John Grisham - The Brethren

Zorro had trouble regrouping; and his hesitation killed him. He was ordered to immediately turn over the phone to the Brethren within twenty-four hours, and to reimburse Mr. T-Bone $450 for long-distance charges. If twenty-four hours passed with no phone, the matter would be referred to the warden, along with a finding of fact from the Brethren that Zorro did indeed possess an illegal cell phone.

The Brethren further ordered the two to maintain a distance of at least fifty feet from one another at all times, even when eating.

T Karl rapped a gavel and the crowd began a noisy exit. He called the next case, another petty gambling dispute, and waited for the spectators to leave.

"Quiet!" he shouted, and the racket only grew louder. The Brethren went back to their newspapers and magazines.

"Quiet!" he barked again, slamming his gavel.

"Shut up," Spicer yelled at T Karl. "You're making more noise than they are."

"It's my job." T. Karl snapped back, the curls of his wig bouncing in all directions.

When the cafeteria was empty, only one inmate remained. T. Karl looked around and finally asked him, "Are you Mr. Hooten?"

"No sir," the young man said.

"Are you Mr. Jenkins?"

"No sir."

"I didn't think so. The case of Hooten versus Jenkins is hereby dismissed for failure to show," T Karl said, and made a dramatic entry into his docket book.

"Who are you?" Spicer asked the young man, who was sitting alone and glancing around as if he wasn't sure he was welcome. The three men in the pale green robes were now looking at him, as was the clown with the gray wig and the old maroon pajamas and the lavender shower shoes, no socks. Who were these people!

He slowly got to his feet and moved forward with great apprehension until he stood before the three. "I'm looking for some help," he said, almost afraid to speak.

"Do you have business before the court?" T Karl growled from the side.

"No sir."

"Then you'll have to-"

"Shut up!" Spicer said. "Court's adjourned. Leave."

T Karl slammed his docket book, kicked back his folding chair, and stormed out of the room, his shower shoes sliding on the tile, his wig bouncing behind him.

The young man appeared ready to cry. "What can we do for you?" Yarber asked.

He was holding a small cardboard box, and the Brethren knew from experience that it was filled with the papers that had brought him to Trumble. "I need some help," he said again. "I got here last week, and my roommate said you guys could help with my appeals."

"Don't you have a lawyer?" Beech asked.

"I did. He wasn't very good. He's one reason I'm here."

"Why are you here?" asked Spicer.

"I don't know. I really don't know"

"Did you have a trial?"

"Yes. A long one."

"And you were found guilty by a jury?"

"Yes. Me and a bunch of others. They said we were part of a conspiracy."

"A conspiracy to do what?"

"Import cocaine."

Another druggie. They were suddenly anxious to get back to their letter writing. "How long is your sentence?" asked Yarber.

"Forty-eight years."

"Forty-eight years! How old are you?"

"Twenty-three."

The letter writing was momentarily forgotten. They looked at his sad young face and tried to picture it fifty years later. Released at the age of seventy-one; it was impossible to imagine. Each of the Brethren would leave Trumble a younger man than this kid.

"Pull up a chair," Yarber said, and the kid grabbed the nearest one and placed it in front of their table. Even Spicer felt a little sympathy for him.

"What's your name?" Yarber asked.

"I go by Buster."

"Okay, Buster, what'd you do to get yourself fortyeight years?"

The story came in torrents. Balancing his box on his knees, and staring at the floor, he began by saying he'd never been in trouble with the law, nor had his father. They owned a small boat dock together in Pensacola. They fished and sailed and loved the sea, and running the dock was the perfect life for them.They sold a used fishing boat, a fifty-footer, to a man from Fort Lauderdale, an American who paid them in cash $95,000. The money went in the bank, or at least Buster thought it did. A few months later the man was back for another boat, a thirty-eight-footer for which he paid $80,000. Cash for boats was not unusual in Florida. A third and fourth boat followed.Buster and his dad knew where to find good used fishing boats, which they overhauled and renovated. They enjoyed doing the work themselves. After the fifth boat, the narcs came calling. They asked questions, made vague threats, wanted to see the books and records. Busters dad refused initially, then they hired a lawyer who advised them not to cooperate. Nothing happened for months Buster and his father were arrested at 3 A.M.. on a Sunday morning by a pack of goons wearing vests and enough guns to hold Pensacola hostage. They were dragged half-dressed from their small home near the bay, lights flashing all over the place. The indictment was an inch thick, 160 pages, eighty-one counts of conspiracy to smuggle cocaine. He had a copy of it in his box. Buster and his dad were barely mentioned in the 160 pages, but they were nonetheless named as defendants and lumped together with the man they'd sold the boats to, along with twenty-five other people they'd never heard of. Eleven were Colombians. Three were lawyers. Everybody else was from South Florida.

The U.S. Attorney offered them a deal-two years each in return for guilty pleas and cooperation against the other codefendants. Pleading guilty to what? They'd done nothing wrong. They knew exactly one of their twenty-six coconspirators. They'd never seen cocaine.

Buster's father remortgaged their home to raise $20,000 for a lawyer, and they made a bad selection. At trial, they were alarmed to find themselves sitting at the same table with the Colombians and the real drug traffickers. They were on one side of the courtroom, all the coconspirators, sitting together as if they'd once been a well-oiled drug machine. On the other side, near the jury, were the government lawyers, groups of pompous little bastards in dark suits, taking notes, glaring at them as if they were child molesters. The jury glared at them too.

During seven weeks of trial, Buster and his father were practically ignored. Three times their names werementioned. The government's principal charge against them was that they had conspired to procure and rebuild fishing boats with souped-up engines to transport drugs from Mexico to various drop-offs along the Florida panhandle. Their lawyer, who complained that he wasn't getting paid enough to handle a sevenweek trial, proved inefective at rebutting these loose charges. Still, the government lawyers did little damage and were much more concerned with nailing the Colombians.

But they didn't have to prove much.They had done a superior job of picking the jury. After eight days of deliberation, the jurors, obviously tired and frustrated, found every conspirator guilty of all charges. A month after they were sentenced, Buster's father killed himself.

As the narrative wound down, the kid looked as if he might cry. But he stuck out his jaw, gritted his teeth, and said, "I did nothing wrong."

He certainly wasn't the first inmate at Trumble to declare his innocence. Beech watched and listened and remembered a young man he'd sentenced once to forty years for drug trafficking back in Texas. The defendant had a rotten childhood, no education, a long record as a juvenile offender, not much of a chance in life. Beech had lectured him from the bench, high and lordly from above, and had felt good about himself for handing down such a brutal sentence. Gotta get these damned drug dealers off the streets!

A liberal is a conservative who's been arrested. After three years on the inside of a prison Hadee Beech agonized over many of the people he'd thrown the book at. People far guiltier than Buster here. Kids who just needed a break.