I nodded and sat down. The clock read 11:18.
The room was about thirty by thirty feet with six rows of six chairs facing the center from the two sides of the room. Six of the chairs on my side were occupied by men in ragged clothes, unkempt hair, and bloodshot eyes. Three women sat in the light gray chairs facing the center from the other side of the room. All three had dark circles under their eyes and tousled hair. Two of them appeared to be in their late twenties to early thirties. Both wore tight short skirts and low-cut tops that left little to the imagination. The third was older, probably in her forties. She looked used-up, harder than the other two. She wore black leather pants stretched tight across her thick thighs and a red knit halter top. I judged all three to be drugged-out hookers.
A couple of weeks ago, Law and I drove by the fairgrounds at the edge of town where worker were setting up a carnival. Law took that opportunity to school me on the existence of carnie kewpies, prostitutes who travel with the carnivals. In a community as small as Branard, finding three ladies of the evening in one place at one time would ordinarily defy the law of probability. Pegging them as kewpies didn’t exactly take a stroke of genius. Finding them in lockup before noon did seem curious.
After a few minutes, the glassy-eyed older woman, who on a second look I guessed to be in her fifties, yoo-hoo’d and blew me a kiss, as the two younger women giggled and whooped.
The room stank of BO, vomit, beer, and urine. There were ten of us hardened criminals in the room, and it wasn’t even noon or a weekend. I wondered how crowded the place must get late Saturday nights. Sleepy little Branard had a seedy underbelly. Who would have thought it?
At 11:39, Sourpuss called my name, and Deputy Garcia escorted me to a desk where a very muscular woman wearing a white shirt and dark blue uniform pants sat behind a bulky old-styled computer terminal.
What’s with all the different uniforms?
She handed me two pieces of paper: one was an explanation of the charges and the likely amount of the bond, and on the smaller slip, the officer wrote down a number in pen.
She tapped the smaller paper and said, “This here is your phone call ID number. Don’t lose it and don’t let nobody else use it. There are inmate phones in every cellblock. When you are permitted to use the phone,” she explained, “punch in star, your call ID number, then the number you want to call. You will be allowed one call as soon as your processing is completed and then one a day after that.”
“How long will I be here?”
“Like it says on this other sheet of paper, within twenty-four hours of your making bail.” Then she added, “If you make bail.” She held up the smaller paper again. “Should somebody else use your ID number, that’s your bad luck. If it gets stolen, tell an officer, and they can get you another one in a day or so.” She shoved another paper toward me. “Sign on the bottom line. It says you got the charges and the phone ID.”
I took the papers and stuffed them in my shirt pocket.
The jail nurse was my next stop. She read questions from a computer screen. “Are you on any prescription medications?
“No.”
“Do you have any bleeding or seeping sores?”
“Good grief.”
“Just answer yes or no.”
“No.”
“Any STDs?”
“No.”
“Do you…?”
“No, no, no…”
And so it went.
Done at the nurse’s station, P. Garcia pushed me toward a white silhouette of a person painted on the pea-green cinder-block wall. “Stand on the orange footprints painted on the floor and face the camera.” I assumed the camera was the small black box hanging from the ceiling by a piece of electrical conduit.
Deputy Garcia pulled a copy of my picture from a nearby photo printer and paper-clipped it to the inside of my file. I could only make out one thing on the file folder. “Cell Two, East.”
With my mug shot and my fingers printed, Garcia asked if I wanted to make a phone call. Since my dad was already somewhere in the building, I shook my head no.
He guided me into a small windowless cell with a concrete bench and a solid steel door with a small window. Once inside, Officer Garcia watched as a tall officer wearing latex gloves and too wide of a grin told me to strip and put on a pair of white paper overalls. “Don’t forget your papers.”
“Am I going to be put in jail?” I was beginning to wonder if confessing had been that good an idea.
“You are in jail, punk.” Being a big guy, I wasn’t used to such rude treatment, at least not at such close proximity.
I struggled into the overalls, two sizes too small, and slipped on the cheap flip-flops the jail so generously provided. I felt for a pocket to put the papers in, but found none. “Hey, what am I supposed to…”
The order came loud and gruff. “Just shut up, turn around and lean against the wall.” A new guard had joined our party, one with a raspy southern drawl, more Alabama than Texas.
He patted every square inch of my body. And was none too gentle about it either.
I asked again, “What’s going to happen to me? Do I have to spend the night?”
“Get on your knees and face the bench. Raise your arms straight up,” the tall one said.
I complied.
The officer removed the manacles and instructed me to remain kneeling until I heard the door close and latch. “I’m putting your street clothes into a paper bag with your number written on it. They’ll give them back when you process out.”
In my head, I heard the line from that old song, “Who do I Think I Am.” “I’m nothing but a number quickly jotted down. One of seven billion numbers that I found.”
My heart sank with the clang of the cell door. I tried to pray as I kneeled, but the words wouldn’t form in my head. After several minutes, I climbed from the floor into a sitting position on the cold, hard concrete bench. I looked around the room. No lavatory, no toilet, and nothing on the pale green walls, not even a shelf. I held my head in my hands and rested my elbows on my knees. I asked myself two questions, How stupid can one guy be? and What have I gotten myself into?
Sitting alone, in that cell, with hollow echoes of voices in the distance, I felt a presence behind me. The evil voice was back. My invisible tormenter had come to rub my nose in it. I heard, as clearly as I had heard the deputies, “Todd, are you going to wimp out and let these cops treat you like a piece of trash?” Ire began to build in my head. “Are you going to play Mary’s little lamb and roll over for these guys, or are you going to stand up for yourself?” I could feel my face redden, my ears burn.
“Don’t you want to hit someone? Don’t you want to cuss someone out and slam your fist into someone’s face? What is it going to take before you strike back, Todd?” The taunting voice came like kids in the schoolyard egging on a quarrel, hoping for a fight.
I let out a scream, so loud and violent, it even surprised me. But once it was over, I actually began to calm.
“Shut up in there.” Someone banged on the cell door. I leaned back against the wall, spent. The scream had been my death knell. I had nothing left. The voice in the dark shadows melted away without so much as a whimper. I curled up on the bench and somehow drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I had no idea how long I slept, but judging from how stiff and achy my back was, it must have been hours, not minutes. With no windows and no clocks, I couldn’t tell if it was light or dark outside. I remembered seeing a handwritten note written in black marker on the wall next to a bank of light switches. It said,
“Don’t bother asking us to turn off the lights. You are in jail, not the Hilton. The lights stay on.”
Then, scribbled in a different hand, just below that note was another.
Big Brother is watching you.
Under that was an arrow pointing up to the corner of the ceiling and a camera, also in a protective mesh case.
I was surprised at how calm and
composed I was when I woke. I did some warm-up stretches and sat on the floor with my back against the wall. I studied the room. My cell had no bars. The floors and walls were painted concrete, and as far as I could tell, so was the ceiling. Everything was the same sea foam green Mom picked out for her kitchen at home. There were two ceiling lights, one center rear and the other center front, both covered by metal protective screens resembling fencing masks. The door was obviously steel with a window about the size of my history book. Even the glass in the little window had steel mesh embedded in it.
I actually found myself getting used to spending time, however much time it was, in a jail cell. It was less stressful than I would have thought. I’d never been particularly comfortable in small closed-in spaces. As a little kid, I hated dark closets, storerooms, and root cellars. Even at seventeen, I still got antsy in narrow stairwells and crowded elevators. The mind is a strange and complex thing. I guess people really can adapt to almost anything. There I was, locked up. I wasn’t exactly enjoying my current surroundings, but I wasn’t freaking out either.
After a while, I stood and peeked out the little window in my door. There was a row of orange jumpsuited men standing against the wall next to a set of double doors with “To Arraignments” stenciled across them. Three deputies I had not seen before were shackling the men together in one long row. I wondered when my turn would come.
Suddenly a big coal-black face filled the little window. Eyes, nose, and mouth were all I could see. I jerked back from the door with a start. That’ll get the old ticker thumping.
“Todd Nelson?”
“Er, uh, yes, sir,” I stammered.
“Kneel down on the floor facing the bed.”
“Bed?” I wanted to ask. “Is that what you call a bed? It’s a narrow tiled concrete bench with no blanket and no pillow. It most certainly is not a bed.” But I had enough wits about me to know wise-mouthing your jailer would bring nothing but grief.
The door-latch clanked, and the guard said, “Right hand in the air.”
Without securing my left hand, he led me out the door and latched me to the last man in the orange line.
We were a mishmash crew. There was a middle-aged guy five feet high and five feet wide. His jumpsuit looked as though it would do a Green Hulk bust-out if he made any sudden moves. There were two guys in the line not much older than me, one with his two front teeth missing and the other with a bandage over his right ear. Then there were the two big dudes I heard a deputy call the Bobbsey Twins. I wasn’t sure what Bobbsey meant, but the two were a lot alike, except for the fact that one was white and the other was black.
They both had bodybuilder bodies and were about the same height and weight, with shaved heads and tats on their necks extending well up onto the back of their heads. The first man in the line had to be eighty if he was a day. He had thinning snow-white hair and could not have weighed ninety pounds. The guy I was chained to smelled so bad I had to hold my breath to keep from gagging. He had a smudged face and a dirty, straggly beard. And to call his hair a rat’s nest would have been an affront to rats everywhere.
The three deputies escorted us through the doors and down a long hall to a large courtroom filled with people. Standing in the front of the room was a kid I recognized from school. I didn’t know his name. We ran in different circles. I was a junior and a jock, or used to be. He, on the other hand, was a sophomore and a stoner. We’d never had anything in common before. Now we did. We were both under arrest, and for some reason, we were both wearing white coveralls instead of orange.
I scanned the spectator seats for my dad and was relieved to see him, Law, and Brandon Lupo all seated halfway back on the center aisle. Law looked more worried than Dad or Brandon did. It occurred to me that I should have called Law and left him a message, but it never crossed my mind. I was glad to see someone had thought to let him know where I was, although it was odd that he was there before school was out.
I smiled in his direction. He had on jeans, sneakers, and his football letter jacket. The next time I looked his way, he grinned a silly grin and opened up his jacket, revealing a white T-shirt, and around his neck was the widest and brightest yellow and purple paisley tie I had ever seen. I quickly covered my mouth and turned my head. I didn’t want my dad to see me laughing and think I wasn’t taking my situation seriously.
Aside from the black robe, when the judge entered the courtroom he did not fit my idea of what a judge was supposed to look like. He was young, tall, rail-thin, and in serious need of a haircut.
“All rise.” The bailiff leaned into a microphone attached to the side of the judge’s bench. “Hear ye, hear ye, the Four-hundred fifty-first Judicial District Special Court is now in session, the Honorable Judge Vernon Jinks presiding.”
“Please be seated,” said the judge. “I have some general instruction for you all. I’d strongly advise you to take them to heart.” He spoke for an excruciating half hour about the Constitution, the responsibility of society and its citizens. He made those in the audience wearing sleeveless T-shirts or short shorts leave. He also told any of the women with short skirts or revealing tops to leave.
He said, “You will show respect in my courtroom at all times, and what I say here is law. Remember that.” Then he turned to us prisoners and told us to take a seat on the front row. He pointed to a young man in a suit and tie standing at what had to be the prosecutor’s table and said, “Let’s make this sweet and painless. And when I say, ‘sweet and painless,’ I mean for me, of course.”
The courtroom broke into laughter. We fellows on the front row didn’t see it as being that funny.
One by one, each prisoner was unshackled from the man behind him and led before the judge’s bench. The young man in the suit turned out to be an assistant DA. The clerk would hand out the appropriate folders, one to the judge and one to the ADA. He would read the charges.
The judge would ask for the prisoner’s plea, guilty or not guilty. It didn’t seem to matter which plea they entered, the judge would say, “Bail hearing at nine o’clock in the morning. Next.” Of those in line in front of me, only the twins had a lawyer.
The lawyer said something to the judge, and the judge pointed to a bench on the other side of the room. He said, “Take a seat, and we’ll get to you in a few minutes.”
When my turn came, I looked to see if I could spot anyone who looked like a lawyer sitting next to Dad. There wasn’t.
“How do you plea?”
“Not guilty…er, I mean, guilty, Your Honor,” I said, beginning to shake.
“Which is it? Guilty or not guilty? You can only pick one,” said the judge, smiling.
“Guilty, Your Honor. Guilty.”
With the other inmates, the Assistant DA would stand quietly by as the judge set their bail hearings for nine the next day. In my case, he spoke up. “Your Honor, we have no intention of seeking bail in this case and would have no objection to the juvenile being remanded into the custody of his father.”
“So ordered.” The judge then turned to me. “Would this young man’s father step forward, please.”
Dad moved quickly to the front.
The judge covered the microphone on his desk with his hand and quietly said, “Reverend, you can wait here in the courtroom for your son while they process him out.”
In Branard, it seems everybody knows everybody else. At least, he knew Dad was a minister. Then the judge added, like an afterthought, “You can stop by the District Attorney’s office one day next week to find out your son’s trial information, the date, time, and which judge.”
Dad thanked the judge as the ADA motioned for the next batch of inmates to come in and be seated.
»»•««
By the time I walked out of jail, it was a quarter past eight in the evening. Dad was there outside by himself.
“You hungry?” he asked.
“Famished.”
“What do you say we stop by the Bull Pen?”
Only then di
d it occur to me I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I did vaguely remember seeing a brown paper bag on the floor by the door of my holding cell while I was there, but food was the furthest thing from my mind at the time.
I said, “Barbecue sounds good to me.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
I’d never been one to give grades much thought. All through school, I’d always been able to make Bs without a lot of effort. I thought, with that and football, getting into a decent college was a slam dunk, but since The Game my future was far from bright. Getting up and off to school every day was torture enough, and the thought of showing up with the additional tag of jailbird fell under the heading of cruel and unusual punishment. Sadly, Dad didn’t see it that way.
He said, “You’ll go to school tomorrow, and you will hold your head high. Don’t let what others say or do bring you down.”
Easier said than done.
I wanted to tell Josh how sorry I was for not stepping up sooner, but every time I tried, he’d start laughing this loud fake laugh in tune with the old Meow Mix cat food jingle. The kid could be a real jerkwad when he wanted.
I couldn’t go to Dad for advice about how to handle Josh. He was preoccupied with the deacon board’s inquisitions. Besides, Josh spent all his time in his room with the door locked.
Several times over the next few days, Dad tried to talk to Josh and me, but it was just weird for all of us. We were each wrapped up in our own particular problems and talking about them wouldn’t make them go away. I’d hoped things would get better after a day or so, but they didn’t.
The next Friday night around seven thirty, while Dad was in another of his marathon board meetings, Law dropped by the house, offering to give me a lift to Bulldog Benny’s.
I told him Dad had me on lockdown. “I can’t go out, and you can’t stay.”
At our house we weren’t grounded, we were sentenced to solitary confinement, no leaving the house, no friends over, and no phone calls over two minutes long.
Half the Distance Page 22
