Danger! Bad Boy(65)

A few times in the past couple weeks I’d wondered how Ian had fared. I was sure his dad eventually showed up to get him out of juvie. He probably had a court date scheduled, too.

Gianna must have not told Cece and her other friends about what had happened. When I saw Dante yesterday, he didn’t mention anything about it. Since Dante dated Cece and Cece had a big mouth, I figured if she knew, he would also. Since Gianna didn’t seem to want them to know, I wasn’t about to tell anyone.

They all seemed to think she was just visiting her dad in Houston.



*****



Six days later, on a Wednesday, I found myself sitting with my parents outside the courtroom dressed in a suit, waiting for my case to be called. My mom was checking her lipstick again, a nervous habit, so I tried to soothe her, “It’ll be fine, mom.”

She forced a smile. “I know. I just always hate this part.”

My smile came easily. Gianna was coming home next Tuesday and things were looking up. “Oh really, I thought you hated most the part where you see your baby boy in handcuffs.”

“Remind me to take away your car,” my dad grumbled on the other side of me.

“Look who it is, my good friend, Caleb,” I heard from a few feet away.

I glanced up and barely stifled the instinctual groan. “Oh crap, it’s the devil.”

Ian laughed, motioning to my lawyer sitting a couple chairs down from my dad. “Is that your pit bull?” Before I could answer, Ian used his thumb to point to the guy in an expensive suit standing next to him. “This is my pit bull. He’s here to get me out of trouble again.”

“Where are your parents?” my mom asked him, recognizing Ian from my past run-ins with him over the years.

Ian had a blank look on his face. “What are parents?”

My mom was visibly embarrassed, unsure what to say.

Ian let her off the hook. “My dad is banging his new girlfriend in Cabo. He couldn’t make it.”

My mom gasped and I heard my dad do a choke-laugh combination.

She managed to get out an inadequate, “Oh.”

“What are you doing here, loser?” I asked Ian, wanting him to stop shocking my mom with his dirty mouth.

As his lawyer moved to converse with mine, Ian purposely took a seat on the other side of my mom. I leaned forward as he said, “My lawyer says the judge decided to combine our hearings since we committed the crime together. I’m not worried. My lawyer is really good. You should be grateful he’s offering his wisdom to yours.”

A middle-aged woman opened the door to the courtroom and called out, “Ian Crenshaw, Caleb Morrison.” She held the door open while Ian, myself and our entourage filed into the courtroom. The room was small and since our crimes weren’t exactly newsworthy, the pews were empty.

The similarities between court and church always amused me. My mom got on a Jesus-kick for back when I was in the seventh grade. She’d claimed the spirituality of it had helped inspire her artwork. In response, I’d suggested that many artists found alcohol inspiring. I’d been more than happy to get drunk with her instead of going to church. She’d made me recite a prayer. I’d been overjoyed when she’d moved on to meditation soon after that.

At church, I’d had to dress up, pray for my eternal soul and listen to an old dude in a robe lecture me. There were pews and an altar.

Court paralleled the church experience.

At court, I also had to dress up, pray for mercy and get bitched at by an old dude in a robe. They even brought the bible into both situations. There wasn’t an altar, but the judge did sit up on his bench all high-and-mighty. He just didn’t jabber on about the lord almighty. Instead of hearing about what a great guy Jesus was, I got to hear about what a piece of crap I was.

What Would Jesus Do?

Well, I was positive he would have kicked Josh’s ass too.

After going through all the formalities the justice system required, the judge went on to explain why we were being tried together. Duh, we’d beat up the same dude. Then for each of us, the judge listed all the times we’d broken the law in the past.

Big shocker, Ian was even worse than me. What a criminal he was. I might have been caught with drugs, but the guy had gotten caught selling them before. Why would he need to do that? His dad was a millionaire.

When the judge mentioned we both had former assault convictions on our records, we glanced at each other in a weird sort of understanding. Reading from old court documents, the judge summarized the circumstances of our past assault convictions and I realized there was a difference between mine and Ian’s.

I’d put a guy in the hospital because he’d hit a female friend of mine. Ian had done it for shits and giggles. Ian had been messing with some guy’s girlfriend and when the guy got in his face about it, Ian went crazy on him.