Scott Pratt - Injustice for all

A bailiff moves to within five feet of Ray, his gun pointed at Ray’s head.

“Put the gun down! Now!” the bailiff screams. Another is approaching from the rear.

Ray looks at the bailiff. Then he looks back at the bench, where Judge Green-dead, wounded, or cowering-has disappeared.

Then Ray looks at me.

“Good-bye, my friend,” he says calmly. “I didn’t deserve this.”

He opens his mouth wide, inserts the pistol barrel, and, before I can get to him, pulls the trigger.

Katie Dean awoke to a house filled with the smells of clean cotton sheets and pillowcases, coffee brewing, and sausage frying. Sunlight was spilling through her window upstairs, and when she lifted her head to look outside, the view nearly took her breath away. The mountains to the east were dazzling with color-deep reds, brilliant oranges, and golds. It looked as though they’d been covered with a gigantic, multicolored quilt. She pulled the covers back and looked around at her new bedroom. The walls were plaster and had been painted gold. The hardwood floor next to the bed was covered by a dark orange woven rug. There was a small closet just off the foot of the bed and a chest of drawers against the wall near the door. Framed photographs of Katie’s mother and brothers and sister covered the chest and a small nightstand next to the bed. Some of her drawings had been hung on the wall by the window. She walked to the closet in her stocking feet and saw that her clothes had already been unpacked and were hanging neatly in a row.

Katie slowly descended the stairs. When she was halfway down, she saw him for the first time. His bed had been rolled into the living room. His head was turned away from her, toward a television set. He was covered from the neck down with a sheet and blanket. All Katie could see was his hair, which was the same color as that of the bright red squirrels that lived in the trees in her yard back in Michigan. Katie stopped, sat down on the stairs, and watched him through the railing.

Lottie walked into the den from the kitchen a few seconds later. She noticed Katie immediately.

“I knew the smell of sausage would bring you outta that bed. Come on down here and meet Mister Luke.”

Lottie reached her hand upward from the bottom of the steps, but Katie hesitated.

“Don’t be scared now, child. Like I told you last night, Luke’s a special boy.”

Lottie’s voice and manner were soothing, so Katie stood and took her hand. Lottie led her to the side of the bed. Katie noticed it was just like the bed in which she’d lain for two months at the hospital.

“Mister Luke,” Lottie said, “this is Miss Katie. Ain’t she just a beautiful angel?”

Katie looked curiously into Luke’s brown eyes. He was small and incredibly thin, his skin as pale as the white sand beaches on the shores of Lake Michigan. The boy’s eyes widened, his body began to jerk, and he let out a strange, guttural wail.

“See? He’s happy to meet you,” Lottie said.

“Hi,” Katie said softly as Luke continued to squirm. She was a bit uneasy, because she’d never seen anyone quite like Luke. He obviously couldn’t talk or move around on his own. The noises he made were unsettling, and the jerky motions were almost frightening, but Katie continued to smile.

“You go back to watching your TV now,” Lottie said to Luke. “I’m gonna get this young lady some breakfast. I’ll bring yours in directly. The two of you can get acquainted later on.”

Once again, Lottie took Katie by the hand and led her into a small kitchen surrounded by windows that overlooked the back of the property and the mountains beyond.

“Do you know where you are, honey?” Lottie said.

“Tennessee,” Katie said quietly.

“Gatlinburg, Tennessee. One of the most beautiful places on God’s green earth.” Lottie pointed out a side window. “That’s Roaring Fork Road, and just a few miles over that ridge is the town of Gatlinburg.”

Lottie waved a hand toward the mountains.

“And all of that, as far as the eye can see, is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We live right on the border. Now you just sit yourself right down here and let me get some food into you. We believe in a good breakfast around here.”

Katie watched in fascination as Lottie piled two eggs, two sausage patties, fried potatoes, and a slice of tomato on her plate. On another plate was a biscuit. Next to it was a small bowl of gravy, a saucer with a stick of butter on it, and a jar of blackberry preserves. On yet another plate was a mixture of apple and banana slices and grapes, flanked by a tall glass of orange juice.

“Dig in, child. Don’t be shy.”

Katie began to eat, slowly at first, but then with more purpose. She didn’t remember the last time she’d had a decent meal, let alone enjoyed it.

“Good?” Lottie said as she dropped a fried egg and a couple of sausage patties into a blender.

“Yes, ma’am,” Katie said, nodding her head. “This is the best sausage I’ve ever had.”

“Most everything is fresh,” Lottie said. “We buy fresh sausage from Mr. Torbett. He’s our closest neighbor; lives up the road a ways. The eggs come straight from the henhouse out back. Potatoes and tomatoes come from the garden. And your aunt Mary makes the best biscuits this side of the Mississippi.”

“Where’s Aunt Mary?” Katie said.

“She’s at work. She’s a nurse down at the hospital, you know. They let her work a special shift so she can spend more time with Luke. She leaves here at three in the morning and gets back home a little after noon.”

Luke let out a loud wail from the den.

“I’m coming, baby,” Lottie called as she pushed the button on the blender. “Just one second.”

“How old is he?” Katie said.

“Luke? He’s seven.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He has cerebral palsy,” Lottie said. “It’s a sickness that keeps him from being able to do things other folks do. But we don’t look at it as something that’s wrong with him. He’s just another one of God’s beautiful creatures. And don’t you go letting him fool you. He may not be able to walk and talk like other folks, but he’s a smart young gentleman. And sweet? That boy’s sweeter than those grapes you’re eating.”

“Will he get better?” Katie asked.

“No, honey. Your aunt and her husband, God rest his soul, took Luke to doctors all over the country. They took him over to Duke University and up to the Mayo Clinic and a couple of places in between. There’s nothing anyone can do.”

As Lottie talked, she poured the sausage and egg paste from the blender onto a plate. She looked up to see Katie staring at her.

“He likes the taste of meat,” Lottie said, “but he can’t chew it himself and he doesn’t swallow real good. I’m just getting it to where he can handle it. We do the same thing with vegetables and fruit, pretty much anything he eats.”

“So he’s like a baby?” Katie said.

“I suppose he is. He’s as helpless as a baby. He wears diapers, and we give him a sponge bath every day. He don’t ever get outta that bed. But we don’t talk to him like a baby. We talk to him like any other seven-year-old boy. And those sounds he makes, he’s trying to talk, but the muscles in his mouth and lips don’t work good enough to form the words. But me and your aunt Mary can understand him. You will, too, soon enough.”

Katie took one last bite of the fruit and set her fork on the plate.

“Finished?” Lottie said.

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

“C’mon in here with me. I’ll show you how to feed Luke.”

Katie spent the rest of her first morning on the farm exploring her new surroundings. To her delight, she found that the barn out back was home to a black-and-white border collie named Maggie, three calico cats named Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod, and a billy goat named Henry. There were five Black Angus cattle in a fenced-in pasture with a stream running through it and six chickens in the henhouse-five hens and a rooster named Ernie. Every animal on the property was named except for the cattle.