Injustice for all

37

Jack Dillard hustled along West End Avenue toward his dorm room in the semidarkness. It was nearly eight p.m. in Nashville, and he felt a constant rush of wind as the traffic roared past. His backpack was weighted down with textbooks and a twenty-pound plate he’d stuck inside. The extra weight pushed him, made him leaner and stronger.

Jack had been at Vanderbilt for three years now. When he arrived, he weighed two hundred thirty pounds and thought he was strong. Now, at two hundred fifteen pounds, he was stronger than ever, a walking piece of granite. Arkansas was coming in for a three-game series this weekend, and Jack briefly visualized smashing an inside fastball over the green monster in left field. He smiled to himself. He’d done it before. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he’d do it again.

Jack’s mind drifted to the paper he had to write later that night-five pages on biological anthropology. He intended to write about the difference between the evolution of man and the evolution of apes. Many people thought men evolved from apes. They were wrong. As he pondered his thesis sentence, Jack wondered how many papers he’d written at Vanderbilt. At least a hundred, he decided. The professors were all about being able to express yourself in writing.

Jack was sore and tired, but he was used to it. Vandy was a demanding place, and his baseball coach was a drill sergeant. His days were often twelve, fourteen hours. He was up early and off to class until noon. On game days, he’d be at the field right after lunch, hitting in the cages, throwing, shagging fly balls, lifting weights. After a two-hour warm-up, he’d play a three- or four-hour game, then do maintenance work on the field, take a shower, grab something to eat, and then study, study, study. Off days were just as strenuous, probably more so, because that’s when the team conditioned, and the sessions were brutal: weight lifting, plyometrics, sprint work, endurance work. It was a never-ending assault on the mind and body. Free time was for nonathletes. Free time was for pussies.

Something ahead caught Jack’s eye. A man was leaning against a tree just inside the wrought-iron fence that separated the campus from the street. Jack wasn’t close enough to recognize him, but the man appeared to be watching him. As Jack approached, the figure slipped behind the tree and disappeared.

Jack walked past the spot and looked closely at where the man had been standing. There was a hemlock hedge to the right of the tree, and it appeared he had walked behind it. Maybe the guy was a student and had just walked outside the dorm for a smoke. Jack kept walking. Because of his size and strength, mugging had never been a concern, at Vandy or anywhere else, but as he pushed on down the street, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched, maybe even followed.

Jack turned right onto the circle that surrounded the statue of Cornelius Vanderbilt. He looked over his shoulder. The lighting here was poor; if someone was going to attack him, this would be the best place. He lengthened his stride and veered off the circle onto the sidewalk that led toward the Hemingway Quad. As he passed a low wall of shrubbery, he caught a quick glimpse of someone moving quickly. He was suddenly knocked off balance as the figure jumped on his back and tried to get him in a choke hold.

Jack quickly gathered himself and dropped to his left knee. He instinctively tugged the attacker’s right shoulder forward with his left hand and jerked his upper body hard, downward and to his left. It was a judo throw his father had shown him years ago. Every time he’d used it when wrestling with teammates or challengers from the dorm, it had worked, and this was no different. His attacker flew over his shoulder and landed with a thud on his back. Jack quickly straddled him and was just about to unload on him with his fist, when he heard a familiar laugh. He stopped and looked closely at the face.

“Damn you, T-bone!” Jack yelled as he rose to his feet. “You scared the crap out of me!”

“What’s up, Hammer?” The person on the ground slowly climbed to his feet, and Jack found himself staring into the tired- looking, smiling face of Tommy Miller. “I should have known you’d use that judo crap on me.”

Jack hugged Tommy, and they shook hands. He loved Tommy like a brother. He was fun and easygoing, constantly joking. Jack had always found Tommy to be an honest and loyal friend. And he was a fierce competitor on the baseball field. Jack had faced him dozens of times in practice over the years. Tommy had a fastball in the low nineties, a wicked slider, and a changeup that had buckled Jack’s knees more than he cared to remember.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Jack said.

“I’m in the wind, man. Let’s go get some coffee or something, and I’ll tell you about it.”

Jack knew Tommy was “in the wind.” His dad had called the night before and told him he’d been fired because he refused to try to persuade the grand jury to indict Tommy for murder. He said Tommy had run from the police in Durham and that his car had disappeared. He said Tommy would probably be indicted soon.

“The police are looking for you, T-bone.”

“Yeah, now I know how the runaway slaves felt.”

“Follow me.”

Jack led Tommy to a group of four picnic tables beneath an elm tree near the library. The tables were all vacant. Jack tossed his backpack beside him and sat down at the one nearest the tree. Tommy sat across from him.

“How’d you get here?”

Tommy’s Red Sox baseball cap was pulled low on his forehead. Jack noticed that his eyes kept darting around, watching everything. “I hitched a ride.”

“Why’d you run?”

“I was scared out of my mind. Mom told me they think I killed that judge.”

Jack tensed slightly. He didn’t want to ask the question, but he needed to.

“Did you?”

Tommy shook his head and let out a deep breath.

“I don’t even know where the guy lived,” Tommy said. “I went to Dad’s grave that night with a gallon of bourbon. I don’t drink very often, but I think I must have drunk the whole damned gallon, because the last thing I remember is sitting on the ground, leaning on the headstone, crying. I woke up in the backseat of my car around five the next morning. It was parked next to this little convenience store on Oakland, and I had no idea how I got there. I was so hungover, man. My head was splitting, and I felt like I was going to barf all over the place. Your house was a lot closer than mine, so I drove over there.”

“So you don’t remember anything you did?” Jack said. “You don’t remember driving to the convenience store?”

“No, and that’s the problem. That’s why I’m so scared of the cops. If they ask me what I was doing at such and such a time, I can’t tell them. Another thing that scares me is that Mom said whoever killed the judge burned him. I had freaking gasoline all over me when I woke up at the convenience store, and I don’t remember how it happened. I must have gotten gas somewhere, because my car was almost empty when I drove to the cemetery, and the next morning it was full.”

“So maybe you filled up with gas at the convenience store and spilled gas all over you, and then you decided to get in the backseat and go to sleep.”

“Maybe.”

“You should go back there and see if somebody remembers you. You had to pay for the gas, and if you were that drunk, you were sure to make an impression.”

“I’m afraid to go back there. I’m afraid to go anywhere near Johnson City.”

“Where’s your car?” Jack said. “Dad said the police can’t find it.”

“You’ll love this. I gave it to this black guy about fifty miles outside of Durham. He was working on this old piece of junk in his driveway when I drove by. He lived in this little shack. So I turned around and pulled into his place, got my suitcase and my backpack out of the car, took the tag off, and handed him the keys. You should have seen the look on his face. Then I hitched a ride the rest of the way to Durham.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Because I knew the cops would be looking for the car. I didn’t want to drive it into a lake or something like that, so I just figured I’d give it to somebody who needed it more than I did.”

“Listen, T-bone, you need to go back and face this. Running makes you look guilty.”

Tommy’s head dropped. He stared at the table for a long minute. “Maybe I am, Hammer. God knows I thought about beating that son of a bitch to death with my bare hands at least a hundred times since Dad killed himself. Maybe I got plastered and went nuts, found out where he lived somehow, and drove over there and killed him.”

“Don’t say that, even if you’re just joking. Don’t even think it.”

“I can’t go back there, man. Not yet, anyway. If I go back and tell the police I don’t remember what I did that night, they’ll arrest me for sure. I think I’ll just stay on the road for a while, then go back after things have settled down a little. Maybe in the meantime they’ll find out who really did it.”

“Do you have enough money? Do you need anything?”

“I’m okay. Mom gave me fifteen hundred dollars before I left. That should last me a little while.”

Jack reached over and touched his friend lightly on the hand. “I haven’t really had a chance to tell you this, but I’m sorry about your dad,” he said. “I’m sorry about everything.”

Tommy’s eyes began to glisten, and Jack saw tears begin to roll down his cheeks.

“Can you believe he killed himself because he thought we’d be better off with money than with him?” Tommy said. “He must have been in so much pain. I just wish I could hug him again and tell him everything will be all right.”

Tommy laid his head on his forearms and began to sob quietly. Jack wanted to offer him comfort but didn’t know how. He was accustomed to the banter that goes on in a locker room, jousting verbally with his friends and teammates. Trying to comfort a friend after such a terrible loss was foreign territory. He reached over and squeezed Tommy’s shoulder tightly.

“How about that coffee?” he said. “I’ll just run across the street to the cafeteria and get us some.”

Tommy raised his head slowly and wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands.

“Sure, Hammer, coffee sounds good.”

Jack was gone for less than ten minutes. As he was hurrying back up the sidewalk carrying the coffee, he saw a campus policeman emerge from the shadows near the spot where the picnic tables were located. Jack smiled and nodded as he passed the officer, but he knew what he’d probably find when he got back to the tables.

He was right. His backpack was still lying on the table where he’d left it, but Tommy was gone.