After Before and After

Phase 4: Chapter 103

September 29, 1993. 4:39 PM.

Jack Merridew was trying not to fall asleep in the fourth row of Courtroom 4's gallery. Dana Barnes was questioning what Jack could only hope would be her final witness of the day, a character witness who was testifying to Piggy's moral compass. Barnes was hoping to convince the jury that there was no way in hell Piggy ever would've instigated a spat with Jack or Roger, making him look more sympathetic, and the latter two more guilty.

Not a second too soon, Jack forced his heavy eyelids open to watch the witness march off the stand and disappear behind the double doors at the back of the courtroom. This had been his life for eight hours a day, five days a week, for the last ten months. Witness after witness, testimony after testimony, exhibit after exhibit, all in the name of putting him, Ralph, and the other boys he grew up with behind the bars of a juvenile prison or a mental facility. Jack was tiredly beginning to consider pleading guilty and taking whatever punishment came with it. It had to be less painful than this.

"You may call your next witness, Councillor Barnes" Judge Eldeson prompted after the previous witness left the courtroom.

"I have no more witnesses for this case, Your Honor" Dana Barnes declared. Jack was suddenly wide awake. "The prosecution rests."

The prosecution does what now?

"Very well. With that said, I am compelled to adjourn court early this evening, as this feels like a natural place to leave off for the day" the judge announced. "Tomorrow, we will begin with the defense's first witness. In the meantime, court is now adjourned." The bang of the gavel made it official; the end of the day, and the end of Dana Barnes' side of the story.

Tomorrow, this courtroom would not belong to Dana Barnes. Tomorrow, the tables would turn. Tomorrow, sitting in this very room would be a lot less excruciating. Tomorrow, everything changed.

Although, the thought of everything changing wasn't as appealing to Jack as it once was. Looking back on the last ten months of his life, Jack considered that everything already had changed. Regardless of what happened in this courtroom tomorrow, it wouldn't change the fact that Jack's life would never be what it was before. It was easy to blame the trial, to say that dreaded September day he received the subpoena had single-handledly changed everything. But the smarter, though less prominent, part of Jack knew that it wasn't just the trial and the testimony of the last ten months. It was him, it was Paige, it was Ralph, it was Evan, it was Jeffery and Laurie, it was Roger and the others, it was puberty, it was time, it was him, it was him, it was him.

It felt like a hazy dream, walking out of the courthouse that late-September evening. Jack knew what he was supposed to be feeling right about now; relief and excitement that it was the defense's turn now, their time to make their own case. But Jack didn't know what he actually was feeling right now; a bittersweet combination of shock, anxiety, and something unidentifiable. He felt it in the air of the hallway soon after court was adjourned and everyone flooded out the back double doors. He felt it in the hushed way people spoke around him, in the quietness of the parking lot, in the tension between himself, his sister, and his father on the ride back to the hotel, in the elevator up to the fifth floor after stopping on the third for Evan.

"Wow" Paige finally said after the hotel door was closed behind both siblings. The word sounded to Jack like the birth of a long-awaited baby, or the painful deflation of a balloon that had been filled almost to the point of popping. "I wasn't expecting that to happen today" she added. No need for her to clarify what 'that' was. It was an elephant in the room, or something much bigger, something that would scare the pants off a mere elephant. "Brett said Barnes was supposed to take at least the rest of this week" she unnecessarily reminded her brother after he failed to respond right away.