“Hope, will you tell us about an incident that took place in Chicago when Jeremy was ten?” Raymond Attorney for the Defense asks. It’s the exact question he made me answer half a dozen times at the kitchen table.
“I was eight, and Jeremy was ten,” I begin. I close my eyes and remember. I can see Rita’s hand reaching for something. I know it’s her hand because she’s wearing the big green ring she used to have. Jeremy’s behind her, and I’m behind Jer. I have straggly blond hair and big blue ghost eyes, and I’m bundled into a quilted ski jacket a size too small. Steam rises from a loaf of bread. Plastic forks are piled at one end of a long, skinny table with a yellow-and-green-checked tablecloth.
“It was our first night in Chicago,” I continue. “Rita decided we needed a change of scenery from Minneapolis, although the snow looked the same to me. She told us she’d always wanted to see the Windy City. Plus, there was this guy named Slater who was looking for us, and Rita didn’t want him to find us. I kept thinking how Windy City was a real good name for this place because we could see snow blowing everywhere, like it wanted to get out of town fast as it could.
“Jeremy and I held hands and trailed behind Rita.” I can see her in her pale pink wool coat and red high heels, but I don’t bother telling the jury that. “We’d ridden all night on a bus from Minneapolis. Rita had struck up a conversation with a man who said he was a salesman.”
Raymond steps in closer to the witness box. He glances at the clock, then at the judge, and finally back to me. “Get to the part where the police were called in.”
That makes the prosecutor bounce up again. “Your Honor! He’s leading the witness.”
I can’t imagine Raymond leading anybody, but the judge nods, agreeing with Mr. Keller. “Sustained.” She turns to Raymond. “Just ask your question, Mr. Munroe.”
I feel kind of sorry for Raymond because he looks like a kid who got his hand slapped for reaching where he shouldn’t have.
“Would you tell us what happened when you arrived at the shelter?” Raymond asks.
I tell myself I need to cut to the chase. But thinking this reminds me that Chase, the Chase, is sitting in this very room, listening to and watching… me. And I have to talk about going to a shelter to get a meal.
I clear my throat. “There was a long line of people waiting to get their dinner for free. It was a good dinner too, with fresh bread and everything. Rita gave us plates and told us to fill them up. She and the salesman did the same thing. I think I forgot to tell that part, that the salesman came with us from the bus station. He was the one who knew about the free-dinner place.”
My mind is jumping ahead, and I see Jeremy’s hand reaching for that bread. I remember being glad about that because my brother had started looking skinny as a shoelace.
“Please go on,” Raymond urges.
I take in a deep breath and let out the rest of the story without taking in another. “Jeremy kept piling bread onto his plate, even when Rita tossed him a dirty look not to. And there were drumsticks too, and he piled those up. Then, instead of eating his own food, like he should have done, he walked around that room and handed it out.”
“Handed it out?” Raymond repeats.
I nod, then remember about using words instead. “Yeah. He gave drumsticks to old men and little boys and other kids’ mothers. And he gave bread to people right off his own plate, even if they already had some. When his plate was empty, he went back and filled it up again and then handed out the food all over again. It was like he couldn’t stop giving it away.”
“How did people react?” Raymond asks, right on cue.
“At first, people took the food without saying anything, just giving him a funny look. Then they got into it. They hollered, ‘Over here! I can use some of that!’ And Jeremy kept it up until there wasn’t anything more to give out.”
“And then what?” Raymond asks.
“And then he took off his shoes.”
“His shoes?” Raymond looks all surprised when he turns to the jury. But he knows what’s coming, which is why he wanted me to tell this story.
“He took off his brand-new snow boots, and he gave them to a kid who wore beat-up tennis shoes. Then he took off his socks, and he gave those away too.”
“Where was your mother during all this?” Raymond asks. As if he doesn’t know.
“Rita was yelling at him to stop. She kept saying she paid good money for those boots, although it was really Slater who did, and I’m not so sure the money was all that good.”
“And what did your brother do when your mother yelled for him to stop?” Raymond asks.
I answer just like we practiced. “It was like Jeremy didn’t hear her. He gave his coat to a red-haired girl with a long braid down her back. He unbuttoned his shirt. Rita took hold of his hand, but he kept going, unbuttoning with his other hand. So she smacked him.”
“Smacked him?” Raymond says, like he’s never heard of such a thing in his whole life.
“Just the back of his head,” I explain. “But it didn’t stop him. He gave the shirt off his back. And he kept going. He was down to his boxers when security got him. I don’t like to think what might have happened next if they hadn’t stopped him when they did.” I deliver that line exactly like Raymond and I practiced it.
But I feel like a traitor bringing up this story this way. I can’t look at Jeremy, but I can imagine the look he’s giving me. I’ve seen it enough to know. Not mad. Disappointed. Like he thought I’d understood that day and now he sees I didn’t and it’s too bad-for me, not for him-that I don’t.
The truth is, when the security officers stopped him, Jeremy didn’t look crazy. I don’t think a single person in that room thought he was crazy. They’d all grown quiet by then. All except me. I shouted for them to get their hands off my brother.
Then this little boy walked up to Jeremy and held out his own jacket for Jer to put on, and Jeremy did. And then a very large woman took something out of a grocery bag, and it turned out to be shoes exactly Jeremy’s size. And not only did she give him those shoes, she put them on his feet. But not before a little girl ran up and gave my brother her own white socks that had little yarn balls on the back of them so they wouldn’t fall down. Somebody else came up with a pair of jeans for my brother. One of the security people helped Jeremy get those jeans over his new shoes because by then guards had his arms behind his back.
When we left that place, people said goodbye and waved. And Jeremy was better off than when we’d come in.
We all were.
I feel sick inside my bones. My whole life I’ve fought anybody who said Jeremy was crazy, or treated him like there was something wrong with him. And now I’ve done that and worse, here in front of everybody and after swearing about it with my hand on the Bible.
“It’s getting late,” the judge says. “We’ll adjourn until nine o’clock tomorrow morning.” She turns to the jury and gives them orders not to talk to each other or anyone else about this case. Then she bangs her gavel on her desk. We all stand up to go home.
Only not Jeremy.