The Prodigal: A Ragamuffin Story

  They thought he was still in jail. It had been on all the channels.

  “Nah,” he told them. “I got sprung.” He thought that’s what tough guys said.

  “If you’d read the petition,” one of the lawyers had said, “you’d know that the court-mandated visitation is already in place. Starting with this first visit.”

  “Okay,” he said. “That’s cool. If Tracy would answer her phone, I could have just confirmed this with her.”

  “I’d imagine that Mrs. Chisholm retained counsel so that she wouldn’t have to coordinate with you,” the lawyer said briskly.

  In a movie, Jack would prepare to defend himself with eloquence and grit, but this was real life. He had nothing to prepare. He was going to show up in municipal court where an angry mayor was waiting to ambush him. He figured it would be the two of them arguing, maybe yelling, the municipal judge to mediate, maybe Randy giving evidence.

  Whoever showed up, Jack did not expect things to go well. But what was the worst they could do? Fine him?

  He was broke.

  Throw him in jail again?

  Randy didn’t want to feed him. Jack suspected he’d smuggle him a file.

  Embarrass him?

  Jack thought it was entirely possible after all he’d been through of late he would never blush again.

  They were going to throw the book at him. Maybe several books. Heavy ones.

  “So be it,” Jack said as he dressed for court: Wranglers, boots, his blue oxford button-down, an ancient navy blazer of his father’s with mammoth golden buttons, which Mary insisted he wear.

  “No tie,” he said to Mary, whose lip was protruding. Mary thought he should dress like an old IBM executive.

  Jack couldn’t find a parking place on Main Street for his own hearing. More media vans were in town than the previous Sunday. “Why does anybody care about this?” he wondered aloud as he found a spot two blocks away.

  As he got out of the car, his phone started ringing. He answered as he closed the car door.

  “Jack,” said Martin Fox. “Just calling to wish you luck in your hearing. And to let you know that we’ve sent a little legal help your way.”

  “Get out,” Jack said.

  “No, really,” Martin said. “We want to manage this and get you back to Seattle as soon as possible.”

  “No, really,” Jack said. “Get out. I didn’t ask for your help. I’m a—what was it you called me?—a laughingstock. A cliché.”

  “No, no,” Martin assured him. “We are not embarrassed by this at all. This is a social justice issue. You’re on the side of the angels. We’ll get this little matter resolved, and—”

  “I don’t need your help, Martin,” Jack said. “And I don’t want it.”

  Martin was silent. Jack imagined his brain running through rapid calculations like one of those 1950s computer banks before it spit out a conclusion.

  “Think of them as advisors, then,” he said. “Consultants. There if you need them. We’re with you, Jack. We’re always with you.”

  “Sure you are,” Jack said.

  More silent calculation. “We just needed a little time, you see—”

  “I’m at the hearing now,” Jack said.

  “We’ll talk soon—” Martin was saying when Jack hung up. He was swimming through media as soon as they saw him. What were all these people doing? One might think he drowned his children in a bathtub, killed and dismembered a coed. America’s insatiable appetite for somebody else’s drama was drowning him.

  “Let him through,” said the outsized voice of Dennis Mays. “Let him through, or so help me God—” And suddenly a path opened where there had been none. Once again, Dennis was running interference. Jack found the hole, followed him into the building.

  “You didn’t have to come—” Jack began.

  “We all wanted to be here,” Dennis said.

  They were walking down the long tiled hallway to the municipal courtroom.

  “We,” Jack said.

  Dennis nodded.

  “All,” Jack said.

  Dennis nodded again, and a smile grew across his face. He pushed open the doors to the courtroom, and Jack heard before he saw that it was packed with people, with parishioners from the churches, with patrons of the hardware store, with domino buddies of his father’s. More than a hundred people were packed into a room intended for fifty—they were sitting, they were standing, they were talking and gesturing wildly, Lutheran with Baptist, Catholic with heathen.

  There sat Warren and Van Koenig. And Shayla Pierce. There was Betty from The Lunch Counter. Darla Scroggins Taylor, waving from her spot at the back of the courtroom. Nora Calhoun was seated with who he assumed was her granddaughter Lyndi. Even Manny, for crying out loud, was sitting and laughing with Mrs. Gutierrez. Maybe they were swapping stories about Pancho Villa.

  He was stunned. He stood frozen in his steps. He thought about the back porch of his hotel room in Isla Mujeres, remembered how just a few weeks ago he had been alone and abandoned and at the point of death.

  “Come on, Twelve,” Dennis said. “You didn’t think your friends would let you go through this alone, did you?”

  “Wow,” Jack said. He looked up at Dennis. “How much did you pay them to show up?”

  Dennis let out a whoop that brought the attention of all in their direction. “It’s on the house,” Dennis said and then gave him a slap on the shoulder that like to have knocked off one of his arms.

  They walked down to the front and took their places at the defendant’s table, where three strangers were already situated. Lawyers, Jack guessed, by their elegant suits and disdain.

  “Reverend Chisholm,” the oldest and most distinguished of them said, standing. “We’re here on behalf—”

  “You’ll need to scoot on down a ways,” Jack said, indicating the prodigious bulk of Dennis Mays, “to make room for my lead counsel.”

  “Gentlemen,” Dennis said, as a giant might say “Fee fi fo fum.” An unseemly and fearful shuffle ensued to get out of the way, so that the youngest counsel was actually sitting three feet past the table by the time all were settled.

  “All rise,” the court clerk called. The courtroom rose with the sound of thunder. It was like the congregation at Saint Paul’s coming to their feet to pray or sing, and the same again when they settled back in.

  “In the matter of City of Mayfield versus Jack Chisholm,” the clerk read. “How do you plead?” He looked at the big-city attorneys. The eldest indicated Dennis with a sideways swipe of his head.

  “Your Honor,” Dennis said, getting to his feet and tucking his shirt back in, “we are absolutely not to be blamed in this travesty of justice.”

  The clerk blinked. Dennis crashed back into his chair.

  “Let the record indicate,” Judge Leonard Clark drawled, “that the defendant pleads not guilty.” He looked down at his paperwork. “Mayor,” the judge said to James Taylor, who sat at the other table with the city attorney, “I understand you brought this cause forward?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” James said, getting to his feet. “I did indeed. A matter of public health and safety. Mr. Chisholm has organized—if one can dignify these gatherings with the word—three build-for-alls in which no permits have been filed. He has employed the most amateur of carpenters, including high-school boys with sledgehammers.”

  “Like your own son,” came a quiet but clear male voice from the gallery.

  “We will have no interruptions from the gallery,” the judge said. “This is a hearing, not a city council meeting.” He looked down at the papers in front of him. “This is a—creative—list of offenses.”

  The city attorney stood. “The city didn’t choose the offenses, Your Honor. The defendant did. His actions are a danger to the health and welfare—”

  “Call your witness,” the judge said.

  Randy Fields walked up to the stand. His jaw was set, and he appeared angry. Very angry. He looked at Jack, at James, shook his head.
Foolishness.

  The city attorney stood and made his way forward. “Chief Fields,” he said. “You were in attendance at all three of these disorganized free-for-alls.”

  The distinguished attorneys from Seattle looked at Dennis.

  “Umm, objection?” Dennis said.

  “Sustained,” the judge said. “Ask a question, Mr. Prana.”

  “Chief,” he said, rephrasing, “did you witness three occasions in which the defendant gathered people for building projects?”

  Randy nodded, almost imperceptibly.

  “Out loud, Chief,” the judge said.

  “Yes,” Randy spat.

  “Did you personally see the defendant erecting buildings without a proper permit?” the city attorney asked.

  Randy sat, his face rigid.

  “Randy,” James said, a warning in his voice.

  The judge waved a finger at James. “Pipe down, Mr. Mayor.”

  The crowd listened with rapt attention. Something was happening up on the stand. But what?

  “Chief,” the city attorney repeated. “What did you see—”

  “I am not going to do this,” Randy Fields said suddenly. He looked across the courtroom at the mayor. “You can fire me, James. But you and I both know why—”

  “Randy!” James said, leaping to his feet.

  “Permission to treat the witness as hostile,” the city attorney blurted.

  The judge held up a hand to quiet them all. “Chief?”

  Randy took off his chief’s hat, rolled it in his hands. He looked sideways at the judge.

  He looked out at the courtroom full of people, a community that had formed in recent days around these building projects.

  He looked at Jack.

  “I don’t like the defendant,” he said. “Never have. But truth is, he hasn’t done anything but good for this town since he come back.”

  “Randy!” James shouted again, although it was all but drowned out by the roar that went up from the courtroom.

  Leonard Clark banged his gavel for a full thirty seconds before he got some semblance of order. “Chief,” he asked quietly, when he could hear himself again, “are we having a hearing today?”

  Randy looked at James, who now was sporting the white-jawed anger. It wasn’t any more appealing on him.

  He looked at the judge.

  He looked at Jack.

  He looked out across the courtroom, at one hundred people holding their breath.

  And Randy shook his head.

  “No, Judge,” he said. “I don’t believe we are.” He glanced at Jack, shook his head as though he couldn’t believe what he was about to say, and then he said, “The Mayfield Police Department will not present any evidence that this defendant has committed an offense.”

  James leapt to his feet again—but his action was lost in the rising of most of the people in the courtroom.

  The judge raised a hand to Jack. Well. There you are. He struck his gavel once, and Jack could almost make out the judge saying, “Cause dismissed.”

  Dennis was clapping him painfully on the back, the lawyers were shaking hands with each other and with Dennis, all of them were laughing. And that was when he realized.

  He looked around the courtroom, and he saw a community of people who wanted to hope, who wanted to love, who wanted to serve.

  “All these people—” he began.

  And in that moment, he made his decision.

  “I know what I’m going to do,” he whispered.

  “What’s that, Twelve?” Dennis asked.

  Jack shook his hand. “Great defense,” was all he said. “Come on. Let’s go talk to the press.”

  Dennis made a way for him through the congratulations, through the celebration. On his way out, Jack touched hands, bumped fists, pointed at people far off the aisle like he’d seen the president do at the State of the Union address. One of those at whom he pointed was Father Frank, who’d been sitting directly behind their table with some of his parishioners.

  Again, he could not hear what Frank was saying, but he could read his lips: “Well done, boyo,” he was saying, and offering two thumbs up.

  Jack nodded to him. He smiled.

  Frank was going to like this next part a lot.

  Once they were outside, Jack took a place on the top step, and the media gathered around. Dennis took a place alongside him, not because he wanted to be on camera, but because he couldn’t get back offstage without crushing someone. The Seattle lawyers tried to elbow their way on camera, but found that the media types were hungrier for a story than they themselves were hungry for publicity. They contented themselves with milling about near the doors.

  “Jack,” was the universal cry. “Jack.” Cameras were clicking, video cameras were thrust in his direction, invading his Soviet airspace.

  He held up his hands for silence, made motions that they should make a little room, and eventually—as with the judge pounding his gavel—silence fell, more or less.

  “I’m going to make a statement,” he said, “and then I will take a few questions.”

  “Finally,” said a reporter who was probably itching to return to civilization and eat sushi again.

  “I am grateful to Judge Clark and Chief Fields for recognizing that helping your neighbor is not a crime but a civic duty. We are only as strong as we are united. And after seeing the way people have responded to the very real needs of the elderly and the poor in this community, next week, I’m going to ask the local churches to join me in filing legal documents for a new nonprofit focused on charitable building for our neighbors. We’ll call it—” He looked around the crowd, the eyes and expressions intent on his next words. “We’ll call it ‘Face-to-Face.’”

  “Are you going back to Seattle, Jack?” came a voice from the crowd. He held up a hand, shook his head. He was not ready to take that question.

  “Like many small towns in America, Mayfield, Texas, has suffered hard times. But the people here are filled with joy, courage, kindness, and more energy than I remembered. This is a good place. The people here are good people.”

  Some of the reporters were writing furiously on their pads. He noted that Kathy Branstetter was standing among them. She wasn’t looking up at him though.

  “Last year, I made a series of mistakes. I say ‘series.’ For the first time in my life, I was unfaithful to my wife, and then I lied about it. I refused to accept responsibility. I tried to pretend it didn’t happen. In the process, I hurt her, my family, and the church I built in Seattle, Grace Cathedral, a great church with a bright future.”

  “Jack,” someone said, and again he held up his hand.

  “I am sorry for that act, for those acts that followed it, for bringing shame to those who loved me. What I did was wrong, and I apologize. To my wife, to my family, to my church, to everyone who trusted me and feels that I betrayed that trust. I know that some of you won’t be able to forgive me. I know that others won’t be able to forget what I did and move on. I am sorry for that, as well.

  “But in the midst of that sorrow, I am grateful for everything I’ve learned about friendship, about family, about a God who loves us even when we fail. I’m so grateful to know that even in the midst of that sorrow, there’s the possibility of moving forward, one day at a time.”

  He looked out at the media. “If you’ll let me see hands, I’ll take a couple of orderly questions now.”

  They were not orderly. They started shouting. He held up his own hands until some order was restored.

  “Raise your hand,” he said, “and I will call on you.”

  “You,” he said, calling on the wildly waving hand of the network anchor just beneath him.

  “We’ve been doing our show all week from Mayfield,” the anchor said. “This is the real America, where people help each other and the government doesn’t get in people’s way—”

  “Do I hear a question in there?” Jack asked.

  The anchor was affronted, but he recovered and smi
led smoothly. “Why did you come home to Mayfield?” he asked.

  Jack smiled. “I didn’t come here of my own accord,” he said. “My father rescued me. When I didn’t have anyplace else to go, when I didn’t deserve it, he came and brought me home. And I’m more grateful for that than I will ever be able to say. Thank you, Dad.”

  “Are you going back to Seattle?” a female reporter shouted. Kathy was suddenly looking up, waiting for an answer.

  “You didn’t raise your hand,” Jack said. He looked across the crowd at Kathy.

  “You,” he said. “Kathy Branstetter of the Washington Post,” he said.

  She looked at him uncertainly.

  He nodded.

  She raised her hand.

  He nodded again.

  “Are—” She looked down at her notes for a moment, then she stood up straight, and her voice gained confidence. “Are you staying in Mayfield, or will you be returning to your church in Seattle?”

  “I’m glad you asked me that,” he said. “There seems to have been a lot of misunderstanding about what I was doing here. I didn’t help build a roof for a needy friend because I wanted you to pay attention to me. I didn’t agree to speak at my family’s church because I had a secret agenda.”

  He raised his hands to his chest. “I discovered that I had things I was supposed to be doing right here in Mayfield, Texas.”

  And he nodded at Kathy Branstetter. “So I’ll be staying right here.”

  She nodded back, and a smile flickered across her face before she recaptured her dignity.

  “The Washington Post is happy to hear it,” she said.

  Jack’s phone started to ring before he could take his next question, and he pulled it from his pocket, took a look. Martin Fox. Seattle, Washington. “I’m going to make my life here in Mayfield,” he went on, shoving Martin back into his pocket. “I’m going to love my family, raise my daughter, cultivate my friendships, write, teach, try to serve God.”

  He shrugged, raised his palms in front of him. “It isn’t going to look like ten thousand people listening to me go on about things. It’s certainly not going to look like this, with the camera scrum and all of you wondering what I had for breakfast. Eggs, by the way. So I guess I have no idea what life is going to look like. But a clergy friend of mine said the other day, ‘Better the battered soul who lives his life on a voyage of discovery than the timid soul who never finds out who he is.’