Eventually, I said, “Unnnhhhh,” because the pain kicked in. With the adrenaline wearing off, I had a catalog of intense injuries all over my body, and they took turns screaming the loudest.
But the worst part of that hour, and the trip to the hospital, and the endless questions, and the trip to juvenile jail, and the more endless questions, and the drugged not-sleep on my cell bunk, was the feeling that everything was about to get straightened out.
I want to go back and get rid of that feeling. I’d keep the fractured ribs, the stitches, the twelve pieces of glass removed from my hand and the three pieces still in there. The thing that caused the most pain was wondering, every time someone entered the room or a phone rang: Is this the moment when people finally realize what’s going on?
I wasted phone calls calling my house, thinking Meili might be there.
Where the hell was Meili? Or Manny? Or her aunt and uncle? Somebody would show up soon.
That thought never died. It shrank and hardened.
I could understand, sort of, why Meili did what she did. Maybe it was for my own sake. Maybe those guys would have come to my house with more than fists if I wasn’t securely locked away. But at some moment, that danger passed. At some moment, Meili and Manny had to come forward and tell everyone what happened. That would be better for both of us, Meili.
I tried to explain it all to my skeptical, overworked, court-appointed lawyer. Here’s how well that went.
“Melissa called me at school because she was in danger. I went to Stewart’s, and these guys were threatening her, trying to take her away.” I was earnest and serious at the beginning.
We met in a cheerful room that’s not what you’re picturing. New carpet, comfortable-enough chairs, bright lighting, a window. None of juvie is what you’re imagining. It’s a boring cement dormitory, pleasant and anonymous except for the doors that lock from the outside, the screaming, the fistfights. You had a room in the facility, not a cell in a jail. But we all called them cells cause it sounded tougher. And cause that’s what they were.
“According to their statements, they were meeting with Melissa to discuss financial matters,” Jeffrey Malcolm—please, call me Jeff—said, pulling some pages out of his huge stack.
Why do prosecutors all have sharp suits and fancy haircuts and defense attorneys have rumpled clothes and overgrown hair? Is there a dress code?
“That’s right,” I said. “Melissa’s father is in trouble, and he put a bunch of real estate in her name. Those two guys found out where she was, and they were threatening her.”
“Explain,” he said, reading but paying attention.
At this point, I realized I didn’t really know the story. I was inventing, or at least filling in, a lot of details.
“It’s simple. They want Melissa so they can take her family’s assets,” I said.
“Who are ‘they’?” he asked.
“People connected to her father’s case.”
“His case,” Jeff said. The more dubious he got, the slower he talked. “And who is her father?”
“I don’t know his name. He does business stuff.” A terrible sentence. An I-don’t-know-what-I’m-talking-about sentence. I was exhausted, injured, pissed off. “I mean, real-estate stuff.”
“Do you know where he is?”
So exasperating. “No one does, that’s the whole point!” I yelled.
He paused, a slow-down-the-crazy-person pause. “We would need to confirm all of this with Melissa.”
“Yes, definitely,” I said. I leaned back in the chair and tried to be a Good Client. My chair was chained to the table leg, presumably so I couldn’t pick it up and throw it at Jeff. So many maniac-proof rooms in the world. In my world.
“But we can’t locate her,” he said.
“Of course not. She’s terrified.” I tried not to yell.
He switched tacks, pushing some pages across the table. “What’s bad here is the victim states you attacked him unprovoked. And we have uninvolved witnesses who back him up.”
That sounded like Ms. Davies. Witnesses with no reason to lie. Why was I in so many situations where I technically threw the first punch but, really, I was attacked?
Maybe I was a hooligan.
Go to school again, hooligan.
“You’re not giving me a lot to go on here, Jason. I understand that, in your mind, you were protecting Melissa. I believe you … acted on that belief.” Jeff did have one twisted skill: convincing bad people he empathized with their crazy, evil decisions. “But the court is not interested in what you thought. The court is interested in what you did. Now, the two victims are not especially sympathetic, and we have eyewitness testimony that the second one grabbed you in a threatening way before you hit him. If that holds up, we can probably get charges related to him dropped. That leaves charges related to Mr. Anthony Holt, and the best we can hope for there is the ten-month suspended sentence from your earlier arson charge. I think there’s zero chance we’ll get below that, and I’m guessing the prosecutor, particularly if it’s Bill Burke, is going to push for more.” He paused for emphasis, as if “Bill Burke” might change my mind. “That’s why a plea deal is absolutely in your best interest. Taking this to trial could go badly for you. Very badly.”
“What does ‘very badly’ mean?”
He slid a page over to me, the charge sheet I’d already seen. “There are serious charges here, felony charges. That’s bad enough, and on top of it, you’re on probation. You’ve had your second chance, Jason. From a prosecutor’s point of view, you’re an arsonist who sent a young boy to the hospital, and now you viciously and publicly assault two people. And beyond those arrests, it’s my understanding you’ve been in several altercations in the interim, including other fights at Stewart’s.” He tapped the table on that last one.
For the record: fuck table tappers. Every one of them.
“Those were different. That wasn’t about Melissa, that was the other stuff, the fire,” I said.
“Exactly. It’s a continuous string of violent acts, many taking place at a family restaurant, instigated by you.”
“It wasn’t all at Stewart’s. We also fought at the VFW.” I channeled Meili, smiling sarcastically.
That confused him, and he turned back to his papers. “If we are going to trial, I need more than stories, I need evidence.”
“Like?”
“Testimony from Melissa Young.” I shrugged. “Testimony from members of her family. Evidence she has been harmed or threatened in the past. Medical records, 911 calls, a friend saying she felt she was in danger.” I shook my head. “Court records of her father’s case. A statement from her father. Evidence that someone is trying to take her assets illegally. Anyone who overheard their conversation in Stewart’s and can confirm Melissa was being threatened.”
I had none of that. Nothing.
He continued: “You must have talked to someone, a friend or family member.”
“About this? No, it was secret.”
“About Melissa. You must have confided in someone, bragged to your buddies, right?”
Here’s a sad fact. The only person I could think of was Manny, a guy I saw exactly four times.
“I don’t have buddies.”
“None?”
“None.”
He leaned in with that sympathetic guidance counselor nod, eyebrows raised. We’re Learning a Lesson Here. I wanted to lean in, smile, and head-butt his greasy, smug face. Everyone who makes that face deserves a broken nose.
Don’t head-butt your lawyer, Jason. Really, don’t.
“What convinced you, Jason?”
“About what?”
“That Melissa was in danger. That you had to protect her from these men.”
“What convinced me? I believed her,” I said. “She explained it, and I trusted her.”
He didn’t say anything. He just let my words sit there.
No further questions, Your Honor.
* * *
That night, I did what I always do when I’m in trouble. I didn’t call my mom. I had phone privileges between 6:15 and 7, so every night at 6:15, I told myself: time to call Mom. Then, all I had to do was waste thirty-five minutes, and I could say: It’s too late now, we need more time to talk and connect, I’ll call her tomorrow for sure.
The best way to spend those thirty-five minutes was on either bunk—no cellmate yet, I mean roommate—reading a fantasy novel. I could get wrapped up in the story, keep one eye on the clock, and reasonably tell myself I had lost track of time.
The worst way to spend those thirty-five minutes was thinking about Mom. Thinking about her seeing me here. About how she bawled when she visited me in jail after the fire. Thinking about the endless apologies: “I’m so sorry, baby. I’ve been a terrible mom. I’m never gonna forgive myself.”
She always got ahead of me. When I was mad, she’d beat herself up till I’d start saying nice things to her. When I needed her help, she’d break down crying, and I’d end up comforting her. That’s what drunks do, according to the Alateen group I’d attended one and a half times. (She pulled me out in the middle of the second meeting when she found out it wasn’t a required part of her DUI sentence.)
So maybe it was her. She made conversations hard, all tangled up.
But really? Truly down deep?
Maybe it was me.
That night, for thirty-five minutes, I thought about Jeff’s question: What convinced me Meili was in danger?
He nailed it with that question. How, specifically, did I know Meili was in trouble, that she was at risk? If I told that story, Jeff would be convinced. And Jeff could convince the judge, the prosecutor.
That’s when I got serious about the writing.
Everybody had given testimony except me and Meili. I wrote our story from the first day in the Rubber Room. From: That’s not your name.
I wrote on everything. I filled a notebook the social worker gave me, then tore blank pages out of books no one was reading, then traded for a second notebook. On my third night inside, way too late, I wrote on napkins.
It’s incredible how much you remember when you get focused. The different angles of Meili’s two front teeth. The taste of her mouth after she drank tea. The rainbow reflections off the sunglasses of the power-washer guy at FunZone. It was a movie in my head, I could direct it, edit it, rewind, zoom in.
I’d show Jeff my movie. I’d show him what convinced me.
Writing made the hours fly by. Guys started calling me Professor. Hilarious.
Then I worried. Could I get it all on paper? And could Jeff make sense of it? I gathered everything I’d written, every scrap and notebook and ripped sheet. It was bad. I was the crazy client who drops a stack of random, hoarded bullshit on his lawyer. Paranoid diagrams of how the president was tracking me, secret messages in McDonald’s ads, all scrawled on the back of trash-picked envelopes.
I had to clean it up, simplify it. My tenth-grade literature teacher used to challenge us to “say it in a sentence.” Tell the essentials (that was her word) of Twelfth Night or The Bluest Eye in one sentence.
Young man sacrifices himself to help girl with a British accent and a troubled past.
Bad boy and on-the-run girl fall in love in small-town America and are torn apart by circumstances.
I could copy it over into one notebook, maybe two. The story had to be clear, so Jeff could get me out of here.
So I could find Meili.
So it would not be:
Violent boy ruins his life right when he feels hopeful for the first time.
* * *
I borrowed a pen light and wrote all night before my second meeting with Jeff. My hand hurt, my writing got sloppy. I raced to get the last bits into my notebook. I skipped breakfast, not a good idea unless you had money at the commissary.
At 10:15 a.m., I dropped three notebooks on the table. I had tucked several pieces of nicely folded paper into the last notebook. It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t crazy-person, either.
“Good morning, Jason.”
“Good morning. I wrote it all down.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I wrote down everything that happened, everything that convinced me Melissa was in trouble, it’s all there.”
“OK. Why don’t you have a seat, Jason.” He was trying to slow me down. I was sped up. No sleep, no food, fourteen straight hours of writing. If only my teachers could have seen me.
I sat down quickly. “You have to read it. It explains everything.” Why wasn’t he reading it?
“We have things to talk about,” he said.
Of course we do. “I know, I know, I know. That’s what I’m saying: It’s all in the notebooks. All the important stuff.”
A stack of case files teetered on the table, all of Jeff’s locked-up clients. He was killing maximum birds with one visit.
“Great.” He shifted tactics. “We’ll definitely talk about the notebooks. Are you alright, Jason?”
“Yes.”
“You look exhausted.” He didn’t care, exactly; he was concerned he couldn’t bang out an efficient meeting with me.
“Because of this! I’ve been up all night. But it’s totally worth it cause I got it. I got the story.”
“Good, I’m glad.”
No, you fucking aren’t.
“Now, I wanted to start by asking about our plea deal,” he said. Our plea. I nodded. “Have you thought more about what I said?”
“What part?”
“Pleading to lesser charges, taking the ten months minus time served. A little over nine months. Earn some credits inside, maybe eight and change.”
Eight and change. Me locked up for two weeks was a bunch of pennies you wouldn’t bother to pick up.
I didn’t want to get mad. I looked at the notebooks. Maybe I could get him to notice them by staring at them. My stack of papers versus his.
“I talked with the prosecutor, Jason. He’s charging you as an adult, OK, this is not like your earlier case. But he put this deal on the table. It’s an excellent deal. Now, we can’t wait forever.” He took two crisp papers out of his WILDER, JASON file. “He gave me a one-week window on the offer. This was yesterday. So read it carefully, ask me any questions, and then we’ll have a few days to think it over.”
We. As if he was going to give it serious thought, weigh the pros and cons for a day or two.
This was not the lawyer I wanted. I wanted the lawyer who couldn’t wait to chase down leads, poke holes in the official story, hand the witness some shocking document and ask, “Is this not your handwriting, Officer?”
I had the lawyer who made deals with the prosecutor as quickly as possible so he could move on to some better case.
Stay calm, Jason. You worked hard on this. Don’t blow it now.
“How about this?” I looked at Jeff for the first time. “I’ll read that, and you read this.” I pointed at my notebooks.
“OK, well, I can’t read it all right now.”
“Remember last time, you asked me: What convinced me Melissa was in danger? I thought about that so much. It was a great question, the best question. So I wrote it all out, it’s all in there. I swear, read it and you’ll understand.”
Jeff nodded, for real, and picked up my notebooks, which, compared with his pile, looked totally reasonable. “Alright. I will. I want to understand, Jason. I want to understand how you got here. And I promise: any information in here that helps our side, I will use it to the fullest extent of my ability to get us the best possible result.”
I liked that lawyer. That was the lawyer I’d hoped for.
“Thank you.” I could feel a sob rising, but I pressed it down. “And I’ll read this and think about it. Definitely.” I stood and took the two clean, white papers. Maybe they only seemed clean compared to my scribbled notebooks.
Jeff looked at his watch. “Today’s Tuesday, I’ll be back Friday. That’ll leave us plenty of time to make our decisions.”
&nb
sp; “Thank you. I appreciate you reading all of that. Sorry about the handwriting. I think it’s gonna help you, you know, get it.”
“Getting it is good. I want to get it. And thank you for reading the plea offer. I think we can find our way to the best outcome. Not perfect, but the best we can.”
I never bothered to read the plea deal. As soon as Jeff started looking into things, as soon as he started asking the right questions, everything was going to change. I pictured us someday laughing that we had ever considered a plea. Jeff would shake his head and say, “I can’t believe I almost let them lock you up for eight months.”
And change.
EIGHTEEN
That night, I called my mom. I felt better about how things were going, and I wanted to see if she had any news. From Meili.
I assumed Meili would never call me directly, too dangerous. Maybe she would get in touch with my mom.
I requested phone time at 6:30, hoping to hit her sweet spot between annoyed-but-sober and sweet-but-wasted.
The phone rang once and she picked up. All the calls were recorded, so it started with a beep and a long announcement about the recording.
“Jason, baby, I’m so glad to hear from you. I’ve been so worried.”
“Yeah, sorry. It’s hard to make calls here.” Not really.
“What happened? Aunt Becky tells me you got arrested.”
“Some crazy stuff went down. But I’m OK. You’d be proud of me, Mom. I did the right thing, I protected someone. And the lawyer says I might get out soon.” That was a lie. What I meant was: once the lawyer checks out my story, he’ll work on getting me out.
“I’m glad. You know I want the best for you, baby.”
“Has anybody, uh, contacted you?” The real question.
“The juvenile court folks never called here, they probably think I’m still in Unionville. But, like I said, Aunt Becky called, and she tried to explain the whole thing to me and, you know, I got real worried, I tried to read about it on the internet. Anyway, our neighbor’s internet is down, and you never know when it’s gonna work. But Al talked to them, and I think it’s gonna get fixed real soon.”
So like my mom. Ask her a crucial question—a simple question—and she detours into some bullshit about her problems.
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