CHAPTER FIVE
TWO MONTHS LATER
Tish dropped her backpack on the floor and plopped down in the chair in front of her P.O.’s office. Her probation officer, Dena Lamb, was leaned back in her chair. “You got to try harder.”
“I am trying.”
“You got to try harder. It’s been two months, LaTisha. You’ve got to find employment, there’s no ands, ifs, or buts about it, and you’ve got to find it now. It’s a condition of your probation.”
“But nobody will hire me. What am I supposed to do? I have a conviction on my record.”
“Thanks to that boyfriend of yours and his sorry ass.”
“No, that’s on me,” said Tish, a look of sincerity in her huge eyes. “I should have never left my job to go pick him up. I was at work. I should have stayed there.”
“What about that job? Have you looked into that?”
“What job?”
“The one you had when you were arrested. What about that daycare owner you used to work for? Miss Norris, right? What about her? Have you tried to get back on with her?”
“She was the first person I tried. But she said no way was she hiring an ex-con, she don’t care what the crime was. And she said again I had no business taking her van to commit a crime, even though I told her I didn’t commit a crime. But she wasn’t trying to hear that.”
Dena shook her head. “I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve sent you on every job lead I have. But you’ve got to find some full-time employment or they could deem you violated and the judge can revoke your probation.”
“I understand that. But I can’t make these people hire me.”
“And about that room at that boarding house.”
Tish looked at her P.O. “What about it?”
“The owner is giving you two more days to have a job to pay him, or you’ve got to go.”
“Just two days?”
“Yes, Tish. He’s been very patient with you.”
“And I’ve been working for him for free to help pay for that room.”
“I understand that, but he wants a paying tenant period. He did me a favor letting you stay there the way he did. That’s over in two days.”
Then Dena sat upright. “In any event, I’ve got another client.”
Those nerves began to act up again as Tish picked up her backpack and then stood up. Every time she left her P.O’s office, she felt alone again. Like Dena Lamb was her only link to sanity. Nobody at the boarding house would speak to her. She was the only criminal among them, at least that was how they treated her. Then a frown appeared on her face. “I don’t know what else I can do,” she said. “What am I gonna do?”
Dena could feel her anxiety. But all of her probationers had anxiety when they weren’t meeting their conditions. “I’ll keep looking out for any job leads on my end, but you’ve got to look out too.”
“That’s all I’ve been doing. I pound those pavements every single day. And I’m gonna keep pounding them as soon as I leave here.”
Dena exhaled and stared at Tish. She looked young and scared. She had an edginess to her, alright, but nothing like the criminals she dealt with on a regular. This girl was out of place! “Are you okay?” she asked her.
She wasn’t, but she knew her P.O. didn’t care either way. She was doing her job. Her concern began and ended there, and Tish knew it. She didn’t even bother to answer that question.
“What about your friends and family? Can some of them help you out?”
“My parents live a quiet life in Alabama. They own a tiny little mom-and-pop grocery store, and they keep to themselves. They told me and my brother that as soon as we turned eighteen that we had to go live our lives and to leave them out of it. And if you know my father, you know he doesn’t play about something like that. He meant every word. And I’ve been leaving them out of my life ever since. Shake left Alabama and moved to Florida, so I did too.”
“What about your brother?”
She shook her head on him too. “He’s in the military for life, stationed overseas, and he’s not trying to help anybody but himself and his own young family. That’s how we were raised: to take care of ourselves. So no, he can’t help me either.”
She could tell Dena, a black woman too, wasn’t raised that way and didn’t know any other blacks that were. She had a noticeable look of disdain on her face. “And your friends? Don’t you have friends?”
“I thought I did. But they deserted me the first week I got arrested. They thought I loved Shake so much that I’d do anything for that fool, including robbing a gas station. Which they had to know was nuts. But they stopped accepting my calls, and I tried to call them for that whole eight months I was incarcerated.”
“You’ve been out for two months. Have you tried to call them since you’ve been out?”
“Are you on dope? No way will I ever call any of them ever again! At the lowest point in my entire life, and I mean it couldn’t get any lower, they deserted me. What would I look like calling them now? I was a ride or die for them. They wouldn’t even give me a lift. No way. They weren’t true friends. I have no friends.”
Dena stared at her probationer. It was sad, but she’d seen it a hundred times. People disassociated themselves from criminals. That was the way it was. That was why it didn’t get to her anymore. That was why she smiled. “You would have been better off in prison,” she said with a chuckle, like it was a joke.
Tish smiled, too, although it was her life, and it wasn’t funny to her at all.
“Judge Brant was the one that decided to set you free,” Dena continued. “Which was totally out of character for his throw-the-book-at’em ass. He was the one that stamped your ticket as time served and a year of probation. Hell, if I were you, I’d go straight to his chambers and make him find me a job. He’s the one put you in this predicament, he should be the one to get you out of it.” Then she laughed. “But in any event, I’ve got another client to see. So bye, girl. I wish you luck. See you next time.”
Tish said her goodbye and walked on out. Dena Lamb was an asshole just like everybody else in the criminal justice system. But so what? It wasn’t Dena’s fault she was in this situation. She blamed herself for getting caught up in the criminal justice system to begin with. She should have left Shake years before that shooting. And when he called that day, she should have never left her job. But she did the exact opposite. She stayed with Shake and left her job. Now people like Dena could take swipes at her like it was nothing, and she just had to take it. That was how those law-and-order folks rolled: on the backs of people like Tish.
But as she still held the knob of the door she’d just closed, she thought about it. They all rolled that way, but maybe not that judge. That Judge Brant. He saw what they were doing to her and put a stop to it. Maybe he’d see that she was in danger of violating her probation and change the terms, or at least put a stop to any talk of revoking her. It was worth a try. It wasn’t like she had any other option anywhere on earth. She left Dena’s office and hurried to the courthouse.
But as she hurried up the steps of the massive courthouse, she could feel her body trembling. She hated that place. They almost stole her freedom: and did steal it for eight months. But if they revoked her probation, she would have to serve ten more months in prison to make up for what was left of her probationary period. That was worth asking the judge to change those terms. That was worth it to Tish.
But once she entered the lobby and walked up to the information desk, asking to see Judge Brant, reality set in. Because no matter what excuse she gave, they wouldn’t let her anywhere near Judge Brant. When she kept insisting, they even called upstairs to his chambers. But his secretary asked if she had an appointment.
“Do you have an appointment?” the four-eyed desk clerk asked her.
“No,” she said, hating to admit it. “I just need to ask him a question about my probation.”
“She just wants to ask him a question about her probation,” the desk clerk said to his secretary over the phone. Then she got her answer and looked at Tish. “Okay, thank you.” Then she hung up the phone.
“What did she say?” Tish asked.
“She said he won’t be able to see you, and if you have a question about your probation you need to take it up with your probation officer. You are not going to see Judge Brant.”
And Tish walked out of that courtroom as defeated as she had walked in.
And suddenly it seemed stupid anyway. Why would he want to have anything to do with her? She was still a criminal in his eyes, too, or he would have dismissed her case in its entirety. It wasn’t as if he called out the lawyers for not treating her fairly, and then said because of how they handled her case he was going to drop all charges. He did no such thing. He reduced the charges, but they were still charges. She was still a convicted criminal in the eyes of the law and the world.
She slowly walked down those steep steps of that courthouse as lawyers in their fancy suits and skirts were all but running up those steps. And they all seemed so happy, like they were successful in life and people like her were losers. One even bumped into her and didn’t even excuse himself. Like she wasn’t even there. Like she was invisible.
And Shake was gone.
The man didn’t treat her right most days, and cheated on her more times than she could ever admit even to herself, but he was all she ever had. Now she didn’t even have him. She was out of jail, about to lose the little boarding room she did have to lay her head, and she didn’t have a prospect in sight. And she expected a big-time judge, the man that sentenced her, to help her out? No wonder Dena Lamb thought it was a big joke. Because it was!
But to her shock, she would see that very judge just six days later.
It was a bad day all around. She’d been kicked out of the rooming house four days earlier and had to sleep wherever she could lay her head: usually in a piss-smelling homeless shelter. She spent all her days walking miles around town searching for work: because anything would do.
But nobody would hire her.
Not even the labor pool because she had no car.
But then, when it all seemed just impossible, she saw him. And bad idea or not, she was not going to let that opportunity pass her by. She was going to shoot her shot.