A Token of Fate

Kenneth Andrews stood from his leather-bound seat and cleared his throat. “I would like to call the defendant, Calvin Brown, to the stand.”

His request was met with the quiet rustling of shifting bodies in creaky hardwood seats as the gallery spectators anxiously watched the boy approach the stand in silence. Oily blonde shoulder-length hair covered most of his face as long as he kept his head down. Long beanstalk legs moved slowly, careful not to entangle and trip. While kids in school called him a circus clown, any attentive eye could clearly see the boy had the feet and hands for NBA. If only he took an interest in sports rather than heavy metal and ghost hunting.

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

“I do,” the boy rasped quietly before lowering his hand. The bailiff nodded and instructed the boy to take his seat. The faded black cushion in the swivel chair was ripped, Calvin noted as he sat. How many scared and brave souls sat here before him in this very seat, in this very courtroom staring out into a crowd of judgmental faces? How much pain and fear did it take for that cushion to split, and for how long? A year? Three years? Longer? The amount of residual emotion soaked into the fabric and metal of that seat alone made it a hotbed of raw energy. Hands finely trembling and deep brown eyes glinting with the threat of tears under the florescent lights, Calvin contributed his own trace of fear and agitation. The boy looked like a lost and frightened fawn sitting up there. I’m sure every parent in the courtroom honed in on that lost and frightened expression on his pale teenage battleground face for acne, and they undoubtedly felt tremendous pity and heartache.

“Mr. Brown,” Kenneth Andrews approached the stand, occasionally sweeping his eyes across the panel of jurors. I could have sworn his eyes lingered on me a tad longer than anyone else. Maybe I was the paranoid one, and I wasn’t even on trial. Ignoring the pinpricks in my gut when the district attorney eyeballed his audience, like my 11 summoned courtroom colleagues, I sat quietly and listened.

“What was your relationship to the deceased, Edward Conway?”

“He was my stepdad,” Calvin answered shyly.

“Please speak into the microphone moving forward,” Mr. Andrews instructed. “Would you say Mr. Conway was a good stepfather?”

“Objection! Opinion.” Deborah Wise called from the furthest table on the left. She was known more commonly as the “Bombshell Pro Bono of the South”. She was everything the DA hated in an attorney. Young, attractive, and smarter than him on his best days. And there she sat with a pen harpooned between her fingers and her elbow resting on a stack of papers the DA had been trying to ogle since this trial started. At least, that’s what he appeared to be ogling from my view in the jury box.

“Sustained,” the judge mumbled boredly. “The prosecution may rephrase the question.”

Slipping sweaty palms into his slate blue polyester-lined pockets, Mr. Andrews acknowledged the judge with a nod, then settled his dark green eyes on the boy behind the stand. “Mr. Brown, how would you describe Edward Conway as your stepfather?”

Like an uncertain small child to a parent, Calvin glanced at his attorney in search of any nonverbal cue. A smile, a nod, a wink. Anything. But Deborah was a stone. A vivacious and beautiful stone for which Calvin’s heart drummed a little faster and his stomach knotted a little tighter. She was more than an attorney. She was his guide, his protector, and his sanctuary. And right now, from behind simple black plastic frames exuding with sophistication, her full smokey gray eyes fixed on him, void of any suggesting emotion.

Calvin leaned his thin lanky body forward, his lips inches from the mic. “He was great at first. He played video games with me and let me sit in and watch the race with him and his buddies. But when I got older, you know, he changed.”

“No, we don’t know, Mr. Brown,” Kenneth scolded. “Please enlighten the court. In what ways did Mr. Conway change?”

“He started hitting my momma, for one thing. Then, he would get angry over nothing and start breaking my things. He was yelling more. Drinking all the time. Started cussing us every day and telling momma what a terrible wife and mother she was because sometimes he didn’t like the dinner she made.”

My face burned. Thinking about this man, Edward Conway, made my blood boil. I knew men like him. Always got something to prove. I slipped my hand inside my pocket, careful not to draw attention, and caught my lucky pewter Retrocade game token between my fingers. The indentation of the coin’s face pressed into the pad of my stroking thumb, calming me better than a straight shot of tequila, no chaser. Rubbing the stubble on my face with my free hand, I took a deep calm breath and continued to listen to the worried and reluctant defendant.

“Mr. Brown, where were you the night of October 12^th between the hours of midnight and 3am?”

“I uh- I was home, in my bedroom asleep.”

“You were sleeping,” Mr. Andrews repeated with a snarky suggestive tone. “While your stepfather, whom you say was abusive to you and your mother, was being attacked and murdered under the same roof. You slept soundly through the screams of a 230-pound man as he was being stabbed to death by the kitchen knife from the cutlery block found in your home.”

“Objection! Leading and speculation!”

The prosecutor side-stepped to his table on the right and swept up a sheet of paper. Returning to the stand, he sat the paper down in front of the boy and directed him to read the words aloud.

“L- Lee- Lay hands on her a- a- gain and I w-wool kill you.” Embarrassed tears filled the boy’s eyes as he looked up at the prosecuting attorney. I pressed the coin in my pocket a little harder, scraping my nail along the rigid edge. Befuddled, Mr. Andrews averted his eyes thoughtfully to the beige and coffee-colored carpet tiles beneath his polished $300 Wing-tip Oxfords before tossing his head over his shoulder at the wide antagonizing grin of Deborah Wise.

“Mr. Brown, did you write this note?”

“No, sir.”

Mr. Andrews picked up the paper and held it up for the jury to see. I sighed quietly as those 10 short incriminating words passed our eyes.

“Well, it’s your handwriting, isn’t it?” Mr. Andrews poked as he returned to his desk. Dabbing his thumb and pointer finger briefly to his lips, he took another sheet of paper from the pile.

“Are you telling me that you don’t recognize your own handwriting? And remember you’re under oath, son.” He held up the paper to the judge and then swung his arms around to those of us in the box. How badly I wanted to reach up and slap that man, at very least. I couldn’t have been the only one in the courtroom to feel this toxicity exuding from the prosecutor, doing his damnest to condemn the poor boy.

“Objection!” Deborah snapped. “Badgering.”

“Sustained,” the judge nodded.

Irritability lit the prosecutor’s eyes. “Ladies and gentlemen of the court, I have in my hands a copy of the defendant’s English homework assignment, showcasing a page full of his handwritten work.”  My jury colleagues leaned in for a better view. Mr. Andrews then lifted the threatening note for comparison. “If you note, the handwriting from this letter found during the investigation of Mr. Conway’s death is almost identical to that of Calvin Brown’s schoolwork.”

Gasps arose from the back of the courtroom, giving way to whispers and chatter. Sudden commanding raps of the gavel echoed across the room. “Order!” The judge demanded. “Order in the courtroom!”

Voices silenced and, for a moment, that silence was thicker than the walls and louder than the judge’s hammering mallet.

“No further questions, your Honor.” Proudly, Kenneth Andrews returned to his seat, mumbling something to the defense attorney, who was already standing and approaching the stand with papers of her own.

“Calvin, I know you’re under duress. This will be quick.” She offered a small smile to the boy. His cheeks visibly rouged.

“Calvin, where is your bedroom located in your house?”

“It’s upstairs, all the way down the hall.”

“Upstairs,” she repeated as she lifted a photograph of the home for all to see. “All the way down the hall.”

My stomach sank. That house- that familiar house… It was a majesty of a home. Breathtaking cobblestone and brick that lay at the end of a solitary rubble road, facing a tailored, vibrant green landscape. 42 Pine Trails Drive would be the envy of royals.

The coolness of the game token warmed in my fingers. I crossed a leg over one knee and merely glanced at the pictures in Deborah’s hands. It was as though the cathedral windows stared at me ominously, unblinking. Knowingly.

“Ladies and gentlemen, according to this notarized property deed of the defendant’s home, this home is precisely 6,100 square feet. Let that sink in for a moment.” There was an intimidating confidence to Deborah Wise, one that demanded attention. “Six thousand,” she repeated. “That’s a lot of home! You could live in this house for days without bumping into anybody. Hell, I’m halfway tempted to give it a try, myself!”

Light laughter filled the courtroom until the gavel cracked again. Deborah extinguished the grumpy lines in Judge Macon’s face with an irresistible and infectious smile. What a fox!

“If you observe, the defendant’s bedroom is here,” she pinched a portion of the photograph depicting an upstairs window, then slid her perfectly manicured, glossy scarlet nails to a second photograph. This one exhibited the back of the home. “Mr. Conway’s body was found here by the defendant’s mother the next morning upon her return from a confirmed 2-day business seminar located three hours away.”

She showed the two photos side by side. “From upstairs, all the way down the hall to the downstairs back foyer is almost the entire distance of that 6,000 square footage.” She dropped the photographs on Mr. Andrew’s desk and winked slyly.

“Calvin, in a previous testimony, you stated that you don’t sleep well at night unless you have your headphones on. Is that correct?”

“Uh, yes ma’am. I have to listen to my music because my mind can’t settle without it.”

Deborah lifted her hands and shrugged at the judge. “At 6,000 square feet upstairs in the opposite direction with my earphones on, I don’t suspect I would hear a thing, either.”

Deborah began pacing again. She brought her hands together in a thoughtful expression. “One thing the prosecution failed to mention is the testimony of Mr. Brown’s family physician. Judge, ladies and gentlemen of the court, we have medical records dating back to 2013, that show Calvin Brown at age 7 is diagnosed with a learning disability as a direct result from excessive alcohol consumption during his fetal development.” Deborah pulled up two familiar sheets of paper.

“Take a closer look at the letter written to Mr. Conway and again at Mr. Brown’s homework. If you look closely, you will find many words in Mr. Brown’s written assignment are grossly misspelled. Simple, common words. The letter to Mr. Conway is written legibly without error. As you saw today with your own eyes, Mr. Brown can hardly read, let alone write a comprehensive letter.”

Sweat dotted Mr. Andrew’s forehead. Nervously, he tugged at the tie, loosening its grip from around his bobbing throat.

There wasn’t much left after that. There were closing statements and a bunch of jargon before we were escorted to a deliberating room. Nearly leaping from my seat, my eagerness to be as far away from the courtroom as possible was hard to hide. Today’s society, however, offers the perfect guise. It isn’t unusual to get antsy without a phone to shove our noses into. My excitability, though, felt a little unmatched.

A long oak table surrounded by 12 high-back executive chairs on either side awaited us as we were ushered in like prized cattle. Fresh cold bottles of water and wrapped cracker snacks lay on the table in front of each seat. Not a single one of us hesitated to indulge in the delicacies. And, yes, at that point in the afternoon, crackers and water was a desirable treat.

The foreman opened up our discussion, rehashing the facts of the trial. Some were convoluted facts where a sprinkle of fiction went a long way. Scenarios were played out. The “what if” game. One hour turned into three. Three hours turned into two more. Most jurors had come to the same conclusion. The man was abusive, bottom line, and maybe he got what he deserved. Perhaps justice served itself. But there were two, Maggie and David, who still rode the delicate fence. All attempts of persuasion failed as they maintained that the boy must have done it, but to ruin the young man’s life over the death of a villain… They sat in their gray area, picking apart their own moral fiber.

We were all tired. Hungry. Massaging my game token once again, I withdrew it this time for all to see. Old and dirty, the coin hopped between my knuckles. “Sometimes,” I said. “Many times, in fact, when I can’t make my mind up about something, I use my lucky coin.”

“You aren’t seriously suggesting we leave a boy’s life up to the fate of a flipped coin!”

I waved my hand at Mrs. Birch. “No, of course not,” I explained. “We have 10 for innocent and 2 unsure. If the coin decides he’s innocent, we all go home, including that distraught Calvin Brown and his mother. If the coin decides not innocent, we are still a hung jury and no harm done.”

Silence in a room of a dozen irritable and mentally drained people is one of the most awkward kinds of silence. “At this rate, we’re looking at a mistrial. To put that poor boy through this again…” I shook my head. Until David threw his hands up, I wasn’t sure we would be leaving anytime soon.

“Screw it!” He held out his hand for the token.

“Heads, innocent. Tails, guilty.” I reluctantly handed my game token across the table. David snatched the coin, propped it on his thumb and flicked. Jumping into somersaults, the coin landed with a clatter on the table. All eyes focused on the coin as it finally settled.

Heads.

My eyes on Maggie, a 30-something single mother of two whose immaculate French braid had unraveled over the hours. She sighed, “Yeah, ok. My babysitter is costing me $9 an hour.” She took the coin up into her hand. Like David, she balanced the coin on her thumb, using her chewed fingernail as leverage. The air stifled. After a long dramatic pause, the coin was launched. Several backflips in the span of a second had every one of us bent over the table’s edge, peering over one another’s shoulder.

The coin popped on the table with a clack and cruised the table’s surface before wobbling. Momentum lost, the coin fell on its side.

Heads.

The wave of relief in that room was tangible. I pocketed my token as everyone made haste for the door. The foreman was prepared to read the verdict heroically as though delivering news that would change lives. In fact, he was.

Maybe I should have felt guilty. Maybe some part of me is broken inside. I thought of my son, those precious few minutes we spent at Retrocade some years ago. I agreed to a dual in Master Crushers Unlimited and he beat me fair and square. As a condition of our terms, the loser had to donate their gaming tickets to the winner. I was happy to relinquish my 68 tickets to add to his short supply for a chance to win whatever overpriced crap the ticket booth was selling. He was the best kid a parent could ever hope for. Unfortunate for me, I wasn’t his father that day, but a fun and kind stranger who just happened to walk by. And if you believe that, you’re just as gullible as the coin-tossing jurors, having never inspected my one-sided coin.

You see, I knew from the start Calvin Brown was innocent. Imagine getting a jury summons to your own son’s trial for a murder you committed. I hadn’t been an exemplary father but, to my defense, Lydia never gave me the chance to be. A stalker? Yes. Murderer? Put it on my tab. But I was no Edward Conway. Eddie was a parasite. A leech of human waste. I couldn’t allow him to continue dragging my family through the pits of hell. That being said, I never anticipated Calvin taking the heat from it, and there was no chance I would let him take the fall should the jurors unanimously decided on a guilty verdict.

Unseen, unacknowledged, I sat behind the foreman who read the verdict aloud. I smiled at my son, who didn’t know me from a hole in the ground. I had long scanned the gallery for Lydia. She was there, first row in a simple black dress. The years of wear and tear would mask the man she once knew. At one point, her eyes landed on me. But then they moved along. At the end of the day, we all went home. Some of us to children. Some of us to husbands and wives. Some of us to a quiet studio apartment with questionably loose morals in one pocket and a lucky one-sided token in the other.