The Free

by Lauren McLaughlin

  The judge starts nodding, and Ms. Jomolca takes it as a sign to continue.

  “It’s not the f irst time we’ve seen this kind of behavior, Your Honor. The group therapy process, especially the role-plays, often results in extreme eruptions of emotion. We think that’s why it works so well. It helps to break down their defenses, open them up to a renewed sense of empathy.”

  There it is. One of her favorite words.

  The judge nods. He likes that word too.

  “Did you read the letter from Dr. Horton?” she asks. “He takes full responsibility for the incident. He believes he may have let the role-play go too far. That Isaac might not have been ready for it just yet.”

  “I read the letter. And I understand no one at Haverland is recommending disciplinary action?”

  “No, they’re not.”

  “And the other boy is unharmed?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. He’s f ine.”

  I haven’t seen Wayne or any of my teammates since that day. All going well, I’ll never have to see them again.

  “Sounds like you’re doing some good work over there,” Judge Hayes says. “Giving these kids a chance to work out some diff icult issues in a safe environment.”

  Ms. Jomolca nods eagerly. “That’s our mission.”

  “We need more of that kind of thing in juvenile justice,” he goes on. “Instead of this hunger people have for locking kids up. As if that’s going to solve anything.”

  I sneak a look at my lawyer to get his reaction to this, but he’s a blank. Either he doesn’t know where the judge is going with this or he doesn’t care.

  “Well I’m happy to say I agree with you, Ms. Jomolca,” the judge says. “Sounds to me like young Isaac here has had some kind of a breakthrough, whatever you want to call it. I hope he understands how lucky he is that people like you and Dr. Horton show up every day to do this diff icult work.”

  Judge Hayes looks directly at me now.

  I put on my best “transformed” face. You’re not supposed to talk unless the judge asks you to. But I am sucking up big-time, only with my body language. If my body could talk, it would be saying: Yes, Your Honor. I know how lucky I am. I am the luckiest kid in the world. And totally transformed too. With a renewed sense of empathy. Oh my God, I have so much empathy right now. Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you so much for being so wise. It’s an honor to receive your unbelievable wisdom.

  “Which is why I’m sending him back to Haverland,” he says.

  All the air f lies out of my lungs, then from the room, then from the world.

  “I can see no reason to send him home,” he continues. “I understand there’s a great deal of instability there? A runaway sister? A mother with a substance-abuse problem?” He starts f lipping through my f ile.

  Ms. Jomolca breaths once, deeply. “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “It’s a good thing we have a spot for him at Haverland, then. Isaac, stand up.”

  I look at my lawyer, who waves for me to get up. I’m shaking but I manage to push my chair back with an awful screech.

  “Based on your behavior while incarcerated, the details of your crime, and the situation at home, I’m sending you back to Haverland for one more year.”

  My mouth f lies open. I have to grip the edge of the table to keep standing. My lawyer puts a hand on my shoulder.

  “Don’t think of this as punishment,” Judge Hayes says. “Think of it as an opportunity. Haverland’s different. That’s why I sent you there in the f irst place. You can get your diploma there, pick up some extra computer training, which apparently you’re already doing. You’ve got Dr. Horton and Ms. Jomolca there. This is all good, Isaac. Look at me.”

  Judge Hayes’s face is stern, no-nonsense. He believes he’s doing me a favor by sending me back to Haverland. What about Janelle? She’s not just some “runaway.” It makes me sick to hear him describe her like that, like she’s part of my problem. She’s not. She’s my saving grace. She’s the one beautiful thing in my rotten life. Can’t he understand why Janelle would run away? Was he even listening to what Ms. Jomolca told him about our mother, about Ashland?

  In a panic I turn to my lawyer. “Pat Healy,” I say. “The giant’s name is Patrick Healy. He’s the one who beat up Sal Christaldi. It wasn’t me. I was only covering for him—”

  “Counselor,” the judge spits out. “What is your client babbling about?”

  Slater f inally opens his mouth, and he doesn’t seem happy about it. “I’m sorry, Your Honor. Can I please have a moment with him?”

  “What kind of courtroom do you think I’m running here? I’m ordering him back to Haverland so he can learn to control himself.”

  “But it wasn’t me, Your Honor.” My voice rises as I glance between the judge and my lawyer. “It was Healy who hit Mr. Christaldi. I only took the rap to keep him out of jail. Tell him, Mr. Slater. Tell him about how Mr. Christaldi said it was a giant who hit him. A white kid. That’s not me. It can’t be. It was Patrick Healy—”

  “Shh,” Slater hisses.

  The judge brings his gavel down three times. That’s the end of the hearing.

  Chapter 34

  That night, I’m treated to another stay in solitary. I don’t get the drugs though. I’m supposed to spend the time “coming to terms” with the judge’s decision. I don’t come to terms with anything. Instead I spend the night pacing the tiny room while wondering how long it’s going to take for that ADA lady to track down Pat Healy and cut me a deal.

  It’s a f ilthy piece of business selling him out like that, but it’s not like I had a choice. I can’t stick around juvie for another year. Not with Janelle at home. Mom all broken inside and out. She can’t earn a living her usual way. What’s that going to lead to?

  I did what I had to do. If Healy doesn’t get that, he’s a fool. He is a fool, already, going nuts on Mr. Christaldi like that. What did he think was going to happen? It serves him right, getting busted for it. He’s lucky I ever agreed to take the rap for him in the f irst place. And even luckier that Mr. Flannery doesn’t kick him out of his crew.

  I get an even sicker feeling when I think about Mr. Flannery. I wonder if there’s any chance he’ll see things my way on this. Sure, loyalty to your crew is important, but a sister is a sister. That’s blood. What kind of a brother would I be if I left Janelle hanging like that, at my mother’s mercy? Mr. Flannery has to understand that. He’d be a monster not to.

  Chapter 35

  The next morning, a guard brings me from solitary straight to Ms. Jomolca’s off ice. I haven’t slept at all.

  “I’m totally jammed today,” she says. “But I wanted to see how you’re holding up.”

  “I’m okay. Is Mr. Slater coming?”

  “Did you have an appointment?”

  “No. I just thought, I don’t know, maybe I’d have to make an off icial statement or something, or a deposition or whatever, about Pat Healy? Have they arrested him?”

  “Actually, I got an email from your lawyer early this morning . . .” She digs her phone out of the pocket of her coat and scrolls through her messages. “They’re having trouble f inding Patrick Healy. His mother says he never came home last night. Does he have a girlfriend or anything? Anyplace where he might be staying?”

  I don’t know about any girlfriends. As for where Healy could be staying, it could be anywhere. If he knows the cops are after him, maybe he skipped town. Maybe Mr. Flannery is hiding him somewhere.

  “No,” I say. “I don’t know where he could be.”

  “You didn’t contact him, did you? After your hearing?”

  “No.”

  “Strange.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, according to your lawyer, his mother said he rarely stays out late. And that he’s never not come home.”

  Word must have gotten to him som
ehow.

  “You’re sure you didn’t call him? Or call someone else who could have told him?”

  “I haven’t called anyone. I came right back here from court and straight into solitary, remember? If Healy knows I gave him up, it’s not from me. This isn’t going to change things, is it?”

  “What things?”

  “My plea deal? If they can’t f ind him, does that mean I don’t get the deal?”

  “What deal?”

  “For giving up Healy.”

  “Who said you’re getting a deal for giving up Healy? Isaac, the judge’s ruling has nothing to do with Patrick Healy. He sent you back here because of what happened with Dr. Horton.”

  “But even Dr. Horton said that was his fault. You wrote that in your report. Didn’t you?”

  “Well, yes, Isaac, I did. But the judge wasn’t persuaded. You were there. You heard him. He wants you back here.”

  “But that’s not fair. Can’t that ADA lady talk to him? Tell him how I helped her? It’s not my fault they can’t f ind Healy. I still gave him up.”

  “Isaac, did your lawyer lead you to believe that identifying Patrick Healy would nullify the judge’s ruling? Did he actually say that to you?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “What did he say?” She’s staring at me now, hard.

  “Just that he was going to talk to the ADA and see what she could do for me.”

  “Well, yes, Isaac, what she can do for you is drop that perjury charge. You have to understand, the judge’s ruling is f inal. It’s not like in the movies, where you sell someone out and walk free. This is juvenile justice. You’re here because your life is basically in Judge Hayes’s hands. That’s the f lip side of that short sentence you got. I admit I was surprised by his ruling. I actually disagreed with it, at f irst. But I think we need to look on the bright side.”

  I shake my head furiously, refusing to accept what she’s saying. “I can’t stay here.”

  “I know you want to go home, but think about what you’d be going home to.”

  “I have to go home.”

  She shakes her head. “You’re not looking at this the right way, Isaac. You’re not seeing all that you have here: I don’t know if you realize this, Isaac, but Haverland is not like most juvenile detention centers. Most of them are just a warm-up for jail, with about as much opportunity for rehabilitation. But here you have friends, responsible adults who care about you, who have time for you. And I heard about that newsletter too. I think it’s great that you’re—”

  “So I’m not getting out? Oh my God, you’re telling me I gave up Healy for nothing ?”

  Chapter 36

  It’s the usual crowd of mothers and girlfriends in the visitors’ room on Wednesday. A few kids run around making a nuisance of themselves. Their mother, some skinhead’s white trash girlfriend, yells at them. All the women in here are pissed off about something, always. This is what I’ve got to look forward to for another year.

  “I don’t understand,” Janelle says. “I thought it was supposed to be thirty days. That’s what you said.”

  “It was.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I fucked up, Janelle. I fucked up real bad.” I don’t dare tell her exactly how, of course. My f inal role-play, my freak-out, my “dissociative episode.” That all leads back to Ashland, and we don’t talk about Ashland.

  “So when are you getting out?”

  “A year.”

  Her breath catches, just like mine did when Judge Hayes dropped the news. She looks suspicious for a second, like she’s waiting for me to tell her it’s all a sick joke and I’m getting out today. Ha-ha, gotcha!

  “We’ve got to be smart now,” I tell her. “We’ve got to plan.”

  She knows that punchline isn’t coming now. She showed up today because she wanted to know why I wasn’t home yet. She f igured it was some legal technicality, some paperwork our mother forgot to sign. She wasn’t expecting bad news this big, and when it f inally hits her, she collapses on me. She’s so small inside that puffy coat. Her thin back and skinny shoulders feel so fragile.

  I hold her while she cries. There’s nothing I can say. There’s no silver lining to any of this. There’s no angle that makes this any better than what it is.

  “Listen to me, Janelle.” I grip her by the shoulders and sit her up. I can’t get emotional now. We have to plan. Janelle knows the drill. She knows exactly how much room there is in her life to feel sorry for herself. About one minute. Then she has to suck it up and get down to the nuts and bolts. And that minute is up. She wipes her face clean, sniffs back the rest of her tears.

  “Take the money from the doll under your bed,” I tell her.

  “No. We’re saving that. That’s our f irst month’s rent.”

  “Take it. Don’t let Mom know it’s there. Take it and pay the rent. Go to Mrs. Pretzinger’s apartment upstairs and pay it in cash. Get a receipt too. Then buy some food. Buy stuff that lasts. Rice, canned things, you know. Tell Mom it’s from the church or something. Do not let her know you have money.”

  “I can’t do this.”

  “Yes, you can. There’s twelve hundred dollars in there. That’s a few months’ rent, right?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know how much it costs.”

  “Look, we just have to keep things calm. She’s sober now, right?”

  Janelle nods.

  “Maybe it’ll last this time.”

  “Isaac.”

  “No, maybe it will. With me gone, she’s gonna have to work even harder to keep you. Now you got that guidance counselor in your corner. DCF on her case.”

  Janelle stares at me for a minute, then she laughs gently. “Yeah, sure,” she says. “Maybe it’ll last this time.” She’s already working through the possibilities. I can see it in her eyes. She’s thinking ahead, seeing into the future. Our mother is sober now. When she comes out of rehab, she’s always meek as a kitten. But it never lasts. Give it a few weeks and she’ll twist herself right back into her usual self. That’s when Janelle is going to run. She’ll wait as long as she can, let our mother run down the clock on being sober. Then she’ll make her escape. She’s already mapping her route.

  “Wherever you go, Janelle . . .” My voice fails me. “Take that money with you. All of it.”

  “That money is ours.”

  “No, Janelle, it’s yours.”

  “But we—”

  “It’s not about me.” I hold her small face in my hands. What I see in her eyes isn’t myself anymore, my younger twin. I see the young woman she’s becoming—scared, scarred, tough, but still just a kid. I love her so much I can’t f igure out how it’s even possible that I failed her so badly, why the world didn’t rise to the challenge and rescue her. Why doesn’t it ever do that? Why doesn’t it care?

  Chapter 37

  That night in our cell, Cardo makes the very wise choice of giving me a wide berth, or at least what passes for one in a ten-foot-by-six-foot cell. My eyes are red. I don’t even bother hiding the fact that I’ve been crying all day. I don’t care who knows. Cardo doesn’t mention it at f irst. He has his own problems. And he has his body to keep himself busy. He’s always doing push-ups and sit-ups these days, huff ing and puff ing his way through them, admiring himself in that dirty mirror.

  He can’t live with silence for long, though. If his mouth isn’t moving, he gets nervous.

  “What the fuck happen to you anyway?” he says. “A few days to go and you pull that shit? Fucking stupid, man.”

  I just look at him. I have nothing left for Cardo. I can’t even get mad at him.

  “Guys saying you hit a guard or something. That true?”

  When I don’t answer, Cardo gets the picture and goes back to his mirror. He runs a f inger down some new vein in his shoulder. “Well, you only got you
rself to blame being in here now, homes. How’s that feel?”

  For a second I picture myself grabbing Cardo by the head and smashing his monkey face into that mirror. I picture the blood and the spit. I see Cardo’s ropy arms trying to punch me away, my hands slipping around his neck. I can feel myself contracting into a hard nut of rage. It’s the same feeling I had before I punched Sean McKenzie.

  Before it gets the better of me I slide down the wall and rest my chin on my knees. Could I kill someone? Me? Isaac West? The idea settles like a blanket around my shoulders. It’s only the pain making me think this way. The guilt. The anger. But the idea won’t disappear. It’s not a blanket. It’s my own shadow. It’s part of me. Where I go, it goes. And it’s more than an idea. It’s a plan. Yes, I’m capable of it. Of course I am. Underneath those layers of rot and despair, my soul cries out in agony and rage and this is its prayer:

  Kill. Kill and it will all end.

  There’s even a kind of logic to it. If you get down to the cold business of who actually deserves to die, you can make a case. You can make a damn good case.

  “Your mother’s a whore,” I say.

  “The fuck you just say?” Cardo peels himself from that mirror, ready to throw down. “You talkin’ ’bout my mother?”

  “Not your mother,” I tell him. “Mine. That’s what that kid said.”

  “What kid?”

  “Sean McKenzie.”

  “The hell’s he?”

  “Some white kid at my old school.”

  “He called your mother a whore?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So what’d you do?”

  “I punched him.”