Legal Guardianship

3:13 P.M., Thursday, July 23, 2015

Honolulu, HI

This was it: the decision which would make Paul Macon and Paula Akron legal wards of Ted Michaels ... or send them back into the system. If the decision went against them Ted was prepared to appeal, but he wasn’t sure the kids would sit still long enough for that to play out. They had run away from that system once before, and he didn’t doubt that they would do it again. Patience is a virtue, but it isn’t one that nine-year-olds are known for.

“All rise.”

Everybody stood, the Honorable Judge Linda Takeuchi told them to be seated (so what was the point of standing up in the first place?), some legal phrases were uttered, and finally the actual decision came down.

“The petition for legal guardianship,” Judge Takeuchi announced, “is hereby granted, pending further review.”

The gavel banged and the celebration in the courtroom began. It didn’t last long; there were other cases needing the room, but with a quick explanation of “pending further review” to the kids there were hugs and handshakes all around. Even other lawyers and judges who had been involved in the case seemed happy.

Most of them. One judge kept quiet, not expressing any cheer and only by the look on his face expressing distaste. Judge Terry Lanchew wasn’t sure he liked these kids, with their hard-luck story and flouting of adult authority. Just because you have a spate of bad luck in no reason to develop a bad attitude. There was always that “further review.”

The kids talked up a storm when they were back in Ted’s car (Tesla Model S). Since the children were no longer in hiding, they could interact with their old friends again; some of them were within bicycle range, and others could ride the bus or be brought by their parents. They could visit their own parents at the state prisons, and that’s where Ted drove them next.

The parents knew, of course. The discovery of the children had been big news in Hawaii and had even gotten some attention on the Mainland. The fact that two of the inmates at the men’s prison were fathers of the two runaways gave those fathers a patina of fame and, even, a hint of badassery.

“I’m not really a badass,” Frank Akron told his daughter through the window, “but my little girl is, and believe it or not, that’s helping me here.”

Paula sniffled, but the tears didn’t flow as she answered her father.

“I wish I could get you out of here.”

“I know, Sweetums,” the man stated, wishing he could stroke the child’s hair as he used to do when she was sad or frightened. “But your mommy and me, well, we are guilty you know. We did it. So, I don’t know. Maybe we belong here.”

“Not for twenty years you don’t!” the child shrieked.

“Easy, easy,” the father said, looking around. “You scream like that and the guard’ll come and take time away from our visit.”

Paula did wipe away a tear now. “It wouldn’t be like this if we was rich.”

Paul Macon, in another room, was making this same point to his own father.

“I mean, I know you sold the weed, like, over and over, so I guess you really are guilty. But if you were rich like Ted, you’d be here a year or two instead of twenty. The law’s just different for rich people.”

Jim Macon didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want his son growing up thinking that some legal caste system was “just the way things are,” and he sure didn’t want him growing up thinking that this was how things should be. But at the same time, the law WAS different for the rich, at least as far as what prices one had to pay. The ability to hire a good lawyer made a huge difference.

“Son, we don’t...” Jim started, and then had to start again. “You know how when you do the Pledge of Allegiance, it ends with ‘with liberty and justice for all,’ like that’s how it ends, right?”

Paul nodded. “Yeah.”

“Well,” Jim continued, “we were already saying that back in the Thirties and Forties and stuff, like way before I was born. And that was when the Chinese and Japanese and such here in Hawaii were segregated, I mean, kept in their own little towns, so they wouldn’t unionize. Back on the Mainland there were separate drinking fountains and stuff.”

Paul didn’t understand. “Separate drinking fountains? Like, before that there was one big drinking fountain in each city or something?”

“No no. There were drinking fountains for white people, and another for black. African-Americans couldn’t use the same ones whites did.”

Paul frowned. “Was the water better in the white fountain, and the white guys wanted to keep it for themselves?”

Jim shook his head. “It was exactly the same water, from exactly the same pipes. The whites just didn’t want to mix with the blacks, wanted to keep them close enough to do the dirty jobs, but separate in every other way. Now, not all the whites felt like that of course. Your great-grandfather went to jail a few times fighting that sort of thing.”

Paul Macon’s eyes grew wide. He’d never known anything about any of that.

“Now if people can’t go certain places,” the grown man continued, “or get certain jobs, just because of race, well that’s not exactly ‘liberty and justice for all,’ is it?”

Paul shook his head.

“But we kept right on saying it,” Jim told him. “We kept saying it for years and years: ‘with liberty and justice for all.’ I said it and you said it and we all do. So, like, why?”

“I don’t know,” Paul admitted. “It sounds kind of like a lie.”

Jim chuckled; he hadn’t thought of it quite like that.

“Well, Paul, I guess it sort of is a lie. But we want it to be true. So, we keep saying it, sometimes because we want to convince ourselves that it’s true, that it’s already true. But there’s another reason: we want to MAKE it true. We keep saying things like ‘liberty and justice for all’ and ‘equal justice under law’ so we don’t forget what we’re trying to get to. Am, am I making any sense?”

“I ... guess.” Paul wasn’t sure it did make sense, though. “I mean, not really. Oh! like when I had to run that race, and I kept on saying ‘I’m a... ‘ I mean, kept saying it to myself: ‘I’m a winner, I’m a winner,’ before I even started running? Kind of like that?”

Jim nodded. “Yeah, kind of like that. Equal justice under law isn’t anything we got right now, but we’re trying to get there. It is different for the rich, and sometimes I hate them for it. Other times I’m like, well, at least it’s working for somebody. Maybe the rest of us can get there some day.”

Paul nodded. This was a lot for a nine-year-old to try and digest. But his father had something else to talk about.

“What’s all this in the news about Paula being your girlfriend? About the two of you living in the woods like the Blue Lagoon?”

“Blue Lagoon? What’s that?”

“ ... the news saying that Paul’s your boyfriend? Sometimes they even call him your, your lover.”

It was an hour and a half later, and Paula was talking to her mother at the prison for women.

“Yeah, he’s my boyfriend. Oh Mommy he’s just wonderful! He says nice things to me and he always hugs and kisses me and he saved me from this horrible spider and when we first met Ted and we thought he might be a bad guy Paul grabbed a knife and told me to run for it he was gonna fight a grown-up man to protect me and he’s just the most wonderful boyfriend in the whole wide world and I love him so much and we’re gonna get married when we grow up but we’re gonna wait until you and Daddy and his parents are out so you can go to the wedding because we wouldn’t do that without you and I want Daddy to walk me down the aisle and we might name our first girl baby ‘Gabrielle’ after you or ‘Tamera’ after Paul’s mommy and, and, and oh God it’s just so wonderful being his girlfriend!”

Paula giggled a bit.

“And he looks really cute in my dress.”

Gabrielle Akron was speechless. She wasn’t sure what she expected her daughter’s reaction to this “boyfriend” and “lover” stuff to be, but it wasn’t this torrent of words and it certainly wasn’t any comment on a little boy looking cute in Paula’s dress. A blushing denial would have been more in line with what Gabrielle expected of a nine year old little girl.

And was wearing each other’s clothes just something lovers did? She and her husband had done that back when they were dating...

The ride back to PLUR-MAkKikM was quiet, almost somber, as the children contemplated life without their parents. Ted had something to tell them, though, about the time they arrived back home.

“You know, I’ve still got lawyers working. I can’t get your parents out; I asked. But I might, MIGHT, be able to reduce their time.”

“But how?” Paul asked. “They’re guilty.”

“They are,” Ted agreed. “The way law enforcement acted, though, the case should have been thrown out. Not because an undercover bought from them, but because he didn’t arrest them then; because he kept egging them on, making the crime worse. The Camden 28 broke into a government building, stole documents, and destroyed them, but they walked because of police overreaching. The Weathermen in the Seventies blew stuff up, and many of them walked for the same reason. So, I don’t know if your parents would have walked, even with good lawyers, but they might have.”

The child-couple could hardly believe that anybody could break into buildings, destroy government documents, or blow up much of anything and walk.

“Were they rich?” Paula asked.

“Not really,” Ted told them. “But they had good lawyers, because they took up, I mean, the lawyers took up the cases for the sake of principle. It would have been cool if that would have happened for your folks, but it didn’t. And I won’t lie to you: getting them out is harder than keeping them from going in in the first place. So, I can’t do that. Get them out I mean. But I might be able to reduce their time.”

“How much reduce?” the boy asked.