Dear Martin

by Nic Stone

  Jus clenches his teeth. “A disagreement.”

  “A ‘disagreement’ involving whom?”

  “Manny and the friend.”

  “Interesting.” She shuffles her papers on the podium. “Your Honor, I’d like to enter into evidence a police report, filed on January twenty-sixth, that alleges Emmanuel Rivers physically attacked a Mr. Jared Christensen on Monday, January twenty-first.”

  Mr. Rivers is shooting eye-daggers at the attorney.

  “It wasn’t like that,” Jus says.

  The attorney’s eyebrows rise. “Oh, it wasn’t?”

  “No.”

  “Which part of the report is incorrect?”

  “Manny didn’t attack Jared.”

  “So you were there to witness this ‘disagreement’?”

  Jus drops his head again. “No.”

  “We can’t hear you, Mr. McAlliste—”

  “I said no.”

  “So you can’t be completely sure Mr. Rivers didn’t attack Mr. Christensen.”

  “Manny wasn’t that type of guy.”

  “What type of guy?”

  “The type who ‘attacks’ people unprovoked.”

  “So you’re suggesting there was provocation.”

  “Yes. There was.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because Manny told me…”

  Jus sees SJ close her eyes, and he realizes his mistake.

  “I mean—”

  “So Mr. Rivers did, in fact, inform you that he’d assaulted Jared Christensen?”

  Jus doesn’t respond.

  “Mr. McAllister?”

  Justyce just stares at her.

  “Your Honor?”

  “Answer the question, Mr. McAllister,” the judge says.

  Justyce clears his throat. “Yes. Manny told me Jared made an inappropriate joke, so he hit him.”

  “Who hit whom?”

  “Manny hit Jared.”

  “Hmm.” The attorney nods. “Sounds like a fairly familiar set of circumstances, doesn’t it, Mr. McAllister?”

  “Objection,” Mr. Rentzen says. “The question is ambiguous.”

  “Sustained,” says the judge.

  “I’ll rephrase,” she says. “You were involved in a similar altercation on the night of January eighteenth, correct?”

  “You’ll have to be more specific,” Jus says.

  The attorney doesn’t miss a beat. “I have a statement here from a Mr. Blake Benson alleging that you assaulted him and Jared Christensen, unprovoked, at Mr. Benson’s home the night of January eighteenth.”

  SJ bites her lip.

  “Do you deny this accusation, Mr. McAllister?”

  “It wasn’t unprovoked.”

  “Are you saying you didn’t assault Blake Benson at his own birthday party?”

  “No…”

  “So you did assault Blake Benson and Jared Christensen.”

  “Well, yes, but I was provoked.”

  She actually smiles. “You arrived at Blake Benson’s house with Emmanuel Rivers, and within ten minutes, you’d started an argument with Mr. Benson, correct?”

  “I didn’t start the argument. He did.”

  She looks down at the podium. “It says here that Mr. Benson asked you and Mr. Rivers to come meet a young lady he was interested in. Is this true?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, it’s not?”

  “He wasn’t ‘interested’ in her. He just wanted to get her in bed.”

  “Mr. Benson said those exact words?”

  “No…but he implied.”

  “I see, so the young lady was a friend of yours, and you were defending her honor, then?”

  “I didn’t know the girl, but—”

  “You were jealous, then.”

  “What? No!”

  “For whatever reason, you didn’t like that Blake Benson wanted to take this girl to bed. So you assaulted him?”

  “That’s not how it happened.”

  “Ah, that’s right. Jared Christensen came over to defend Blake Benson, whom you were threatening at his own birthday party, and so you assaulted both of them.”

  “That’s not what happened!”

  “Maintain your composure, Mr. McAllister,” the judge says.

  Jus breathes in deep and looks at SJ. She nods.

  “Tell me something,” the lawyer says. “After you attacked Jared Christensen and Blake Benson, Emmanuel Rivers reprimanded you, correct? He sided with the victims of your unprovoked assault—”

  “I already told you I didn’t attack them.”

  “Well, you certainly didn’t wish Mr. Benson a happy birthday, did you?”

  “Some words were exchanged that led to an altercation.”

  “Can you be more specific, Mr. McAllister?”

  Jus looks at Garrett. “A lot has happened since then. Can’t say I remember very clearly.”

  “Hmm…are you having difficulty remembering due to more recent events, or because you were illegally intoxicated?”

  “Objection, Your Honor!” says Mr. Rentzen.

  “Overruled.”

  “Had you been drinking on the night of January eighteenth, Mr. McAllister?” she presses.

  Jus sighs. “Yes, I had.”

  “And you hit Jared Christensen and Blake Benson, correct?”

  “They were making racist comments—”

  “A simple yes or no will do.”

  Jus can feel Mama’s gaze. “Yes.”

  The defense attorney nods. “Mr. McAllister, now that we’ve established that both you and Mr. Rivers had a history of responding violently to perceived verbal slights, let’s return to January twenty-sixth of this year. How familiar are you with the City of Atlanta Code of Ordinances?”

  “Not very.”

  “Your Honor, I would like to enter the following into evidence.” She pulls a sheet of paper from her stack and walks over to the witness stand. “Mr. McAllister, read Article Four, section seventy-four-dash-one-thirty-three, aloud for the court, please. It’s highlighted there for you.”

  Jus looks into the crowd. Mama and Mrs. Friedman both seem on the verge of hopping the rail and smacking Garrett’s attorney.

  He reads: “ ‘Above certain levels, noise or noise disturbance is detrimental to the health and welfare of the citizenry and the individual’s right to peaceful and quiet enjoyment. Therefore, it is hereby declared to be the policy of the city to prohibit noise disturbances from all sources.’ ”

  “Would you say your loud music was in violation of this ordinance, Mr. McAllister?”

  “What does this have to do with your client shooting me and my best friend?”

  “Judge, please advise the witness that I am the one asking the questions.”

  Now even Doc looks pissed.

  “Watch your tone, Mr. McAllister,” the judge says.

  “My client is an officer of the law, Mr. McAllister. By refusing to lower the volume of your music, you were in direct opposition to a police order.”

  “We didn’t know he was a police officer. He didn’t show us a badge—”

  “And yet the ordinance clearly states that noise disturbance violates the rights of others to peace and quiet. But of course you and your friend couldn’t have cared less about anyone else’s rights, could you?”

  Jus doesn’t respond.

  “Mr. McAllister, did your friend, Emmanuel Rivers, turn the music up when he was asked to turn it down?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did the music you were listening to contain the line Here comes the fun…wait for the sound of the gun?”

  “Yes, but that’s out of contex—”

  “Did Mr. Rivers use foul language and make an obscene gesture toward my client that you would’ve perceived as threat?”

  “I don’t know what your client thought. I’m not him.”

  “Are you aware that my client witnessed the shooting death of his partner by a young man physically similar to yourself?”

/>   “That doesn’t have anything to do with me—”

  “Oh, but it does,” she says. “Because you had contact with this young man back in March, didn’t you?”

  Jus sighs. Dr. Rivers shuts her eyes and shakes her head.

  “Yes, I did, but—”

  “And that young man—Quan Banks, I believe his name is—connected you to a group of young men with extensive criminal records and known gang affiliations, yes?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And you met with these young men shortly before they deliberately set my client’s house on fire, is that correct?”

  “It is, but I didn’t have anything to do with that—”

  “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  Garrett Tison: MURDERER?

  THE JURY IS STILL OUT

  By: Ariel Trejetty

  Yesterday morning, a Georgia jury found former Atlanta police officer Garrett Tison guilty on three of the four charges related to the January incident in which he was accused of shooting two teenage boys after an argument over the volume of music.

  After 27 hours of deliberation, Tison was convicted of two misdemeanors—disorderly conduct and discharge of a pistol near a public highway—and aggravated assault, the less severe of the two felonies. The jury was unable to reach a consensus regarding the felony murder charge, and a mistrial was declared on that count.

  Tison testified that he feared for his life, citing 27 years of law enforcement experience in support of his ability to detect a genuine threat. Though Tison’s claim that the teens had a gun was unsupported by evidence, the surviving teen, Justyce McAllister’s, exposed connection to known gang members, including sixteen-year-old Quan Banks, the young man charged with murdering Tison’s partner last August, cast a considerable pall over the proceedings.

  Mr. Tison will be retried on the murder count and sentenced on all convictions at a later date.

  It’s been two days.

  Two full days, and the words unable to reach a verdict and mistrial and later date are still bouncing around in Jus’s head.

  He and SJ have been watching National Geographic pretty much nonstop since they got back from the announcement of the verdict, but every time he blinks, Jus sees the third juror from the right in the back row, eyeing him like he shoulda been on trial for murder.

  A hung jury.

  No verdict.

  No sentence.

  Another trial.

  SJ sighs like she can read Jus’s mind. She’s stretched out on the couch with her head in his lap, looking at a documentary about the migration of monarch butterflies, but Jus doubts she’s actually watching. Nothing in the world frustrates Sarah-Jane Friedman more than a “miscarriage of justice.”

  It’s all so messed up. In two weeks, he and this gorgeous girl are supposed to get into his car and drive up the East Coast together. They’re supposed to go to Yale first and get Jus set up in the dorms—Mama wanted to come, but she can’t get off work, so it’ll be just the two of them. Once Jus is in, they’re supposed to take the train from New Haven to New York, where they’ll meet Mr. and Mrs. Friedman and get SJ settled at Columbia.

  They’re supposed to be moving on. Starting the next chapter. Never looking back.

  But at some point in the next six months, he’s going to have to come back here. He’s going to have to relive the afternoon he got shot and lost Manny.

  Again.

  “What are you thinking about?” SJ says.

  He could tell her, but from the bags under her eyes, she’s got enough on her mind. “Just the fact that you’re the best thing in my life,” he says.

  “Oh god, Jus. Rom-com much? Le barf.”

  He laughs, and she smiles, and for a moment, everything’s fine.

  Course it doesn’t last.

  “Jus, I think I hate everything,” she says. “Why can’t we all get along like butterflies?”

  He tucks her hair behind her ear. Tries to shift his focus to the TV, where layer upon layer of monarchs cover the trees in some Mexican forest. While he appreciates her sentiment, Jus wonders if she notices that all those butterflies look exactly alike.

  His cell phone rings. It’s Mr. Rentzen.

  He declines the call. The longer he can go without having to speak to the DA, the better.

  Now all he can think about is how exhausted Mr. Rivers seemed as they said goodbye outside the courtroom. As much as Jus hates that the death of his best friend was minimized by the hung jury, he can’t begin to imagine what Manny’s parents must be going through.

  Voice mail notification chimes.

  Then a text message: “Justyce, call me ASAP.”

  Jus erases it.

  The phone rings again.

  “Who is that?” SJ asks.

  “It’s Rentzen.” Jus declines the second call.

  “Oh god,” SJ says. “Can we change your number?”

  Mrs. F comes in from the kitchen with a phone to her ear.

  “Justyce, Mr. Rentzen is trying to get ahold of you—What’s that?” she says into the phone. Her eyes go wide. “You can’t be serious, Jeff.”

  That can’t be good.

  SJ sits up. “Mom? What’s the matter?”

  Mrs. F holds up her index finger and continues to speak into the phone: “Mmhmm…Oh good lord…This is…And the perpetrators?…I can’t believe this, Jeff….”

  Justyce can’t breathe. He lets his head fall back against the couch and closes his eyes.

  “Mom, can you take it to another room?” SJ says, putting her hand on Justyce’s knee. “You’re gonna give Jus a frickin’ heart attack!”

  “Jeff, I’ll call you back. I need to talk to the kids….Yeah….Strictly confidential, I understand.”

  Things can’t get worse, can they?

  Mrs. F hangs up.

  “Mom?” from SJ.

  “There won’t be a second trial,” Mrs. F says.

  Jus rockets up, and SJ grabs his hand. “What?”

  Mrs. F looks at the phone in her hand. Then at the two of them.

  “Garrett Tison is dead.”

  Transcript from morning news, August 9

  Good morning, and welcome to Rise ’N’ Shine Atlanta on Fox 4.

  In our top story this morning, a mere forty-eight hours after a mistrial was declared in the proceedings against him, former APD officer Garrett Tison was found dead inside his cell at the Clarke County Jail.

  While details about the incident are being withheld pending investigation, three men have been implicated in the matter, two of whom were already awaiting trial on murder charges.

  In a statement to police, Garrett Tison’s attorney claimed she received a phone call from Mr. Tison alleging that guards refused to put him in isolation despite his complaints about receiving threats.

  The sheriff’s office is also conducting an internal administrative review.

  More on this story as it continues to develop.

  August 25

  DEAR MARTIN,

  Welp, I’m here.

  The illustrious Yale University.

  I’m actually writing this from beneath a picture of you that SJ hung over my desk. It was a going-away gift from Doc.

  I gotta be honest, Martin: your picture is making me a little uncomfortable.

  Actually, no. I take that back. It’s not your picture. It’s being here at this school.

  A lot has happened since I last wrote to you, most of which I haven’t really had time to process. Hard to believe that this time last year, I was starting my whole experiment.

  What I find most interesting reading through the letters: I can’t figure out what I was trying to accomplish. Yeah, I wanted to “be like Martin,” but to what end? I wasn’t trying to move mountains of injustice or fight for the equal rights of masses of people…

  So what exactly was I trying to achieve? I’ve been thinking about it for days and haven’t come up with an answer.

  On the one hand, I feel like I should thank you: wh
ile there were black students at Yale as early as the 1850s, I doubt I would be here without all you did to “challenge the status quo,” as Doc put it.

  On the other hand, though, I feel crazy outta place. I’m in a four-person suite broken down into a living room and two bedrooms, and while I was in here setting up my half of the room, my roommate came in looking like he stepped straight out of a Ralph Lauren ad. Blond, blue-eyed white dude with a deep side part and comb-over, wearing a blindingly white polo tucked into plaid shorts, and a pair of tasseled loafers. After staring at your picture for a few seconds, and then giving me the type of once-over that would’ve made the guys from my neighborhood throw a punch, dude finally stuck out his hand. “Roosevelt Carothers,” he said.

  Now, okay, Martin. I tried not to judge the magazine by the advertising, but standing there with this guy looking down his pointy nose at me made me wish I were rooming with Jared Christensen (he’s going to school here too). At least then I would’ve known what I was dealing with.

  But this Roosevelt guy?

  “So where you from…is it Just-ICE? Like rhymes with ‘price’?”

  Martin…

  “It’s Justice, man. Just with a ‘y.’ I’m from Atlanta.”

  Everything went downhill from there because he put two and two together—my name and face were all over the news until like a week ago. Then when SJ came back in from the bathroom and I introduced her as my girlfriend, dude’s entire demeanor changed for the negative. I know I wasn’t imagining it because as soon as he left, SJ said, “What the hell is his deal?”

  Martin, I just— It never ends, does it? No matter what I do, for the rest of my life I’m gonna find myself in situations like this, aren’t I? It’s exactly what Mr. Julian told Manny and me, but there’s a part of me that still doesn’t wanna believe it.

  And all right, benefit of the doubt: maybe I’m making this a race thing when it’s not. I’ll admit my filter’s a little tainted after the past eight months…scratch that: after the past year.

  But that’s the thing, Martin. I CAN’T not notice when someone is eyeing me like I’m less than, and at this point, my mind automatically goes to race.

  No clue what to do about that.

  Which brings me back to my original point: What was my goal with the Be Like Martin thing? Was I trying to get more respect? (Fail.) Was I trying to be “more acceptable”? (Fail.) Did I think it would keep me out of trouble? (Epic fail.) Really, what was the purpose?