The Hour I First Believed

  Maureen sighed in disgust. “Misconduct: it makes it sound like I should go to the principal’s office. You all seem to be forgetting that I took a seventeen-year-old boy’s life.”

  Lena smiled, softened her voice. “Hon, you may feel like waving the white flag right now. But there’s a big difference between a ten-year sentence and a five-year one. You were a victim, too, Maureen. Don’t lose sight of that. What happened to the Seaberry kid would not have happened if those little psychopaths out there in Colorado hadn’t damaged you. Now you’re definitely going to have to do some jail time; we don’t see any way around it. But I’ll be damned if we’re going to let them lock you up for a whole decade. Okay?”

  Looking down at the floor, Maureen nodded.

  “So just to summarize,” Nick said, “what we’re looking for from the prosecution is a downgrade to class D, and what we’re willing to give them in exchange is a guilty plea under the Alford. If we get what we want, Maureen’s out in five years max, but we might have a decent shot at five, suspended after three. Or if we really get lucky, three years, suspended after two.”

  “One more thing,” Lena said. “We’ve heard that the boy’s mother is consulting with Jack Horshack, the victims’ advocate for the state. Remember Arnold Horshack on that show, Welcome Back, Kotter? Not too far off. But the reason we’ve got to worry about Jack is, he sees things in black and white. There’s good guys and bad guys, and you never show the bad guys any mercy. My guess is, if the kid’s mother decides she wants them to throw the book at Maureen, Jack’s the one who’s fanning her fire. And like we said, the chief state’s attorney’s going to want Mom on board if they make a deal with us. What I imagine happening—if they deal—is that they’ll tell Mama to go along with them on the criminal side of the equation. Then they can whack you guys in the civil case.”

  “What do you mean, whack us?” I asked.

  Nick was opening his mouth to answer when Maureen began crying and banging her fists against the table. “It’s all so calculating,” she said. “Deals, politics. I’m guilty! I killed him!”

  I got her calmed down, got her coat. On our way out, I asked Lena if there was anything else she needed me to do.

  “Yeah. Pray we don’t get Judge Douville or Judge LaCasse. Most of the others will be inclined to factor in the mitigating circumstances when they sentence her. But not those two.”

  We got LaCasse.

  We got the deal: misconduct with a motor vehicle, class D. A five-year prison sentence, to be suspended after three years, if LaCasse gave his blessing.

  Under Victims’ Advocate Horshack’s advisement, Carole Alderman invoked her allocution rights so that she might address the court before Maureen was sentenced. I heard later that Jesse Seaberry’s request to address the court, too, was impromptu—that he had approached Horshack at the hearing and told him he wanted to speak, and that the blood had drained from Horshack’s face.

  Jesse was called first. Given what I’d read about their father-and-son acrimony in “A Victim’s Victims,” I thought it odd that the boy was sitting with his father. When he walked past his mother and nodded a hello, she turned away.

  Judge LaCasse informed Jesse that in his courtroom, men didn’t wear bandannas. “Yeah?” Jesse replied, as if he’d just been presented with an interesting but irrelevant factoid. Horshack stood and whispered something to him. “Oh, right. Sorry, Your Excellency,” Jesse said, yanking off the bandanna. LaCasse told the kid he’d had an appointment to the bench, not a coronation. Jesse nodded in puzzled agreement. He turned and faced Maureen.

  “I guess if life was fair, you should have killed me, not my brother,” he said. “Because I’m the one who isn’t worth much. My brother was, though. Morgan was my hero in a lot of ways, you know? Even though he was younger than me. But I never got the chance to tell him that…. He had a future, you know? He was good at things, whatever he tried.” Jesse looked from Mo to his mother. “He wasn’t perfect, though. And he didn’t want to be perfect, either.” Carole Alderman locked her arms around her chest and glared at him.

  Jesse looked back at Mo. “But he was a great guy. And me, hey, I’m just a druggie, same as you. Except I didn’t kill anyone. So, you know, you did the crime, you gotta do the time, right?…But I don’t hate you or anything. I don’t know. Maybe I should, but I don’t. All’s I want to say to you is that Morgan’s death kind of woke me up, you know? Me and my dad made up at the funeral, and I’m living with him now. Him and my stepmother. I got a job at this furniture warehouse? Operating a forklift? And I been clean and sober for forty-one days now. Which is a somewhat large deal for me…. And all I’m trying to say to you is that maybe you could do like I did. Let it wake you up, you know what I’m saying? While you’re doing your time. Okay?”

  Mo had been standing there, her hand over her mouth, her cheeks wet with tears. She had nodded at everything Jesse said. Her words, after he’d finished, were nearly inaudible. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. Peace out.” He looked up at LaCasse. “You, too, Judge.”

  “And peace to you, sir,” LaCasse said. “Keep up the good work.”

  Carole Alderman had brought two things with her to the sentencing hearing: a framed assemblage of snapshots that showed Morgan’s progression from infancy to adolescence, and her leather-bound copy of Who’s Who in American High Schools, 2002–2003. She asked that the assemblage be placed on the table in front of Maureen. The judge nodded and a sheriff took it from her and did as she asked. Carole Alderman, too, spoke directly to Maureen.

  “Look at me, please,” she said, and Mo, shaking violently, raised her eyes. Ms. Alderman was dry-eyed and composed. “Practiced,” Lena said later.

  “I understand you have no children, Mrs. Quirk, so I don’t expect you to fully understand what this ordeal has been like for me. Mothers know things about life that women who aren’t mothers don’t know. Mothers love more deeply than any other people on earth. But I want you to try to understand as best you can what I have to say. All right?”

  Maureen nodded. I took a breath because I was pretty sure things were about to get brutal.

  “Morgan was the light of my life, Mrs. Quirk—the sweetest, kindest, most talented, most genuine young man you would ever hope to know. Someone who’s here in this courtroom today told a reporter some malicious lies about my son—for which I will never, ever forgive that person—and that reporter, a woman whom I trusted and allowed into my home, saw fit to repeat those lies in a national magazine. But Mrs. Quirk, I assure you, the truth speaks louder than vengeful lies, and the beautiful truth is that people loved Morgan Seaberry. His teachers, his teammates, his wide circle of friends. They cheered him on the soccer field, applauded him on the stage, laughed at his jokes. We all bathed in the glow of Morgan’s presence.”

  As Ms. Alderman spoke of her son’s accomplishments, his listing in Who’s Who in American High Schools, she raised the volume above her head, as if it was something sacred. Then she kissed the book and put it down.

  “He had a wonderful life ahead of him, Mrs. Quirk,” she said. “And please, once again, I ask that you look at me while I’m speaking to you…. Thank you. As I was saying, Morgan’s future was a bright one. He would have given so, so much back to the world. But because you chose to steal drugs, inject them into your arm, and then get behind the wheel of a car, my son never got to live past October of his senior year. And so, the prom, the class trip to Six Flags, graduation day: he won’t get to go to any of those, thanks to you. You snuffed out his life, Mrs. Quirk. Those two boys in Colorado used guns, and you used your car. But the result was the same.”

  Maureen stood there, wailing now, but Carole Alderman wouldn’t stop.

  “I’m told you were a good nurse, Mrs. Quirk—that your elderly patients, and the children at the school where you worked, liked you very much. That they trusted you. And I’ve heard, too, that you were devastated by the shootings at Columbine. But in spite of all that, you, who were, by
profession, a healer, got into your car, drove under the influence, and killed my son. So I don’t care how wondeful a nurse you were, or how much trauma you suffered because of those shootings out there. You murdered my son, Mrs. Quirk, and because of that, you rip the beating heart out of my chest every single day of my life. Several times a day, in fact. Because just as you will never know the depth of a mother’s love, you cannot ever know the depth of a mother’s suffering when she has to bury her child.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mo wailed. “I’m so, so sorry.” She was doubled over in pain. Lena, standing beside her, rubbed her back. Nick, seated next to me, grabbed onto my shoulder. “It’s almost over,” he whispered.

  Carole Alderman turned to the judge. “Your honor,” she said. “I understand from Mr. Horshack that the prosecutor and Mrs. Quirk’s lawyers have come to an agreement that would allow her to leave prison after the third year of a five-year sentence. And I ask you, I beg you, sir, to reject that compromise, which I understand it is in your power to do. Three years? Thirty-six months for the life of my son? Please, your honor. Take into consideration that this woman has given my family and me a life sentence of suffering. If her sentence is to be five years, then please, please make her serve the full five years.”

  LaCasse twiddled with the pencil he was holding, swiveled back and forth in his big leather chair. Under his breath, Nick whispered, “Shit.”

  As we waited for the judge’s response, a commotion erupted at the back of the room. I glanced back quickly. A sheriff and a young woman were arguing with each other in hushed tones.

  “Ms. Alderman,” LaCasse said. “I’m going to grant you your request.” He was in the middle of explaining why when the woman in back broke free and ran forward, calling to the judge.

  “Don’t! It’s bogus what that lady said! She’s nothing like that!”

  By the time I looked away from the tussle between Velvet Hoon and the two sheriffs who had wrestled her to the floor, a third sheriff was hurrying Maureen toward the door.

  “No, wait!” I called. “Please just let me—”

  “Don’t listen to any of that stuff she said about you, Mom! I’m going to come visit you! I love you, Mom!”

  I stood there, fingering the wedding band Maureen had taken off and handed to me before the hearing began. I hoped she might turn back to look at me, but she didn’t. She was heading out the door and on her way to Quirk Correctional Institution, the prison that my radical great-grandmother had dared imagine into existence in the early years of the previous century, and which, ninety-odd years later, had strayed unrecognizably from her vision.

  “Get your fucking hands off of me! I LOVE YOU, MOM!”

  I held Mo’s wedding ring tight in my fist and watched her go.

  chapter seventeen

  DRIVING THROUGH THREE RIVERS’ DESERTED downtown, I passed the Savings and Loan sign at the exact second when the time changed from 11:59 to midnight.

  Thursday, September 1, 2005.

  Bodies were floating facedown in New Orleans. The death count in Iraq was ratcheting up. The shadow of 9/11 was over us all. “Yes, yes, Mr. Quirk. So much to grieve and worry about these days,” Dr. Patel had acknowledged the day before, interrupting my CNN-fueled rant about the state of the world. “But tell me. What is the good news?”

  “The good news?” She’d looked so anticipatory, I’d felt like a game show contestant. “I don’t know, Doc. Can’t be that we’re stuck with Dubya and Darth Vader for another three-plus years. Or that I owe my wife’s lawyers more money than I made in income last year. Or that, if the Seaberrys go ahead with the civil suit, they could end up owning the home I live in and the land it sits on. Good news, huh? Gee, you stumped me on that one.”

  But now I had an answer for her. If it was September 1, then the good news was that Maureen Quirk, State of Connecticut Inmate #383–642, had survived the first two months of her sentence.

  Why was I behind the wheel at midnight? Because Alphonse had had to rush down to Florida. Mr. Buzzi had gotten tangled up in his garden hose, fallen, and broken his hip, and Mrs. Buzzi had gotten herself so worked up about it that her shingles had come back. And while Al was down there, running back and forth from the hospital to his parents’ trailer park, his night baker had quit on him. “No notice,” Al had said when he called in the favor. “Leaves me a fuckin’ text-message that his keys are on the shelf above the prep table and him and his girlfriend are on their way to New Mexico. And you should see her, Quirky. Looks like she walked off the set of Planet of the Apes. If I had to drive cross-country with that, I’d shoot myself. Dipshit missing-front-tooth motherfucker. Good riddance. I’m glad he’s gone.”

  I’d tried to get out of it. If I worked third shift, then I had to sleep days, and visiting hours at the prison were from two to three thirty. On top of that, the semester at Oceanside was starting in less than a week, and my department chair had saddled me, last minute, with another teacher’s class. The good news, Dr. Patel, was that teaching three sections instead of two made me eligible for health care. The bad news was: How was I supposed to write a syllabus until I got the reading done, and how was I going to get the reading done if I was up all night cutting, proofing, frying, and filling doughnuts?

  But mentioning semesters and syllabi was like speaking Sanskrit to Alphonse Buzzi. “Last couple months, I ain’t even been making my expenses,” he’d confided. “It’s this fuckin’ heat, man. Who wants coffee and doughnuts when it’s ninety-eight degrees and you’re walking around in your own pig sweat?” I’d almost mentioned global warming—Alphonse had voted for Bush in 2000 and, unforgivably, again in 2004—but instead I’d let him ramble. “I’m a month behind on my rent. I’m buying on credit from my coffee guy and U.S. Foods. And now Numb Nuts bails on me. If my morning regulars see the lights off and a sign on the door, they’re gonna drive down the road to Dunkin’ Donuts and never come back. Coolatas, smoothies, iced fuckin’ Dunkaccinos. What are they gonna offer next—handjobs while you’re waiting in the drive-thru line? Honest to God, Quirky, I wouldn’t ask you if I wasn’t desperate. Trust me. I’m desperate.” And because he’d sounded close to tears, I’d agreed and gotten off the phone ASAP. Alphonse had cried in my presence once before, the night his brother died—had blubbered and choked and said it should have been him, not Rocco, who got leukemia. That it would have been easier on his folks if it had been him. Two months earlier, at the sentencing hearing, I’d heard the same thing from another surviving sibling: Jesse Seaberry. I wondered how he was doing now, sobriety-wise. Wouldn’t want to bet the farm on that kid’s staying on the straight and narrow….

  “Very stressful, Mr. Quirk,” Dr. Patel had concurred. “A large debt, a worrisome lawsuit, a spouse in prison. I acknowledge that your burdens are heavy ones.” She was nodding so sympathetically, I hadn’t noticed the brass knuckles. “And we can continue this pity party if you’d like. But since we have just this one session together, might I suggest we take a different approach?”

  Pity party? The hell with her. I hadn’t gone there to be ridiculed. I’d gone so that she could call some colleague who’d call in a prescription—something to help me sleep. I’d been overdoing it on the Katrina coverage, then dropping across the bed, exhausted but too agitated to sleep. Eyes closed, I’d keep seeing people stranded on their rooftops, wading neck-deep through that bacterial stew. Blacks, mostly—just like over there at the prison. You sit in the visiting room, and it’s maybe eight or nine to one, black to white. All that phony outrage about New Orleans from the politicians and pundits: it was a bullshit show. All Katrina did was shine a spotlight on what this country’s been tolerating since the days of the slave ships….

  “What do you mean, a different approach?” I’d asked Patel.

  “Tell me again, Mr. Quirk, the name of the new course you’re to teach.” So I’d told her: The Quest in Literature.

  “The Quest in Literature. Ah, yes. Lovely. It’s a shame my schedule won’t allow it, becaus
e that is a course I would like to take myself. But I’m wondering if, as you teach this material, you might also launch yourself on a quest. A personal one, I mean.” A quest for what? A yellow Mustang? “And, Mr. Quirk, I see from your countenance that you are immediately skeptical.”

  “I’m not skeptical. I’m…What kind of a quest?”

  She smiled, sipped her tea. Didn’t answer the question….

  MULTIPLY 365 DAYS BY FIVE, add one day for leap year, and you get a 1,826-day prison sentence. Subtract the 62 days she’d already served—July and August—and it equaled 1,764 more to go. I’d computed it the day before—had done the math on the inside of a paperback while I was cooling my jets in the waiting area where they corral the lawyers and loved ones. There’s a lot of hurry-upand-wait at Quirk CI. Two months has taught me that. Weekday visits are supposed to be ninety minutes long, but by the time their afternoon count clears and they search the women who have visitors, you’re lucky if there’s three-quarters of an hour left. Complaining is useless. I swear they must train corrections officers how to make that look-right-through-you face if you object to something. I’ve gotten that same look from three or four different COs. Now I just bring something to read and keep my mouth shut. Ancient Myth and Modern Man: that was the paperback I was reading. It was one of the books I’d be teaching.

  The Quest in Literature. The guy who’d been teaching it was one of those hipster professors with the ponytail and the piercings. “But Caelum, you’ve been asking me to assign you something other than the composition course,” my department chair reminded me.

  “Yeah, but under different circumstances.”