Times and Seasons (8 page)

After
a lunch of plain ham sandwiches, the guards herded Mark and the others into a room they facetiously called the beauty shop. The sound of buzzers startled him, and he saw three of the inmates sitting in the chairs. Burly guards, who looked as if they had no barber experience, shaved the hair off the inmates’ heads. Mounds of blonde, brown, black, and red hair lay on the floor around the chairs.

Mark thought his heart was going to burst through his chest.

“No way, man,” he bit out to the boy in front of him.

The kid turned around. “Shut up,” he whispered. “Don’t get us all in trouble.”

“I’m not getting anybody in trouble,” he whispered harshly, “but they are
not
shaving my head!”

“Watch them,” the kid said.

This was too much. Mark had done everything else they had required. He had filled out all the paperwork they had requested and taken the obligatory shower complete with lice shampoo.
He had listened quietly through the rules as they were read out to him and had kept his mouth shut while they’d gone over the schedule. He couldn’t believe any of this was constitutional. He made a note to look it up in his civics book when he got out of here. He was an American citizen. He had rights. They couldn’t treat him like he was some subhuman, just because he’d made a mistake.

His frightened, angry gaze fixed on the foulmouthed boy who had been causing so much trouble since they’d loaded him onto the bus. But there wasn’t anything even that kid could do about the hair being mowed off his head. He looked like an Army recruit.

To Mark, this seemed a more binding act than riding the bus here, putting on the clothes, using the lice shampoo. If they shaved his head and his mother still came and got him out, he’d have to return home like that. He didn’t want to look like a doofus—and he didn’t want to have the mark of a convicted criminal.

The guard called his name, and Mark backed away. “No, man, they’re not shaving my head.”

“Oh, yes, they are, pal.” The guard grabbed his arm and jerked him toward the barber, but Mark resisted. Two more guards came to help, and Mark finally realized that he didn’t have a chance against these people. He had to do what they said or suffer the consequences. He gave up and let them put him in the chair. He closed his eyes and, as the buzzer moved across his head, swore to get even.

It was his mother’s fault. She should have been here sooner. It served her right to have a son who looked like this. It would show her. Every time she looked at him she’d remember what he’d been through.

Yes, maybe it was all right after all. He could get a lot of mileage out of this. But as he got down from the chair and rubbed his hand over his head, he realized what had been taken from him. Then he looked ahead into the hall—and saw that more was yet to come. It dawned on him with vivid clarity that he had lost all control of his life.

The guards moved the newcomers into what was called Building A. They had been issued special outfits: orange striped pants, like something the Cat in the Hat would wear, and white pullover shirts. They all looked alike with the stupid clothes and their heads shaved. None of them looked cool, and they were anything but tough. As they lined up on a yellow line drawn on the cement floor, he realized he was a clone of all of these other kids who had come in here with him. His life was not his own anymore.

Building A was a huge room with fifty beds lining the walls. At one end, high above the floor, was a wall of windows, behind which was an elevated room like those you see in drugstores. From this room, the guards kept close watch and took care of business. Mark realized that his days of privacy were gone. He had forty-nine roommates now. Even showers were not private.

They handed him a schedule of daily activities, and as his eyes ran from the five o’clock wake-up to bedtime at nine-thirty, he realized that he’d also lost control of his time. If he had thought Brenda was bad, giving them so little free time during her school day, he realized this was much worse. Not more than thirty minutes at a time was given for one to think. Even the school schedule was more grueling than what he’d had in either public school or at Brenda’s house. He supposed it was all designed to make him miss what he’d left back home.

But instead of wishing for what he’d had, he fed the anger festering inside of him, making him angrier at his mother for failing to fix the situation. It was her job to get him out of this mess. It was the height of neglect for her to leave him in here, and he would never forgive her for it.

He only hoped he would see her soon so he could tell her.

Cathy
drove slowly down Pinewood Boulevard, searching the numbers on the houses for 352. She was so tired that her muscles ached, for she had lain awake all night, trying to picture where Mark was being kept, how frightened he must be, how full of remorse…and worrying about the arraignment and Mark’s future.

Though he had confessed to selling the bag of marijuana to his friend Ham Carter, he hadn’t told her much else. She had questions, like why the kid had picked Mark to set up. Why he’d seen fit to get a police officer involved. Whether it was really the first time Mark had done such a thing.

She found 352 and pulled into the driveway. A Jeep and the blue Lumina she had seen his parents drive to ball games sat in the driveway, so she knew she had the right house.

Her face hardened as she got out of the car and looked up at the yellow house with navy shutters. She hoped Ham was home, so she could look him in the eye and find out what he knew.

She stepped up on the porch and rang the bell, then knocked hard. The house shook with footsteps as someone crossed the floor, and the door came open.

“Yeah?” His face changed as he recognized her, and he started to close the door.

She stuck her hand out, willing to have it crushed to keep him from shutting the door. “No, you don’t,” she said. “I have to talk to you. Stand there like a man and look me in the eye.”

Reluctantly, he stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind him. She wondered if his parents were inside. Why didn’t he want them to know of his heroics in getting such a reprobate arrested?

Her mouth quivered as she looked up at Ham, who was taller than she. “I understand you had something to do with getting Mark arrested,” she bit out. “I want to know what happened.”

He shrugged. “Look, I’m sorry about Mark going to jail. I didn’t know…”

“You didn’t know
what?
”

“That he’d get a year. I didn’t know he had two other offenses. He’s a good guy. I don’t have anything against him.”

She realized she wasn’t following him very well. Maybe her mind was too tired. Maybe her senses were dull. “Explain this to me,” she said. “Did Mark or did he not sell you marijuana?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And was it the first time?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why did you call him and ask him to sell you some? What made you think he’d do it?”

“It was just a guess.”

“A guess? What? You were bored that afternoon? You thought you’d spice up your life a little by putting Mark together with an undercover cop?”

“It was a deal we made, okay? I had to deliver
somebody.
”

She still couldn’t understand. “A deal who made? You and Mark?”

“No.” He got quiet then and looked through the windows into the house. Satisfied that no one could hear, he whispered,
“Me and the cop. He nailed
me
first, okay? It was my first offense, but I knew my dad would kill me if he knew. I mean, he’d
kill
me. He can’t find out about this.”

Cathy’s eyes narrowed as the words sank in. “So why aren’t
you
in jail?”

“Because the guy…the cop…he said that he wouldn’t book me if I could give him somebody bigger. A dealer.”

“A dealer.” Cathy repeated the words in a monotone as her eyes grew wider. “Are you telling me that you gave him Mark?”

“I didn’t
have
a dealer, okay? At least, not one I could name. I got mine from this guy who was at the ballpark one night. I didn’t know if I could find him again. I had to come up with somebody. I knew Mark would have some…”

She thought she might throw up. The air seemed stagnant, useless, and perspiration dotted the back of her neck.

“I figured Mark would sell us a joint, he’d get arrested, and they’d let him off since it was a first offense. Nobody told me Mark stole a car last year!”

“He didn’t steal a car,” she said in a metallic voice. “His delinquent friend took his stepfather’s car without asking.” She didn’t bring up the other charge. It didn’t matter now. All that mattered was that this kid had been trying to get himself out of trouble, and Mark had taken the fall.

She knew she should be rabid with rage. She should slap the kid and parade him in the house before his parents, let them hear what he had done. “My son is going to spend the next year of his life in a juvenile prison,” she managed to get out. “A year. Do you know how long that is?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, I hope you’re sleeping well. I hope you’re able to look yourself in the mirror.”

He looked down at the boards beneath his feet, and she turned her back to him and started down the porch steps. Her knees wobbled and her hands shook. Finally, she turned back to him. “This can’t be legal,” she said. “I’m going to the police. I’m going to tell them what this cop did. Trading you for my son.”

The kid got a pleading look. “Getting me thrown in jail isn’t going to make up for what happened to Mark,” he said.

“Maybe not,” she whispered. “But it would sure make me feel better.” Slowly, she made her way to her car.

By the time she reached the attorney’s office, her anger was at a red-alert level. She stormed in, demanding to see him.

Slater heard the commotion and came to the door of his office.

“My son was set up,” she said. “I just found out that he was a trade. A minor possession charge against his friend was dropped if he could lead the police to a dealer. Since the kid didn’t know any, he figured he could turn Mark into one. Doesn’t that constitute entrapment? Isn’t this deal-making illegal?”

Slater took her into his office and sat down behind his desk. “Cathy, I know this must be upsetting. But the bottom line is that the police do make deals to catch bigger fish.”

“If this isn’t entrapment, then what is? I thought that entrapment was when a police officer tricked someone into committing a crime.”

“Not exactly. I thought it might be entrapment, too, when I first heard about it. I even spoke to the arresting officer and got the lowdown, then talked to that Ham Carter kid to get the other part of the story.”

“When did you do this?”

“The night Mark got arrested. Right after I got Steve’s phone call, I started working on it. I didn’t want to mention it to you when I interviewed Mark before the arraignment, because I had already figured out that it didn’t fit the definition of entrapment. There’s no entrapment unless the officer persuaded Mark to commit a crime he ordinarily wouldn’t have committed.”

“But he did!”

“No, he didn’t. The Carter kid called Mark and asked him to sell him the bag. Mark never spoke to the police officer. Even when he got in the car with them, the cop never asked him to sell him the drugs. The Carter kid did all the talking.”

“But it was planned! It was part of a deal. It wasn’t Mark’s idea. He never would have done it if it hadn’t been for the deal.”

“But the police never coerced Mark, so we don’t have a leg to stand on there. All they did was give him the opportunity to commit the crime.”

“The cop lied to him about who he was!”

“Yes, but that’s legal. Police officers are allowed, by law, to operate undercover.”

She got to her feet and rubbed her forehead, blinking back the tears in her eyes. “My son would not have done this on his own.” Her voice cracked. “It was
their
idea, not his. You could, at least, have tried.”

“I would have if I’d had the proper evidence,” he said. “Instead, I had lots of evidence to the contrary. Mark was more than willing to make this transaction, he worked it out with one of his peers instead of a cop, and he anxiously took the money. It was his third offense, which didn’t help matters any. Believe me, Cathy. If I could have used the entrapment defense, I would have. But they had Ham Carter’s statement, and Mark confirmed it in his own statement to the police. They asked him point-blank if the cop persuaded him to sell the bag, and he said no, that the guy was pretty quiet.”

“There
must
be a way. There has to be something we can do.”

“If he hadn’t already had three offenses…if it hadn’t been a violation of his probation…maybe…”

“If he were
your
son…”

“If he were my son, and he had the same record, and made the same transaction, he’d be right where yours is tonight. As badly as I’d want to, there wouldn’t be anything I could do. I’m sorry.”

She drove home, feeling the pain of fatigue and frustration, and the ache of those tears that had swollen her eyes. Her son had been betrayed by a friend. Despite his own behavior, she knew the fury he must feel right now.

He was counting on her to get him out.

But there wasn’t a thing she could do.

She went home and headed for her bed, fell to her knees beside it. She began to pray, the deepest, most earnest prayers she had ever prayed.

But there was a wall between her and God, keeping her from connecting. Sickness rippled through her stomach, and fatigue pulled at her body like metal weights.

Why wasn’t God answering?

Had she constructed these walls, or had he? She remembered what Steve had said about her not being able to trust her emotions. She tried to run through what she knew for sure about God.

He would never leave nor forsake her.

So why wasn’t he helping?

He was just.

So why had he allowed Mark to be tricked?

He was merciful.

So why couldn’t she get another chance for her son?

Maybe she wasn’t righteous enough. Maybe she had been too hate-filled, too angry, too unforgiving. Maybe he was punishing her for the way she had talked to Jerry today.

The bitterness and anger and hatred that she had harbored for Jerry had spilled out when she was tipped over, and now she realized that if she was to be forgiven, she was going to have to forgive him. If she wanted her prayers heard, prayers for protection of Mark in this dark time of his life, then she was going to have to agree with God that her words and her behavior with Jerry had been sinful, that the blame she tried to cast on him was not helpful either to him or to the children, or to herself for that matter. Christ had forgiven her so many times, and now she was being called to forgive Jerry. Again.

She took the bitterness and bundled it up like a package. Mentally, she laid it on the altar for God to consume. Along with it, she bundled up the anger she felt toward Ham Carter. She hoped she’d gotten it all. She could only surrender it through the power of Christ. She wondered if he knew how hard this was for her.

When she finished praying, she sat back on her bed. Her eyes ached from the weeping she had done that day, and her lips felt dry and raw. She hadn’t learned about the pathology of tears in veterinary school, but she knew there was something cleansing about them, something comforting in their aftermath.

She took a deep breath, feeling as if she were a little child being prodded along by God to do the right thing. She picked up the phone and dialed Jerry’s number. His wife answered, and Cathy breathed another prayer of deliverance from the bitterness directed at her.

“May I speak to Jerry, please?” she said.

The woman recognized her voice and didn’t answer, just gave him the phone.

“What do you want?” he asked.

She closed her eyes. Her hand was shaking as she clutched the phone.

“Jerry, I just wanted to apologize to you for the way I spoke to you today. It was uncalled for.”

“What happened? Did the kids hear it and get angry? Is this apology because you want to show them you’re really a big person?”

“No,” she said, “they’re not here. I’m apologizing because I’m a Christian now and I’m supposed to be more aware of what God has done for me. I’m not supposed to go off half-cocked and rant and rave against people who have hurt me. I’m supposed to understand that there are plenty of people I have hurt, too.”

“Your point?” Jerry asked.

“My point is that I’m sorry for the things I said. It didn’t help anybody. It only upset the kids.”

“So you’re admitting that it wasn’t true, that it wasn’t my fault that Mark turned out the way he did?”

“Mark hasn’t turned out any way,” she bit out, her voice rising. She closed her eyes and prayed that God would help her through this. She just couldn’t do it on her own. “He’s only fifteen. We don’t know how he’s going to turn out yet. I haven’t
given up on him, and I’m not going to. I will not surrender my child to the world.”

She heard a deep sigh on Jerry’s end. “I’ll ask you again, Cathy. What is it you want?”

“I told you,” she said. “I wanted to apologize. It’s up to you. You can accept it or not. Your call. I just wanted to offer it.”

She heard the click on the other end and knew he had hung up. She knew she shouldn’t feel this way, but the severed line of communication gave her relief. She lay back on the bed and looked up at the ceiling, wishing she could see God’s face there. Was he nodding that she had been obedient and done the right thing, or was he shaking his head because she still didn’t get it?

“I’m trying, Lord,” she whispered. “I’m trying, but I need your help.”

Wednesday she could go and visit Mark. She wondered if he’d had anything to eat today or if he was too upset to choke anything down. Sometimes when he pouted, he went for days without eating. She remembered when he was much younger, when she and Jerry had told the kids they were getting a divorce, she had heard Mark a little while later throwing up in the bathroom. She wondered if he was throwing up now.

She heard a knock on the door and called, “Come in.” Annie opened the door.

“Mom, I was just wondering. Can I go with you to see Mark Wednesday?”

Cathy saw that she had been crying, too. Her eyes were as red and swollen as Cathy’s. The thought surprised her. Besides apathy, Annie’s main emotion concerning Mark was disgust. She never missed an opportunity to insult him, and one of her favorite pastimes was making him feel like an idiot. Why would she cry for him now? She supposed that was the paradox of siblings. They loved each other, even when they didn’t act like it.

“Annie, I think I need to go by myself the first time. There are going to be plenty of times when Mark’s going to need to see you, but I think right now he’s probably too upset.”