Mercy

CHAPTER 14

Jordan Cobb sat at the kitchen table in the two-bedroom apartment of his next-door neighbor, Ms. Mae Walker, with an algebra book open and a sharpened number two pencil in his hand.

Seated across from Jordan, with a scowl on his boyish face and his thin arms folded tight across his chest, was Emmett Walker, Mae’s middle son. Jordan came to the Walkers’ every Tuesday to tutor Emmett in math. Jordan wore his professional attire, a polo shirt and jeans, and looked about as hip-hop as Mr. Rogers. Emmett, who kept his dark hair trimmed short, was dressed in his full street regalia, including sneakers so white they looked like two giant teeth, baggy jeans, and a Rocawear hoodie.

“Come on, Emmett,” Jordan said. “You know how to do this problem in your sleep.”

Emmett leaned back in his chair, a playful hint in his big brown eyes. “Yeah? Keep talking about it and you’ll put me under. Then I guess I’ll figure it out.”

Mae Walker, a full-figured woman whose kind face could turn threatening in a blink, stopped stirring whatever delicious concoction she was cooking and glowered at her son.

“You mind your manners, Mister Walker,” she said. “Jordan is here to help and you’re here to listen and learn. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Ma. Sorry, Ma.”

Mae held her stern expression until she felt her directive had taken, then turned up the volume on the small television on the kitchen counter and went back to stirring the pot.

Like a lot of the mothers Jordan knew (he tutored many of their kids), Mae Walker was both a stern disciplinarian and a loving parent. For kids like Emmett, it was an essential combination. Mr. Walker had not been a part of the family at any point that Jordan could remember, and Jordan had lived in the apartment next door since he was in diapers. In a neighborhood like this one-urban, tough, more sirens than birdsong-it was easy for a kid like Emmett to detour onto a crooked path.

Dorchester could be a bit like a checkerboard of good and bad neighborhoods, five blocks trouble free and then five blocks a whole lot sketchier. The better the neighborhood, the higher the rent, which was why Ms. Walker and Jordan’s mom lived where a lot of the single mothers lived, in the not-so-nice part of town. Keeping kids in school meant keeping them off the street. That was good for the mothers and for Jordan’s tutoring business.

“Come on, Emmett. We got this one. X minus three equals negative five. Now solve for X.”

Emmett gazed out the window behind Jordan with a sullen look on his face. “Shit, man, I dunno.”

“Emmett! Your language,” Mae called out.

“Let’s go, buddy. Pick up the pencil, put it on the paper, and solve it. I know you can do it because you’ve done it before.”

“And let me tell you, those Beats by Dre headphones of yours are gonna be resting on the head of another child who learns his math, if you don’t get this right,” Mae said.

Emmett picked up the pencil and started to scratch. “Um… so it’s plus three both sides-right?”

“That’s right,” Jordan said.

“So, I get… um… X equals negative two.”

Jordan held up his hand. Emmett gave it a halfhearted high five, but behind the boy’s tough exterior, he did look pleased with himself.

“You got it. Now just thirty more of these, and you’ll be an expert.”

Emmett leaned back in his chair and eyed Jordan with a crooked smile. “How you so smart at this stuff, anyway? They teach you that in prison?”

Mae Walker gasped. “Emmett! My goodness.”

Jordan was unfazed by the question. “It’s all right, Ms. Walker,” he said. “I don’t mind talking about it.”

“How much time you do, anyway?” Emmett asked.

Jordan put down his pencil and gave some thought to how best to respond, how much to share. He decided to give Emmett the same thing he’d sworn to in court: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help him God.

“I did five years at Cedar Junction. Hard time, too. Not a minimum-security stint.”

“You shot a guy. That’s what I heard, anyway.”

Mae was half listening to the story and half watching the news. She’d heard it all before and knew Jordan regretted his choices, had paid for his mistakes, and had done the hard work to make something out of his life.

“Yeah, that’s just street talk,” Jordan said. “I never shot anyone in my life. I got caught up in stuff, though. Thought I needed to fit in instead of doing the right thing.”

“And what’s that?”

“Learning. I loved school. Studying. Math. Science especially. I got straight As, but it wasn’t cool, you know? It wasn’t hip to be smart. I got teased a lot. I ignored it for a while, but there was only so much I could tune it out. I started believing the talk, and that’s when I got focused on the wrong things. I wanted to prove them wrong, because I wasn’t strong in here.” Jordan tapped his finger against his chest, anatomically hitting a bull’s-eye on his heart. “Or here.” This time he pointed to his head. “I started running with the wrong crew, you feel me?”

Emmett shrugged, his way of showing that he felt something, but was not about to say it out loud.

“I was dealing. Pot mostly, but some other stuff, too. My grades, they stayed up, but I can’t tell you how bad I felt inside. It was wrong, what I was doing, and I knew it, too.”

Emmett arched his eyebrows. “Yeah, but at least you got mad respect, I bet.”

Jordan was unsure how much to share with Emmett. It was five years of hell, no way to sugarcoat it. He’d been locked up with pissed-off lifers who had no qualms about sticking some rusty shank in your back just because they thought you looked at them funny. The best way to survive inside was to join a gang, something Jordan had sworn off doing right after his arrest, so he’d lived prison life as an outcast.

Eventually, the other black inmates offered protection after Jordan earned enough good behavior credits to teach GED prep classes. Prison life, Jordan came to learn, was a microcosm of the streets, but in a modified form. For five dollars you could get everything from a toothbrush to heroin, and there was constant pressure to buy product or help some merchant sneak it in. Failure to comply could easily net you a month’s stay in the infirmary if they beat you bad enough. Constant vigilance was what kept Jordan safe and out of trouble, but it was an exhausting way to live.

He told Emmett, who sat transfixed, listening a lot more intently than he ever did in an algebra lesson.

“I did all right in there because I chose to use my time wisely. I read, I studied, I learned about a lot of things so I could get out and get a job.”

“You push around dead people all day,” Emmett remarked.

“Maybe so, but it’s honest work, and I ain’t going back to prison for doing it.”

“Yeah, but now you broke.”

“I’m not broke.”

“Look how you dress.”

“I like how I dress.”

“Then why do this?” Emmett pointed to the algebra book with a scowl on his face.

“Because I like to teach, I like to learn, and if there’s one lesson I want you to learn, it’s to study hard and keep your nose clean. Don’t make the same mistake as me.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“No, I mean it.”

Emmett looked serious, like he got it. “It’s cool.”

Something caught Jordan’s attention, a snippet from the news broadcast Mae was half watching. Jordan rose from his seat.

“Ms. Walker, would you mind turning that up a bit?” he asked.

“Of course, sweetheart,” Mae said.

The small television showed a Fox News report from outside the prison where Jordan had spent five years of his life. The broadcast reporter was a sharply dressed man in his late twenties. Behind him was the chain-link fence topped by razor wire, which Jordan still saw in his nightmares.

The television camera captured a group of nearby protesters who held handmade signs. FREE BRANDON STAHL, two or three of them said. MERCY NOT MURDER, said another. One sign in particular drew Jordan’s attention: a picture of a dog being injected by a syringe, above the words STOP TREATING PETS BETTER THAN PEOPLE.

“Brandon Stahl, the former nurse from White Memorial Hospital, remains behind bars this evening following the State Supreme Court’s denial of his appeal for a new trial,” the reporter said. “Stahl is serving a life sentence for what some have called the ‘mercy killing’ of his patient, Donald Colchester, who suffered from advanced-stage ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Protesters have gathered at the prison to object to the ruling and express support for Stahl, who maintains his innocence and claims that Donald Colchester had a heart attack and died of natural causes.

“The prosecution relied heavily on a last-minute witness after the court refused to admit a recording of Mr. Stahl agreeing to help Mr. Colchester commit suicide. The defense had asked for a new trial, citing procedural violations with the witness’s testimony, but the presiding judge disagreed.”

“They’re getting it all wrong,” Jordan said, mostly to himself.

“Did you work with that man?” Mae asked.

Focused on the report, Jordan took a moment to respond. When he did, he sounded distracted. “Um, yeah. Yeah, I knew him.”

The reporter corralled one of the protesters for an on-camera interview. Jordan watched with rapt attention.

“What’s your opinion on today’s ruling?”

The protester, a middle-aged woman wearing a bulky overcoat, flashed the camera her sign that read GIVE PATIENTS THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE.

“It’s a tragedy,” she said. “Donald Colchester was suffering, and Brandon Stahl was the only person who did something about it. The hospitals just want to keep people alive so they can squeeze out every last dime for profit, or try out their new drugs and treatments. We’re nothing but lab rats to them.”

The reporter knew when to end an interview on a dramatic high note.

“Reporting live from MCI Cedar Junction, I’m Stephen Wright, Fox News. Back to you, Jim and Carla.”

Jordan turned away from the television, disappointment on his face.

Mae placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “If he was a friend of yours and all, I’m sure it must be hard.”

Jordan was visibly shaken, his lips tight across his mouth. “It’s not about the recording or the witness,” he said. “Why don’t they get that? Why doesn’t anybody get that?”

“What, honey? I don’t think I follow,” Mae said.

Jordan went back to the table, where Emmett doodled on the paper instead of solving the next equation.

“It’s nothing,” Jordan said. “Come on, Emmett, let’s get this work done. Time’s wasting, and one thing I learned from prison is that you don’t waste time.”