Prisons

by Rob Edwards

  “Not too close,” Judith said. “He could get upset by that.”

  Danna scooted a few feet away and sat, knees under her chin, looking at Noah with a big smile on her face.

  Judith, trembling at the bullet she felt she just dodged, rejoined her army of picketers. She would walk back and forth, each time eyes nailed to Noah, trying not to let him out of her sight.

  Not ten more minutes had gone by when a news van from Lansing drove in and parked. One sole cameraman got out and began setting up his gear.

  Then a blue Buick SUV came squealing into the parking lot. The four police officers, instinctively put their hands to their guns.

  “What now,” Judith said.

  The Buick wheeled around near the building and screeched to a halt. The crowd of picketers, grew silent, and stepped back on the grass off the sidewalk.

  Out of the car jumped Reginald Fountain, slamming his door. “Danna Hayes, you get your ass in this car right now!”

  Danna, eyes wide with fright, jumped up from the grass and ran to the passenger side door.

  Judith looked over at Noah, who brought his knees to his chest and buried his face in them. He dropped his rubber band and flapped his hands furiously. She turned and ran to Reginald. “Mr. Fountain, go easy on her. She’s just trying to stick up for her brother.”

  Reginald looked at her, venom in his eyes. “I told you once before woman—stay the hell away from my family. And you didn’t listen. You lured Danna out here, against my wishes. And now she’ll have to pay the price for it.” He opened the door for her. “Get in there now.” Danna scampered up into the seat, and Reginald slammed the door.

  “Family?” Judith could feel her face get hot. Reginald Fountain was nothing more than a bully, and she hated to see Danna scurry around, afraid of him. “You’re not her family. Her family is in the building behind me. That’s why she’s out here trying to fight for him. You’re her foster-father.”

  Reginald put his nose two inches from hers. “Yes. And that means I’m responsible for her. Not you, and not that murdering piece of shit in there. Now stay out of our business.”

  “Sir. I’m going to have to ask you to step back from the lady and calm down.” Judith just noticed one of the police officers had moved into position ten feet behind Reginald.

  “Oh, I’m calm.” Reginald sneered at her one last time, and then turned away. He held his hands up. “Now that I know my family is safe, I’m calm. And I’m leaving.” He started walking back to his car.

  Judith was seething. There was no way she was going to let him have the last word on this. “The only family she has, you’re trying to destroy.” She followed him step for step back to his car. The officer put his arm up and stopped her. “Let him go, ma’am.”

  “Why is that Fountain? What are you afraid of?”

  He turned back and screamed. “Stay away from my family.”

  “She’s not your family.” Judith screamed.

  “Ma’am, stop.” The officer said. Another officer ran over to help her back.

  Reggie jumped in, slammed his door, and sped out of the parking lot.

  Judith could see Danna’s face wet with tears when the car sped off. “Asshole!” She screamed.

  “Ma’am, if you don’t calm down right this minute, I will put you in cuffs and take you in to the station.” The officer said.

  A familiar scream was heard. Judith spun her head around to see Noah, lying on the ground, hitting himself in the face.

  “Let me go,” Judith said. “I need to get to him.”

  “Are you going to be calm?” The officer said.

  “He’s having a meltdown,” Judith cried. “I need to get to him.”

  “Not until I know you’re calm.”

  “Let her go!” Taysha Williams said, running out from the front doors of the building. “She needs to get to her son before he hurts himself.”

  When the officers saw Taysha run out, they released Judith. She sprang free and dropped to the ground next to her son. Noah was in full meltdown, screaming as if he’d just lost a limb, and hitting himself with both fists in his face. Judith pulled him up to her chest, wrapped her legs around his legs and grabbed his hands, restraining them across his body. She caught his head in her shoulder, rocked him, and whispered in his ear while he continued to scream and struggle. “It’s all good, Noah. Mommy’s all right.” Soon Judith noticed all the picketers standing around, watching the spectacle; some were crying, some gaping, others looking on in pity. Twenty minutes went by before he became soothed and calm. Judith decided this was the last place she wanted to be.

  She slowly released Noah and stood. “Thank you for being here,” she said to the others. “I think we should go home now.” She walked him out to the car, helped Noah get in, then climbed in herself. She started the car and pulled out of the driveway. A couple of miles down the road was a gas station. She pulled into the parking lot, put the car in park, rested her head on the steering wheel, and wept.

  Chapter Fifty

  Keys in the lock echoed through the quiet of the dark room, ripping Delton from a sound sleep. The door burst open, and the bright light of the hallway blinded him. Silhouettes of two guards appeared in the doorway. “Get your shit together, Hayes. We’re heading out.”

  “Heading out?” Delton said, rubbing his eyes. “Where we heading to?”

  “That’s above my pay grade. I’ve just been told to get you out of here and on the bus,” The guard said. “So I’m giving you five minutes to get your clothes on and your shit together or we’re just gonna drag you out of here in your skivvies. Got it?”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Thick clouds darkened the morning sky, souring Judith’s mood even more. The news from the night before had not been kind. The cameraman from Lansing had recorded Noah’s meltdown, and it was the top story on all of their newscasts. Other picketers who were there, had recorded it vertically on their cell phones, and offered it up to the newscasts, who went on to portray Judith as an abusive mother.

  Channel 12 had brought in a child development professor from Marmont, who described what a meltdown for an autistic child was like, but instead of getting some credit for dealing with the situation properly, they went on to say that Noah shouldn’t have been there in the first place. And of course the expert agreed with everything they said.

  Judith did her best to stop the bleeding by tweeting out that Keener had kicked Noah out of school. But nobody was visiting the pages now.

  Her phone rang and she pulled it out of her purse. It was Neil. She thought about answering it, remembering him walking out of her father’s funeral and wanting nothing more than to run to him—have him hold her, and tell her it would all be fine. But she couldn’t talk to him now. She let it ring until it stopped and went to voicemail. Then she set the phone down gently on the seat next to her and continued to drive.

  A few minutes later the phone dinged, alerting her to a voicemail.

  She would save it for later. Now she had to get herself ready for the fight. She breathed deeply. With Noah now in the care of Darlene, Judith was ready to continue the struggle, and handle all reporter’s questions. “Bring it on,” she said, pulling into the Two Rivers parking lot. But it was empty of picketers. She hoped that the cloudy day had slowed down her fellow warriors; made them too tired to get out of bed. Grabbing her “Free Delton,” sign, she slogged up to the sidewalk and began her pacing.

  For over a half hour she walked, back and forth, under dark clouds which crept by overhead, threatening rain at any moment. But something was different today. When people stepped out of their cars, and she yelled, “Free Delton!” they walked by, not even glancing in her direction.

  An hour went by and not one person drove in to join her. The steady increase in support she had seen each day had completely eroded away. She wasn’t even making a dent with the Two Rivers workers either. She had not been visited, or even gawked at by anyone from inside the building. The sidewalk was h
er island, and she was now marooned. A feeling of desperation seeped through her. Had everything been lost with Noah’s meltdown the previous day? Was she seriously back to square one? Or worse yet, square minus ten?

  A car drove in and she recognized it. Jack Brody pulled up to the sidewalk, and stepped out of the car. “I somehow had a feeling you’d be here.”

  “Where else would I be?”

  Jack gave a sad smile and closed the car door. He walked around to the front of the car, put his hands in his pocket and leaned against the hood. “The big question is why?”

  “What do you mean?” Judith asked. “It isn’t raining. And I don’t think that would stop me anyway.”

  “It’s not the rain I’m worried about,” Jack said. “It’s the lack of support. After the news reports last night, your fight is pretty much over.”

  “It’s not over,” Judith said. “It will never be over.”

  “Judith, you’re no longer the loving courageous mother that you were at the start of the week. Now you’re the crazy lady who really doesn’t care about her kid. That’s why she put him with a criminal in the first place.”

  Judith scowled at Jack. “That’s not the truth.”

  “The truth has nothing to do with it,” Jack said. “It’s the message that counts. And right now your message has been drowned out.”

  “Then it’s just going to take me a little longer to change the message again.”

  “There is another way to help Noah.”

  “How’s that?”

  Jack stood, and grabbed her shoulders. “Teach me what I need to know, so I can help you, and be a part of his life.”

  “What?” Judith stepped back. “No. What are you trying to pull?”

  “I’m not trying to pull anything,” Jack said. “I have a son. Therefore I have a right to see him, to know him. I’ve been doing some research on ASD. I just need to know how to reach him. I was hoping we could get Delton out so I could learn from him, but after yesterday it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen now. So I need your help.”

  “So you weren’t helping out of the goodness of your heart. You had an agenda,” Judith took another step back. “You bastard.”

  “I don’t understand why you’re getting so upset. Why is it so wrong for a man to want to spend time with his own son?”

  “What’s wrong is, that you weren’t up front with me to begin with. How can I trust you now?”

  “Trust?” Jack took a step forward. “That’s rich. You’re actually speaking of trust. If not for this crazy situation you’ve gotten yourself into, I would have never known I had a son. And now you dare to stand there and lecture me on trust.”

  Judith felt the sting of his words—words she could not refute. “What is it you want, Jack?”

  “I want, what any man would want in my situation. I want to get to know my son. To be part of his life.”

  Judith looked in his eyes and saw something familiar. That small gleam of desperation. He was being honest with his feelings right now, and she couldn’t turn down his request, not only because he was the boy’s father, but also because he had done so much to further her cause. She nodded at him. “Fine. Help me get Delton out, and we’ll discuss it.”

  “And if we can’t get Delton out?” Jack said. “Yesterday pretty much ended that.”

  Judith shrugged, and looked away, afraid to acknowledge that thought just now. “We’ll discuss it later.”

  “Thank you, Judith.” He walked back to his car and opened the door. “I’ll go back to the office and see what I can come up with.”

  Judith knew that line. She had worked with him too much in the past. When he said that to clients it was because he was clueless on what to do next, but he didn’t want to tell them to their face. He truly did think it was over, and now he would just wait until she realized it and gave up. Then he would come in and take Noah away from her, every other weekend at first, and then for every other week. That was until summers, when Noah would go away for two weeks…or even a month.

  She watched him slowly drive away, and found herself dealing with a swirling mixture of rage, and despair. “Keep walking, Judith,” She said quietly to herself. “One step at a time. That’s how we’ll deal with it all.”

  She turned to the building to continue her march and saw Warden Luzynski coming out of the front entrance.

  He walked up to her. “It’s over, Miss Higgins.”

  Judith walked past him. “No, Warden. It’s not. I’m not giving up until Delton is free.”

  “Delton’s gone, Miss Higgins.”

  She stopped. Turned to him. “What are you talking about?”

  “He was transferred last night, to the El Dorado Correctional Facility in Kansas.”

  The dark clouds that had threatened all morning long, finally began to release a light rain. Droplets ran down their faces, and made spots on the sidewalk.

  When she spoke her voice was weak and trembling. “Why did you do that?”

  “It’s standard procedure. When an inmate is threatened or attacked, they tend to get transferred to other facilities to keep them safe.”

  The rain started coming down harder.

  “Or to keep your job safe.” Judith said.

  Warden Luzynski looked up and then back to her. “You should probably get out of the rain and go home, Miss Higgins. There’s nothing more to do here, and you don’t want to get yourself sick.” He turned and rushed back into the building.

  Judith stood in the rain, watching the door slowly swing closed behind the warden. It closed on all her hopes as well. Looking up, she saw that the ink from the words ‘Free Delton,’ now running down the sign, and staining her gray Marmont sweatshirt. She lowered the sign, letting it clunk onto the sidewalk.

  That was the end of it. All hopes for Delton being free—of Noah speaking again, were down the drain. Soaked, she dragged herself toward her car, sloshing through the small puddles in the parking lot, threw her sign on the passenger seat floor and slammed the car door. She noticed the voicemail icon on her phone, and remembered Neil had called earlier. She thought about what it could possibly say. Was it a message professing his love and devotion? Or perhaps he saw the news last night and wanted to tell her he thought she was as awful as the rest of the town apparently did. In either case this was not something she could deal with right now.

  She threw the car in drive, and sped out of her parking spot. Before she reached the exit, she knew she needed to hear his voice, bad or good. She pulled to the side of the driveway, and put the car in park. A quick dial to voicemail and she leaned her head back and closed her eyes to listen.

  “Hey, Judith, it’s Neil. Though your phone probably told you that. Anyway…I watched the news tonight…saw Noah’s meltdown in living color. I’m sorry. That sounded glib. I just…I wanted to say I’m sorry. Sorry for Noah having his meltdown. Sorry that you had to take care of it by yourself. And sorry I got so judgmental with you. I know you’re going through a very difficult time right now, especially just after losing your dad and all. And I also know that your life is complicated. I think it’s so complicated that you find yourself overwhelmed by it all. I guess I just called to say that I don’t care about your circumstances, or how you got there, other than to let you know I’m willing to help you with your complicated life, when you’re ready to let someone in. That’s all…Good luck with everything, Judith.”

  “If you’d like to save this message….” Judith tapped off the phone, and when she set it down on the seat next to her she saw her hand was trembling. She put her car in drive again and slowly pulled out of the parking lot, feeling numb.

  Seven years ago she was a different person. She was respected and well known in the business world. She knew how to walk in business circles and she was good at it. But now she seemed to be good at nothing. She was a horrible mother, sister, girlfriend…person. How did she end up such a dismal disappointment to everyone she knew?

  She made it home, took a
long hot shower, dried off, and sat on her couch with her legs pulled tight up to her chest, arms wrapped around them. She could feel the dull thud of her heart. Next to the TV sat her father’s urn. Seeing it made her sad that he wasn’t there to lean on. “What do I do now, Dad?” She said to the urn. “You had me take all of these risks and chances, and they’ve all fallen through. And now you’re not here to help. What am I supposed to do now? What’s your next big idea?”

  Her phone buzzed on the end table next to her. Picking it up, Judith saw it was from New York. She almost set it back down, but she looked back at the urn and something told her she needed to answer this one. “Yeah?”

  “Is this Miss Judith Higgins?”

  “Yes, it is?”

  “Hi, Judith. I’m Brooke Winthrop, from Global Information Network.”

  The following is the audio transcript for the Global Information Network story that appeared on the news magazine series “Deep Dive with Brooke Winthrop” October 2, 20xx.

  BROOKE Voice Over: Tucked neatly into the middle of rural, lower Michigan, lies the small town of Two Rivers. It’s a bedroom community, with the majority of its citizens working at the many business and tech companies 30 minutes to the east, and Marmont State College 15 minutes to the south. And then, of course, there is the State Correctional Facility, 12 miles down the road, which shares the same name.

  But right now the biggest claim to fame for Two Rivers are these two.

  HIGGINS ONLINE VIDEO: “Hello there, I’m Judith Higgins. And this is my son, Noah.”

  BROOKE Voice Over: This video has been seen by nearly one million people on the internet. It tells the plight of Judith Higgins, her son, Noah, and the man who is now at the center of the controversy here in Two Rivers—an inmate at the penitentiary, Delton Hayes. But as Judith will tell you, the story isn’t about Delton, or her—it all starts with her son.