Category: Human Decency

First: A Flashback from the End of Part I…

OK. One evening, right after dinner, I was sitting in my stuffed chair, reading some book or other, when I heard the phone ringing. I heard my wife picking up the phone in the next room and saying “Hello?” Then I could hear her murmuring something quietly.

Next thing I knew, she was standing next to my chair and looking down at me with a puzzled expression.

“What?” I asked.

“You’ve got a phone call,” she said tentatively, looking perplexed.

“Who is it?”

“The County Sheriff.”

“The who?! The… County sheriff?! Jeez... what the hell?”

I got up, walked out to the kitchen, and picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Hi. So… is this Mr. Lyford? Mr. Thomas Lyford?”

“It is. Why?”

“Tell me. Are you familiar with a Danny Brown, Mr. Lyford…?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Part II

“Ohmygod, yes!” That question! Coming right outta the blue like that! And from a sheriff! What the hell? What the hell had happened?! And why was I being called, for crying out loud?! “Why?! What’s this all about?!”

“Sorry to trouble you, Mr. Lyford. But when I told Danny I’d call his dad, he became really adamant that he didn’t want that. Instead he gave us your name. Insisted we call you. Which struck me as a bit unusual. So, just what, if I may ask, is the nature of your relationship with Danny?”

“Jesus. He’s alive then. Was he in an accident or something? Is he hurt?”

“Oh no. He’s not hurt. But again, I’m just curious here. What is it you are to him?”

“Well, after he got kicked out, expelled I mean, from MHS, the district hired me to be a tutor after the fact. To placate his mom. I was his English teacher anyway, before that. And it turned out I was apparently just about the only teacher Danny didn’t want to kick in the teeth. He liked me. So I sorta took him under my wing. And I’m no counselor or anything, but… well, it was sorta like I was… almost.”

“OK. Yeah. That square’s with what Danny’s telling us.”

“But anyway. I haven’t heard from Danny for a long while. And I’ve been seriously worried. So it really jumped me when you called. He just sorta up and disappeared on me. Ran away from home, you know?”

“Oh yes, I definitely know. So anyway, here’s the thing. A few days ago, Danny escaped from the Juvenile Correctional Center over in South Portland.”

“He what?! Wait… he was… inprison??? And then you’re saying he… escaped?!”

“Well, escaping from there is pretty easy to do. I mean, it’s not Rikers. Or Alcatraz.”

“Oh my God, I had no idea…”

“Of course you didn’t.”

“I mean, shit!”

“Yeah. So anyway… instead of his dad, he’s asking for you.”

“Me?! But what for?”

“Well, I guess… you could call this his one phone call.”

“Uhmmm… OK…?”

“So… if it’s at all possible, we’d like you to come down to the station.”

“What? Who, me?”

“Yeah. You busy?”

“What, you mean right now?!”

“Can you? I’d really appreciate it.”

“Well… whatever the heck can I do down there?”

“I don’t know. But he’s asked for you. You said you’d taken him under your wing. Maybe it’ll just give him a little comfort while we continue to interrogate him?”

“Interrogate? You’re interrogating him?”

“Much more like interviewing him. Don’t let your imagination run away with you. We’re not sweating him under a light bulb and beating him with a rubber hose. We’re just asking some questions, is all. Maybe with your presence, here it’ll make him feel a little more comfortable enough to level with us. You’ll see, when you get down here? OK?”

“Christ. OK. Be there in a few minutes.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I can’t tell you how weird, how kinda scary it felt to walk into a county jail under those circumstances. The place smelled pretty much like my National Guard armory, the smell of uniforms and guns and sweat, I guess. The man at the desk said, “One moment. I’ll get him.”

And the next minute I was shaking hands with the county sheriff. “Good of you to come down,” he said.

“I hardly know what to say, under the circumstances. It’s… nice to meet you?”

“Thanks. Likewise.”

“So. What now…?”

“Basically I just want you to sit in on the interview. I want you to watch him while it’s ongoing. Listen to his part of the dialogue, and then afterwards, just tell me what you think, OK?”

“I dunno. I can’t imagine how that’ll… OK. I guess.”

“So. Come on in. There’s a chair waiting for you.”

He opened the door and escorted me in. Man, that felt spooky. But Danny’s face brightened right up, the moment he saw me.

“Everybody? This is Mr. Thomas Lyford. Danny’s special tutor…”

“…and friend,” I added, shooting Danny the warmest smile I could muster. “Hey, Danny!”

I got a quiet, little, twinkly-eyed “hey,” back.

There were four other men in the room plus Danny seated around a table— two uniforms and two in civilian clothes. I don’t know who the hell they were, and there were no other attempts at introductions.

“So Danny,” said the sheriff. “I was about to ask. How long you been back in town before we pulled you in?”

Danny smiled, as if happy to finally be included. I have to say, he was looking very confident for a kid just freshly incarcerated and then interrogated. “Oh… I dunno.” Then looking calculatingly at the clock on the wall for a moment. “Maybe six, seven hours, give or take?”

“Hmmm,” said the sheriff, also consulting the clock. So… you weren’t in town last Saturday then?”

“Nope. Not even close.”

“So, exactly where were you? Saturday last.”

Danny cocked his head just a tad, one eye closed, looking within and flipping back through the pages of that calendar we all have in our heads. “That’d be Lewiston,” he said, nodding to himself.

“And what were you doing there?”

“Me, hey I got friends all over.”

“And you definitely weren’t here the day before yesterday?”

“Heck no. No way.”

“You’re absolutely sure about that. Right?”

“I said. Truth, I really wasn’t in no big hurry to roll back into town. And obviously, turns out I shouldn’t’ve come back here this afternoon, right?”

The sheriff, smiling. “Right. So then, why did you?”

“What, come back here?”

“Yeah.”

He shrugged. “Guess I just missed the old hometown, right?”

And I was thinking, Jesus, Danny not only seems overloaded on confidence here. I get the feeling he’s actually ENJOYING this! And I don’t get that.

The sheriff seemed a tad flustered. Throwing up his hands, he said, “Well, if you weren’t here this past week, that leaves you out of this.”

This seemed to immediately pique Danny’s interest. He leaned in, frowning, to focus on the sheriff. “Out of what?”

Sheriff pushed himself back into his chair, getting himself comfortable like he was about to start telling a campfire story. “Well, to tell you the truth, a lot of copper’s been going missing all around here this week. Copper tubing. Pipes. You name it.”

“Hmmm,” Danny said, appreciatively. “No shit.”

“You know anyone around these parts that would be liable to pull that sort of caper off, Danny?”

At that, Danny barked a laugh right out loud, which startled everyone, especially me. “Come off it,” he said jovially. “You and I both do! You know I could name twenty-five kids, just up to the high school alone who, pulling off a stunt like that would be right up their alley! Same as you. On top of that, I could give you half a dozen names of some dumb-ass hillbilly adults in town, who’d be even better at it.”

“Well, I’m sure you’re right about that. Yeah.”

Danny’d got the sheriff nodding and grinning. And I was beginning to look at Danny in a whole new light.

“My best suggestion?” he said. “I’d check out my old man, if I was you. He ain’t no stranger at it, just sayin’.”

“OK. Will do. Want me to tell him you said Hi when I do that?”

I noted a flicker of darkness pass over Danny’s face before he put on a bigger grin and said, “Sure. He and I go way back.” Which got a little chuckle around the table. Which Danny noticed and seemed pleased by.

Sitting there and watching this gripping little drama unfold was like watching some weird docudrama on television. Because I was strictly a spectator, wasn’t a part of it at all. I mean, yeah, I was there. But what the hell was I even doing there?

“So Danny, another question. Maybe you can help me out on this. Where would anybody be likely to go, say, to try to unload a stash of copper around here? I mean, where would I go if, say, I wanted to ditch a haul like that? You see what I’m saying?”

At this, Danny frowned, jutting out his jaw like he was giving that problem some very serious thought. And that’s when it hit me. I was watching a ‘game of chess’ here. Between a couple of fairly talented opponents. And Danny obviously liked playing the game, despite the fact that he was obviously in deep shit, that he was under arrest, and that he had more than likely already lost the game. So obviously, this wasn’t his first rodeo. So there he was, playing the consultant for now. And that boggled my mind. I mean, what did I really know about my little Danny after all?

“Well, for one thing. You wouldn’t wanna try fencing it anywhere near this town. That’d be too obvious. Right? First places they’d check on. I mean, sure, there are two or three junk yards around here, but no… you’d want to drop it over in the next two or three counties, at least.”

Look at him, that little cock of the walk, I thought to myself. Loving being the center of attention. Loving sparring with the big dogs. Is he… showing off for me…?

Sheriff was nodding appreciatively, chewing on that information and even jotting it down in the little open notebook he had. And goddamn, if he wasn’t play-acting too, right along with Danny. This was more of a poker game than chess. All this back-and-forth bluffing going on around the table. But Danny? He was in his glory. Appeared to be seeing himself as running this interrogation.

I could see I’d never realized who it actually was I’d taken under my wing. Not really. How many sides of Danny were there? I was beginning to ask myself. This boy was loaded with charisma, had it to spare, and damn— didn’t he know how to use it! I was looking at a sprouting little conman in the making. Obviously a conboy already. And damn, wasn’t he just keeping his cool like you wouldn’t believe. How out-of-my-depth I was feeling. I was in awe.

In all, I watched that drama play out before me for a good forty or so minutes, and then bang, it ended. Just like that.

The door I’d entered through opened just a crack, and the guy manning the front desk poked his head in, got the sheriff’s attention with an ahem, and announced, “They’re here…”

“OK. Send’em in.”

And bang! in they came. Two of’em. Two practically seven-foot gorillas in matching white sweat suits, muscles bulged beneath the sweatshirt sleeves. So huge they instinctively ducked their heads down as they emerged from the open door. Two of’em… each of whom, one-handed, could’ve easily muckled onto Danny’s infamous high school phys. ed coach’s shirt front and pinned his dumb-ass, beer-gutted body up against the wall a foot off the ground, leaving his smelly Nikes dangling beneath him like like a pair of ballet slippers.

Their sudden appearance had instantly chilled the atmosphere. Danny’s face had paled and gone blank. I felt mine had too. I watched him shut right down and slump, like somebody’d violently yanked his plug out of the wall socket. This was like watching a TV tag-team of professional ‘wrestlers’ suddenly leaping over the ropes and landing in the ring. There would be no chess game or poker with them. There was no trace of Danny’s bravado now.

And these two guys had no interest in talking to any of us. They simply moved like a pair of gigantic spiders on our little trapped conboy. “STAND!” one of them ordered. And the back of Danny’s chair banged off the wall behind him as he lurched up out of it. I nearly collapsed out my own chair. They had him cuffed and lifted by the armpits in the blink of an eye; and then they were walking him around the table to head back for the door. And Jesus, Danny was so, so tiny now. One of them muttered a gruff, “Thank you” to the sheriff, almost as an afterthought.

And just as they began to pass through the door, I called out in a weak voice to Danny (too subdued to be heard by anybody, I’m sure), “I’m gonna come down and visit you in a week or two, Danny…”

And then he, they, were gone with the wind, leaving me feeling just awful.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The sheriff surprised me moments later with, “Actually, we knew it was Danny all along, with the copper and all. We knew it before we hauled him in this afternoon.”

“Jeez. Really? How?” My heart was still racing from the adrenalin of having just witnessed what looked like a snatch-and-grab abduction of a friend, a very good and special friend whom, I was realizing, I hardly even knew apparently.

“We got one of his buddies to cop to it yesterday. And the funny thing is, their big little gang actually did try to fence the stuff at a junkyard it right here, just outside of town. Why’d you think he was laughingly advising me to look outside the county only? That boy’s really something, ain’t he.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I see that he… really is. But… I mean I wanna tell you, he and I? Christ, we’ve gotten along so damn well.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“No, I’m serious. As his tutor… outside of school? I’m telling you that that kid was really doing his homework. I mean, we actually discussed his history assignments, him and me— you know? Because he’d actually read them. And he was totally responsible for showing up, every time, whenever he was scheduled to. Damn it all to hell, we really had a good thing going, him and me. And hell, I’ve really warmed to that kid. I like that little guy.”

“Hell, I like him too. He and I go back a ways. Unfortunately. He kills me though. And like you, I’d like to see someone, like yourself, be able to turn him around. But you know what? That little bugger has already left that station. And he’s traveled too far down the track to turn around. That’s my sad opinion anyway, based on years of experience. It is what it is.”

“Sad is what I’m feeling too right now, where he’s concerned. Then too, my eyes have been opened, sitting here, as to what a little manipulator he is. He’s got such charisma, for a little twerp.”

“Yeah. Charisma’s the main required asset for a con artist. That, and being a chameleon. Danny? He can be whatever you want him to be… if it benefits him.”

“A chameleon. Yeah. He’s that, it turns out. I guess I have to face that. But… I’m having a hard time accepting that that charisma is the only thing that’s charmed me into liking him. Well, not totally anyway. I mean… I did, I swear, I discovered some goodness in that kid. I never had one single discipline problem with him. I treated him with friendliness and respect, and that’s what he gave me back in return. And jeez, all or most of the other teachers are so down on him over there at school and, sure, I can imagine all the reasons they have for feeling the way they do, too. But… he never stood a chance over there. He had ‘Failure’ rubber-stamped on his forehead long before I ever met him.”

“Yeah. Tell me about it. But unfortunately… it just is what it is.”

I try that on for size. “It is what it is.”

“That’s about all you can say.”

“Tell me something. Why the hell did you want me to come down here anyway. I mean… I was no help. Just a silent spectator. Although I guess I’m glad you did. For… some reason.

“Because Danny really wanted you here. That’s why. I told you, I like the little bastard too. I guess I was impressed that somebody… anybody… had touched him in some way. But I dunno. I have to admit… I just wanted to get a look at ya.”

“Well… thank you. I am glad I came down. Again… for some reason.”

“So… you really gonna go down and visit him at the correctional center?”

“Yeah. I am. Really.”

“Well, good.”

“I mean, I never even knew he was down there. And now that I do know… well, after all this, I imagine he’s gonna be stuck down there a heck of a lot longer than even before. So… well, I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye tonight. And the way I’m feeling now? I really want that chance. To say a proper goodbye.”

“I hear you.”

“Plus, I really want a chance to just talk with him again. One more time. You know. To try to wrap my head around this whole thing. Because it’s really bugging me, all this. I need to ask him some questions. Questions about how he sees his future. What life is like down there, on the inside. But… more than that, I guess mostly I really just want him to know that someone, at least, cares. I want him to know I’ll always remember the time I had with him. As bleak as his life’s probably gonna be, I want him to have that at least, even if my telling him that is the only, single, solitary, damn positive note he ever gets over the rest of his life. I want there to be at least that.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Two Weeks Later at the State Juvenile Correctional Center

(Please allow me to begin the closing here by digressing for just a moment. Back in the day, Readers’ Digest had a regular feature titled “The Most Unforgettable Person I Ever Met.” Over my lifetime, I’ve encountered more than my share of characters fitting that description, not the least of which was Danny. And that being said, welcome to one of the most unusual conversations I’ve ever had in my life!)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So, I did it. I made the appointment, traveled the two and a half hours down to South Portland on a Saturday morning, and got the chance to meet with Danny to offer him a proper goodbye.

It had seemed pretty strange, me going down to the county sheriff’s office to see him there that time but, man, it was much more of a bizarre experience jumping through all the administrative hoops to get myself admitted deep inside that prison. And just like the two seven-foot bouncers that had come to escort Danny back here that day, it turned out practically every working man in that institution was built like Sherman Tank. It was like stepping into a Gold’s Gym. I mean me? I stood five and a half feet tall back then but, relativistically, I was feeling like some little horse-racing jockey in a paddock of Clydesdales. Until, that is, little shorter-than-me Danny was escorted over from somewhere in the facility to the table I’d been assigned.

He was surprised to see me. I mean really surprised. And glad to see someone whom he was pretty sure he’d gotten to like him. Sadly though, it hit me that he still looked as tiny as he had when he’d been forcibly removed from the county jail.

We shook hands and went through the small talk. The old howya doin’ thing. But then I got down to the brass tacks of the heart of things. I assured him that the time he and I had spent together, especially those carefree tutoring sessions over coffee and everything from breakfast to apple pie, was one of the better times in my teaching career at that point (a period which was, yeah, only a half dozen or so years, but still…), and that I’d never forget them. I told him that, yes, I realized I didn’t know him as well as I’d thought I did, but that I really liked what I’d had the opportunity to discover in him. That yeah, I was aware that that was coming across as pretty mushy, considering where we were. And throughout this part of our conversation, he’d remained pretty much subdued.

But finally… (and this is the part I’m really wanting to share with you, dear reader) came Danny’s Story:

“So anyway, I’ve got this question, Danny. Whatever happened between the time (A) you slammed my classroom door, called the coach a fat fucker, and took off running… and (B) now? What happened to you that ended up with you incarcerated here? I mean, can I even ask you that? It’s impossible for me to make sense of it, you know? But hey, just go ahead and tell me to go to hell and mind my own goddamn business, if I’m out of line. And that’ll be OK, that’ll be fine. But man, I hafta admit I’m curious. Just trying to imagine how the dots connect between then and now...”

He smiled at me. And that signature twinkle in his eye had returned. “Oh, I can tell you,” he said. “But you’ll never believe me.” And it was good to see the old Danny beginning to peek through at me again, even if I probably should add ‘whoever that was…‘

“Oh. I won’t?”

“Nah.”

“Can you at least try me?”

“Sure. I can do that. But like I said…”

“Alright. So…? Come on. Lay it on me.”

“OK. It is what it is. But here goes. So first of all, just so you know, I ducked quick around the side of the school that day. Circled around the back of the building. Lost myself in some trees. Then made my way down to Route 2 ,and hitch-hiked my way outta town. I mean… I’d just had it, ya know?”

“Yeah, I got that at the time. And believe me, I understood it.”

“Long story short, I eventually ended up being charged with every single count in the books.”

I think about that. “Every SINGLE one, huh?”

“You got that right.”

“Oh. OK. So… Who’d you murder?”

“Hah! Well, no, you got me on that one anyway.”

“Phew!”

“Everything else though! Everything from littering to kidnapping.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake. Listen to you! Danny… come off it. You did not!”

“Told ya you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Now wait a minute! I’m supposed to believe this… ‘littering to kidnapping’? That’s sounding like… quite the tall tale, kiddo.”

“Swear to God it’s true.”

“Jeez. And here you are, sounding proud of it!”

“Hey. It is what it is. What can I say?”

“Come on. I mean, littering to kidnapping don’t quite seem to go together, do they. That’s… quite the stretch.”

“Well, littering’s what started the whole damn thing!”

“OK… OK. Go on, then.”

“It was like this: a couple days after I took off, and I’m in this car toolin’ down the road with my girlfriend, OK? Next thing you know, I got the flashing blues behind me. So I put the pedal to the metal and try to lose him, OK?”

“Of course you did. Right. Great idea, Danny…”

“So for just a minute, see, I get some distance between him and me, and I go flyin’ ‘round a corner, temporarily outta his sight. So I tell my girl, ‘Quick! Throw that bag of stuff on the back seat out the window!’ But she’s a little slow on the uptake, and by the time she finally does toss it, he’s right behind us!”

Good Ol’ Danny, he’s back in story-telling mode mode, happy as a clam now.

“So OK…” I say, “that explains the littering charge. And hey. I’m sure you don’t need me telling you this, but… not the best timing on your part, was it? Not exactly the best time to litter. Just sayin’.”

“Yeah, yeah. OK. But guess what. That bag had my burglary tools in it. Little wrecking bar. Suction cup glass-cutter…”

“Ohmigod! Burglary tools? You had a bag of…? Oh Danny!”

“Uh huh. Like I said. It is what it is. So now we’ve got what,” him counting them out on his fingers now, “littering, speeding, resisting arrest, driving to endanger… and burglary!”

I was shocked. My God, if this was true… the trouble he was in!

“And… it didn’t help that the car I was driving was uninspected. Plus unregistered….”

“Stop it! You’re making this up.”

“Hey. Ask whoever it is you hafta ask. You’ll find out.”

“So… dare I ask… about… you know… the kidnapping charge?”

He shook his head, thinking back, and sighed. “It wasn’t really a kidnapping. She was my girlfriend, for crying out loud. It was her idea to come along with me. She wanted to. And she did.”

“So… where’d the kidnapping charge come from then?”

“Well, number one, her parents didn’t like her hanging around me. At all. They didn’t like me… is really what they didn’t like. Number two, getting informed by the fuzz that their daughter was in custody (along with me)? Well, that didn’t sit very well. And of course, number three… considering she was under age and all…”

“WHOA! Damn it, Danny! I mean, jeez!”

“Well, whattaya think, she was thirty years old or something?? I mean, look at me, bud. I’m underage too, damnit. Right?”

“Well… yeah. True.”

“So number four. It was up to them, wasn’t it. Whether to press charges or not. And her being a minor and whatnot — well, they had her over a barrel, didn’t they. She had to go along with it, right? So: long story short, I guess they made her sign some papers on me, or whatever. And here I am.”

When I exhaled, that was the first I realized I’d been holding my breath. “Jesus H. Christ, Danny. You have a lawyer yet?”

He snorted. “Well, yeah, I guess you could call him that. Yeah.”

“So… then I mean, have you been given some estimation about, like, how much time you’re facing? Or anything about what you can expect at all? I probably don’t even wanna know the answer to that though, right?”

“No. Nothing specific. I’m going to be here a while, that’s for sure. But, he keeps telling me that the bright side of all this is that I’m a juvie. So it’s not gonna be forever. And if I keep my nose clean, that’s gonna help.”

“Keeping your nose clean. I’m guessing he means starting over. Now. After your just-recently-busting-out-of-this-place…”

“First of all, I really didn’t bust out of here. I just walked out. Simple as that. Just walked right out through a door. Simple as…”

“UH-oh, Danny. One of your gorillas-in-charge here is heading our way, coming right up behind you. And I believe he’s signaling time’s up.”

“Figured that was about to happen.”

“Yeah.”

I stood, and addressed the guard with a polite thank-you. Danny took his time getting to his feet.

“Danny. Just so you know: our time together, back there in English class and those café and restaurant discussions we were having? KNOW that that was such a damn good time for me. Just what the doctor ordered. You brought a much-needed breath of fresh air into my otherwise repetitive, routine-teaching-life. And I’m never gonna forget you OR forgive that dick of a gym coach for taking that away from me. I really like you, kid. I want you to know that.”

“Same here, Mr. L.”

“So sorry, Danny.”

He shrugged. “It is what it is.”

And the man behind him barked, “LET’S GO! TIME’S UP!”

I just waited and solemnly watched until the two of them, in my mind looking like a forlorn Mutt and Jeff, passed back out of sight through a door that would take them somewhere else among the warrens of cages, or whatever was out there waiting for his return in this, his new world.

And my God, I was twenty-five years old, a quarter of a damn century old, but I was still having to learn all these unexpected and uncomfortable new-to-me truths about this world I was living in. In fact, I hadn’t totally figured out exactly what I had learned out of all that had happened.

That was gonna take time.

But at least I wasn’t quite as naive that day as I had the day before. Right?

Plus yardage.

It is what it is.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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