hours of playing basketball and hanging out.

A group of Stokes' friends were in Zephyrhills the night he was injured, Galloway said.

Like many others in this close-knit town, the news of what had happened in Melbourne shocked and angered Galloway and other friends.

"A bunch of us got together, and we were like, 'Let's get that guy,'" he said. "But, we were just teenagers, and he was a grown man. We didn't even have the resources to get to Melbourne."

The meeting with Sanders and the recent party seem to have eased some of Stokes' bitterness. Friends and family said he seemed more cheerful than he has in years.

Still, he described his life as "very boring." He has tried to teach himself computer skills, but he also suffers from short-term memory loss and gets frustrated. He occasionally still bowls, but he said it's hard in a wheelchair. Plus, he was right-handed before the incident and now does everything left-handed.

That worries his mother, who thinks the muscles in his left arm are deteriorating from over-use. For instance, he wants to be as independent as possible and loads his wheelchair into his modified pickup by himself.

She also said he falls more often than he used to, and she worries about what will happen to him when she and Clayton are gone. Mark's sister, Paula, lives with her family in Daytona Beach.

"It's a heavy burden to put on our daughter," Lenora Stokes said.

But if Stokes is worried about his future, he doesn't show it.

His greatest hope, he said, is "to love and be loved."

"I want somebody I can trust, who won't lie to me. But this thing is a curse," he said, slapping the arm of his wheelchair.

"I tell you what, man, I wouldn't wish this on anybody."

Keyword: Stokes, to see more photos from last week's party.

Reporter Geoff Fox can be reached at (813) 779-4613 or gfox@tampatrib.com.

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