Juvie

by Steve Watkins

  He cleared his throat. “Sadie Windas?”

  My lawyer stood and motioned for me to stand, too.

  “Yes, sir. Your Honor.”

  Judge Cannon looked down the slope of his nose at me for a long minute. He had a squarish head, a throw rug of black-and-gray hair, and long, low rectangles of gray mustache.

  “You’re pleading guilty,” he said, “to distribution of a controlled substance?”

  I nodded. Mr. Ferrell whispered that I needed to say it out loud.

  “Yes, sir. That’s correct.”

  Judge Cannon kept staring. He hadn’t blinked once. “There is an agreement here,” he said, holding a thin sheaf of papers between his thumb and forefinger. “In consideration of your guilty plea, and your academic record, and your part-time job, and your participation in high-school sports. The agreement calls for a suspended sentence of six months, two hundred hours of community service, drug-counseling class, and random drug testing. Do you understand these conditions?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If you violate any of the terms of this plea agreement, you do understand that you will serve the entire six-month sentence in juvenile detention?”

  “Yes, sir.” My legs were trembling. I wished I could sit. But at least it was almost over.

  “Fine,” Judge Cannon said. “We’ll just need one more thing from you and then we’ll proceed to sentencing.”

  My lawyer dropped his folder on the defendant’s table. “Your Honor? I’m sorry? What?”

  The prosecutor echoed him: “Your Honor?”

  Judge Cannon didn’t bother to look at either of them. “I said we’ll just need one more thing. We’ll need the names of the suppliers. Miss Windas will have to give the court that information. Otherwise I will not approve the plea agreement.”

  “But Your Honor,” Mr. Ferrell stammered, “she’s already told the detectives she doesn’t know their names. They were men she met at a party. She made an admittedly foolish decision to drive them to a rendezvous with drug buyers. She compounded that one bad decision when she agreed to wait in the car with the drugs for the buyers. But that was the extent of her involvement.”

  Judge Cannon scoffed. “That story is not plausible.”

  “Judge?” the prosecutor interjected. “If I may?”

  Judge Cannon said no, he may not. Then he shifted his gaze back to me. “Miss Windas, you have one opportunity to make things right, and this is that opportunity. You will give up the names, or you will spend the next six months in juvenile detention. It’s that simple.”

  I couldn’t speak. My heart raced. I opened and closed my hands. I turned to look at Mom and Carla again, but Judge Cannon stopped me.

  “You will face the bench, Miss Windas,” he snapped. “And you will provide the names. Now.”

  I waited for Carla to stand up and confess. I waited for Mom to set the judge straight on a few things. I waited for this surreal moment to end. I waited for magic, a miracle, deus ex machina.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my throat so dry that it seemed unlikely that the judge even heard me. But he did, and it made him even angrier.

  “Would you be sorry if you hadn’t been caught, Miss Windas? Are you at all sorry that the two men you refuse to name are still out there selling drugs, jeopardizing futures, ruining lives?”

  “Yes, sir,” I rasped. “I am sorry —”

  He cut me off. “No, Miss Windas. I don’t think that you are. But I’m going to do you a favor. I’m going to give you ample time to contemplate your actions and to discover at least a modicum of genuine remorse. You don’t need to worry about that. Congratulations. You won the sweepstakes. I will give you the weekend to put your affairs in order. You will surrender to the juvenile detention facility in Stafford on Monday. You will serve a sentence of no less than six months, after which you will be on probation, perform your community service, and pay all costs to this court of this proceeding and of your supervision.”

  He scribbled something on the sheaf of papers, then glared at me once more. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Miss Windas.”

  He looked past me to where Carla and Mom were sitting. “Your family should also be ashamed.”

  He slammed his gavel again and told me I was dismissed.

  On Thanksgiving they give us processed-turkey sandwiches and cranberry juice for dinner. Nobody talks much, and we’re all pretty quiet on the phones that night. Lulu’s already asleep by the time I get to call, which makes me sad, and annoyed that Carla and Mom didn’t keep her up to at least say hi. I don’t talk to them for very long.

  That general quiet on the unit, once it takes hold, doesn’t let up — through the weekend and into the following week. Everybody seems to be on edge. Maybe it’s missing our families over the holiday. Maybe, for some, it’s not having a family to miss.

  Chantrelle goes to court that next Thursday.

  We’re all in the common area outside our cells watching afternoon TV when she comes back. It’s one of those shows where people are reunited with long-lost family members. The Jelly Sisters are actually tearing up. Bad Gina snorts, and New Nikki giggles; Weeze tries to shush them. I edge my chair as far away as I can.

  We all kind of pretend not to notice Chantrelle at first. Nobody likes people seeing them in shackles.

  Once the guards let her loose, Chantrelle grabs a chair near mine, drags it ten feet away, slams it down, and throws herself into it. Good Gina carries a chair over next to her.

  “I ain’t going,” Chantrelle says, loud enough for everyone to hear.

  Good Gina whispers something back to her.

  “I don’t give a shit,” Chantrelle says back. “I ain’t going. They can kiss my black ass. I ain’t going to no juvie prison in no Roanoke Rapids or Applemattox or anywhere.”

  Good Gina keeps whispering. Officer Killduff, who has been writing something in the daily log, fixes his steely gaze on Chantrelle but doesn’t say anything.

  She stands up and paces. “I told them it wasn’t me. I told them it was another Chantrelle. I told them I didn’t do it. I told them.”

  Good Gina follows her, laying her hand on her friend’s arm. But Chantrelle is too agitated and shrugs her off. “I ain’t going, and I want to see somebody try to make me.”

  Officer Killduff stands up at the guard table, still staring hard at Chantrelle.

  She glares back him. “What you looking at, anyway?” she demands.

  Good Gina grabs Chantrelle’s arm again.

  “She’s just upset,” Good Gina says. “She’ll be all right. She doesn’t mean anything.”

  Officer Killduff keeps his gaze fixed hard on Chantrelle.

  Chantrelle shrugs off Good Gina’s hand. “Hell, I don’t,” she says. “I mean every word I say. I ain’t going to no juvie prison. Y’all can all go to hell.”

  Officer Emroch, who’s on duty today instead of C. Miller, returns from wherever she’s been and walks over to the guard desk. Officer Killduff speaks to her quietly, then lifts his walkie-talkie. It squawks, and he mutters something. Then he stands.

  Both officers step toward Chantrelle. Officer Killduff points at her chair. “Time to take a seat, Chantelle. You know you’re not allowed to raise your voice or curse on this unit. You know that.”

  Chantrelle stands her ground. “It’s Chantrelle,” she snarls. “It ain’t Chantelle. It’s Chantrelle. How many times I got to tell you that?”

  Officer Killduff narrows the distance between them without seeming to actually move. “Chantrelle, Chantelle. I don’t care what it is — you sit yourself down and you do it right now or else you’re going in the restraint chair. That what you want?”

  Chantrelle backs away but keeps talking. “What I want is you can shove a restraint chair up your ass ’cause I ain’t sitting for nobody that can’t say my name right.”

  Officer Emroch speaks this time. “Chantrelle. I know your name. We all know your name. We just need you to calm down and sit like Officer Killdu
ff said. That’s all.”

  “Uh-uh,” Chantrelle spits back. “He got to say it, not you.” She clenches her teeth and returns her glare to Officer Killduff. “Him. He got to say it, and he got to say it right.”

  Officer Killduff actually seems to smile in response, his mouth a narrow slit, edging up at the corners. He reaches suddenly for Chantrelle’s chair — the only thing standing between him and her — but she’s quicker. In one motion she snatches it away and lifts it over her head.

  Everything and everybody freezes — for a second, an instant, a breath. Chantrelle’s eyes flare wider and wider, showing white all the way around her irises. She must already know that she’s gone too far and that there is no getting back to where she was before, no taking back what is already done, no changing what is about to happen.

  “You want it?” she says, already beginning her swing. “It’s yours.”

  The chair somehow misses Officer Killduff but hits Officer Emroch dead-on, sending her sprawling across the room and into a wall.

  Officer Killduff lunges at Chantrelle and tackles her hard to the floor, but she’s stronger than she looks, and angry, and she fights back, thrashing wildly and screaming and cursing.

  “Grab some floor!” Killduff shouts at the rest of us as he struggles with Chantrelle. “Grab some God damn floor!”

  I drop right away, but there is a flash of something next to me, a sudden movement, a shout, something to do with the Jelly Sisters, and then more bodies crash into one another, more chairs fly, more people yell and scream. I scramble under a table and press against the wall. Little Fefu sits frozen on the floor near me but still in the way, so I crawl out and drag her back under the table. Good Gina curls into a ball next to us, whimpering.

  Chantrelle somehow manages to pull away from Officer Killduff and hurls herself toward the door, but he grabs her leg, tackling her again. She goes down hard and cracks her head on the floor near me and Good Gina and Fefu. Somebody knocks a table over on Officer Killduff. He pushes it off, but instead of coming after Chantrelle turns his attention on whoever else is fighting.

  I should stay where I am, out of the way, but Chantrelle’s lying on the floor, blood pooling behind her head and her eyes rolling back. I slip out from under our table, not sure exactly what my plan is except maybe to at least protect her from getting hurt even worse from the other fighting. Just as I get to her, though, the unit door buzzes open and several more officers storm in with batons drawn.

  “Get her!” Officer Killduff yells to them from some other part of the room. “Get her!”

  They must think he means me, because the next thing I know, two of them are on top of me and Chantrelle, shouting, twisting my arms behind my back, then lifting me up and slamming me into a restraint chair they brought in with them.

  “I was just trying to help!” I yell, but they ignore me. Two of them hold me down, practically sitting on me, as a third fastens belts around my arms and legs and waist and torso and finally my head. I can’t move but keep yelling. “Just see if Chantrelle’s OK! She hit her head! See if she’s OK!”

  And then, as quickly as everything started, it stops.

  Officer Killduff and a couple of other officers have the Jelly Sisters sitting back-to-back on the floor, their hands bound behind them, scowling and muttering to each other. Another officer has Chantrelle in handcuffs and already sitting up, though obviously woozy. Officer Emroch must be behind me, because I can’t see what’s happening with her. Somebody else — I can’t tell who — is lying on the floor across the room, half-hidden by a pile of tables, moaning. Bad Gina sits in a chair nearby, one eye swollen, blood crawling down her chin from her nose. New Nikki sits next to her, looking freaked out, shifting her gaze from the blood on Bad Gina to whoever is on the floor. Fefu and Good Gina still huddle under the table, where I should have stayed.

  And then I see Cell Seven. In the sudden calm, she walks out of her cell, kneels to pick up something small and metal, and slashes her wrist.

  Nurse Batch comes right away, EMTs five minutes after that. They manage to stop Cell Seven’s bleeding and whisk her off Unit Three on a gurney. Another EMT team comes in as they’re leaving and goes immediately to work on Officer Emroch and Chantrelle and Bad Gina — though all Bad Gina needs is an alcohol wipe and an ice pack. Mrs. Simper, the warden, comes onto the unit and confers with Officer Killduff for a while, then she kneels down beside Officer Emroch and says some things to her. She looks carefully around the room at the Jelly Sisters, still sitting in handcuffs back-to-back on the floor; at the fallen girl, who is still unconscious and who I finally realize is Weeze; at a subdued Chantrelle; at the chaos of tables and chairs; at everybody else; at me.

  I can wiggle my fingers, but that’s about it. The rest of my body is numb, and I shiver with claustrophobia so bad it takes every ounce of self-control I have to keep from screaming.

  A couple of officers lead Fefu and Good Gina back to their cells. Officer Killduff and another officer drag the Jelly Sisters to their cells as well and lock them in. Bad Gina, still holding an ice pack, her face cleaned up now, walks over to hers unescorted. She winks at me just before she pulls the cell door shut behind her.

  Nurse Batch comes over, I guess to make sure I’m still breathing. She checks my pulse and gives me water from a plastic bottle with a straw, though it sloshes all over me when she pulls it abruptly away. She glares at me.

  “And to think I fixed your face,” she rasps.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I say, pointlessly I’m sure. The strap across my chest is so tight it’s hard drawing enough breath to speak.

  She shakes her head. “Like I haven’t heard that before.”

  Chantrelle has a concussion. The EMTs put on a butterfly bandage and wrap a lot of gauze around her head. After a while, they stuff her into a second restraint chair and wheel her somewhere off the unit. All the fight has long since gone out of her and she never looks around again and she never says another word.

  They take Officer Emroch and Weeze off the unit on gurneys.

  Other officers I haven’t seen before are milling around, talking to Officer Killduff. C. Miller even shows up, I guess working a late shift or called in for the emergency. After another half an hour, she comes over and lets me out of the restraint chair. I’m surprised at how badly I tremble when I stand up. I can barely walk to my own cell, not that I’m in any hurry to be there.

  “Don’t get too comfortable,” C. Miller says after I stagger over to my bunk. “They might not be done with you yet.”

  I’m too tired to be outraged by the unfairness of it all. I didn’t do anything except try to help somebody. I slump against the cell wall and pull up my blanket. As much as I want to lie all the way down, I don’t want to fall asleep if they’re just going to wake me up again in a little while for whatever is coming next. Plus my head is still reeling from the suddenness of the violence and, just as quickly, the end. How could everything have happened so fast? Chantrelle I understand. She’d been sentenced to long-term detention in a juvie prison in another part of the state. The Jelly Sisters must have used the chaos of Chantrelle’s meltdown as an opportunity to attack Bad Gina and Weeze, though I didn’t exactly see it. And then there was Cell Seven. I blanch, horrified all over again as I remember her, standing just outside her cell, expressionless, cutting into her wrist as calmly as if she were blowing seeds off a dandelion.

  C. Miller comes to get me an hour later. “Come on,” she says. “They want to talk to you.”

  “Where?” I ask, pushing myself up cautiously, stiff and sore from the restraint chair and from being roughed up by the guards.

  She looks over her shoulder, then back at me. Then she shrugs. “It’s to the warden’s. She wants to see you. I’m taking you to her office.”

  She puts me in handcuffs but not shackles, and I’m not sure what to make of that. One minute they’re slamming me into a restraint chair, and the next I’m practically walking free out of the unit.


  I want to ask C. Miller but am still feeling too cowed by all that’s happened to test the limits of my relationship with her. She probably has a million questions about what-all happened on the unit, and why I was in the restraint chair, but she doesn’t ask, either.

  Mrs. Simper is alone in her office and has her back to us, studying a video monitor. She doesn’t turn around, so C. Miller and I just stand there for a good five minutes.

  Finally, without looking at us, Mrs. Simper says, “Officer, can you pull a chair over next to me for Miss Windas to sit in? Thanks. And you can just wait over there by the door, in that other chair over there.”

  C. Miller pulls a chair over as instructed, but I’m not about to sit down until Mrs. Simper directly tells me to.

  She presses a button that freezes a grainy image of our unit on her video monitor and then pats the chair seat next to her. “It’s OK, Sadie. Go ahead and sit. You have permission.”

  She still hasn’t looked at me.

  “Now let’s watch this together,” she says. She hits PLAY, and everything that happened that afternoon happens again on the monitor, only from the vantage point of a camera mounted to the opposite wall from where I’d been sitting: the officers closing in on Chantrelle, everybody crowding away, Officer Killduff trying to grab the chair, Chantrelle throwing it, Officer Emroch going down. And then pandemonium. Too much happens too fast, though, and I can’t follow it at all. Mrs. Simper slows it down, and some things are clearer this time: Officer Killduff tackling Chantrelle, then tables and chairs and bodies flying, and a body lunging away from Killduff, and then hitting the floor, and another body crawling out from a pile of tables. Most of what’s going on is still a blur, though.

  Mrs. Simper backs it up and slows it down even more. “There,” she says, pointing. “You see that? The two black girls, they’re attacking the two white girls.” She means the Jelly Sisters and Bad Gina and Weeze. She takes the video backward and forward a couple more times and finally I see it: one of the Jelly Sisters taking a swing at Bad Gina, the other slamming Weeze against a wall and hitting her over and over in the face until Weeze drops to the floor. Bad Gina gets hit a few times but manages to slip away; Weeze doesn’t.