by Chad Zunker
David answered. “It’s late, Skater. What do you want?”
“Sorry, Shep. But I really need your help.”
Most of David’s homeless friends called him Shep, a nickname given to him by a street preacher named Benny last year because he’d said David had the same name as King David, the great shepherd in the Bible.
“Yeah, I didn’t figure you were calling to chitchat.”
“It ain’t me this time, I swear. See, this is about someone else.”
“Who?”
“Kid named Parker. Cops just picked him up.”
“Why?”
“Well, see, we was, uh, you know, trying to make some cash.”
“What the hell did you do, Skater?”
“We was, uh, grabbing purses,” Skater admitted.
David sighed. “You told me you were done with that.”
“I was. I am. I dunno, Shep. We get hungry out here. And this seemed easy. Plus, the kid was really good at it. He’s so small, he goes unnoticed.”
“So good that he got himself busted?”
“Yeah, well, see, that was my fault. I was stupid and got greedy.”
“You keep calling him a kid. Why? You’re just a kid.”
Skater was maybe seventeen. But he’d been out on the streets by himself for several years already.
“Nah, man, Parker’s like a real kid. See, he’s only like twelve, I think.”
“What? You pulled a twelve-year-old boy into one of your schemes?”
“I already said I was stupid, okay?”
“Where are the boy’s parents?”
“Ain’t got none. He’s a runaway, like me. Will you help?”
David rubbed his face with his free hand. “Where did he get picked up?”
“We was working over by the food trailers on Barton Springs.”
“Does Parker have a last name?”
“Probably. But I don’t know it.”
“All right, fine, I’ll check in on him.”
“Thanks, Shep! You’re the best! I swear on my momma’s grave, this is the last time . . .”
“Yeah, yeah. Stay out of trouble.”
David hung up without listening to the rest of Skater’s grandiose oath. He’d heard it several times already. Not that he held it against the teenager. The kid had experienced things that most people couldn’t fathom. Mom had been a meth addict in El Paso who’d kept trying to pimp her own son out to her druggie boyfriends. Then she’d overdosed, and a ruthless dealer had tried to lock Skater in a closet for his own business. Skater had managed to claw his way out through the Sheetrock before something worse happened. He’d hit the road at fourteen and never looked back. Even though the kid drove him crazy, David empathized. Being constantly despised and ignored had left most of David’s street friends in a state of perpetual hopelessness and despair. So they did what they had to do at times to survive the day.
Which kept David very busy as a lawyer.
THREE
David parked his beat-up fifteen-year-old Chevy truck along the curb in front of the Gardener Betts Juvenile Justice Center, a complex of several brick buildings off South Congress Avenue where the city’s juvenile delinquents were held, processed, and jailed, if necessary. Wearing jeans and a blue sweatshirt hoodie, he trotted up the sidewalk to the Meurer Intermediate Sanctions Center and pushed through glass doors to a security checkpoint staffed by two imposing deputies. The lobby was mostly empty since it was after normal visiting hours. David passed through the security scanner and then found a bored-looking young deputy with bright-red hair staring at a computer screen behind a front counter.
“I need to visit with a potential client,” David said, flashing his ID and signing in on a clipboard.
“Name?” the guy asked, eyes still on his computer.
“Parker something.”
The guy looked up at him with a wrinkled brow.
“I don’t know his last name yet, okay?” David explained. “But the kid was brought in about thirty minutes ago, so he should be easy to find. Petty theft, I think. Supposed to be around twelve years old.”
The guy typed on the keyboard. “Yep, Parker Barnes. Purse snatcher.”
“Great. I need to see Mr. Barnes.”
“All right. Gimme a minute. I’ll have him brought over to Room 4.”
David followed a hallway lined with empty visitation rooms and entered Room 4. Small and clean with a square table and two chairs, the room had a big glass window looking out toward the hallway. David had been inside this building only once before when dealing with another juvenile situation. The facility was a step up from the grime and grit of the regular county jail—these were still kids, after all—but it was still very much on lockdown. He waited ten minutes before a deputy arrived at the door with the scrawniest twelve-year-old boy David had ever seen. Parker had shaggy brown hair that hung to his shoulders and covered half of his gaunt face. The orange juvie jumpsuit looked three sizes too big for him. There were a few scrapes and bruises on his face. Parker kept his eyes mostly on the floor as the deputy guided him inside the room.
“Can you at least get him a uniform that fits?” David asked the deputy.
The deputy frowned. “Come on, man. You get what you get. This ain’t a day spa, you know.”
The deputy shut the door behind him and left David alone with Parker, who just stood there with his shoulders sagging.
“Hey, Parker, my name’s David Adams. I’m an attorney.”
Parker glanced up at him. He had the bluest eyes David had ever seen. But they were near slits right now as he glared hard at David.
“So what,” he muttered.
“You doing okay?” David asked.
An eye roll. “Yeah, sure, I’m just great. What do you think?”
For a small kid, he had a big attitude.
“Right. Can we sit down and talk for a second?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Yes, you do.”
A slight shrug. “Whatever.”
David sat in one of the chairs, crossed his hands on the table in front of him. Parker found his way to the other chair and sank down into it. He sat so low in his seat that David could barely see the kid’s eyes over the tabletop.
“I don’t have any money, mister,” Parker said. “I can’t pay for a lawyer.”
“I’m not asking for money.”
Parker’s face bunched up. “Why? My dad always said lawyers don’t do a damn thing without charging you an arm and a leg for it first.”
“Where is your dad?”
“He’s dead. Where’s yours?”
“Also dead,” David calmly replied. “What about your mom?”
“She’s dead, too. Thanks for bringing it up.”
“I’m real sorry. Brothers or sisters? Aunts? Uncles? Grandparents?”
“Nope. No one. All on my own. Life sucks, right?”
“Sometimes,” David agreed. “Look, Skater called me about twenty minutes ago. That’s why I’m here. He asked me to help you.”
Parker looked up at him. “He get away?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Cool,” Parker said with a small grin.
“He feels bad about what happened to you tonight. Says it was his fault.”
“Nah, Skater didn’t make me do anything.”
“I’ll tell him you said that. Are you a runaway, Parker?”
Parker shrugged but didn’t answer him. Instead, he said, “The last lawyer who offered to help me and my dad screwed us over big-time. My dad hired him to go after the insurance company after my mom died. They wouldn’t pay up like they were supposed to do. So we lawyered up and hired some slick con artist. That stupid lawyer made all these promises about getting us our insurance money if we paid up front. But he never made good. And then he stopped answering my dad’s phone calls. I’d never seen my dad so pissed. I remember one day in particular he threw his phone against the kitchen wall and shattered it into, like, a thousand piec
es.”
“Then it makes sense why you wouldn’t trust lawyers.”
“Yeah. But I don’t trust anyone.”
David studied the kid. He had an innocent face, but there was definitely a hard edge to him. Losing both parents at a young age could do that to someone. David remembered the feeling well; he’d lost his own father as a child and then his mother as a teenager. After his mother had died, he was so angry, he wanted to burn the whole world down and take everyone with him. He started doing drugs and even stole a car one night. He was well on his way to sitting in a juvie center, just like Parker was right now, when his older sister, Brandy, moved home from college and kicked his ass around until he got his life back on track. It worked. From there, he’d gone on to college at Abilene Christian University and then off to law school. He owed everything he was today to his sister. But Parker didn’t have a big sister to rescue him.
“If you don’t mind me asking, Parker, how did your mom die?”
“Cancer. Her ovaries or something.”
“How old were you?”
“Seven. Feels like forever ago.”
“What about your dad? What happened to him?”
Parker swallowed, stared at his hands. This one seemed to hit him even harder. “He was late picking me up from soccer practice. He was always running late after my mom died, and I kept whining to him about how much it sucked always being the last kid picked up. So I guess he was driving really fast that day, trying to not upset me again. Cops said he lost control of our car and rammed it straight into a tree. So, you know, he’s basically dead because of me.”
“Come on, Parker. That’s not being fair to yourself.”
But David understood why the boy felt that way. He’d blamed himself for years for his mother’s sudden death. She’d exhausted herself, working three jobs at times so he could go to the best football camps and have all the latest sports gear. David had only started letting go of that guilt over this past year.
“Nothing in life is fair, Mr. Adams. You’re a lawyer; you should know that. Cops told me my dad was dead on impact. Probably a lie. Adults always lie about that kind of stuff, thinking they’re protecting kids.”
“My dad also died in a car wreck. I was six.”
Parker looked up at him with a wrinkled brow. “For real?”
David nodded. “I lost my mom when I was sixteen. She had a heart attack. Here one day and gone the next.”
“Are you lying?” Parker asked with narrowed eyes. “Because therapists are always doing that kind of thing. Making stuff up because they think if they can somehow connect with us on the pain, we will suddenly start sharing about our whole lives or something. It never worked with me.”
“No, I’m not lying. Just saying I know how much life can suck.”
Parker sat up straighter, put his hands on the table. “No offense, Mr. Adams, but how is us sitting here talking about our dead parents going to help me? They had nothing to do with this. I’m just some stupid street kid who got busted. There’s really not much more to it than that.”
“First of all, you’re clearly not stupid.” The boy talked more eloquently than most of his adult clients. “And if I’m going to help get you out of here, I need to know some of your background.”
“You can get me out of here?”
“Maybe. You ever been arrested before?”
“Nope.”
“How long have you been living out on the streets?”
Parker shrugged his bony shoulders. “About a month. And I’m doing just fine on my own.”
“Wearing that orange jumpsuit suggests otherwise. Where were you living before hitting the streets?”
“With foster parents. But I’m never going back there.”
“Well, the judge might have something to say about that. Running away from home is a status offense.”
“A status offense? What’s that mean?”
“It means it’s a crime because you’re a kid.”
Parker’s eyes widened. “You mean the judge can make me go back?”
“Sure. If the judge thinks that’s the best thing for you.”
A wave of panic suddenly spread across the boy’s entire face. “You can’t let the judge do that to me, Mr. Adams. Please don’t let them send me back to that place. I’ll go anywhere else.”
“Why, Parker? Was someone hurting you?”
Parker didn’t respond, but his eyes said everything.
“Your foster dad?” David asked.
The boy’s eyes immediately grew wet.
David felt anger rise up in his chest. “You tell your caseworker?”
Parker shook his head and said, his voice cracking, “Would you tell if someone had threatened to peel your skin right off your own body?”
David cursed, then apologized for his language.
“I’ll run away again,” Parker continued, growing more emotional by the second. “You tell the judge if they try to send me back there, I’ll just keep running away. Or worse. Maybe I’ll try to kill Mr. Reid. Tell the judge that, Mr. Adams. Then his blood will be on the judge’s hands.”
“Okay, calm down. I get it. Stop talking that way. Especially don’t say anything like that in front of the judge tomorrow. Believe me—that’s not going to help us. I’ll work on another solution. Okay?”
Parker nodded and exhaled, but David could see his fingers still shaking.
“In the meantime, just keep to yourself in here,” David urged him. “Don’t mess with anyone or get into any other trouble. I’ll be back first thing in the morning for the hearing.”
David stood to get the deputy out in the hallway.
“Mr. Adams?”
David turned back around to look at the boy.
“Thanks for coming tonight,” Parker said. “I mean it.”
David swallowed. The tough lines that had been so prevalent in the kid’s face when he’d entered the room a few minutes ago had completely disappeared. All David could see now was a scared and desperate little boy who was pleading for rescue. David wanted to scoop Parker up right then and there, take him home, and make sure nothing ever happened to him again. The kid needed a break in the worst way possible.
“Everything will be okay,” David reassured him. “Trust me.”
FOUR
David had a tough time sleeping that night while thinking about Parker’s tragic story and the kid having to stay over at the juvenile facility. He just kept tossing and turning. So he got out of bed early, did a five-mile jog around Lady Bird Lake, showered, and then headed into the office well before the rest of the business crowd. His firm, Gray & Adams LLP, leased a small office suite on the second level of a run-down three-story redbrick building that sat in the heart of downtown. They’d nearly gotten evicted six months ago because the building’s new owner wasn’t too fond of David’s homeless clients hanging around. But a wave of good publicity following a big case and an influx of unexpected cash had allowed them to fight the eviction and work out a new lease agreement.
The office didn’t have fancy rugs or expensive artwork—or any artwork for that matter—but it was home. David’s personal office looked out over Congress Avenue. If he peered far enough to his left, David could see the pink granite of the Texas Capitol building. His partner, Thomas Gray, had the office next door to his. A small entryway held a circular table and acted as their conference room. A third back room was used as the firm’s library, storage, and kitchen. They’d recently added an additional office next door. David had set up three computer stations in the new space where his clients could go online to check on potential jobs, manage their healthcare benefits, set up doctors’ appointments, and connect with estranged family members.
Doc came into the office around eight. A tall and slender man in his late fifties with salt-and-pepper hair, Doc was the firm’s only full-time staff member. A former high school history teacher before he’d battled alcohol addiction and a long season of homelessness, Doc was a wiz at research and had
quickly become a valuable asset to the firm. David had first met Doc a year ago when Benny the street preacher had walked David deep into the woods to visit the Camp—a secret tent community for a group of homeless men. Doc had been one of the founders before it had tragically burned to the ground. The men who’d lived at the Camp had scattered around the city while trying to find new places to sleep and survive. Most of them had struggled. The strength and support they’d all found in the community of the Camp had been fractured.
But David had been working hard to resolve that for them. Benny had dreamed of creating a legitimate village for his homeless friends with micro-homes, bathhouses, and even a building with a commercial-grade kitchen, where the boys could share meals, throw parties, and host church services. Before David had left his high-paying gig over at Hunter & Kellerman, he’d managed to purchase a plot of twenty acres in East Austin in hopes of carrying Benny’s dream forward. Four months ago he’d connected with the founder of a local homeless nonprofit who’d shared the same unique vision. They’d quickly formed a partnership to move things forward, and David had donated the land. Gray & Adams LLP then made a significant financial investment. With other financial backers coming on board, Benny’s Village was now in full-on development. Fifteen micro-homes were currently being built, with more planned. The first residents—which included most of the boys from the Camp—would be moving into their brand-new homes by the end of the month. Benny’s great sacrifice had paid off in a profound way.
David looked up from his desk when Doc walked into his office and handed him a set of papers.
“The kid’s file from CPS,” Doc said. “They just sent it over.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
“That kid has been through hell, huh?”
“Yeah, it’s brutal. Way too much pain for his brief life.”
“I hate to see that. You need anything else?”
“I’m good for now. Thanks.”
David began to scan Parker’s official file. Parker Eugene Barnes. Born in Houston twelve years ago to Todd and Trisha Barnes. Both deceased. Entered the foster care system three years ago. In and out of four homes. Removed from the first home because of physical abuse. There were a couple of color photos on the page. A nine-year-old Parker had a black eye and a heavily bruised right arm. David shook his head. He then read a summary about Parker’s removal from the home of Michael and Allison Bidwell after Mrs. Bidwell had been diagnosed with cancer. Another mention of foster parents who’d been arrested for dealing drugs while Parker and two other kids were living with them. David scanned the report to find the names of his latest foster parents. Mack and Leslie Reid. There was nothing in the report mentioning any type of abuse situation with the Reids. Of course, Parker had said he’d never told anyone.
