One Way or Another

by Rhonda Bowen

  “Have you even prayed about this decision?” Trey asked. “Are you sure this is what God wants?”

  “Baltimore is my home, Trey,” Adam said. “I don’t need God to tell me this is where I need to be.”

  “So, you haven’t,” Trey deadpanned.

  “So you think He’s going to tell me something different?” Adam’s eyes challenged Trey.

  “I think the fact that you haven’t asked is a sign that you already know the answer.”

  Adam’s eyes fell to the floor as a heaviness slipped over him. This was not how he had hoped the conversation with his best friend would go. He had needed Trey to support him. Needed him to understand why he wanted to do this.

  “Look, Adam, I know this is a good project,” Trey said quietly. “And I know it will help Baltimore. I even think that done properly it will bring honor to God. But it’s like David building God’s temple. His heart was in it, but God said no.

  “Sometimes we want to do things for God—good things. But God says no, because it’s not for us. Usually it’s ’cause He has something else for us to do. Or because we are going after it for the wrong reasons.

  “I don’t know if that’s the case here, but I know that you’d better know before you make a big move. Especially one like this that can affect the lives of a lot of young men not just here in Baltimore but also in Atlanta.”

  The drive back to Adam’s mother’s house was quiet, with neither man saying much to the other. It was only when they pulled up to the gate that Adam turned to his friend.

  “Let’s just keep this quiet for now, okay?” Adam asked.

  Trey snorted. “Not like it’s good news or anything.”

  They got out of the car just in time to see Esther’s car pull up at the front gate.

  “Little brother, where you been?” Esther and Toni got out of the car. They had so many bags attached to each arm that Adam wasn’t quite sure how they had managed to fit them all in the car.

  “The better question is where have you been?” Adam asked with a smirk, though he could probably guess.

  “She’s been showing me around town,” Toni answered. “Since my brother and his best friend ditched me this morning.”

  “Yeah, well, it looks like you kept yourself and your Visa quite busy.” Trey moved toward the house.

  Adam was about to follow suit when Esther’s voice stopped him. “You never answered.” She was still pulling things out of the backseat. “Where were you guys?”

  Adam looked back and caught Toni watching him for the answer. He felt his stomach tighten a bit and he looked away.

  “Nowhere special.”

  He headed inside. Not special yet anyway.

  Chapter 29

  Adam took the long way into the center. It was the end of August and between his jail time and clearing things with the church board and the city so he could resume his position at Jacob’s House, it had been almost five weeks. As he walked up the back steps and through the hallways of the place he had called home for the past three and a half years, his eyes eagerly took in each detail. He realized he had missed the place more than he imagined he would.

  Adam stopped short of the common room. The door, only a few steps away, was open. The sound of the boys drifted out to meet him in the hallway. It was the sound of young men who could almost never be silent when they were together.

  However, as soon as he stepped over the threshold into the room, all talk ceased. He could feel their eyes follow him as he strode slowly to the front of the room.

  God, now what? You didn’t tell me about this part.

  Adam looked around at them, all twenty-one of them. They were rarely all in the same room together, but today they crowded in, perched on desks, leaning against the wall, clad in baggy jeans, baseball caps, and graphic T-shirts, staring at him, waiting for him to tell them something he never planned to share.

  His eyes drifted to the right side of the room. Trey gave him a nod from the back corner, where he was leaning against the door. Adam nodded back. This was it.

  “So, a lot of you are probably wondering what exactly happened to me these past couple weeks.” He rubbed his palms together. “I know you’ve seen it all on the news, so I’m just going to tell you like it is.” He took a moment to glance at all of them.

  “I was arrested in Baltimore, my old hometown.”

  He saw the widened eyes and the raised eyebrows and could almost hear the whispers behind them.

  “And it wasn’t a mistake,” he continued, moving across the front of the room. “It wasn’t racial profiling. It wasn’t five-oh trying to keep a brother down. It was all on me. It was because I messed up a long time ago, and it was time for me to own up to my mess.”

  Adam saw Rasheed shake his head. To Rasheed’s left, Jerome sat eyeing Adam as if he had just taken off a mask and revealed himself to be someone else. Tarik was perched on the edge of a table on Rasheed’s other side. The smirk on his face concerned Adam more than the judgment he saw in the eyes of Jerome and Rasheed.

  “When I first got here, I told you guys who I was, but I didn’t tell you everything. You knew I came from the streets like you, but you didn’t know that I was in the streets, that I ran the streets. Harder than a lot of you in here. I didn’t want to tell you that, ’cause to me that didn’t glorify God. That wouldn’t help you be better than who you were.”

  Adam paused as Toni and Jasmine slipped in the back door. Two of the boys at the back got up, giving them their seats. Adam swallowed hard. He hadn’t planned to talk about this in front of her.

  But the voice in his head told him to forget that plan: Tell them the truth. The whole truth.

  Her eyes caught his, but he couldn’t read her. He took another deep breath and kept going.

  “But as I was lying in that cell, I realized I’d been wrong And I promised God that if I got out, I would tell you all the truth. Let you know the real me.”

  Adam rubbed his chin. “When I was sixteen my brother and I got mixed up with some gangs. Not your small time, selling-crack-to-the-kids gangs. These brothers were about the big business, selling semis and automatics, stealing cars, moving kilos of drugs. You name it, we were up to our elbows in it. And my brother and I were right in the middle. A lot of people got hurt because of us. People died because of us. Because of me. One of those people was my older brother, Noah.”

  Adam took a moment to breathe as the image of Noah flashed before his mind. A day didn’t go by that he didn’t think of his brother. An hour didn’t pass where the guilt of his brother’s death didn’t weigh on him. Today it felt even heavier. Pushing away the painful memories, he kept going.

  “Being greedy, I had tried to con some guys out of some money we owed. But of course, you know you can’t steal from other criminals and get away with it,” Adam said. “They found out, it came down to the line, and my brother ended up taking a bullet for me.”

  Adam shoved his hands into his pockets, the muscles in his jaw tensing. He glanced over at Trey, and his friend nodded for him to continue.

  “Everything changed after that. My mom decided she wouldn’t watch another of her kids die. It was either enlist or go to jail; she said she would call the police herself and tell them everything she knew. It wasn’t much of a choice. I enlisted. Did my time, and then came here. I never went back home. And you know the story from there.”

  Adam took another deep breath. “A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine called me a fraud after she found out about my past.” He looked over at Toni, who was still watching him, the same closed expression on her face. “God told me it was time to own up. So I went home, and I did what I had to do.”

  “Why’d you go to the cops?” a voice called out. Adam looked up to find Tarik glaring at him with a mix of confusion and anger. “If God forgives, like you said, then once you ask for forgiveness it’s over.”

  “If we confess our sins, He’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousn
ess,” Adam said, understanding the boy’s anger, only because it had once been his own. “Confession has to come as part of repentance and forgiveness, Tarik.”

  “But why?” Tarik asked in frustration. “Isn’t it enough to be sorry?”

  “Confession shows that you’re ready to face the consequences of your actions,” Adam said simply.

  “Man, that’s whack,” Tarik grumbled, reclaiming his position against the wall.

  “Maybe, but it’s what God told me I needed to do.”

  “What? Now you expect all of us gonna walk up to five-oh and be like, ‘Oh, I stole a car last year. My bad.’ ”

  A few of the boys chuckled.

  “So why you telling us all this, Mr. B?” Sheldon asked from under a baseball cap pulled so low that Adam couldn’t see his eyes.

  Adam shook his head. “I’m telling you for two reasons. One, because I felt like I owed you all an explanation. And two, because I want you to think about why you’re really here. I spent the last ten years hiding in different places. Is that what you’re doing here? Hiding? Waiting until the coast is clear so you can go back to the regularly scheduled program? Or do you recognize that this is a second chance for you? This is an opportunity for you to start your life over in a better way, the right way, the way God wants you to.”

  Adam paused and looked around at them, letting the words sink in.

  “Either way, we’ll help you, ’cause that’s what we’re here for. But a lot of you are turning eighteen soon. You know after that you’re on your own. What you gonna do then? We can help you start a new life. But I’ve seen a lotta cats just like you go right back to where they were. Within less than a year they’re back in jail. Now that doesn’t have to be you—it’s your choice.”

  He looked around at the young men in front of him. Some of them were nodding; others already had their earphones plugged in. Adam sighed. He had done all he could do. He dismissed them and watched as they streamed out of the room. He caught a glimpse of Toni as she walked out with them and wondered how she would see him now that she knew everything.

  “I know that was hard.” Trey’s presence at the front beside him distracted him from his previous thoughts. “You did good.”

  Adam shrugged, unconvinced. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.”

  “I know, but it’s not about what they say.” Trey put a hand on his shoulder. “By their fruits you will know them.”

  Adam nodded even though he wasn’t as sure. He had seen too many leave and end up right back where they started. He had faith, but he was running low on hope.

  “So how does it feel to be back?”

  Adam looked up from his desk at Jasmine, who was standing at the door, barely balancing the weight of her pregnant belly. He hadn’t been keeping count but it wasn’t hard to tell that she was due any moment.

  It had been his second full day back at the office. The church had stood by him through everything, and like Pastor Reynolds had promised the day Adam had told him he needed to go back to Baltimore, his job was waiting for him when he returned.

  “It feels strange,” Adam said, looking around his tiny office. “When I was sitting in jail I actually never thought it might happen.”

  “Yeah, I never got a chance to talk to you about that,” Jasmine said, sinking into the chair across from his desk. “What happened to you in there?”

  Adam smirked. “I’ll tell you about it when you’re not pregnant,” he said.

  She rolled her eyes. “Well, with that long list from the city auditors I can already tell you’re going to have your hands full,” she said, rubbing her belly.

  Adam grimaced. Thanks to all the publicity from Toni’s articles and his stint in jail, the city was auditing Jacob’s House. They were looking over staff, programs, funding, and anything else they felt like. Adam had already met the team, and their list of requests increased every day.

  “Yeah,” Adam said with a sigh. “And now I have to look for new staff too, since a certain someone won’t be here.”

  “Actually, I’ve been talking to a therapist who works in my building,” Jasmine said brightly. “I think she might be willing to help out for a couple months until I get settled with Baby Shields.”

  Adam laughed. “Baby Shields? You guys have had eight months and that’s the best you can do?”

  “The naming of a child is not something to be rushed, Adam Bayne,” Jasmine said with a wag of her finger. “When you have one of your own you’ll understand.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s looking like a long time off,” Adam said, flipping through the mail on his desk.

  “Really?” Jasmine batted her eyes and stood to leave. “I thought for sure you’d have a few offers while you were in Baltimore. I hear they’re really friendly up in corrections.”

  He heard her laugh as she waddled out of the office before he could toss a wadded up piece of paper at her. She moved pretty quickly for a pregnant woman.

  He went back to the envelopes, flipping through the regular fare of bills and apology letters. He wasn’t sure which was worse: being asked for money or being rejected for it. He was almost at the end when he came upon a gray envelope.

  Curiously, Adam slit the envelope open and shook out its contents. A check was the only thing that slid out of the envelope, and Adam’s mouth fell open when he saw the number of zeros attached to it. He turned it over in his hands and held it up to the light just to make sure it was real. Then he checked to make sure that it was really for Jacob’s House. Yep. That was their name all right. Adam didn’t know who the Platinum Foundation was, but at that moment he could have kissed every member.

  Just as he was checking the envelope to make sure nothing else was in there, the phone rang. “Hello?” Adam answered absently, holding the envelope up to the light and peering inside.

  “Adam Bayne, please.”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Joyce Hardaway calling from Dwayne Cartwright’s office.”

  Adam froze. “Yes, how can I help you?” he said, apprehension increasing his response time.

  “Mr. Cartwright would like to meet with you and Mr. Douglas as soon as possible. Are you able to come in within the hour?”

  “What’s going on?” Adam asked, the morning’s joy already forgotten. It was never a good thing when your lawyer wanted to meet with you immediately about an open case. Adam wasn’t liking the sound of things.

  “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss that. Mr. Cartwright will explain when you come in. Can you make it today?”

  “Uh, Jerome’s in summer school,” Adam said, considering but then quickly abandoning the idea of pulling Jerome out of classes for the day. There was no sense in rushing bad news. “We can stop by at about three p.m., after he gets out.”

  “Okay, I will let Mr. Cartwright know.”

  “Thank you.”

  A sense of foreboding hung over Adam as he pushed through the next couple hours. Not even the joy of the morning’s six figure donation could remove the apprehension of what he was sure was about to happen. He was about to lose Jerome to the system. He had failed him—just like he had failed Noah.

  Adam was waiting for Jerome when the school bell rang.

  “Yo, Bayne, what’s poppin’?”

  “We gotta go see your lawyer.”

  No further explanation was needed and no further conversation was worthwhile. They drove in silence over to Dwayne’s offices.

  They were about to take the elevator up to the office when Adam put a hand on Jerome’s arm. “Hey, no matter what happens, I want you to know that I’m proud of you, okay?” Adam said.

  “Okay.” Jerome’s face was expressionless. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  Dwayne’s office door was already open when they got there. Adam tried to read the man’s expression, but it was almost impossible.

  “Have a seat,” Dwayne said, motioning to the chairs in front of his desk.

  “What’s the emergency?” Adam
asked, getting straight to the point.

  “I got a call from the DA this morning,” Dwayne said, folding his arms on his desk. “They’re dropping the charges. Jerome’s free and clear.”

  “What?” Adam asked, echoing the confusion in Jerome’s face. “I don’t understand.”

  Dwayne shrugged. “Me neither. The DA just called and said the case has been dismissed. I received the official papers from the court this afternoon. This is real.”

  “Did they say why?”

  “No.”

  “So that’s it?” Adam asked, looking back and forth between Jerome and Dwayne. “It’s over?”

  Dwayne nodded. “Yup. Jerome will finish his time at Jacob’s House, under the terms of his original sentence, after which his record will be wiped clear if he stays out of trouble for three years.”

  “Yes!” Jerome jumped up. “That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout.”

  Adam stood up, trying to stay composed. “So I guess this is it then,” he said. He reached across the desk to shake Dwayne’s hand. “Thank you.”

  Dwayne shrugged. “I didn’t do anything. You guys must have friends in high places.”

  Jerome was still hooting and hollering like a maniac all the way out of the building and into the parking lot.

  But Adam could barely speak. He had known that it would take something unusual to free Jerome from the weight of this case, but to see it happen was almost too much for Adam. He thought about how hopeless he had felt just the day before as he talked to the boys about their future. The discouragement he had felt that he hadn’t shared with anyone. But today’s experience had given him new hope.

  Thank you, God. Thank you for this gift to Jerome. We know it’s from You.

  “Yo, Bayne, this is awesome!” Jerome shouted. “Man, I can’t believe this.”

  “Yeah, this is crazy,” Adam said, tossing the keys to the car to Jerome. “Let me call Toni.”

  Her number rang twice before she picked up and said hello.

  “Hey, you will never believe this,” Adam began. “We just walked out of Dwayne’s office. All of Jerome’s charges have been dropped. Every single one of them. He’s been cleared. It’s over!”