I stand as straight as I can, the shackles biting into me.
“370583.”
“That’s not your number. You trying to be a smart guy?”
“Oh, no, sir. I’m giving you my number backward because I’m giving it back to you. I don’t need it anymore.”
He curses under his breath.
The sheriff looks at me, gestures at my shackles. “What is this? Why is he all chained up?”
“That’s how we do it,” Belinsky says.
“Take all that off. Handcuffs will do.”
Belinsky sniffs. “He could make a run for it.”
“I kind of doubt that a guy who’s about to get out is going to try to break out,” the sheriff says.
As the guard undoes the shackles on my legs, I think about how I came in here as a convicted nineteen-year-old rapist. That’s how they all saw me. Now, for the first time, someone—this man, this sheriff—sees me as a human being.
“Thank you,” I say.
* * *
—
November 2006.
A week before my twenty-sixth birthday.
I sit across from my new court-appointed attorney, John Rhiel, in a small stuffy room in Jefferson County Jail. John, more knowledgeable, focused, and passionate than the other court-appointed attorneys I’ve encountered, has just delivered bad news.
“It looks like the state might be planning to retry you,” John says. “I want us to be prepared. We’re going to be proactive. Let’s put everything together. If they want to take you to trial, we’ll overwhelm them with evidence. Again, that’s the worst case.”
“This has been nearly ten years of my life,” I say. “I’ve already gone through the worst case.”
“I just want to be ready,” John says.
* * *
—
My birthday feels different this year. I’m no longer in prison, I’m in jail. In prison, inmates have reached their end. They are often men who are spending years without hope. In this jail, I still sense hope from these inmates, men believing that they will be found not guilty and released. The atmosphere feels less tense, less dangerous.
I also have more access to the phone, so I speak to my mother and my aunts regularly, and the Man upstairs has decided to give me a special birthday present this year: a Chicago Bears dream team. The linebackers Lance Briggs and Brian Urlacher anchor a vicious defense. The quarterback Rex Grossman leads an explosive offense, and Devin Hester, a thrilling rookie speed merchant, returns six kickoffs for touchdowns, a record, I’m sure. I devour the sports pages and stay glued to every game. My Bears demolish opponent after opponent, running their record to 13–3. I have no doubt that this team, led by Lovie Smith, an African American coach, will make the Super Bowl. This force of a team, my Bears, becomes the symbol of my fight. I am the Bears. The Bears are me.
* * *
—
In early December, John and I go to my bond hearing. Simply put, my case now reverts to its beginning stages. Everything starts over. Until all charges have been dropped, the court can look at me as if I have just been accused of the same crime.
To that end, at the hearing, the prosecutor argues that the court should set my bond at a thousand dollars for each year of my original sentence—twenty-eight thousand dollars.
My lawyer grabs my sleeve to keep me from leaping up and shouting.
“Don’t respond,” John says. “I got this.”
“Your Honor,” he says, standing. “My client and his family have gone through an ordeal in every way, including financially. The family doesn’t have that kind of money. They’re drained. We’re asking that you set the bond at a reasonable amount so he can be let out and go home. I’m asking for five thousand dollars.”
The judge splits the difference, sets the bond at fifteen thousand dollars. To him, it’s a compromise.
To me, a punch in the gut. There’s no way my family can afford it.
After the hearing, John and I huddle in the hallway before I return to my cell at Jefferson County Jail.
“This is all a ploy,” John says. “They want you to plead. If you plead, nobody on the state side will be held liable. Prosecutor’s not liable and the judge is not liable for what was clearly a wrongful conviction.”
“Plead to a lesser charge,” I say.
“Right. You do that, you go home. Probably today.”
“Why do prosecutors go after the innocent?” I ask.
“Because they can,” John says.
“I know. They figure, set an astronomical bond, an amount he can’t possibly pay. He’s desperate to go home. He’s this close. He’ll accept the deal. He’ll plead.”
“That’s exactly right,” John says.
“Well, two things. First, I’ve spent more time in the law library than anyone I know, probably more than some lawyers. I know how this works. If I plead guilty to some lesser charge and go back to court and the breaks don’t go my way—which they won’t because of who I am and who my lawyer will be—I’ll end up back in prison finishing up my twenty-eight years. Am I right?”
“What’s the second thing?” John says.
“I’m innocent. I’m not pleading guilty to anything. Ask for a new bond motion.”
“You have to wait thirty days.”
“At this point, what’s another thirty days? I want all the charges dropped. I’m innocent.”
* * *
—
Happy New Year, 2007.
John files for a new bond motion. The court sets the hearing date for late January. The weekend before the bond hearing, on a brutally cold day at Soldier Field in Chicago, the Bears destroy the New Orleans Saints 39–14 to win the NFC Championship. They will face the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl on February 4 in Miami. The game will be historic. Both the Bears and the Colts have African American head coaches. Even if the Bears lose, I will take some solace that for the first time in history the Super Bowl winner will be coached by a Black man. A milestone for the sport.
Friday, January 26, 2007. John and I attend the bond hearing. We take our seats and Judge William Hue, the same professorial-looking judge who presided at my arraignment nearly a decade ago, walks in. His hair has gone completely white and he wears it shorter, but otherwise he doesn’t seem to have aged. I don’t expect him to remember me, but when he looks up, I see a flicker of recognition in his eyes.
John asks the court to reduce my bond to five thousand dollars, from fifteen thousand. Judge Hue takes a moment, considers the circumstances, and splits the difference again, lowering the bond to ten thousand dollars. I heave a huge sigh. I spoke to my mother two days before the hearing. She told me if we could get the bond down to ten thousand dollars, the family will somehow, some way, find the money to get me home. John and I agree to the bond. That will do it. My mother will pay it, pick me up, and I will walk out of Jefferson County Jail and the State of Wisconsin prison system.
“Okay,” Judge Hue says, “bond is set at ten thousand dollars.” Then he leans forward at the bench and speaks directly to me.
“Best of luck, young man,” he says. “I’m sorry that this had to happen to you.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
* * *
—
Two days later—Sunday, January 28, 2007—I am released.
That morning, I can’t stop thinking about time.
Time served. Time spent. Keeping time. Time flies. Time’s up. Wasting time.
Doing time. Hard time.
I did my time.
And mostly, I have lost so much time.
As I prepare to leave a five-by-nine-foot cell forever, time stops, time blurs. Years later, my memory will fog over when I try to recall what comes next.
I remember telling my mother on the phone, “Mom, I’ll be home for Val
entine’s Day.”
I remember seeing my mother in the waiting area of Jefferson County Jail, her hair thinned and white, her face drawn, wrinkled, ravaged. I have been behind bars for almost ten years. She has aged twenty.
I remember walking out of Jefferson County Jail, a nondescript boxy white building in the middle of nowhere.
I remember stepping into a shaft of frigid air, stopping for one second, and squinting up at the sky as I leave the building, even though the day is gray and cloudy. The bitter cold air snips my face, and my eyes burn.
I remember my stepfather holding my mother, holding her up.
I remember my mother crying softly and wanting to hug me, to cling to me. I hug her briefly and say, “Mom, please, I have to get out of here. Please. I need to get into the car.”
I remember getting into the backseat of the car and my stepfather driving us away from Jefferson County Jail. I curl forward, watching the building filling up the rearview mirror, then becoming smaller and smaller until I can no longer see it; I only feel it.
I remember music playing quietly and only occasional conversation. I want to answer all of my mother’s questions. I want to soothe her. But I know nothing I say will soothe her.
I remember her crying on the way home, asking, “What will you do?”
And my answer.
“I’m going to be a lawyer.”
I remember saying that.
I don’t explain how I will achieve that, because I have no idea. I just know that I will.
I remember stopping at a Red Lobster. I remember watching all the diners, then looking in front of me, to the sides, behind me, trying to process that I am in a restaurant and not in a prison chow hall. I remember eating as if I haven’t eaten in ten years, which, in some sense, is true.
I remember returning to Chicago, skirting and passing downtown, arriving in an unfamiliar suburb, pulling in to the driveway of a house I don’t know.
I remember my stepfather stopping the car and turning back to me.
“We’re home, Jarrett.”
Home.
I don’t remember what that is.
II.
Rise
14.
Home
“Jarrett.”
My mother, leaning against the passenger door, speaks softly.
I look at her, standing outside, her frail body trembling, her breath forming cloud circles. I feel glued to the backseat, immobilized.
“Come in the house, baby,” she says. “It’s cold out here.”
I exhale my own cloud, haul myself out of the car, and drag myself up the driveway. As I walk toward the door, I hear imaginary voices in my head.
You must be so happy to be home. You must feel so relieved.
I don’t feel happy or relieved. I feel deeply—anxious.
My stepfather opens the door and I walk inside. I stop suddenly in the living room, as if I have slammed into an invisible wall. The house feels comfortable, lived in, and foreign. I don’t know this place. I see no bars, but I feel closed in. Trapped. Then I look around and I can feel my mother in here. Her presence. I recognize a few of her things: a piece of furniture, a decorative pillow, a photo album on the coffee table, my framed high school graduation picture. I take a couple of steps farther in, and I hear something behind me. I whip around, my hands balled into fists. My stepfather nods and quietly closes the door. I unclench my hands and take a few more steps into the room. I make a show of looking around. I feel so displaced. I find my mother’s eyes, and I smile at her clumsily.
“Nice,” I say.
“We like it,” she says.
I swallow, trying to dislodge the knot in my throat.
“Do I—where do I—?”
“Oh, your room. Let me show you,” my mother says.
My room, I think. Leaving prison, I never thought about having a room of my own that wasn’t a cell. I never considered where I would sleep, where I would live when I got out. I think now, first with irony, then with building anger, that by leaving prison, I have become a man with nothing. I have no money, no clothes, no possessions. The company line—you leave with a clean slate; you’ll start all over, from scratch—is meant to sound hopeful. Now it feels like an admission that when you get out of prison, you not only have nothing; you are nothing. You are no one.
My mother opens the door to the guest bedroom. I take in the single bed, end table, curtains. My room. I skirt the room, walk along the perimeter. My mother watches me. I stop at the foot of the bed.
“Habit,” I say. “I’m used to checking for someone who might attack me. I have to adjust to—”
I can’t finish the sentence, because I know the word I’m searching for is “everything.”
“Take all the time you need,” she says.
“Time.”
That word again.
I point at some clothes folded neatly on the bed. A few undershirts. Pajamas. Socks.
“What’s all this?”
“We didn’t know if you had any clothes,” my mother says. “Those are James’s. Until you can get your own.”
She’s right. I have no clothes. I came home with a tracksuit I bought at the canteen, a pair of socks, and prison-issue work boots they force you to pay for and wear on your way out of jail.
“Thank you,” I say.
My mother lowers her head, bites her lip. I hug her and she loses it, tears rolling down her cheeks, her breath choking with sobs.
“I’m back, Mom,” I say.
“It’s unreal.”
“It is,” I say. “Completely unreal.”
“You must want to make up for lost time,” she says.
“I didn’t lose time,” I say. “They stole it.”
* * *
—
A few people come over to see me and to support my mother. My childhood friends Deshaun and Shaunte stop by, along with their parents and grandmother, and then my brother and his wife arrive with their two kids. I haven’t had much contact with my brother since I went to prison. He’s made a life for himself, raising a family and working a full-time job. At first, I feel a strain when we speak, as if I were talking with a stranger, someone I’ve just met. Those basketball games we played in back alleys by hanging a crate off a telephone pole seem like something I read in a book, not part of my actual life. I try to engage with my niece and nephew, but they seem shy, not sure who I am, how I fit in their world. I haven’t seen my nephew since he was a baby, and he’s not sure what to make of me now. He’s nine, almost ten. I have never met my niece.
“I missed all this,” I say.
“We missed you,” my mother says.
“I mean, I missed those years, that time. It’s been cut out of my life. I never had those years.”
I look at my brother. “Think back at your life,” I say. “Picture each decade. You’re ten years old, twenty, thirty. You can see events from those years. Birthday parties, graduation, marriage, jobs, the birth of your kids. Now imagine looking back at your life and there’s a ten-year gap where you see nothing. There are no memories. It’s blank. That’s what I mean when I say I missed all this. I never had it. I missed an entire decade.”
We visit a while longer until the kids and I both start to get tired. My brother scoops up my niece. She grins, twists toward me, and allows me to kiss her cheek. My nephew shyly ducks his head and extends his hand.
“You know what?” I say. “I think I’m gonna have to give you a hug.”
I lift him up and hug him. He doesn’t mind.
After my brother and his family leave, I sit at the kitchen table with my mother. We talk about the house, the neighborhood, this relative, that cousin, my aunts, her sisters. She asks about my plans. I tell her I want to pick up where I left off ten years ago, when I graduated from high school—find
ing a job, getting my car up and running, saving some money, going back to school, and moving into my own place. In other words, doing all the things you normally do when you turn eighteen. Except I’m going on twenty-seven.
“You’ll do all that. I know you will,” my mother says.
I suddenly feel hollowed out. The adrenaline coursing through me all day has fizzled, leaving me drained. I yawn, fidget, and adjust my position in my chair. I look past my mother, at the refrigerator.
“What’s the matter?” my mother asks.
“I was wondering—”
I hesitate.
“What?”
“Could I get a glass of milk?”
“Of course. You don’t have to ask for anything. This is your house. You get whatever you want from the fridge, anything.”
You don’t have to ask for anything. It seems so obvious. Normal. How do I explain to her that for ten years I have had to ask for everything? A pen. A pass to go to the law library. Permission to make a phone call. How do I explain how hard normal feels, how strange, how surreal, how unsettling?
“Thank you,” I say.
I open the refrigerator, and for a moment I just stare inside. My eyes travel over the contents—milk, juice, soda, beer, cheese, cold cuts, a jar of pickles, fruits, vegetables—I gawk at it all. I ease out the carton of milk, close the refrigerator door, go to the cabinet, and pull down a glass. My hands shake as I pour the milk.
“I’m sorry, I’m just…I’m so used to, you know—”
“I know,” my mother says.
But you don’t know, I think. You can’t know.
* * *
—
Wearing my stepfather’s pajamas, I cruise the perimeter of the bedroom. I check the locks on the door and the windows, and then I look under the bed. Clear. I crawl into bed, try to find a comfortable position. The mattress feels soft, cushy. My back sags. I need a harder mattress.
The bed is in the middle of the room. I have spent ten years sleeping on alert, my back against the wall, facing the door. Lying in this position—on my back—away from the door causes a jolt of anxiety. I try to breathe it away. I eye the ceiling, inhale, exhale slowly, take an even slower breath, and then my breathing amps up, and I fear I may hyperventilate. I sit up, grab my pillow, and walk to the living room, trailing the blanket behind me.
Redeeming Justice Page 19