Micah Jennings

1.31.05 Monday [tree]

I was in bed for most of the day, glaring at my ceiling and wondering if this was the worst life could possibly be…or if it could get worse. At 1:00 I phoned Reginald to let him know I wouldn’t be visiting him. I said I was sick. Of course, he didn’t believe me, and asked if I’d talked to my mother about the account. I told him the truth.

“So she was guilty all along,” I said sadly, feeling as though the last strands of hope were fraying. I waited for the inevitable “I told you so” from the judge, but he was ever impossible to predict. Instead, he said,
“I’m sorry it happened like this, Micah.”
“You’d be willing to be wrong?”
“I would. Are we on for this afternoon, then?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I consented.

When I arrived I found him sitting at the kitchen table with a notepad and pen. I asked about it.
“Micah, this is the real world,” he replied. “I know you’ve heard it before, but I think yo just startin’ to understand. You’ve been living in a fairly tale, yew know. Robin hood—takin’ from the wealthy to give to the needy. But in this life, actions have consequences, punishments.”
“You’re turning me in?”
“No. Yo life is collapsin’ at every turn, and that’s punishment enough. But now it’s time to think about makin’ good to those you’ve hurt.”
“Hurt?”
“The twelve jurors that put yo mother away, Micah. The two lawyers that attacked her effectively and defender her futilely. They didn’t deserve what happened to them.”
“Well, life’s unfair. I’ve learned that, now they can too,” I said.
He looked at me blankly.
“When yo done convicin’ yo’self, yew can try that again.” He walked over to the fridge and pulled out his usual beverage, unscrewing the cap and downing half the bottle. “I’m not askin’ yew to do it alone, Micah.”
“What are you asking?”
“Well, in real life, once in awhile someone comes along with a helpin’ hand. Gets yew back on yo feet and pointed in the right direction. I am that someone.”
“What do you mean?”
“All that cash yew stole—totaled about twenty-six thousand, right?”
“Roughly.”
“I’ve never done this before, Micah, but I’m a good judge of character, and I think yo a good kid, just a little confused. Here.”
He pulled out a narrow slip of paper and slid it across the table. It was a check for seven hundred, payable to me.
“You’re giving me this?”
“Lending. Yo first job, Marcus Heinz, was for that much, right?”
“I think. He didn’t have a lot.”
“Then yo gonna cash that and give him back what ‘little’ you took. When I read it in the papers, you’ll get yo next check.”
“Until everyone is paid back?”
“Yup. Then you’ll begin paying ME back. I don’t expect it right away, but you’ll need to get a job.”
“And how am I supposed to give these people back their money? I can’t just walk up to them and be like, ‘hey, I was the guy that ripped you off, I changed my mind, here’.”

The judge looked complacent for awhile, and then said:
“When I was a lil boy, I used to love climbin’ trees. But sometimes I’d get stuck, way up at the top of a fir. And I would start hollerin’ for my dad, and when he’d come, I’d say, ‘Dad, help! How do I get down?’ And you know what he’d say?”
“What does this have anything—“
“He’d say, ‘Well how did you get up there?’ And I’d think about it for a second, and bit by bit I’d work my way backwards down that tree. Worked every time.”
“So…”
“So yo in a tree, boy. How did you get up there?”
“I…stole?”
“And how did you steal?”
“By using parkour…”
“Yew got it. I’ll see yew tomorrow.”

So here I am, typing away, reviewing the conversation bit by bit and wondering what he could possibly have meant…Maybe it’ll hit me tomorrow.

-M.J.

posted by Mr. Linty @ 1:51 AM