Chapter 2: 1966

Tuesday the 16th, the day after the bad day. Lunch in lockup was history; it was 2:20 p.m.

Lilly Jensen parked the car; she looked over at her friend. “I’ve never noticed this place before,” she said.

“Hah, I have,” said Valerie. “Once, when I was busted a few years back, I spent a weekend here. It’s not a nice place. Lil, I feel so guilty. He’s in there because of me. I have to get in there and see him.”

“I’ll go in with you,” said Lilly.

“If you do, you’ll just be sitting in the waiting area. They won’t let two of us in there together to see him,” she said.

“Okay, then I’ll just wait over there at that taco place,” she said. Valerie nodded.

“Okay, might be a while. Maybe an hour and a half.”

“That’s fine. I’ll be here waiting; well, over there.”

“Thanks.”

Valerie watched as her best friend in the whole world drove the one block down the street toward the eatery. She sighed and went inside. Her eyes were still red from a night of endless tears. She was calm now, again, but seeing him as she was about to...

She’d pay him back someday, somehow, that was her pledge to herself. There was nobody like him: he’d saved her from the street and now he was saving her again—from a murder charge and likely life in prison. This, this whole thing, was bad!

I was already in the little conference room. I was seated, again with my wrists cuffed to the surface of the steel table in front of me. My ankles were shackled too and connected by a chain that wound around my waist, but my wife would not be able to see those, just my wrists; I was glad for that.

She entered and, seeing me, her mouth opened, and tears began to drip down her cheeks.

“Honey girl, you look so good to me,” I said, as she slowly took her seat. A guard stood across from us silent and bored as my Valerie stared at me.

“Oh my God, Chase...!” she said, finally finding her voice.

“It’s okay. I’m good,” I said, “but how are you doing?”

“Forget me! I’m fine. Chase, I don’t know what to say. This is all my fault,” she said. I tendered her a stern look. She knew what my look meant; there was a guard in the room, eight feet away, that could hear every word we said to each other. She nodded her understanding.

“Chase, I would do anything...” she started.

“I just need you to be there for me when I get out. My lawyer is working on doing the best he can for me otherwise. His name’s Golding” I said. She nodded.

“I will, Chase, I will. Can there be any doubt that I will be there for you? And I have already talked to mister Golding twice, well, on the phone.

“Good. Now, how’s Jillian. I miss my baby.”

“I know, and she’s good. She misses you already. But I will teach her about you. I won’t let her forget you. She will remember you, I promise, by God she will.” I was nodding. She had to be reading my mind.

“Yes, that’s important to me. If the two of you are there for me on the day that I finally escape from wherever it is that they send me, that’ll be all I will ever ask of God. You are the one woman in the whole world who I know for certain would never betray me. My time inside is my way of telling my woman how much I love her—you.”

“We will, Chase, we most definitely will be there for you! And betray you? Hardly!”

“Okay, you’ve talked to mister Golding. Please keep in touch with him. He’ll know everything there is to know that means anything. Okay?”

“Yes, yes. He seems like a good lawyer. And, yes, I will meet with him from time to time. And, Chase, I will visit you as often as I can. I promise!”

“Good, good, I’ll be needing to see you. I mean you know.”

“For sure,” she said.

We talked for another tear filled maybe forty-five minutes before the guard signaled an end to our meeting. She threw me a kiss. There was no physical contact between us; such was not allowed. She was ushered out. The guard returned and led me, recuffed to the waist-chain and ankles shackled, back to my cell. I would be meeting with my lawyer again in the morning. It would be decision time.

She entered the little hole-in-the-wall taco-tia and looked around to see where her best friend was sitting. She spotted her at the back in a small booth. She had a sauce-stained Styrofoam plate in front of her and was sipping what was likely an iced tea.

Lilly waved. Valerie nodded, came to her, and took a seat across from her.

“Was he okay?” said Lilly. The new arrival shrugged.

“Define okay. But yes, I guess so. He’s not sick, but I think he’s worried, maybe afraid. I know for sure that I am.” Her friend nodded.

“I guess prison can be scary,” said Lil.

“Lilly, I am sick at heart, just plain sick at heart. My husband is suffering. In truth we both are, but him the most. I know it. I’m very afraid for him.”

“Have you had a chance to talk to his lawyer again?”

“No, not again. Just the two times on the phone. The first time he just told me that I could see him after he was arraigned, and the second time he let me know that he’d been arraigned, and that I was cleared to see him. One thing I have to figure out, if he is moved upstate, is how in the heck I’m going to get up there to see him. He’s counting on me to visit him.” Lilly Jensen was nodding.

“Yes, he’s certain to need your support.” she said.

“But to survive, I need to get on full time at work to provide for me and our daughter. Anyhow, somehow, someway, I’m gonna need to be getting up there often enough so he won’t feel abandoned, betrayed. That’s my greatest concern. I simply cannot allow him to feel abandoned.”

“Yes, I see what you mean. But I mean, you think he’s going to be sent upstate?”

“He doesn’t know, but his lawyer did tell me, when I talked to him, that it was likely. Not for sure, not yet, but likely.”

“So, what did Chase say. I mean anything that you didn’t already know?” Valerie shrugged.

“Not really, just that he is counting on me and Jillian to be there for him when he gets out. Of course I assured him that we would be, and we will. But...”

“But?” said Lil.

“You know I was on the street for a couple of years before Chase saved me and married me. Some of my customers were ex-cons. Prison changed them—bad changed them—and it was easy to tell. It made them harder, bitter, and kinda nasty toward regular folks, especially their women, even their own families. I get nervous just thinking about what Chase might be like ten years from now,” said Valerie.

“So, what’s next?”

“The lawyer is meeting with the ADA again tomorrow and then with Chase. We should know then for sure how long he’s likely going to be in prison, and probably where he will be sent and when. Anyway, that’s all I know for the present.”

The two women talked for another half hour before heading home.