Chapter 24

I spent my Friday morning in my normal recent fashion before hitting the bus and listening to David brag about how his team was going to beat mine on Saturday. To retaliate, I told him he was a sick, little kid in the hospital so I would hit two homers for him, since Billy Crenshaw promised to hit one (a parody of the great Gary Cooper playing Lou Gerhig with Babe Ruth playing himself, from a scene in the classic movie, Pride of the Yankees). Tim laughed so hard that he inadvertently swore and got sent to the back of the bus by Mr. Smithers. Even I couldn’t help him, not that I really tried all that hard. Still, I could have used Tim to run interference with Jacob Turner, who was asking if Mr. Martin was going to jail. That kid was so annoying.

I spent the rest of my morning talking about Holden Caulfield’s mildly potty mouth and then the recession that followed the Civil War in the 1870s and Grant’s lackluster presidency. After that, I moved on to Pre-Algebra, before playing around with distilling wood in IPS. Who said that high school wasn’t esoteric (take that, Mrs. Douglas for your praise of my vocabulary)? That brought me to the highlight of my day: Lunch (growing boy!) Besides eating a wonderful lunch (that for some reason, Natalie was making for me), I got to be with J Squared and my friends.

Everybody seemed to be in good spirits today. I guess Tim had taken my ‘compliment Shelly’ idea to heart and they looked really cozy, Eva was petting Johnny, while sticking her tongue out at Jennifer (who told her to stop petting me). Axel and Angie were snuggling, as were Laura and Billy. I was getting a kick of Karl sitting next to Dana. She had to be seven inches taller than my friend, despite his recent growth spurt. It was still nice to see Dana laughing and joking. She even promised not to hurt me too badly. At that point Jennifer whispered something in her ear and she paled a little and nodded.

After lunch, I walked Jennifer to fifth period (since Janie had a meeting with her guidance counselor and wouldn’t be at Chorus today). As we walked, I asked her what she told Dana and Jen grinned. “I told her that the whole thing was funny for a while, but she was carrying the joke too far. I told her I knew a bit of dirty laundry about Dana and told her to stop bugging you or I’d tell Karl.”

“And what would that dirty laundry be?”

“I don’t know. I just told her I did. Every girl has a deep, dark secret.”

“What’s your secret?” I grinned.

“I like girls.”

“I know that. But you also like me.”

“Which means you must be a girl,” she laughed.

I looked down at my crotch. “Sorry, I don’t think so.”

“Well, then, you must either be the exception to the rule or you broke me.”

“If it’s the second thing, I don’t want to fix you. You’re perfect to me.”

“Then it must be the first one, then, because nothing perfect ever needs fixing,” she giggled and gave me a quick smooch on the cheek. I then walked over to Spanish for a brief look at the “vosotros” form.

After last period, I was ready to get to my bus, when I saw my father and Monique running over to intercept me. “I thought I should bring you both when I meet with Judge Hairston today,” he said, while I hugged Monique and then wrapped my arm around her waist while we walked to dad’s Audi. Neither of us called ‘shotgun’, preferring to let my dad chauffeur us while we snuggled in the back.

When we got to the courthouse, we headed to the judge’s chambers. A clerk made a call and then we waited for a few minutes. She then ushered us into the judge’s chambers.

Judge Hairston was sitting behind his desk. He was a sixty-ish black man with mostly gray hair. He wore a completely neutral face.

“Hello, Mr. Matthews. I did not realize that you would be bringing Monique and this young man to my chambers,” he stated a deep baritone voice.

“I’m sorry, Your Honor. I know you know Monique Jackson. This is my son, Thomas. Under the circumstances, I felt that I needed to bring them along so they could report their observations of an encounter we had with Mr. Ledbetter.”

He looked at Monique sternly. “I will say this once, young lady. Your mother was a distant relative of mine and due to how exceptional a young woman you are, I did her a favor by emancipating you. I said it then and still believe it now, that no matter how exceptional you are, you are not capable of taking care of your younger brother. If this is an attempt to backdoor me to get custody of him, I will consider taking away your emancipated status. Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” replied Monique.

“Your Honor, Monique has no direct relationship to this matter other than she is a friend of my son, Thomas. She is not driving this issue, Sir. My wife and I are. I am approaching this court today as a man wearing multiple hats. In the interest of being completely transparent with this court, as both an officer of the court and a man, I appear today to help a fine young man, in doing so, I feel that I am doing both my duty as an attorney and as a man.”

The judge laughed. “Mr. Matthews, your eloquence is well known to me. Why don’t you explain both your concerns as an officer of the court and as a man and we’ll see what I can do to help.”

We then told the judge everything and while he seemed appalled, he also seemed somewhat skeptical. I wasn’t sure if he believed everything we said, but then he began to ask questions.

“I gather your wife and Florence weren’t particularly close if she was unaware of Florence’s health issues.”

“They were work colleagues several years ago and had become friends. Before their friendship had fully matured, my wife was let go due to budgetary concerns at the hospital. As we are more than financially comfortable and since her mother’s health had improved, she decided to use her free time to volunteer as a nurse at the free clinic.”

“That’s commendable, but I’m not sure how that matters here.”

“I’m just pointing out why my wife lost touch with Florence, the stability of our financial situation, our values and our commitment to the community in less than thirty seconds.”

Judge Hairston laughed again. “Okay, and you want custody of the boy or want to adopt him?”

“We want him for our ward for now, but might be agreeable for adoption if things work out and he wants it.”

“Mixed families are a difficult thing. Culturally, black children tend to be better off with black families.”

“That may be true in many cases, but this situation is a bit different from most.”

Then Monique spilled the beans. “Tommy and I have feelings for each other.”

The judge nodded. “I can tell that young lady. I may be getting old, but I’m not blind. He seems to be as an exceptional young person as you are. I am usually pleased when I see exceptional young people attracted to each other. Monique, I was concerned that you might never be attracted to any male at all,” he frowned. “I seem to have compounded the problem by getting you employment at Blanton Commercial Auto Parts. And you say that problem is resolved?

Monique smiled. “I have a great new boss,” she smiled, grabbing my hand.

Judge Hairston frowned and looked at me. “You?”

“I own controlling interest in a company that bought Edgar Blanton’s businesses. My father is my trustee until I come of age and my Uncle is providing sweat equity and running the day-to-day operations. I’m just a school kid,” I grinned.

“Young man, you’re not like any school kid I’ve ever met ... well, except for perhaps Miss Jackson. I can see why you two are so well suited, regardless of the difference in your races,” he sighed.

“Along with our girlfriends, we plan to take over the world, Your Honor,” Monique giggled.

“But in a good way. Racial equality, love over greed, justice for all,” I added.

“Under parental guidance, of course,” chimed Dad.

“Girlfriends?” asked the judge.

“You don’t want to know, Your Honor,” said my dad.

“It seems that Miss Jackson is even more complicated than I thought,” he said before turning to me. “And how does an upper middle-class kid come to own a company worth, what, a million dollars?”

“Close to two, Your Honor.” I corrected.

“I stand corrected. Almost two million dollars?”

“Frieda and I may be financially comfortable, but my father is obscenely wealthy,” explained my father.

“You’re Everett Matthews’s son?” asked the judge, obviously making the connection.

“Guilty as charged, Your Honor.”

The judge gave a real belly laugh. “I can think of worse crimes to plead guilty to, Counselor.”

“My parents and I had a serious falling out years ago. I’ve tried to make it on my own, but I’m sure that my father helped some behind the scenes.”

“Your modesty is not necessary, Counselor. You’ve argued before me a number of times and you’re a much more than capable attorney. But I understand having to fill big shoes. As you probably know, my father was a Federal Circuit Court judge.”

Dad nodded. “I do, Sir. As far as my family, Everett and Gertrude Matthews have been doing their best to make amends and we’ve managed to bury the hatchet. The latest ‘make amends’ project was to help Tommy ruin Edgar Blanton.”

“Because of Monique?” he asked me.

“It was before I even knew Monique, Your Honor.” I replied.

“He was abusing one of our other girlfriends too, Judge Hairston,” said Monique.

“Why not simply turn him in?” asked the judge.

“We tried, but Janie and I got little traction because we were both kids and Mr. Blanton and Janie’s mother were against us,” I said before pausing. “Also Mr. Blanton was a ‘pillar of the community,’” I put that expression in air quotes and wore a disgusted expression. “So, the police or the District Attorney wouldn’t pursue it. The only way we could get justice was for my grandfather to set up a company, buy up Mr. Blanton’s debt, and threaten to call it in unless he sold out and left town.”

“That seems pretty close to extortion to me,” frowned Judge Hairston.

“Not really, Your Honor. I was going to buy his companies regardless of what he decided. As I was his largest creditor, I could have made him sell off his new equipment, force him into bankruptcy and snap his companies right up if I wanted to do so.”

“Why didn’t you do it that way?”

“If I bankrupted him, then Mr. Blanton would still be in town to liquidate his businesses. I wanted him out of town, so Janie wouldn’t have to see him. By doing it this way, he left town and still got some money for his companies.”

Judge Hairston was shaking his head. “It still doesn’t sound right to me. How could you call in his debt?”

I looked at my dad and he took over. I was already approaching the end of my knowledge of what Granddad explained to me.

Dad nodded, before taking over the story. “In theory, Blanton had already defaulted on his loans when he was late on multiple loan payments to the bank. For reasons that are still unclear to me, his original creditor, had turned a blind eye to these late payments. It was even more questionable when we learned that these weren’t the first late payments he had made. This was a violation of the loan agreement, no matter who his debt holder was at the time or became. I knew the process was completely legal if my father suggested it. Of course, as an officer of the court, I was required to verify that this would be legal and it was. I wouldn’t have been able to participate in the company if there were any irregularities otherwise.”