I Stand Before You (Judge Me Not #2) (4 page)

I start climbing over the console to get the fuck out of there, but, suddenly, with every fiber of my being, I know I’ve just made the dumbest mistake of my life. That, however, doesn’t stop me from slipping down into the driver’s seat, throwing the car into reverse. I hit the gas, peel out of the parking lot, and leave a cloud of gravel and dust in my wake.

I’ve got the Focus up to eighty, music playing…loud, loud, fucking blaring. Maybe I can outrun this cocksucker? I’m tapping my hands on the steering wheel along with the beat, flying so fast it’s amazing I don’t lose control and crash.

But I don’t, I stay steady.

I even make it a good five miles down the road before a cop heading my way—backup, I’m sure—screeches to a wide arced stop in front of me. His patrol car blocks the entire road, so I have no choice but to hit the brakes and squeal to a halt.

My car ends up parallel to the cop car, both of us straddling the lanes, engines idling like we’re in some fucking action movie. The air reeks of burning rubber, and smoke billows around us. The speakers beat out a song from 50 Cent that is frankly ironic at this point.

When all the smoke clears, the sign for the lake is right smack dab in front of me. I can’t help but laugh. The shit situation I’m in, and all I can think of is that Crystal and Tammy are out there, waiting, for two boys who are never going to show.

Two more cops—including the one from the store—pull up behind me. I pitch the door open, tumble from the seat. I hit the warm pavement and try to stand. Someone yells, “Hold it right there, hands on your head.”

I hear guns being drawn, cocked. This isn’t a movie, I know they’re loaded. I squint to try to see what’s happening, but all the flashing lights leave me blinded. Before I can think another drug-muddled thought, someone tackles me from behind. My face smacks right into the yellow center line, but I don’t feel a fucking thing.

Whoever tackles me yanks down my hood, frisks me, and comes up with my wallet. Oh, and the forty hits of X, of course.

It’s all ambient noise from that point on, but I do hear, “Chase Gartner, you’re under arrest.”

I have no idea that, despite the altered state I’m in, these will be the last coherent words I remember for a very long time.

The time following has no sense of structure. Days, weeks, they all blend together. I’m in jail, facing a long, long list of charges. But it’s the X that has me fucked.

Bond is set high. I call my mom, but all she does is cry. Like, these horrible wailing sobs that do nothing but make my head ache more than ever. She keeps apologizing for not having the money and swears she’ll help me when she can. I hang up. I won’t be holding my breath. The past has taught me not to put too much stock into Abby’s flimsy promises. Mirages in the desert are what they are—get too close and they disappear.

My grandmother wants to mortgage the farmhouse, all the property around it. We’re talking a good fifty-five acres. It’d be enough to make bail, but I tell her
no way
. She’s done enough for me already, and look at how I’ve repaid her. I don’t deserve her money…or her love.

So I’m on my own. And not thinking very clearly. Once all the illegal shit is out of my system, I find myself in a constant state of agitation. I can’t sleep, I barely eat. I sweat bullets even when it feels like I’m freezing.

Eventually all that passes, but then all I want to do is fight. Like beat heads in. It’s worse than when I was back in Vegas; I feel so much more fucking rage. I sit around clenching my fists, hoping for a chance to kick some poor unsuspecting soul’s ass.

Finally, my wish is granted.

They throw a cellmate in with me and my ass is on him like an animal, beating the hell out of this never-saw-me-coming sap. But then two guards see what I’m doing, pull me off the bloodied and broken man, and promptly return the favor.

Another blur of pain.

This one, though, I welcome. The medical staff gives me plenty of drugs, legal ones this time. And still more before I am put before the judge.

Even in the sedated fog I float around in, I quickly learn the law…and some new math.

MDMA, Ecstasy—X, as I like to call it—is a schedule I narcotic, and carries as stiff a penalty as heroin if you’re caught dealing, which they naturally assume I was. Casual users don’t tote around forty-plus hits of Ecstasy, but dealers do.

I say nothing one way or the other to dispel their myth, I rat no one out. I just stay quiet and accept my fate.

My math lesson continues…

Ten pills are equal to one gram, and I’ve been caught with over forty pills. Forty pills equal four grams, which is more than enough to be charged with possession with intent to sell. But I already knew that part, right?

My lesson isn’t over though. It’s only just beginning.

I learn in Pennsylvania, the state in which I’ve been apprehended, four grams can easily earn you a prison sentence. This is especially true when you don’t have enough money to hire a good attorney. Add to that, your public defender isn’t getting paid enough to care. Not that you’re doing much to help the overworked, underpaid man do his job. And, oh yeah, don’t forget that one prior arrest for fighting last fall. It didn’t seem like much at the time, but it sure haunts your ass now.

Are you keeping up?

Some final math…

Four grams buys you a six-year sentence at a state correctional institute when you have no resources, and, really, no heart to fight it.

Twenty years of age feels like ninety when your freedom is stripped away.

It takes one hundred and forty-three steps to walk down a long, noisy corridor to reach cell block seventy-two.

And when they turn the key, you hear one life—the only one you’ve ever known up until now—ending.

“It’s all about the numbers, man,” as Tate would say.

It sure is, my friend. It sure is.

Four years later…

Chapter One

Chase

Seventy-two push-ups on the cold hardwood floor, seventy-two sit-ups.
It’s still all about the numbers, Tate, four years later.
But Tate is dead, overdosed at twenty-two. He never went to prison, never spent four years of his life in cell block seventy-two like I did. Yet he threw his life away all the same.

Seventy-two pull-ups at a bar I installed in the doorway of a room long forgotten in a house I don’t deserve.
Fuck,
no, make that forty-nine.
My ass is tired today, which is why I overslept. Damn Missy Metzger and her glitter-coated lips. Damn my lack of self-control.

Father Maridale would kick my ass all the way back across the state line if he knew what I’d done with the head of the bake committee.
Head.
I can’t help but laugh, because that sure does sum it up. Oh, if only the congregation of Holy Trinity Catholic Church knew how Missy spent her Saturday night. In an alley behind the Anchor Inn bar, down on her knees, worshipping my cock.

I shed the gray sweatpants I’m wearing, toss them into an overflowing laundry basket in the bathroom. Laundry, yet another thing I’ve neglected since getting out of prison. A whole month back in Harmony Creek, and I’m still adjusting to the little things a guy living alone needs to stay on top of.

Speaking of which…11:15…
shit.

Mass started fifteen minutes ago. Guess I am not going to make it today. A part of me feels shame for my indiscretion with Missy last night, but that part also feels relief. I don’t have to face Missy—or her mom—both of whom sit perched every week in the front pew.

I step into the tub and adjust the shower head; turn it on full blast. The pulsing water feels good and cleansing, I just wish it had the power to wash away my latest sin. I didn’t go out looking for trouble, I truly didn’t. I’d like to think my worst days are behind me. I’m determined to lead a better life, which includes staying clean. Sure, I drink a beer or two some evenings, usually while relaxing out on the porch swing in the back, watching the day fade into night while the frogs sing to each other down at the creek. But drinking is my only vice these days.

Okay, and maybe swearing. No, definitely swearing. But that’s it. Just drinking and swearing. And the drinking I keep to a minimum. Drugs? I’ve given them up completely. And I can’t remember the last time I got into a fight.

No, wait, that’s a lie. I do remember. It was two years ago in prison. And here’s what happened…

This new inmate—some skinhead who thought he was the biggest, baddest motherfucker to step into the joint—started up with me one morning in the exercise yard. He kept shooting his mouth off. That was his first mistake. The second was taking a bullshit swing at me when I laughed at his sorry ass and walked away.

Bad fucking move
.

I could go into details, tell you all I did, but let’s just say when I was done with him, dickhead was begging for mercy and crying for his mother. No joke. And no real surprise. It’s been my experience the biggest talkers fall the hardest and cry the loudest.

After spending a week in the infirmary, the skinhead gave me a wide berth whenever we crossed paths. If he had to address me, it was all “yes, sir,” “no, sir,” and then he’d get the fuck out of my way. Yeah, he’d been schooled.

I was never the biggest guy in prison—even standing at six two—but I was one of the strongest, one of the toughest. And, sadly, while serving time I learned a dozen ways to really hurt a guy.

But that’s all in the past. I’m trying to change my ways, make smarter choices, be a better person. I even have a job working for the church, doing maintenance and fixing shit. I like it, it’s good for me. The work keeps me busy. And I need that kind of structure. If idle hands really are the devil’s workshop, then I’m safe for now.

I spent most of last week working on—and fixing—an air-conditioning problem in the rectory. And on Friday I sealed more than a dozen leaks plaguing the stained glass windows in the church. Maybe even more impressive—at least to me—is that I’ve gotten up and dragged my ass to Mass three Sundays in a row. It’s a personal best, and Grandma Gartner would be proud if she were here today. Sadly, she’s not.

I chuckle, remembering how much she loved Holy Trinity Church, the congregation, especially. She knew everything going on with everybody, and always made it her mission to help when she could. Unfortunately, though I go to church, work for the church, I am sure not social like my grandmother used to be. I keep to myself during Mass, sit in the very back. I’d sit in the vestibule if I could get away with it. But Father Maridale would have my head. Speaking of which, that very same head is usually bowed in prayer—not unlike the ink angel that’s tattooed on my back—when I’m at my station in the back. I probably appear to be praying, however, try as I might I find I really don’t have much to say to God. At least, not yet.

Now, you’d think a man praying—or at least trying to—would warrant some respect. Apparently this is not the case in the minds of the Holy Trinity parishioners. My faux-praying sure as hell doesn’t stop them from turning around and craning their necks, all pretending to be looking at something other than me.

Well, they don’t fool me. I hear their whispers, feel their disapproving stares. I always dart for the doors the second Mass ends. I know what they’re thinking. They expect me to fuck up again, ruin the second chance Father Maridale—the leader of their flock—is giving me.

Shit, I can’t wait to prove every last one of those sanctimonious assholes wrong.

That’s why yesterday my simple plan had been to grab a beer and a burger down at the local watering hole, and then head home to catch some zees. But Missy, in her four-inch fuck-me heels, derailed that plan when she spotted me at the bar and started toward me, her purpose all too clear in her walk.

I used to see Missy periodically at parties before I got into trouble. She was never much of a party girl back then, despite her presence at some of the wilder bashes. But people change.

Over the past few weeks—until last night—my only interactions with Missy have been at church, and those usually involve catching her glancing back at me from the front pew. Not disapprovingly like the other parishioners, oh no. Missy always eyes me like I’m a piece of candy she wants to take a bite out of.

I shake my head, chuckle a little as I soap up my body. Missy sure got her wish last night…and then some. Fuck, I have to admit what she did to me felt good, really good, but what a mistake.

Hopefully, Missy will be more successful at keeping her mouth shut than she was last night behind the Anchor Inn. I groan a little at the thought of her making a big deal out of what happened. God, girls and their expectations, reading shit into anything physical that occurs. I hope Missy realizes our little tryst was a one-time deal. Somehow I doubt I’ll be so lucky.

I turn so the steaming water hits my back. I have the sneaking suspicion Missy, surely in church at this very moment, is probably looking back and wondering why I am not there. I can picture it perfectly: Missy—who always positions herself between her portly mom and some hot chick I’ve not yet had the pleasure of meeting—sitting there, not listening to Mass. Instead she’s surely thinking about last night and hoping it meant something, like I’m into her or something.
Dream on, sweetheart.

Now, if the mystery-hot chick who sits next to Missy had been the one to walk into the bar last night, I’d be singing an entirely different tune today. First off, I never would have treated Hot Chick the way I treated Missy, even if she is hot as fuck. Hot Chick just seems too…I don’t know…fragile maybe.

She’s a slender, tiny little thing. Pretty too, in a classic but understated kind of way. I like her delicate features, her porcelain skin, and the mane of chestnut-colored hair that flows down her back. And I
really
like her heart-shaped ass and the shapely legs she shows off in pretty dresses. Not to mention her perky tits that she tries to hide under pastel cardigan sweaters. Damn, I like those too.

My dick reminds me of just how much I like Hot Chick’s assets as I finish showering. I think about lingering a few extra minutes, but there’s really no time for
that
, so I push down on my length and turn off the water.

Grabbing a towel from the bar by the sink, I dry off and give myself some time to cool down. I pad back into the bedroom, tamping down any lingering lust-ridden thoughts, and pondering how the fuck I’ve never run into this hot chick before, seeing as she seems to be around my age.

She must be new to Harmony Creek, I conclude, because I never once saw her back when I was living here. I would definitely recollect if I had met
her
.

If she is new to town I bet she lives south of Market Street—the main thoroughfare running through town. South of Market is where all the important people live—the mayor, members of the town council, prominent business owners, and the like.

I should know; my family once lived there. Back before we moved to Vegas, back when I was a different person, on a different path.

Whatever.

In any case, Hot Chick sure looks like she’d fit in down there south of Market—all prim and proper in her girly-girl dresses and pastel sweaters. I guess what I’m saying is that she’s someone who wouldn’t be caught dead with the likes of me. Maybe the person I was a long time ago would’ve had a chance, but the damaged man I’ve become doesn’t deserve someone good and wholesome like that. I’m doomed to make due with the Missy Metzgers of the world.

It’s almost noon and Mass should be letting out, which is great. By the time I get over to the church everyone will be gone. I’d rather not go at all, but I have to stop by and pick something up. Now that summer vacation has officially begun, Father Maridale has all these painting projects for me to start on. Most are over in the school next to the church. I’m supposed to get started tomorrow bright and early. But I don’t yet have a key, so I need to pick one up. Unfortunately, that entails a visit to the church, and a face-to-face with the priest who saw enough good in me to hire my sorry ass last month.

Standing before the closet in my bedroom, I decide it’d be prudent—especially since I missed Mass—to dress respectably. I flip through the hangers, and stop when I come to the nicest pair of pants I own. I run a finger down the sharp creases of the tailored, black dress slacks my mother bought me to wear before the judge who ended up granting me my freedom.

I sigh and pull the pants off the hangar.

Also thanks to Mom, I now own a nice collection of button-down shirts, in a vast array of colors. I just grab the first one I see—white, crisp, and cotton. Perfect, I’ll be in black and white, just like Father Maridale. The sinner and the saint, matched.

While I dress in these so-not-me clothes, I think about how much they must’ve cost. But it’s not like my mother can’t afford pricey things these days. Like I said before, people change…and some get lucky.

For Abby, it’s the latter that applies. I guess the cost of some fancy duds is a small price to pay when all you want is for your son to look the part of a respectable young man.

What a joke. None of this stuff is my style. I am jeans and T-shirts, hoodies and Converse. Comfortable, that’s me. But today, like at the courthouse over a month ago, I’ll go back to playing a part. All white cotton-tucked, black slacks belted, and leather dress shoes shined to a fault.

After I finish dressing for my role, I comb my fingers through my hair, hair that’s grown a lot since getting out of prison. That’s right—no more buzz cuts for me. My hair’s a little less unruly than usual and, shit, that’s good enough.

Downstairs, I grab my keys, then head out to my newest acquisition—a truck I bought following my return to Harmony Creek. She’s a beast, not a bitch, a good work truck, a no-frills F-150. Some guy who lives up by the Agway offered it to me for far less than its worth. He needed the money, and I needed something to drive—thanks to the court reinstating my license. Since the deal on the truck was too good to pass up I dipped into some of the money I inherited from my grandmother. The truck is a few years old, and the white paint has a few dings and scratches, but mechanically she’s pristine. And that’s really all that matters.

I depress the clutch, turn the key. She starts right up. I push the gearshift into reverse and back out of the gravel driveway. There’s never much traffic out where I live, so I’m able to back right out onto Cold Springs Lane.

I shift into first and roll up to a stop sign. Still no traffic as I turn left onto the state route that takes you straight into Harmony Creek central. I live a few miles outside the east boundary of town, where it’s all farm-on-farm. Country-styled houses, barns, and, this time of year, endless fields of newly planted corn. Since the church sits directly where country bleeds into town—where the state route becomes Market Street—it’s not going to be a long drive. But today I’m in no rush. So I take it slow, shift gears lazily, and focus on savoring this late-spring day.

Being locked up for four years has a way of making you appreciate all the little things you once took for granted. Things like how a slate-gray, rain-promising sky, like the one above me right now, really brings out the emerald green of the low-lying hills in the distance. This is how I imagine a place like Ireland must look every day. It’s stunning if you really let yourself see.

I follow the curve of the road and lightning flashes, forking behind a stark red barn in the distance. A light rain begins to fall, and, as I flip on the wipers, two bay mares in a field to my right seek shelter.

This countryside is serene; it takes my breath away. I took all of this for granted for far too long. I didn’t know what I had four years ago, what I’d had all along. I used to long to leave, but now I’m just grateful to be back. I missed this place. It’s the closest thing to home that I’ve got.

That’s why I’d be crazy to mess things up this early in my return.