Free What They Found by Walter Dean Myers

Evans, you are just wonderful.” Keisha hugged Mama Evans, waved to Abeni and Mrs. Danforth, and left.
    “I don’t think that boy is going to get over being knocked down in the street,” Mrs. Danforth said.
    “I guess not,” Mama Evans said. “Some men are just funny that way.”

jump
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    I had slept badly, waking every few minutes to check the time. When I did sleep I dreamt of being lost in a large bus terminal, running from gate to gate trying to find my bus to somewhere. I was exhausted when morning finally came. I told myself that the strain of the last few weeks would soon be over, one way or the other. I was exhausted as I sat up. My head felt heavy in my hands and I wanted to lie down again, to sleep.
    Snatches of conversation, all about the case, repeated themselves in my head. What had Frank Havens said? Oh, yes, that there was an outside chance that Donald would get probation.
    “We made a good case for it,” he said. His voice was high and tense. “Once we had Donald in the rehabilitationprogram things started to look up. The judge can see he’s working on his case.”
    My brother was eighteen, two years younger than me, but somehow he seemed older. Our parents had spent the last few years trying to keep him out of trouble, watching in vain as he slid from small problems into the drug scene and, finally, an arrest for armed robbery.
    Mama pushed the door open and held up a mug of coffee. I smiled.
    “How you doing?” I asked.
    “I’m scared,” Mama said, sitting next to me on the bed. The sunlight through the venetian blinds fell in diagonals across her lap. “You can never tell about these things. He can get as much as twelve years. I can’t imagine him being in jail for that long.”
    “We’ll go into the courtroom today as a family,” I said. “And we’ll show the judge he has support. Mr. Havens said that sometimes the judge will allow the family to speak.”
    Mama rubbed my hands and said that she had to get dressed. “Donald went to Barbara’s house to get his suit.”
    That was a good sign. Just last night he had been surly and going on about how the Man wasn’t going to cut him a break because he was black and he didn’t need to dress for the occasion. I had grown as angry as he was. Our folks had been putting up with him for the past few years, getting him out of trouble, begging people not to prosecute him for the petty crimes he committed. Theyhad put up all of their savings to get him out on bail when he was arrested on the stickup charge.
    Donald and a friend, Kwame Brown, had borrowed a gun and stuck up a gas station in Brooklyn. Kwame was the driver. When Donald ran back to the car with the money Kwame had panicked and taken off even before Donald was into the car. He had fallen on the sidewalk, and the gun had discharged. Luckily no one had been hurt. Kwame had been stopped two blocks down the road for speeding and had been arrested when the report of the robbery was sent out over the police network. Donald was arrested when he got to Barbara’s, his girlfriend’s, house. The robbery had netted them less than fifty dollars and now he was facing a possible twelve-year sentence. Kwame was pleading not guilty but Donald’s lawyer thought that Donald would do best copping a plea and not putting the state through the trial.
    “They have him on videotape,” he had said with a shrug.
    This wasn’t the life I had imagined for myself, or for my brother. There had been a time when Donald had played high school basketball and was hoping for an athletic scholarship. We were going to be the first ones in our family to finish college and had made glorious plans for all the great things we were going to do with the stacks of money we made. Those days seemed so far away.
    The sentencing was scheduled for eleven and we waited in the crowded corridor with several other defendants,their families, and a handful of lawyers. The court clerk came out and called people in as their