Redeeming Justice

by Jarrett Adams

  I leave for the day and I make progress. I get my library card and, braving the herd of impatient, unhappy people, return to the DMV. This time a kind employee takes my library card, miraculously accepts the copy of my birth certificate, and allows me to get a replacement Social Security card, which enables me to move into another line and get my state ID. I come home buoyed, upbeat. I’m not helping inmates with their legal work, but I have accomplished something, taken one small step forward.

  Then I take another step. A few days later, a friend puts me up for a job installing equipment for a cable company. I have to go through a three-step application process, but my friend knows someone at the company, and she’s almost certain I’ll get the job. I fly through step one, the written application. I proceed to step two, the personal interview, feeling confident, prepared. I hit it off so well with the interviewer that I believe she’s about to ask me to babysit her kids. She calls after the interview and informs me I have reached step three, the background check and drug test. I whiz through the drug test. Two days later, I get a call from the interviewer telling me that I’ve made it to the finish line. All that remains is for corporate to sign off, a formality. She wants to give me a head start and tells me my hours and my probable location. For the first time since I walked out of Jefferson County Jail more than a month ago, I feel as if I can breathe.

  A day goes by. I pace the house, try to read, get distracted. I don’t do well with idle time. I go for a long walk, come home, fix dinner, take in the Bulls game.

  Another day goes by. The cable company doesn’t call. I take another long walk, come home, frantically sift through the mail.

  “Nothing came for you, baby,” my mother says.

  “Nothing from the cable company,” I say. A statement, not a question.

  “No. When are you supposed to hear?”

  “Two days ago. A formality they said. Just paperwork for me to fill out, my W-2, that kind of stuff, lock in my location, my start date.”

  Later, I pick at my dinner, my nerves crackling. That night, I don’t sleep.

  Day three, and the weather turns nasty. Blustery winds, sleet, the sky dark all day. The mail comes late. I flip through it. I stop at a letter from the cable company. I tear it open and read—a form letter.

  “After further review, we regret to inform you that due to an inconsistency in your credit history, we are unable to offer you a position at this time.”

  “Unable to offer you a position,” I say.

  I thrust the letter at my mother. As she reads, the phone rings. I answer and hear the voice of the woman who interviewed me.

  “Did you get the letter?” she says.

  “Just now.”

  “I wanted to explain. Corporate turned you down. They found something in your background.”

  “What would be in my background? I don’t have a record. I’ve been exonerated.”

  “It was the credit check,” she says. “They do it by the book. No room for interpretation or explanation. The credit check listed your last known address as a supermax prison in Wisconsin.”

  “But I’ve been exonerated.”

  “They flagged you. They’ve made their decision.”

  “And that’s final?”

  “It is. I’m so—”

  “Sorry,” I say, finishing her sentence. “I know you did your best. I appreciate that.”

  I hang up the phone without even considering that I might have hung up on her. I sit down heavily on the chair across the table from my mother. She doesn’t speak. She places the letter from the cable company on the table in front of her. She smooths it out once, then again. I want to grab it from her and ball it up. I look over at my mother, and she slowly shakes her head, her eyes filled with love, with worry, with exhaustion, and I lose it. My chest contracts, and for the first time in ten years, since my first days in Cook County Jail, I sob. My entire body quakes. I cry so deeply that I can’t catch my breath. A torrent of tears surges down my cheeks. I’m blinded by my tears. Finally, my body still quavering, my tear ducts dried out, I see that my mother has left her seat at the kitchen table and has moved over to the stove. She stands, swaying slightly, her eyes closed, her arms around her torso, hugging herself.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she says. “I know now it’s going to be okay. Oh, Jarrett, I’m so happy.”

  I manage to lift my head. “You’re happy?”

  “I’ve been so concerned about you. You keep everything inside. Today is the first time you’ve let it out. That’s why I’m happy. You have to let it out.”

  “I don’t—I don’t want to make you cry,” I say, and my tears come again.

  “It’s okay. This is good. You need to do this.”

  I can’t speak through my sobs.

  Then my mother comes over to me, wraps her arms around me, and slowly, gently, begins to rock me.

  “Let it out, baby,” she says. “Let it out.”

  15.

  The Door

  I feel stuck between two worlds: prison, where I didn’t belong but learned to survive, and a world outside that seems more challenging, disruptive, and despairing than prison itself. Everywhere I turn, someone seems to slam a door in my face. I feel alternately frustrated, angry, beaten down, and stuck in neutral.

  And so, I walk—to clear my head, to let off steam, to try to devise a plan, to figure out where I belong. As I walk, I try to understand the world.

  How do I figure this world out, this world of cell phones, text messages, social media, and the Internet? I have missed the entire online revolution. I am analog man trying to dig my way out in a digital world. I feel left behind. As I reconnect with friends now in their mid- to late-twenties, most with good jobs, spacious apartments, new cars or trucks, girlfriends or wives, some starting families, I feel happy for them, but I am ten years behind. I’m living with my mother, drowning in debt; I have no money, no insurance, no car; I can’t get a job, a credit card—I can barely figure out the internet.

  And so I walk. I feel oblivious to the cold, the icy wind, the mostly grim gray days. Unless a blizzard hits, I walk every day for hours, exploring the neighborhood, venturing into other neighborhoods, and then I take an alternate route back, come into the house, and either stay in my room and read or sit at my mother’s old humpbacked computer and try to find a job. I make lists, I make calls, I receive nothing but silence and turndowns.

  One day, I walk in a completely different direction. I need to clear my head. I’d love to find a park, a playground, maybe shoot some hoop, find a game to blow off steam, even in this cold weather. I have just finished a frustrating hour or so going nowhere on the Internet. The sun has come out, but the temperature has plummeted into the teens. What am I doing wrong? I think as I slap my gloved hands together. It can’t be that complicated. I know it’s like learning the basics of a new language. I just need someone to help me for an hour, or maybe I should take a class.

  And then right in front of me, I see a sign.

  South Suburban College.

  I approach a cluster of modern white buildings that could easily be mistaken for an office or industrial complex. I face what appears to be the main building. I don’t remember walking in the front door. I just find myself inside, standing in the doorway. The warm air fogs my glasses. I wipe them on the bottom of my shirt and see another sign that reads “Guidance Counselor.” I definitely need guidance. Maybe I can find someone who can guide me to figuring out the Internet.

  I walk farther into the building until I come into a kind of waiting room with a dozen people, probably students, some seated, some milling around. I scan the room. Faces, hands. I must look confused or lost, because someone says, “There’s a sign-up sheet over there.” I see a clipboard and a pen. I sign my name and take a seat.

  After a short wait, a woman calls my name. I follow her int
o an office, a cluttered, cozy space filled with sunlight and books. A computer that looks sleeker and trimmer than my mother’s sits on the corner of her desk. The woman gestures at the chair across from her.

  “I’m Linda Bathgate,” she says as I sit. “I’m a guidance counselor here. How are you today, Mr. Adams?”

  This woman—white, forties maybe, wide smile, a flow of reddish-brown hair that brushes her shoulders—exudes a quality that at first I can’t define. Then I recognize what I see in her.

  Warmth. A mother’s warmth.

  “Not bad,” I answer. “Been worse.”

  Linda Bathgate smiles. “What can I do for you?”

  For two months, I have wandered aimlessly, I think. I have tried to be normal. I have tried to fit in. I have not relaxed at all. I have not tried to be myself. Now, sitting in front of Linda Bathgate—I know it sounds crazy, or strange, or even eerie—I feel the presence of God. And in the moment that Linda asks that simple question—what can I do for you?—I feel that she needs to hear my story. I feel compelled to tell her.

  “I have a pretty interesting story,” I say.

  “Oh?”

  “I should have been sitting across from you ten years ago. But our criminal justice system stole those ten years from me.”

  “What happened?”

  “I went to prison for a crime I didn’t commit. I am here because I am desperate to pick up where I left off. I had just graduated high school, about to start college. I was at the very beginning of my education. That doesn’t adequately explain it. I was at the beginning of my life.”

  “You are so articulate, Mr. Adams.”

  “I read a lot,” I say. “Had a lot of time to read where I was. And, please, call me Jarrett.”

  “Linda,” she says. “Jarrett, I’d like to hear your whole story.”

  “Really?”

  She opens her palms toward me in a gesture that feels so welcoming and encouraging that I actually want to tell her my story. I’ve never felt this way before. I’ve never told my story to anyone. I never expected to confess it all to a stranger. That’s what this feels like. A confession. A purging. An emotional cleansing.

  I tell Linda Bathgate all of it: the night of the party, my arrest, the trials, prison, becoming Li’l Johnnie Cochran with the Glasses, being put into segregation, writing letters constantly, working with the Wisconsin Innocence Project, and finally getting out. When I finish, I see tears in her eyes.

  “I don’t know how you survived,” she says.

  “I’m not sure I have.”

  “That sounds like another story.”

  “Still working on that one.”

  She reaches for a tissue from a box on her desk. “How do you think it ends?”

  I move to the edge of my chair.

  “With me becoming an attorney,” I say.

  She smiles. “A happy ending.”

  “Linda, I want to enroll here, get my associate’s degree, go on for my bachelor’s, then go on to law school.”

  “You’ve thought this through,” she says.

  “Not really,” I say, and she bursts out laughing.

  “But at least I have an ending in mind,” I say.

  “I’m going to help you,” she says. “Full disclosure. Once you’re a student here, I wouldn’t be assigned to you as a counselor. I work with students who have special needs. I just happened to be here today helping to get students enrolled for summer classes. That’s actually a good place for you to start. Summer school.”

  “What courses should I take?”

  She flips through a course catalog, stops at a particular page. “I think you should take one course. See how it goes. Warm up first, then start running. If it goes well, take a full load in the fall. At that point, I suggest you concentrate on General Studies. It’s the quickest way to get your associate’s degree. That will set you up well for law school. Call this step one.”

  “I’m glad you said one course. Right now, I can’t even afford that.”

  She goes quiet.

  “I’ll figure that out,” I say. “I’ll get a job.”

  “Once you’re enrolled full-time, I may be able to help with financial aid.”

  “Thank you.”

  “A pleasure. Honestly.”

  I bite my lip, smile, and say, “So, what course should I take? Please don’t say math. I’m really rusty in math. I love to read. I could do an English course. Or philosophy—”

  “Speech,” she says.

  “Speech?”

  “Speech 108. Oral Communication. Public speaking. You have a ten-year gap in your résumé. I think you are going to have to tell your story. A lot. You need to get comfortable talking about it.”

  “Step one,” I say.

  “Yes, step one,” Linda says. “Three credits.”

  “Are you sure you can’t be my counselor?”

  “Not officially.”

  “Can I check in with you unofficially?”

  “Absolutely,” Linda says. “I have to see how the story ends.”

  16.

  Loose Ends

  Twenty-six years old and I’m starting college. Insane. Yet it feels necessary and right. If I’m going to make up for lost time, I have to start now.

  First, I need my driver’s license. To get it, I have to pay off the fines, fees, and parking tickets my piece-of-junk car has accumulated. To me, it’s an unreal amount of money. Twelve hundred dollars? I don’t have twelve dollars.

  I can’t ask my mother or my aunts. I feel so in debt to them already. I refuse to ask them for more money. But I need my license. I need to be able to drive to school and to a job. I have to get the money somewhere.

  I make calls. I swallow my pride and ask everyone I know to lend me a few dollars. In a couple of weeks, I raise the cash, promising to pay people back with interest. I return to the DMV and settle up.

  The woman at the driver’s license window doesn’t smile. She sneers at the amount of money I owe for my tickets.

  “I know your kind,” her look says. “Deadbeats. Guys who can’t stay out of trouble. Losers.”

  “Wrongfully convicted,” I want to shout at her sneer.

  “Here’s the address of the impound garage,” she says. “I assume you’ll want to take possession of your vehicle—”

  “Keep it,” I say. “Sell it. Junk it. I don’t care. I don’t want it.”

  “You no longer lay claim to your vehicle?”

  “No,” I repeat. “Now, please, I would like to take my driver’s test.”

  She points me to a different line, one that snakes almost out the door. I thank her. Later, finally, I walk out of the DMV with my driver’s license. Only takes me three hours.

  * * *

  —

  I call my attorney John Rhiel to check on the status of my case.

  “No word,” he says. “They still have not officially dismissed the charges.”

  “My conviction has been reversed. This should’ve been done already. What are they waiting for?”

  “I don’t know. They could opt for another trial. I seriously doubt they will, but—”

  “Anything’s possible. I’ve learned that.”

  “If you want to speed it up, you could still plead guilty to a lesser charge.”

  “Never,” I say. “I’ll wait them out. Let’s see who blinks first.”

  “Meanwhile,” John says, “you have to tie up that other loose end.”

  “I’m on it.”

  * * *

  —

  Sex offender.

  That’s how the State of Wisconsin has labeled me.

  A lie. An outrage.

  After you have been convicted of a sexual crime, your name immediately goes on a sex registry. Nobody tells you that o
nce the conviction has been reversed, you have to notify the state and request to remove your name. You go through a process, filling out paperwork, showing documentation. The state puts you on the sex registry instantaneously. They take forever taking your name off. This infuriates me.

  Sex offender.

  Two words that enrage me, offend me. Two words that describe the opposite of me.

  I want this stain obliterated from my record, erased from my name now. It means everything to me.

  * * *

  —

  My cousin Craig buys a new car and gifts me his old one, a temperamental clunker that guzzles gas and runs on a prayer. A godsend. I just need something on four wheels that will transport me the few miles back and forth to a job and in two months to school.

  After getting the car, I register with a temp agency specializing in factory work. They don’t run background checks. They work with the state and don’t care who you are, ex-con or wrongfully convicted. I quickly find out why. They offer two types of jobs: dehumanizing and dangerous.

  My first day with the temp agency, I arrive at a boxy building located in the rear of a parking lot. I exit my car, add my name to a long list, and stand in the parking lot milling with a mass of people, most of whom have spent time in prison. I wait anxiously, making small talk, keeping vigilant, watching faces and hands, keeping clear of shadows, my head on a swivel. After about twenty minutes, someone calls my name. I sign a form, and the guy holding the sign-up list hands me an index card that I will give to the foreperson at the factory I’ve been assigned to. I get back inside my beater and drive to my first job in almost ten years outside a prison—stuffing K-Cups of coffee into cardboard containers. The job pays minimum wage, $7.50 an hour.

  I work fast and efficiently, and soon I find a rhythm and shut off my mind. After thirty minutes, I start to sweat from the stifling heat in the factory. In another few minutes, the heat feels so suffocating I think I might pass out. I glance at the workers around me, almost all of them recently released from prison, and I see that we’re all dripping with perspiration. I realize then that I have been breathing through my mouth because the smell finally hits me full force—a tear-inducing blast of sour coffee. I start to gag. I try to void my mind of all thought, and then, before I know it, a horn bleats and my six-hour shift ends. I calculate my day’s pay—forty-five dollars less taxes. I stagger out of the factory, the stench of coffee and dried perspiration draped over me like a blanket. I can’t wait to shower.