The day breaks even hotter than the forecast. By 10:00 a.m. I’m doused in sweat. By eleven, I’m stopping every fifteen minutes to sip water. By noon, I’m guzzling water from the garden hose, the heat slithering up from the pavement, causing me to feel slightly delirious. Gradually, the pile of stones in the back diminishes, the garden in the front takes shape, but then darkness starts to fall. I look at the amount of stones that remains, and I don’t know if I’m going to make it. I have at least two more loads, and I’m beat. Maybe I should come back tomorrow.
Then, from the next street over, I hear a shout, some running, and a round of automatic weapon fire. Then screams. More running. More gunshots. It sounds like a war zone.
I don’t want to get caught in the middle of a firefight. I make a decision. I’m finishing right now and getting out of here.
I’ll pack everything into one load, stick the wheelbarrow into the garage, lock up, and book.
I load all the remaining stones in the wheelbarrow, forming a small stone mountain. I can hardly see over the pile. I lean in, lift, groan, and slowly push the wheelbarrow toward the front of the house. The wheelbarrow sways, wobbles, but I push my weight into the handles to steady the load. The wheelbarrow slides off the concrete, tips onto the grass, and a stone sails off the top of the pile and lands on my foot. I wail. I hop with pain. I limp in a circle, my hands on my hips, the pain scorching through my foot. My eyes water.
The automatic weapon fire begins again. Definitely a machine gun. And it sounds even closer.
In a haze, I somehow move the pile of stones to the front of the house, unload the wheelbarrow, finish the job, return the wheelbarrow to the garage, lock up, and roll into my car. As I drive away, the pain rips into my foot, burns through my boot. My head pounds. I get home, limp into the house, and slowly shimmy off my boot. My foot has swollen to twice its normal size. I locate a bucket, fill it with water and Epsom salt, and soak my foot, the pain moving through varying levels of excruciating. I will not consider that I have broken my foot, will not accept that, because I can’t have broken it. I have no insurance, I have no time, I have school, studying, and I have to work. I cannot take time off. I have already taken ten years off. I am twenty-six years old. I’m young. I’m strong. I can fight through it. This pain is minor compared with the types of pain I’ve fought through in my life.
I spend the next day soaking my foot. That evening, I stretch an Icy Hot pack over my foot, wrap an Ace bandage around that, and somehow limp to my first class of the week. I drop onto my seat and moan, my foot searing in pain. The Icy Hot pack has done nothing to alleviate the pain but has caused a strong medicinal odor around me, a nostril-buckling funnel cloud rising from my boot. As class starts, a young woman sitting behind me blurts, “Whoa, someone smells like an old man.”
The class laughs. I don’t. I want to whirl around and glare at her until she slinks away. Instead, I slump into my seat, trying to concentrate through the pain. The class ends and I limp through the rest of the evening. I limp through the next week, through the next month. As the semester goes on, the pain changes in intensity from feeling as if someone has driven a hot stake through my foot to a persistently dull ache that I manage to tolerate, even ignore—except in cold weather when my foot tightens up and cramps.
Even with my aching foot, I continue my handyman business, taking any job I can. I desperately need the money. When I factor in my expenses—driving my iffy car back and forth to a distant suburb or downtown to a job—I barely break even. In November, as I approach my twenty-seventh birthday, I stare at a suddenly uncertain future. My financial aid package will max out after this semester, and I have no idea how I will be able to afford my courses. I make my usual appointment with Linda Bathgate to talk about what classes I should take next. I want to tell her that I may not be able to take any more. I consider canceling the meeting, but I find myself in her office, my eyes fixed on the floor, trying not to appear as morose as I feel.
“Let’s see,” she says, smiling at my midterm transcript. “I don’t see any Bs on here.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“All As.”
“I know.”
She places my transcript on her desk and looks at me. “What’s wrong?”
“My financial aid has run out. I don’t have any way to pay for spring semester.”
I look past her, unable to meet her eyes.
“I’m going to have to drop out,” I say.
She frowns in a way I’ve come to learn means she’s considering options.
“Life can sometimes be a chain,” she says.
“I don’t follow,” I say.
“I contact someone who gets in touch with someone else who contacts another person who finally gets to the person who can make a decision.”
“In other words,” I say, catching up to her, “twenty people say no. Only one person can say yes.”
“Exactly,” she says. “Jarrett, I think it’s time.”
“Time?”
“For you to tell your story.”
* * *
—
Linda tells me about an organization called One Million Degrees (OMD) that supports community college students from low-income families. We put together an information packet that Linda and the financial office submit to OMD.
“OMD wants to interview you,” Linda says one day. “Sort of a big deal. They pick a total of five scholars.”
“From the school?”
“From the district.”
I move up the chain.
I meet Michael Golden, one of the founders of the organization. Mike and I talk way past the time allotted for our interview, relating like a couple of friends who haven’t seen each other in years.
“Tell me what you want to do,” Mike says.
“I want to become an attorney,” and then I tell him my story.
When I finish, Mike goes mute.
“I don’t know how you made it through that,” he finally says.
He walks me out of his office. We exchange our contact information and vow to get together as friends. Not your generic goodbye. We both mean it.
The next day, I get word that One Million Degrees has chosen me as one of their five scholars.
* * *
—
Later that week, I receive a letter from the financial aid office informing me they have awarded me enough money to cover most of my tuition and expenses for the spring semester, renewable if I maintain a certain grade point average. One Million Degrees will pick up every dime after that. When Mike and I get together a few weeks later, I tell him how I’m struggling to make ends meet. My handyman business doesn’t bring in nearly enough to live on, especially because I desperately want to get my own apartment. Then I tell him about the stone falling on my foot.
“You need a job with medical insurance,” he says.
He tells me to contact Robert Blackwell, who runs a company called Electronic Knowledge Interchange. I explain that I have no electronic knowledge at all. I’ve only recently gotten comfortable using a computer.
Mike laughs. “Be sure to tell Robert your story.”
* * *
—
I shake hands with Robert Blackwell, a tall, rangy man, crackling with energy and intelligence. Robert has created a technology consulting firm from scratch and has since become one of the tech industry’s leaders. I’m not sure how I fit in here. When it comes to technology, I have no skills.
“What do you want to do with your life?” Robert asks.
“I want to be an attorney.”
“Are you in prelaw?”
“No, but I know all about the law,” I say and then launch into my story.
I have it down now, thanks to Linda Bathgate and that speech class. I hit the key moments of that night, my arrest, the two trials, and I go off
on the inequity of the criminal justice system, of how one of the three co-defendants in my case never spent a day in prison because his family could afford a competent attorney while I had to rely on a court-appointed lawyer who got me twenty-eight years. When I finish, Robert, a man in motion, sits stock-still.
We talk some more and Robert invites me to work with him as a sort of personal assistant—turning on the lights, answering the phone, cleaning and supplying the break room, keeping his schedule updated.
“But that’s not your job,” he says. “Your job is to find a position in the legal world because that’s your dream, your passion. You’re going to be a lawyer. What job would best prepare you for that?”
“Becoming an investigator,” I say. “Helping an attorney find the facts in a case. Going into the field, interviewing witnesses. I believe the best attorneys have had firsthand experience in the field. Good attorneys are good investigators.”
“Okay. While you’re working here, look into law firms that hire investigators. When you find something, come back and talk to me. We’ll figure it out from there. One more thing. I’d like to share your story. It’s important that people hear it.”
Linda was right, I think as I thank Robert. I do need to tell my story.
* * *
—
I create a routine—roll out of bed, shower, homework, work, more homework, class, more homework, bed, toss, turn, begin the next day. Tuesday? Wednesday? What day is it? I’m starting not to know.
I work for Robert and gradually bank parts of each paycheck. Months pass. I begin fall semester at South Suburban with Linda smiling and slashing her signature at the bottom of my fall schedule.
“All As again, I know,” I say, trying not to shout in triumph.
“I expect that by now,” she says. “Not why I’m smiling.”
She flips my schedule around so I can read it.
“Math,” she says. “Finally caught up to you. You need three math classes to get your degree. Enjoy.”
Turns out, I actually do enjoy math, but not as much as my new apartment.
* * *
—
Yes, apartment.
My first home of my own.
Nothing great—first floor, one bedroom, in a sketchy part of the South Side. My apartment comes with appliances that usually work, an old fridge, a small stove. I have to furnish everything else. One of my aunties donates an old couch. I can’t afford a chair. I hit Walmart and buy a small TV, a printer, a mattress, and a box spring. My mother gives me a pot and a pan. I buy plastic dishes and plastic cups that I wash and reuse.
I am so proud and so happy.
I still don’t sleep. I still check the locks on the windows and doors. I still keep my head on a swivel when I go outside.
But I have my own place.
* * *
—
Warp speed.
As I power to the end of the semester at South Suburban, I lose my grip on time. I’m always inside a book, underlining sentences, highlighting paragraphs, scribbling notes in the margins. Studying, memorizing, learning, pulling As, even in math. I apply for my bachelor’s to Roosevelt University, downtown, near the lake. One day, a bulging envelope arrives in the mail. Roosevelt has accepted me and offered me a full scholarship. I show the letter to my mother, who cries, then bring it to Linda Bathgate and show her. She beams a smile like a searchlight, and then she cries. I think about that day more than two years ago when I walked into her office and she told me to take one speech class. “See how it goes,” she said.
Now I’m going for my bachelor’s degree.
* * *
—
Mike Golden sets another chain in motion. He introduces me to Howard Swibel, a board member at OMD. I tell Howard my story. Howard introduces me to Mike Monico, a former prosecutor for the government. Mike Monico asks me what I want to do with my life. “I want to be an attorney,” I say, and then I tell him my story.
“I want you to meet Carol Brook,” Mike says. “She’s the executive director of the Federal Defender Program. She’s interviewing for investigators.”
“That’s what I want to do,” I say.
“You’ll have to go through several rounds of interviews,” Mike says. “It’s very competitive, very tough.”
He pauses, laughs.
“Look who I’m talking to,” he says.
* * *
—
I sit outside Carol Brook’s office, waiting to meet her. My leg pumps. I’m afraid sweat has seeped through my suit. I check my collar and my armpits, feel no moisture, sigh in relief, then press my palms onto my knees to stop them from shaking. I haven’t felt this way since—well, since my trial. “Relax, Jarrett,” I murmur. “Calm yourself. Why are you so nervous?”
I know why. I want this job so bad I can taste it.
Then a short woman in her fifties pops her head out of the office. She smiles and I feel as if someone has turned up the lights.
“Jarrett?”
“Yes.”
“Carol.”
I stand, nearly knock over the pile of magazines in front of me.
“Come in.”
I follow her into a modest office, sit next to her on a couch. She talks about Mike Monico, how much she respects him, and describes how glowingly he spoke about me. Carol speaks thoughtfully, doesn’t rush or waste words. She exudes a quiet excitement, gestures expressively, speaks with such warmth and kindness about the lawyers in her office. She puts me instantly at ease. I don’t want to say this to her, but she reminds me of my mother. We talk some more, and then she asks some personal questions and I tell her my story. This time the telling feels different. I don’t slide by certain details. I don’t try to gauge her reaction. I spend more time than usual telling her about Pops and working with inmates on their legal work. She takes it all in, digesting every moment. When I finish, she asks me questions, wants me to clarify certain events. Then she stands and looks out her window.
“I want you to talk with some of the staff,” she says.
I’ve gotten through round one, I think.
“Great. Thank you.”
“I have truly enjoyed meeting you,” Carol says, extending her hand.
We shake hands.
“I’ll see you again,” I say, not realizing until I’m in the elevator that I meant to say, “It was nice meeting you, too.”
* * *
—
I tell Robert about my meeting with Carol. He immediately sends me off to the library. “Research investigators,” he says. “Find out what they do.”
“I don’t have the job yet,” I say.
“Prepare,” he says.
I do my homework. I study the responsibilities of being an investigator. The job requires extreme patience. You spend hours combing through police reports, court records, files, old newspaper clippings, researching anything you can about the case and the client. You also pound the pavement, locating and interviewing witnesses and serving subpoenas.
Witnesses, I think.
That word still wrecks me. If only my lawyer had hired an investigator to interview Shawn Demain. It would’ve changed my life.
* * *
—
Carol calls me in for a follow-up interview with someone on her staff. A week later, she calls me again and asks me to come in to see her personally. When I arrive at her office, I announce myself to the receptionist and prepare to sit and skim a magazine, but Carol appears almost immediately and waves me into her office. As I follow her, I realize that I tower over her, and I tower over nobody.
“I’ll get right to it,” she says. “Congratulations.”
“Wait. You mean—”
“Yes. You’ll be joining the Federal Defender Program. I’ll be overseeing you, of course, but you’ll be working with a d
edicated, talented team—”
I lose it.
I fall apart.
I land heavily on the couch and lower my head into my hands, the tears storming down my face.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
I try to catch my breath to stop the tears, to pull myself together, but I can only stammer; I’ve only cried twice in my life—
“It’s okay,” Carol says. “You’re safe here.”
Safe.
Is that what I feel?
She hands me a box of tissues and looks at me with concern and care. I blink through my tears and take in Carol—short dark hair, soft-spoken, a white woman I’ve only spoken to twice—and again I think of my mother. I trust her, I think, and I realize she’s right. I do feel safe.
18.
We Need to Talk
I walk through the South Side in a suit and tie, my polished dress shoes squeaking with each step. We’ve come out of a muggy, rainy September, and although the sun peeks over the clouds, last night’s damp air hangs like a drape, playing havoc with my limp. I stop at a corner, check the address on my paperwork, realize I’ve overshot the house. I retrace my steps, my foot throbbing on the broken sidewalk.
The modest houses here huddle tight, their roofs pointy as steeples, their small yards and front porches nearly touching. I pass one house, pull up at the next, the house I’m looking for. I smooth out my tie, buff my shoes on the back of my creased pants, and walk—squeak, squeak—to the front door.
MiAngel Cody, a lawyer in the office, sent me here to find a particular witness. From day one, MiAngel—dynamic, confident, intelligent, a force, the kind of lawyer I aspire to be—has taken me under her wing.
“I’m addicted to getting people out of prison,” she tells me one day. “It feeds my soul.”
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