After Before and After

Phase 4: Chapter 42

December 23, 1992. 4:37 PM.

Jack Merridew pushed through the trenches of the last day of the trial before the Christmas break. His lower body was going numb from sitting on the bench in the gallery of Courtroom 4 for so many hours. His mind was wandering to the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. He wondered what the rest of his classmates back in Dalton were doing right now. Surely, they spent the last five days shopping, baking, decorating, sledding, laughing, and enjoying time with family. Meanwhile, he and the rest of the boys who survived the island were here still being punished for surviving two years later. Instead of enjoying the holidays, they were here spending hours with their butts going numb on courtroom benches.

This fuckin' blows, Jack thought to himself.

Over the past few days of the trial, all eyes were on Larry Evans. Over the past few days of the trial, Jack replayed the moment in his head when he approached Larry on the island after tracing the accusations about the monster back to him.

"What's this dumb shit I hear about a monster?" Jack asked about two years ago now, his body covered in sand, his briefs torn and stained with dirt, his hair unkempt. And he wasn't the only one whose appearance was disastrous. They were all filthy messes, even the ones who seemed to have it all figured out, like Ralph.

"I'm serious" a younger Larry insisted, pain on his face and fear in his eyes. He couldn't even bring himself to stand. Jack should've known that he wasn't making it up. He knew better than any of them what it was like to be afraid of a monster. But he couldn't be afraid of the monster on the island because he had to be the monster, the scariest one out there.

Jack had made fun of Larry on the island, accused him of lying about the monster. When Jack could get away with it, he looked back at Larry sitting near the back of the courtroom. He was older, but he looked just as afraid now as he did when he told Jack about the monster. It was that same pained look, one Larry didn't age out of.

Jack thought back on the memory now, so vivid and clear in his head. He hadn't considered how horrifying and traumatic that moment really was for Larry. He was the only one who ever got close to the monster, close enough to feel that his life was in immediate danger. And somehow, he ended up here, taking the heat of a voluntary manslaughter charge for simply trying to survive what he thought was a life or death situation. Jack knew even on the island that Larry was messed up after what happened to him in that cave. And here was Dana Barnes standing up and publicly slandering him for it.

How sick and twisted this society could be, Jack thought. It only made him even more resentful of it, of the rules and norms that never seem to work the way they're supposed to.

At least, it was Wednesday. Usually, there wasn't anything special about Wednesday. But this particular week ended on Wednesday, and Jack was starting to feel anxious after spending the last three days listening to the testimony against Larry. Every witness Barnes called that short week served the purpose of proving that Larry had a track record of violence and issues with authority. She made little incidents look like big ones, minor infractions like major assaults, and a couple of disciplinary write-ups like police reports. It scared Jack how good she was at making something look a heck of a lot worse than it actually was. If Jack himself didn't know any better, he just might've believed that Larry killed Captain Benson on purpose too.

And although he and the other boys did know better, that didn't mean that the jury ever would.

The last witness that Wednesday afternoon was a little league coach Larry had during a summer camp he attended in the summer of 1989. Supposedly, Larry made trouble over the course of the two weeks he spent at the little league camp. Jack was sure that whatever Dana Barnes was trying to make it out to be, it was likely miniscule in comparison.