Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in Man's Prison (34 page)

I started to feel there was nothing I could do to avoid what was happening or what might happen again. Sitting on the floor and waiting on the sergeant to decide what to do with me, I wanted to sleep forever, to lie down and not wake up again. But I couldn't bring myself to close my eyes. I'd never be able to close them again it seemed. All I could do was sit there and think. Inside the cell was a rnop bucket, which I threw up in twice.

Where was the fucking key that would keep me safe?

24

You Never Know Where It's Coming From

"I fucking hate _vou," I screamed at Sharon through the torn screen door.

The temperature was in the single digits, and no one had bothered to put in the storm windows. It was just as well, they would have shattered, given how hard I'd slammed the door. I was thirteen and vowed never to come back again.

There was snow coming down, and the wind chill made it feel even colder. With nowhere to go, I wandered the streets all night, ducking in and out of convenience stores and twenty-four-hour supermarkets to keep warm.

Early the next morning, crossing the parking lot of Farmer Jack's, I felt someone following me. When I turned around, my dad was about fifteen feet behind. Though he looked relieved, his eyes were tired and sad-like he had been up all night, and I could tell that he hadn't been drinking.

He didn't say much, but what he did say were the kindest words he'd ever spoken to me. "C'mon home, Son."

"I have to say, this court is extremely disturbed by some of the statements made by the defendant, as indicated in the Pre-sentence Investigation Report." The judge looked down at me, over the rim of his black-framed glasses. "Would you care to explain?"

"I'm not sure what you mean, Your Honor?"

My attorney shrugged. He looked as puzzled as me.

"Well, for someone so young," the judge said. "I find it troubling that your level of calculation and knowledge of the system would be so advanced."

"I'm sorry Judge, but I still don't understand?"

"Did you tell the Pre-sentence Investigator that you figured on probation?"

"Huh?"

"It says here, you didn't believe you'd get caught, but even if you were, you'd probably get probation." He held the report up. "You were expecting a free ride, it says."

"That's not what I said, Judge." I turned to my attorney for help, which wasn't coming. I'd met him only two minutes before the sentencing hearing began. I'd have had better luck with the other lawyer, from the Public Defender's Office, but he was tied up in another court. This lawyer just stared at me with an embarrassed grin.

"Did you make that statement?" The judge asked.

"No. Well, sort of ... It's not exactly what I said."

"Well, I'm sort of disturbed by your calculative savvy," he said. "Counselors?" He motioned the two lawyers to the side of his bench.

That fat fuck of a probation officer! He must've misrepresented what I'd said to him, right before he started rubbing his knee along the inside of my thigh. But how could I say that? He was the adult and I was a kid-a criminal with no credibility.

I turned to the back of the courtroom. My dad and Sharon sat in the last row. Sharon seemed to be frowning at the judge while my dad glanced up and nodded at me.

I shrugged and raised my hands in the air.

The lawyers came back to the front of the bench, and the judge asked if I had anything to say before he passed final sentence.

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing would come out. I wanted to explain what I'd said to that probation officer, and what happened right afterward, but it seemed hopeless. I wanted to say what a horrible mistake I'd made, that it started as a joke, a stupid opening line to the pretty girl inside, and that it wasn't until she handed me the money and smiled that I grabbed it and ran. I wanted to tell him how sorry I was and how I'd give anything to go back to the Photo Mat and undo that impulsive moment. Or explain to the judge, how some people were strong enough for prison, while others-like me-were not. But all that came out was, "No, Your Honor."

The courtroom was still in the silence that followed. Only then did I realize my whole life was in the hands of that judge and how powerless I was to say or do anything.

"Very well," he said. "Having accepted your plea of Guilty to Armed Robbery, and having reviewed all the circumstances in this case, including assessment of the Pre-sentence Investigation documents as prepared by the Department of Probation, this court will follow the recommendation of the Probation Department and remand you to the State Department of Corrections for a term of not less than four and a half years and no more than fifteen years to be served in the state penitentiary." He smacked his gavel and handed my file to the clerk.

My attorney whispered something about violent crimes and capital offenses and judges having latitude in sentencing, but I didn't hear him.

"Wait a minute!" I screamed. "What happened to the two and half years?"

"Bailiff," the judge called out. He looked down over his glasses at the two sheriff deputies who quickly handcuffed me.

"I'll come see you in lock-up," my good-for-nothing lawyer said. "There was nothing I could do. Armed robbery carries up to a life sentence, and the Probation Department ..."

I cut him off. "Can I see my parents?" It was all too much to absorb. I just wanted to talk to my parents.

"Your Honor?" the lawyer asked. "May the defendant speak to his parents?"

"That's up to the deputies," he said. "Next case!"

When we stepped from the courtroom, the sheriff deputies gave me a few minutes with Dad and Sharon. I stood in the corridor, my hands cuffed in front of me, while the two deputies waited nearby.

"How're you doing?" Sharon asked. Her voice was kind, and there were tears in her eyes. "You look awful."

"I'm all right," I lied.

"What the hell was that all about?" Sharon asked. "I thought you were supposed to get two and half years?"

"That's what I thought." I was too embarrassed to tell her what happened with the probation officer, and she probably wouldn't have believed me either.

"Where's that other attorney? The one who told you to plead guilty?"

"He couldn't make it. So the public defender sent this one." My handcuffs clinked as I motioned toward the courtroom.

"That's a crock of shit," she said.

Up the hallway, outside the heavy doors that led to the courtroom, was a high-backed wooden bench. A man in a suit talked softly to a family waiting to go inside.

"How're you?" I asked Dad. As usual he was starring off into space.

"Huh?" His blue eyes were clear but glistening with tears. "I need a cigarette," he said.

"I'm gonna go down and wait on that lawyer," Sharon said. She walked toward the people sitting on the bench.

It was the first time I'd noticed how short they both were. Though Dad was slightly taller than Sharon, neither of them came up past my chin.

"So what does this mean?" he asked.

"It means I have four and half years."

"Jesus Christ!" He almost shouted.

The deputies glanced up from across the hall.

"With good time, IT be out in three."

"Jesus Chrr-rist." He repeated, giving Christ an extra syllable.

He seemed more upset than I was, and I felt like I needed to comfort him.

"I'll get through it, Dad."

He kept looking at me, but the glaze returned to his eyes-that far off look that told me he'd disappeared into himself again. I was sorry I'd hurt him.

I didn't have to worry about Sharon. For all my complaints about her growing up, she was as tough and mean as any of those judges. She paced the courtroom doors, waiting to see that attorney. I remembered the third grade nun, that took a belt to her son, and then Sharon went up and took her own belt off and used it on the benevolent sister. She had that same look in her eye, now, and she did back then.

"She don't take shit from nobody," her son Bobby would say. But even with all her might, she wasn't strong enough to take me home and out of this mess I'd gotten myself into.

As the sheriff deputies led me away, I heard Sharon attack the lawyer.

"What the hell was that all about? He was supposed to only get two and half years!"

The lawyer spoke in a hushed tone, so I couldn't hear what he said, but then Sharon screamed; "Now that's a crock of shit! I know what he said, God damn it. I was there!"

Later that day, Dad came back to visit me at the county jail. He was alone and looked as forlorn as he did earlier, yet he did his best to hide it behind a smile. His black hair was slicked back, like he'd worn it in the fifties, though his sideburns were shorter and starting to gray. He never was much for showing emotion, especially if he wasn't drinking.

"Where's Sharon?" I asked.

"She's at home."

We stared at each other uncomfortably, neither of us knowing what to say.

"Well, tell her I said thanks for going after that lawyer for me."

Dad nodded. "There wasn't much she could do. That lawyer said the judge could give you whatever he wanted, since armed robbery carries up to life."

I didn't want to think about it anymore.

"Still not drinking?" I asked.

"Nope." He shook his head with a half smile, but there was lack of pride in it. "Quit last year."

My brother Rick said he had stopped right after I got into trouble, though we doubted that had anything to do with it.

"Just got tired ofit," Dad said. "And anyway, Sharon's pretty happy about it."

"I'm sure she is," I said, dryly. Sharon had a long history of battling alcoholism, but not her own. Both her parents died from it, and her first husband had been a drunk. We she first started dating my dad, she worked in a hospital for alcoholics as a nurse's aide.

Dad knew how I felt about Sharon, almost from the beginning. Dad also had a stepmother who hated him. It was amazing to me that he'd allow the same situation to happen between his wife and his kids that Grandpa let happen to him.

But at least Sharon stuck up for me that day, and even if it hadn't done any good-she had tried. I wished she were there with Dad so I could thank her. It meant a lot to me.

Dad went on to tell me that Rick and my stepbrother Bobby were now getting into trouble together. Bobby was seventeen and Sharon's oldest boy.

"A detective came around wanting to talk to Bobby," he said.

"What about?"

"Well, he and the other one got mixed up in a robbery," Dad said.

We had to be careful about what we said because the sheriff deputies sometimes monitored the speaker boxes we were forced to yell through.

"Do they know about the `other one'?" I asked.

Dad shook his head. We were talking about my brother Rick.

"The police want Bobby to come down and do a line up."

From what Dad was saying, I was able to piece together that Rick and Bobby had robbed an old couple, in their trailer, who'd advertised the sale of a diamond ring in Trading Times magazine.

"So, whoever did this," Dad said. "Tied the couple up, using a bunch of duct tape and then took everything in sight that was valuable."