After Before and After

Conclusion: Chapter 9

It had taken the better part of the spring, but Jack and Ralph were both finally starting to adjust to the post-trial phase of their lives. The world looked different not only to them, but also to Jeffery, Laurie, and Paige too.

With the Merridew siblings living so close to East Point, the two families continued to get together often. It reached a point where Paige had Ralph his own key made to their house, and both Paige and Jack grew comfortable dropping by the Langley house unannounced without even knocking first.

Jack was being bogged down by community service three days a week after school, and for a few hours each day on weekends. His probation officer gave him time after their first meeting in January to adjust to the new home and the new school in the midst of the custody transfer situation. But by the time February rolled around, Jack had his first day on the chain gang. Three days a week for three hours a night was a lot to manage with the academic pressure of junior year.

Jack's community service assignment primarily consisted of community cleanup. He, along with a dozen or so other juvenile offenders, would spend their weeknights picking up trash from parks and roadways, as well as removing graffiti from exit signs and the sides of rundown buildings at the city center of East Point. Truthfully, Jack didn't find the community cleanup so bad. It was his weekend assignment that made him want to jump out of Paige's moving vehicle every morning. On weekends, Jack's community service group was assigned to what his probation officer called Public Facility Maintenance. It involved scraping gum off the bottom of school bleachers, unclogging toilets in recreation centers, changing the filters and cleaning pools after hours, and scrubbing urinals in public service buildings.

The thing Jack actually enjoyed about community service were the other kids. Most of them were close to his age, and all of them had stories that didn't fit in the frames of happy family vacation photos. As they sprayed spit-on mirrors and cleaned hair out of pool filters, Jack and a couple of the other kids talked about the experiences that led them to this place. Some of them were here for vandalism, some for felony property damage, some for driving under the influence, and others for assault and battery.

Jack's favorite person to talk to during his weeknights on community clean up was an older boy named Chris. He was as white as they came, like Jack was, but he looked like he was always high even when he wasn't. Chris was sentenced to probation and community service for pounding the crap out of his foster father who molested his little sister. When Christ first told Jack the story, it surprised even him. Jack couldn't imagine walking in on a grown man inappropriately touching an eleven-year-old girl.

"I probably would've hit 'im too" Jack considered as he used his grabber tool to collect a piece of crumpled paper from under a tree. He shoved it into the garbage bag in his other hand before he looked back to Chris.

"Yeah well I don't regret it, even though it landed me here. Lissy is safe now cause of what I did. Took me doin' that to get my social worker to finally listen to me about that sick bastard peeking on my baby sister while she showered" Chris added casually.

Jack considered the fact that he could end up in government care if Paige were to be deemed unable to provide for him. He didn't want to imagine it would turn out that way, but he was a realist, and planning for the worst case scenario was a reflex.

"Lissy?" Jack questioned the unusual name.

"Short for Melissa" Chris clarified. "I don't even care what happens to me, so long as my baby sis is safe. You got brothers or sisters?"

"Sister" Jack answered as he refocused his gaze on the task at hand; garbage collection. "She's twenty-five though. She's fighting for custody of me."

"No shit" Chris smiled at him, "that's a damn good situation to be in if she wins. Run for your life if they try to put you in a group home. Last one I was in, some kid stabbed me with a drugged needle just cause I took the last dinner role at supper. I almost overdosed on whatever the hell was in it."