Chapter 16: 1980

I was led into the court room: ankles shackled and cuffed to a waist chain. I was not able to take steps longer than twelve inches at a time. I saw the vultures from Coopersville sitting in the back. I stared at her for a long few seconds before I was pushed down, and not gently, in the chair.

Valerie Cooper’s hand went to her mouth. Never in her life had she felt so guilty or so bad. This was all her fault. Her husband had tried to do good for her ex-husband, good that had gone unappreciated and that had precipitated Chase’s attack on the guard; but it was her words and attitude relating to Chase’s fatherhood that was at core the reason for this horrible happening.

“Mister Benedict, the prosecution has been heard, your defense has presented its case, and now it is up to me to pronounce sentence.

“Mister Benedict, as punishment for the unprovoked and aggravated assault on officer Wells, I hereby sentence you to serve an additional ten years in state prison, and such to be consecutive to the remainder of your original sentence for second degree murder. As for the possibility of parole. This court will consider parole five years subsequent to you having served the full twenty years of your original sentence but not before. Court adjourned.”

I heard a screech from the back of the room. I’d learn later that it had been Valerie that had reacted to my sentencing by crying out and fainting.

So, thirty years overall, twenty-five if I were lucky.

The really bad news? I was to serve the next eleven years at a minimum, and only that if I could get paroled in ‘91. If not, I was looking at sixteen more years in hell, out hopefully, in ‘96; I’d be fifty-six years-old then. But oh, I’d made the majors; I was to be promoted to level five, supermax: literally hell on earth. I would have a chance to get reevaluated and maybe sent back down to level four if I was a good boy for the next two years. Wonderful! And I had only the senior Coopers to thank for my good fortune, and yes, I was blaming them. I wondered what they were doing.

“Ten more years! He got ten more years. And he spent time in the hospital too!” screamed Valerie. Her husband looked down.

“He can cut it down to five—maybe,” said Herbert.

“He’ll get out with just the five extra,” said William. “It’s how the game is played. Not that that’s a big deal. He could have been out in just a few months at the most, now it’s going to be eleven more years. He’ll be fifty-plus years old: possessor of a murder conviction, probably a physical ruin and certainly an emotional one; and he will be way behind the times technologically. He won’t even know how to drive the cars they’ll be making by then. And worst of all, he’ll be alone; no woman will want him. And as far as he’s concerned, he has no family, maybe a couple of friends if they even remember him, and that’s it. The man will have no real life. None.”

“Will, we’ll think of something; we have to,” said a very sober Herbert.

“Forget about money. You offer him money and he’ll spit on you, not just the money but you!” said William.

“Jillian could maybe help,” said Valerie. “I did wrong threatening to cut him off from her if he didn’t do what I said. But I will make it up to him; I swear it!”

“She won’t know him. And there is no way she’d be willing to take seriously any attempt to convince her to see him as her real and one and only father instead of you, Herb,” said Will.

Herbert looked over toward his wife. She nodded. “There was one card left to play, but if handled wrong it could make things even worse than they already were. But, if...” started Herb.

“Yes, a woman could do it, maybe,” said Will, interjecting himself, not realizing what the man of the house was referring to. Herb looked down, then up ignoring the lawyer’s misinterpretation of his thinking.

“I don’t know, Will, as you said, what woman would want him with his baggage,” said Herb.

“Herb, thinking about it, the woman wouldn’t have to be a clone of Valerie. Just a woman who looked okay and maybe had a lot of baggage of her own.”

“And how would he be able to make even a marginal living with his baggage as you point out? Even a woman with a ton of her own baggage would be looking for a man who could at least feed her and maybe her kids if she had any,” said Herb. “Yeah, we could help him with money. But we all know that he would totally refuse even a little help from us financially, which you also just gone done pointing out that he would spit on if we tried.”

“Herb, there is one thing we might be able to get away with helping Chase. He wouldn’t even have to know it. I mean...” said Valerie.

“Okay?” said Herb.

“A barely decent job, not a great job. Just something that paid a regular wage. Just something that he could be made to believe he was doing for himself,” said Valerie.

“I don’t know,” said Herb. “I mean maybe, but even if we could arrange for something like that, it wouldn’t be for at least eleven more years. We’re screwed. And him even more so than us. This is bad.”

“Val does have a point, Herb. Yes, it will be eleven more years at the least that’s true. We can’t do anything about that. But if we plan right, the job thing, well that might mitigate his suffering at least. It’s kinda what we did for him in the prison getting the bangers to cover his ass some of the time,” said Will. “Yes, Valerie’s idea might just be a way to go. And maybe not here in Phoenix. He has to believe that we’re not interfering in his affairs.” Herb was nodding.

“Yes, maybe we are on to something, or some things,” said Herb. “We sure as hell have time to figure things out.”

“Yes: Jillian, a job, and a woman,” said Valerie. “He’s going to need a woman. That’s going to be critical.”

“Okay, but what about now, the present,” said Herb. “We’re still on his visitor’s list unless he’s changed it.”

“We visit,” said Valerie, “and fairly often.”

“And Jillian?” said Herb.

“As a visitor?” said Valerie.

“It’s a thought,” said Herb.

“Tread cautiously in those waters,” said Will, “real cautiously.”

I was a max veteran, but I was not a supermax veteran. I had to learn a whole new set of rules and new ways to suffer in my new digs. Oh yeah, I did, and none of it was fun. New uniforms too; red this time, stylish, real stylish. The uniforms were the same as the old ones except for the color. Someone or some committee at the bureau of prisons had come up with it. Well, what the hell, color-schmolor what the fuck difference did it make. Answer, it made no damn difference whatsoever.