Endangered

by Jean Love Cush

  When Janae walked into the courtroom she was surprised to see Loretta Gaines. The trunk of Loretta’s body stretched tall toward the ceiling. Janae couldn’t imagine where Loretta drew her strength from. Janae doubted if she would be able to get out of bed if the same unspeakable violence snatched her son away. The mothers’ eyes met. She could see the sadness in Loretta’s gaze. Her eyes contradicted her body language.

  They met in the middle of the courtroom’s center aisle and embraced. “Thank you so much for being here,” Janae said.

  Loretta’s eyes swelled with tears, but they didn’t waver. “There’s no other place I want to be.” She pulled away from Janae and looked at her with steely determination. “We gotta make this right.”

  Roger and Calvin were seated at the far-left table on the other side of the bar that separated the lawyers and court employees from potential witnesses and observers. They were engrossed in a conversation.

  Janae walked over to the portion of the dark wooden bar that was closest to them and quickly leaned into it. “Good morning,” she said as she removed her coat and hung it on the back of her seat. Calvin stopped midsentence, shifting to greet her.

  Who they saw in front of them was not the woman Roger had met at the start of the case—a woman who was terrified, unwilling to trust anyone, and with a chip on her shoulder as broad as the room they stood in. Janae looked like she should have been on the other side of the bar. It wasn’t just the suit Calvin bought her, although it fit Janae as if tailor-made for her; or her hair, which had been transformed from a ponytail into soft flowing curls that framed her face. It was more an inner strength that exuded from her like the sun’s rays.

  “You look good, Janae,” Roger said. “You look real good.”

  She blushed. “Thanks.” She stole a glimpse at Calvin and her smile broadened.

  “How are you holding up?” Calvin asked.

  “I’m nervous as hell,” her eyes fluttered, “but I know Malik is in good hands.”

  “He is,” Roger chimed in.

  The court clerk leaned in close to the narrow microphone on the witness stand. “Judge McCormick would like to see the attorneys for Commonwealth v. Malik Williams in his chambers. You can come right this way,” he said and pointed to the heavy wooden door behind him.

  ADA Dembe collected a legal pad and followed the clerk to the door, which was closer to the prosecution table.

  Janae’s heart began pounding in her chest. She moved to the edge of her seat as she watched both Calvin and Roger gather themselves for the meeting. She was close enough to them to whisper, “What is this all about?” Neither one responded, and before she knew it, the heavy door closed behind them.

  JUDGE MCCORMICK WAS SEATED AT HIS DESK. THERE WERE TWO CHAIRS directly in front of him. ADA Dembe had already claimed one of them. She looked up from her notes and nodded to Roger and Calvin as they entered the judge’s chambers.

  “Good morning, Your Honor, ADA Dembe,” Roger said. He chose to stand off to the side. This was Calvin’s show.

  Calvin looked at his cocounsel curiously, but quickly unbuttoned his suit jacket and took the remaining free seat in front of the judge.

  “Welcome to my chambers, Mr. Moore. I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting you in person, but I’ve seen you in court, of course, and a couple of times on television,” he said as his eyes met Roger’s.

  Instinctively, Calvin stood. “Thank you very much, Your Honor.”

  “Sit. I’ve been hearing rumblings that the prosecution is willing to reduce the charges in this matter.” He eyed ADA Dembe. She confirmed. “What I don’t get is why your office has not jumped at this opportunity.”

  Calvin fought his body’s instant tightening. He did not like being caught off guard. His jaw tensed as he glanced in Roger’s direction. Clearly, if the judge got word that the prosecution was willing to deal, then they had made some serious gesture toward the CPHR.

  ADA Dembe jumped quickly on the judge’s leading. “Your Honor, let me tell you what we have extended to opposing counsel’s client. We will reduce the charges to manslaughter. Let me just point out that at our initial appearance in front of you, Your Honor signaled that you thought the case had been overcharged and that you were unwilling to send the matter properly before criminal court because of it. We would reduce the charges, the case would automatically go to criminal court, where it properly belongs, in lieu of this waiver hearing, and the defendant would be tried as an adult on these drastically reduced charges. So instead of murder one, we are talking manslaughter. Instead of life in prison, ten to fifteen years, max.”

  “You want a fifteen-year-old child to agree to serve as many years in prison as he has been on this earth,” Roger fumed.

  Judge McCormick, ADA Dembe, and Calvin all shifted in their seats to have a clear view of him.

  “Your Honor, this is nothing more than a ploy by the prosecution to get this case out of the spotlight, to make it disappear out of the glare of scrutiny. They are still trying to do what you refused to do at the recusal hearing. They want this case out of your courtroom.”

  “This is a good deal for your client,” the ADA retorted.

  “I absolutely disagree. Even if my client is adjudicated delinquent, at least there is a better chance at rehabilitation in the juvenile system. If he is convicted in criminal court—and we all know that sixty-five percent of all juvies in adult court are convicted, whether they are guilty or not—he really will end up a criminal after he’s served that kind of time. We’ll take our chances on the waiver hearing.”

  Calvin jumped up from his seat. “Wait.” His hands were up as though he were staving off jabs. “Your Honor, may we have a ten-minute recess to give me an opportunity to consult with my cocounsel?”

  The prosecution was on her feet. “This is not a hearing. There are no recesses. Any discussion about our offer could have and should have been made before court.”

  Judge McCormick clapped his hands as though he was rounding up attention in a schoolyard.

  “ADA Dembe, are you taking your offer off the table because they want to have a conversation?”

  “No, it’s still on the table. But if they never talked to their client about our offer, that’s a serious problem, Your Honor.”

  Calvin shrugged his shoulders and was careful to use as few words as possible. “We just want to talk, Your Honor.”

  “Ten minutes.”

  CALVIN STOOPED LOW TO SEE IF THERE WAS ANYONE IN THE STALLS IN THE men’s bathroom. In the one farthest from him and Roger, gray slacks were pooled at the bottom of chubby white legs, and a briefcase leaned against the stall door. He turned back to Roger and flung his index finger in the air and then moved it to his lips.

  After several seconds of silence, the toilet flushed. The stall door opened, and a short, stocky gentleman with wire-rimmed glasses came out. He nodded at them with questioning eyes.

  Roger, who was leaning against one of the three stand-alone sinks, stood squarely on his feet. “Good morning,” he said to the man, his southern drawl thicker than usual.

  Calvin plastered a tight smile over his face.

  The man looked at him, and then back at Roger. He pushed his glasses up his nose with an index finger. “Is everything okay in here?” His voice shook.

  “Yeah, everything’s fine,” Calvin barked. “Here, let me help you out.” He walked to the bathroom door and pulled it open. He cocked his eyes at the man and slowly his eyes moved across the space between them and settled on the open door.

  The man was no taller than Calvin’s chest as he walked past him with his briefcase pressed close to his body. “There’s an armed security guard at the end of the hall,” the man said.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Calvin shut and locked the door as soon as the man cleared the doorway. He tarried a minute at the locked door with his head against it. He inhaled deeply and held it. Unfortunately, the release of breath that followed did not take his rage with it. He knew that i
f this was a different time in his life, when he didn’t have much to lose, maybe when he was Malik’s age or even a few years older, he would have hauled off and sucker-punched Roger.

  He turned to his cocounsel with a loose grip on his heated emotions. “How dare you allow me to walk in there unprepared? More importantly, you had an absolute obligation to tell Janae about the offer.”

  “Calm down, Calvin. We can handle this.”

  “You’re damn right I can handle this. I am going to present the offer to Janae. This is her son we are talking about. It’s her choice, not yours. You don’t get to play God with people’s lives.” Calvin was inches away from him now, his finger jabbing the air between them. “You’ve crossed the line of ethics.”

  Roger chuckled. “Ethics. You’re calling me unethical? The only thing unethical in this is the prosecution trying to squash this. They are trying to make this go away by dangling the possibility of a lighter sentence in front of him. That’s how they get people to plead to crimes that they haven’t committed. I am not going to allow Malik to even consider pleading to some lesser murder charge.”

  “It’s manslaughter.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Because if Janae agrees to the deal he will be a convicted felon at the age of fifteen, whether he serves time or receives probation. He’ll never be able to vote. Finding a job will be damn near impossible. His life would be over even before it ever started.”

  “I want her . . .” Calvin put a loose fist to his mouth, his heart doing flips inside his chest. “Janae and Malik, they deserve a future filled with things that people like you take for granted. I want . . . Look, Roger, it’s not about what I want or what you want. It’s Janae’s decision.”

  “No, I won’t do it,” Roger resisted. “I am not going to allow her to choose prison for her son, even on a reduced charge.”

  “It’s not your choice!” Calvin insisted. “Look, I am not saying Janae should agree to the DA’s offer. I am saying that I trust her to make the best decision for her son. If she takes the prosecution’s offer, we know there will not be a murder one conviction because that would be off the table. She has to be allowed to consider that. With the hearing, there are unknown variables. There is no guarantee that Judge McCormick will rule in Malik’s favor, despite the fact you would like to believe there is one. If we don’t win this hearing and if his case moves to adult court, the odds are he’ll be convicted. And you know this. You just said as much in chambers.”

  Roger threw up his hands. “If, if, if. What? Do you think you can’t win this?”

  Calvin spun 180 degrees on his heels, putting some distance between them. There was a blind fanaticism in Roger’s whole approach. The only satisfactory win for him was an absolute dismissal. Malik had to walk away free and clear, and every boy like him has to have a chance at a real future. But in the real world where Calvin and Janae lived winning sometimes meant not losing so badly.

  “Damn it, Roger! Don’t make this about me. I am ready to fight for Malik at this hearing. But the reason you took on the case in the first place was because there is something terribly wrong with the system. There’s a lot of room for things to go wrong, and Janae needs to know what all her options are. Also, what about the fact that the judge wanted to know why we haven’t snatched up this offer. All we know, he could be giving us a huge hint here.”

  Calvin looked at his watch. The judge would be demanding their return to his chambers in a matter of minutes. “I am not going back in front of the judge without Janae knowing exactly what’s going on.” He didn’t wait. Calvin moved toward the door as if drawn by a magnet—drawn to do what he knew was right.

  “Wait.” Roger gnawed at his bottom lip. “I should be the one to do this.”

  “JANAE, WE NEED TO TALK TO YOU,” CALVIN SAID.

  “What is it? Has the judge changed his mind?”

  “We don’t have a lot of time. Just hear us out.” Calvin glared at Roger. “Are you going to do this or am I?” Calvin said.

  Roger walked over to Janae. He looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. He noticed that her hair was actually dark brown, and so were her eyes. Her complexion looked as if permanently kissed by the sun’s intensity. Janae was beautiful. He admired her inner strength and feistiness. “You have a huge decision to make right now.”

  “What is it?” she said, her breath more shallow by the second.

  Roger glanced at Calvin and then focused on Janae. He looked intently into her eyes. “They have offered to reduce the charges from first degree murder to manslaughter.”

  Wide-eyed, Janae said, “That’s good!” She looked at Calvin and then back at Roger. “That’s good, right?”

  “No, no,” Roger said. “What they are really offering is a guarantee that Malik will be tried as an adult. That’s what they want. They are banking on you not being able to resist the temptation of less time in prison for your son. He may only get ten, fifteen years in jail. But remember, during those years he will be hardened, and by the time he gets out he will not be the son you know. He will be a criminal. And the chances of him landing back behind bars are close to one hundred percent. But if you take the risk of this hearing, if you take the risk of him staying in juvenile court, you have the chance of giving Malik a true future that is bright and full of possibility.”

  “Tell her the other possibility. Tell her now,” Calvin demanded.

  Janae’s eyes volleyed from Roger to Calvin and back to Roger.

  Roger cleared his throat. “If we go forward with the waiver hearing, then the offer is off the table. If we lose the waiver, then Malik will be tried as an adult, and if he is convicted there is a real chance he will spend the rest of his life in prison.”

  A guttural moan escaped her quivering lips. Tears streamed down her face. “But what about the evidence? What about Shaun G and the gun? What about Loretta? She’s in the courtroom, waiting to tell the judge what she knows. Doesn’t all that mean anything?” Her voice rose a few octaves.

  Calvin wrapped his arms around her, straightening her from a cowering hunch. “We will use every bit of evidence we have, but you have to know the risk you are taking.”

  “It’s all or nothing, Janae. All or nothing.”

  Calvin hissed at Roger’s simplification. He looked searchingly into Janae’s eyes. “It is your choice. But we gotta know now.”

  She sniffled as she tried to collect herself. “Do we have a good case?”

  The men replied in unison, without hesitation. “Yes!”

  “But there are no guarantees. I believe we can win the hearing,” Calvin said, shaking his head, desperately wanting her to get his next point. “But if we lose, he will face murder one charges in adult court. If you take their offer, Malik will only face manslaughter charges.”

  “But the evidence is the evidence, regardless of which courtroom, right?”

  “The consequences, though, are worlds apart.”

  “Janae, look at me,” Roger said. “We will win the hearing.”

  “Damn it, Roger!” Calvin’s frustration was at boiling point. “You know you can not guarantee that.”

  “We will win because it is time. Yes, this is Malik’s case, but this is the start of something bigger than all of us. Don’t lose your heart now,” Roger retorted.

  There was a knock at the witness room door that rattled Janae. The courtroom clerk popped his head in. “The judge is waiting for you in his chambers. He wants you in there ASAP.” He shut the door without waiting for a reply.

  “So what is it, Janae?” Roger asked.

  “I want his life back. I want it back completely. Continue with the waiver hearing.” She grabbed them both by the wrists. “Win. Malik needs you to win.”

  THE COURTROOM HAD FILLED. AT LEAST HALF THE PEOPLE WERE FROM news outlets. Tameka and Kim were seated close to Loretta. Janae sat between them, huddled in an embrace. A reporter, a few seats away, was indiscreetly observing Janae and her supporters while jotting notes on a pad. From
the row of seats behind them, a male hand holding a small recorder bogarted the space between Janae and Loretta. Janae watched as the red record button was pressed down.

  “Do you have anything to say, Ms. Williams, about whether your son should be tried as an adult?”

  She bit down hard on her bottom lip to prevent herself from responding. She tasted the bitterness of her blood. She wanted Malik to be recognized for what he was: growing, but still very much a child. She wanted him to have every benefit of the law.

  “Do you think it’s fair that the victim’s mother should have to endure this hearing—your son trying to get off easier than other murder defendants?”

  Loretta grabbed the reporter’s hand moving the recorder closer to her mouth. In a low husky voice she said, “I am the mother of Michael Gaines. He was the thirtieth murder victim this year. He was only eleven years old. I believe Malik Williams is innocent. I believe he is a child just like my baby was. My son was too young to die, and Malik is too young to be tried as an adult. I support him and his mother.” She reached her hand over to Janae and squeezed her shoulder. She then grabbed the reporter’s hand again and pushed it away. She looked him hard in the eye and added, “That’s enough.”

  Janae stood up when Malik stepped into the courtroom. She wanted to make sure he saw her when he entered through the side door. He smiled briefly, then dropped his gaze. He was escorted to his seat at the defense table.

  Standing next to Calvin, Malik was undeniably still a child. The top of his small Afro barely reached Calvin’s shoulders. Malik’s growing frame had not yet blossomed into a manly physique like Calvin’s. Even the way Malik held himself, shoulders rolled forward, both ankles bent outward so that he nearly stood on the sides of his feet, revealed the uncertainty of an awkward teenager.

  Calvin put his arms on Malik’s shoulder, bringing him closer. He leaned over and whispered something in his ear. Malik responded with a subtle grin. A calm such as Janae hadn’t felt since before Malik’s arrest washed over her.