This is my contribution to the wsotta May Rumble.
S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders.
What Comes Around
"So what's next, Edith?"
"Custody hearing." Edith fell into step beside The Judge, impressing him once again with her ability to not only maintain order in the office, but to physically keep up with him. She refused to admit to her age, but must have been at least in her early sixties. "Judge Wallace called and cancelled your lunch meeting."
"Reschedule for…"
"Thursday," she said. "It's the only day you have free this week. I've already taken care of it."
"Thank you, Edith." The Judge opened the file folder that Edith handed him and paged through it as the two of them maintained a quick pace up the hallway. Curtis. Darrel Curtis. Twenty years old. Two brothers. He committed the facts to memory as he scanned the file.
The young man and his attorney were waiting outside of The Judge's chambers. "Step inside," he offered, leading the way into the darkened room. "Let's have a little daylight now, shall we?" The burgundy drapes were convenient sometimes, but lent a somber feel to the ancient room.
Brief pleasantries were exchanged, and The Judge leaned back into his creaking leather chair to finish checking over the paperwork. The room fell silent while he read. Others might rush through to avoid tense lags, he thought, but I'll not let a single detail slip through.
They were from the other side of town. He glanced up at the young man. At the very least, he didn't have his hair plastered flat with handfuls of grease like most of the rest of his neighborhood. He chuckled. The things they came up with. He saw them every day from his bench, and every day he wondered all over again if any of them realized how ridiculous they looked. Thank the stars his own boys were above such nonsense.
Parents, dead. Too bad, he thought. Without them, he had to insert the leverage himself. He wasn't conceited, but The Judge had seen a thing or two of what happened to kids who had lost their parental guidance – especially when they were the product of blue-collar breeding.
He sighed. The younger ones were, what…thirteen and sixteen. All boys. Three boys, living alone, with nobody left to put the fear of God into them for their misdeeds. Damned shame.
Darrel Curtis gazed across the mahogany desk with what looked like stoic indifference. He's not dumb, The Judge decided. He knows he's on shaky ground here, but he's not letting on. Good for him. Maybe he has a chance in hell of keeping control of two young teenaged boys. But then again…
Naturally, The Judge wanted to keep them together. Last thing he needed was to tack any unnecessary financial drains on his record – Simpson had had a field day before the last election, calculating how much state resources had been expended under The Judge's heavy handed sentencing. It was all about the numbers anymore, and if you didn't understand that, then you didn't belong on the bench. No, there was no need to send them off to a boys' home. Love of God, the youngest one would be there for nearly five years. All that, when they had a perfectly able and apparently willing brother to take on the burden.
That, of course, took him back to the parental guidance issue.
Employed, fifty-two hours per week. That wasn't good. Where they lived, they were as likely to get themselves into prison as The Judge's children were to get themselves into college, parents or not. This boy could have all the respect in the world from his brothers, but if he wasn't around to demand it…
The other last thing The Judge needed was to have more crime in the streets that brought more boys into his courtroom, especially ones he himself had left out there. But even if the oldest had every intention of keeping his brothers out of trouble, where would he gain the leverage?
No, The Judge had experience with these kind of boys. He knew how they worked, especially when given free reign. It was up to him now, it was his responsibility to make sure these boys made it to adulthood in one piece, and it had to happen now, today, in this room. He would give this young man the control he needed to put the pressure on, to keep his brothers in line. Not a day would go by that they wouldn't all three remember that they could lose each other at any time.
"Mr. Curtis," The Judge said, leaning forward to shake the young man's hand and noting that his eyes shadowed a hint of startled grief at being referred to by his father's title, "I'll tell you what I will do. I will allow you to take custody of your brothers, on one condition." He could almost feel the relief that washed through the boy. "You keep them out of trouble. That means that if either one of them, or you, for that matter, steps out of line even a hair, your brothers will find themselves placed immediately in a boys' home." A cold day in Hell that would be, but young Darrel Curtis didn't need to know that. In fact, he had to believe it, if his brothers were going to. He had to be the parent now. He had to frighten them enough to keep them in line, and he could only do that if he himself were frightened. "Do you understand? I'll have social services set up a schedule to look in on you, make sure everything is going alright."
Although he never granted more than a polite smile and a thank you, the young man left the room with visibly less worry on his shoulders, and The Judge congratulated himself on once again finding the path of least resistance for all. He smiled, certain that he would never hear from those boys again. A little pressure and some due respect for authority could only be a good thing.
Edith bustled into the room with a stack of files. "Three cases for this afternoon, but your meeting with the lawyers in the Donovan case was cancelled."
The Judge took the folders from his secretary. "Thank you, Edith. And I'll tell you what – since we're all done for the morning, why don't you go ahead and take an early lunch? I'd like to head over to the dealer and take a look at that car Bobby wants."
Edith gave an appreciative smile. "Well now, I think I might just do that. I'll see you this afternoon, Judge Sheldon."