The Kitchen Table

by dcat

It was way too early to be up, not even 5am yet. He didn't know why he'd woken up so early, but now that he was awake he decided to get up. He wiped the sleep out of his eyes and put his robe on to head downstairs. Still too dark to play basketball, he decided to make himself a cup of coffee, read a few files and wait for the sun to rise over the next hour.

He flipped on the light switch and illuminated the kitchen. A scattering of papers, files, books, and pens were strewn about the table, along with some bread crust ends from several mostly eaten sandwiches.

He sniffed in a breath and dismissed it for the moment and went instead to the counter to make a pot of coffee. Glancing out the window, he saw that the morning appeared to be a bit foggy. He hoped by time the sun began to rise, that it would quickly burn off. The kid had to get the lawn cut and a rainy day would put a sure fire end to that task.

Hardcastle retrieved a cup out of the cupboard and waited for the coffeemaker to finish rumbling and dripping.

It was finally ready and he poured himself a full cup, black and strong.

Then it was over to the table. He yawned and grabbed for the familiar manila files. They were from cases that he and McCormick had worked on together. He wondered why he had pulled them out. He glanced at the books. One was a Math text, the other was a book on English Composition. This had the makings of a late-night study session of some sort.

A rather tidy, but short stack of neatly written on, lined paper was off to the side.

Milt blinked a few times, took a sip of coffee and allowed his curiosity to get the best of him. "This is my kitchen table," he mumbled, as his fingers slid over and plucked the essay from where it sat. "If he didn't want it read, he shouldn't have left it sitting out in the open."

The Toughest Decision I've Ever Made

By Mark McCormick

That must be why the files were scattered about. He was using their crime busting for an English essay assignment. "At least he's taking his schooling seriously," Milt said to the quiet room. "Wonder which one he picked."

Hardcastle was more than interested in reading which one McCormick had chosen. He brought the papers closer and continued. He smiled as he read the first sentence. The kid's writing style was just like he talked. He wondered what the English professor would think of it.

You may have noticed that I'm not exactly a traditional college-aged student. That's because, I spent my 'college years' living in a prison dormitory, serving time for Grand Theft Auto.

I've lived with a retired Superior Court Judge for going on two years now.

Right now based on that information, you can probably draw your own conclusions about my decision making abilities from those tidbits, but since it is an assignment, I'd like to take a stab at it and offer up my own opinion.

Besides taking care of the Judge's estate (yes that basically means lawn and gardening duties), he and I attempt to track down criminals that have eluded the judicial system and more specifically, cases that walked out of his courtroom on technicalities.

I'm going to work backwards.

In February I had to kill a man. His face still haunts me and I'll always wonder if I did the right thing. I imagine that I will have those feelings until I die. When I first got this English assignment, I thought I would simply write about that. I can't. I still cannot put into words how I felt or justify what I did and honestly, it may not be the hardest decision I've ever made. It is the most personal and for now it will stay that way.

I pulled out a bunch of the files of all the cases we've worked on and reread through them all, because something kept telling me that the hardest decision was one of them. There have been so many and most of them reach a point where the person or people were hunting down come after us and put our own lives in danger. I have to save the Judge from impending doom or he has to rescue me from doing something stupid.

I think it's the impending doom or the rescuing that gave me pause to think and what ultimately led me to choose just one thing as the hardest decision.

I sat in the County intake jail in September of 1983. I had stolen a car and I got caught. I was brought before Judge Milton C. Hardcastle for the second time in my life. I knew he was going to nail me, second same offense, plus all the other stuff that was in my permanent record. His nickname was 'Hardcase.' I didn't have a prayer. I smarted off in the courtroom and he brought me back to his chambers and made me an offer that tilted me off my axis. He wanted me to work with him and he'd fix it for me to get out of the current predicament I was in; on one condition. I had to give back the car I had stolen. I told him to drop dead. He postponed the sentencing, thanks mainly to my smart mouth and shipped me back to the lock-up for the night.

There I sat. Just me in that lonely, rotten, stink-filled cell. I had a lot of time to think and everything that was running through my head was negative. Hours and hours of 'what was I going to do now?' I had no answers and even if I did, my life was now in the hands of 'Hardcase.'

He showed up at about 8:30pm, wearing the oldest pair of sneakers and the most mismatched sweats I'd ever seen. Stranger than that he made the same offer, but with a new twist. He held one of his famous manila folders in his hand and slid it to me between the bars of the cell. It was information about the man who 'owned' the car I had taken. The Judge believed what I had told him in his chambers. He believed that this guy was up to something and he was willing to give me the same offer again. We'd work together, we'd go after this guy first and he'd fix my current predicament.

He believed me.

And the hardest decision I would ever have to make was did I trust him to believe that he'd keep his word to me?

This arrangement of ours has been going on for over two years now.

The paper abruptly ended there. Milt shuffled through the papers looking to see if there was more.

"That's all there is. It only had to be five hundred words," McCormick stood in the doorway and began to explain, "That's already over six hundred. Writing essays in college isn't nearly as difficult as it seemed to be in high school."

"Well, it's not like you can wax poetic about carburetors and oil changes in vocational school," Milt said.

Mark walked over and plucked out a cup from the cupboard and poured himself a cup of coffee. "You're up pretty early."

"So are you," Hardcastle quickly responded.

"I haven't gone to bed yet, I just took a nap in the den. I have to turn that in later on." He nodded toward the paper.

"After you cut the grass I hope," Milt added.

Mark nodded, "Of course, Tonto know his first duty is to Lone Ranger's many acres." He took another sip from his cup and after he tasted it he set it off to the side. "Do you always have to make it so strong?"

"That's how I like it."

"What was the hardest decision you ever made Judge? Can you narrow it down to one or two? Probably some juicy criminal case huh? A grisly, bloody murder maybe?"

"They've all been tough," the Judge glanced away from eye contact. "Anytime you decide to send a person off to jail, you can't help but second guess yourself. Did you do the right thing? Or should they get a second chance?

"Yeah, but there's got to be some that stick out more than others?"

"There are," The Judge replied finishing up his coffee.

McCormick smiled at him as they made direct eye contact. "All right, I get it, you're not going to tell me. It's not your assignment after all, it's mine, right?" Milt returned the smile. "You know though, you could have a little consideration for my privacy. I didn't expect you to ever see that and I certainly didn't mean for you to read it."

"Then you shouldn't leave it sitting around on my kitchen table." Milt gathered up the papers and straightened them up and handed them across the table to where Mark sat. "Did you have to call me 'Hardcase' in there? You know I hate that."

"Hey, it may be your kitchen table, but it's my essay and it's staying the way it is, besides, it's just a word. Believe me, the professor won't give it a second thought. He grades on content and justification of argument, not on use of accurate nicknames."

"Lucky for you, not everyone is like that."

"Lucky for me that some people are! Why don't you go upstairs and put on those old sneakers of yours, the sun's coming up and I need to win back the twenty from yesterday."

Hardcastle stood up from the table, "Get the ball, and make sure you have the cash in your pocket. I'll be out there in a minute. And clean up this mess in here too!"

The End.