[Vail]

The verdict had come back guilty. Only the sentencing phase wasn’t to commence until the next day. Everyone was kind of lost on what to do, on how to handle the situation. In due time it came out that I would be allowed to return to my residence, and that I was to show up for the sentencing portion of the trial the following morning. I was given the ‘Don’t run’ speech, I’m not a runner.

So I walk out of the building kind of in a daze. I’m not really sure what just happened, I’m out of it. I felt that the farce of a trial I just participated in was getting the best of me. It had won, it had proved that there is no such thing as a fair and just trial. Thoughts of what just happened spun around wildly in my head. I’m greeted by the half-bearded guise of one of my best friends. I was under orders not to see this individual, so he hid in a truck during the proceedings, hoping to celebrate an outcome to the trial that never happened.

When it comes down to these super shitty situations in life, I’m at a loss for expressing the proper emotions. All I can think and feel is utter turmoil, but on the surface I’m calm, like scary calm. I tell him that I was found guilty. He doesn’t believe it, why would I be out of the courtroom if indeed I were guilty. I tell him I’m not joking, and that all I want to do is go get trashed. The owner of the truck, another best friend, says that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.

We clamber into the white Dodge pick-up, one that he didn’t pay for, one that his parents were still paying on, and we drive away. I decide enroute to the liquor store that since I am going to go to jail, I should drink like I’m going to jail. 40 oz alcoholic beverages seem to come to mind when I think of a pre-jail drink. We buy lots of them, I don’t remember how many, but it doesn’t really matter. We open them right away and proceed to start drinking.

Cell phone activity starts up in a flurry, a party in honor of my demise is scheduled last minute. I was a little surprised at the number of people that showed up. Really, I was honored. I had always known I was well liked, this only went on to prove it. With some I drank with them for the last time, it is likely I may never see them again, with others it was once more in a long string of drinking adventures that had been and will be.

I remember calling my little sister and telling her what was about to happen. She cried, I think I wanted to, but the alcohol had numbed me. I remember falling down the stairs spilling alcohol all over myself, scaring her, and scaring some of my friends. I thought I had broken my toe, I don’t think I did, but it was never looked into. I told her I loved her, and I told her not to tell our mother. She kept to her word; she’s a good little sister.

I remember a neighbor getting on a speakerphone telling us to be quiet. Threatening to call the cops. I remember telling her to shut the fuck up, and that I was going to jail tomorrow. I remember the cops showing up and my buddy telling them that I was due to go to jail tomorrow. The cops nodded their heads knowingly and left, asking that we keep the noise to a minimum, but that they understood.

I remember my buddy forcing copious amounts of Jim Beam down my throat, leading to my eventual vomiting episode. I remember him telling me not to drink anymore, and that I should go to bed. I remember him doing this deed, and for it, I will love him as a best friend forever.

I remember three of my friends sitting around my drunken self as I lay in bed. I remember them talking to me, all of us inebriated. I don’t remember the advice they imparted on me, or the stories that we shared, but I knew this to be one of the last happy memories I was to have for the next seven months of my life.

The next day I woke up, we had set four alarms to ensure that I wasn’t late for the next part of the trial. I was of course hung over. I crawled into the suit that I had worn over the last two days of court. I could vaguely smell residual sweat on it, I didn’t care, I put it on anyways. I started tying the tie about myself. The first two days I hadn’t had any problem with it, today was a different story. I think it was nerves, I was scared, I didn’t know exactly what I was walking into, but I expected nothing good.

My friend and I hopped in his truck, not wanting to take my car, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to drive it away. I stashed with him all of my important documents, taking nothing of value with me. He drove me on base and dropped me off where I was supposed to meet my attorney. Her and I had an argument, she may have been right, but I still lost a little respect for myself that day in her office. What happened is not really that important, nor do I want to share it, just knowing that I lost respect for myself entails enough.

We got in her vehicle and went to the courthouse. We all played our parts accordingly and as planned out. The jury in this particular trial decides your punishment. I didn’t think my attorney’s closing argument particularly strong, but for all intensive purposes it was strong enough. The jury left to deliberate, my attorney left the courtroom, I wasn’t allowed to. My family and friends were in attendance. Over the next four hours we relived a countless number of experiences that we shared. None of them bad, all of them good, inducing laughter and merriment into an environment almost completely depleted of happiness.

We were told multiple times to keep it down, and that the jury might hear us, and that we shouldn’t be having a good time. I’m glad that none of us really gave a fuck what they told us, whether this had an adverse affect on the outcome of the punishment I couldn’t tell you, because I do not know. Another one of my good buddies commented on how I looked a little rough, hung over to be exact. I asked him how he could tell, I told him my attorney said that I looked tired, but not hung over. He responded with, “There’s only one reason you look tired in the morning, and it’s not because you were up late doing some homework.” We all laughed, he had my number.

My attorney removed me from the courtroom after four hours, the jury still wasn’t finished, but she had had enough of the so-called shenanigans that my friends and I were pulling. We only had to wait one more hour before we were called back in. I was so scared, so nervous, it was horrible. Knowing that the next portion of my life was to be decided by these nine almost-strangers. They turned in their instruction sheet to the judge, the judge overlooked it, making sure there were no errors, and handed it back. The jury leader was then asked to read off my punishment: reduction to the grade of E-1, and 10 months of confinement. That was it. My attorney seemed pleased with this outcome, I wasn’t.

I stood there numb, dead to the world for the moment. My whole body was trembling slightly, I was going to go to jail. For 10 months. I was expecting this, had known what was going to happen, and still, it hit me like a freight train. I didn’t know what to do. The judge repeated my punishment, and then dismissed everyone from the courtroom. That was it; my trial was at an end. I looked at my attorney, my eyes begging that what had just happened, hadn’t happened. I was lost, shattered, broken. There was nothing good that could come of this. My attorney told me to come to the side office that had been temporarily rented to her for this trial.

I followed her, we went in, she closed the door, and I started to cry. I cried because I didn’t know what else to do, I didn’t want to think about any of this, and I hoped that somehow it would all just go away. She tells me that it’s okay, hands me some tissue, and then tells me that I will be arrested as soon as I step outside of this room. She says that my punishment does not go into effect until I leave the room, and as if she had to say it, she tells me that yes, I must leave the room.

I wipe away the tears, hating myself silently for crying, apologizing to her for letting her see it. She of course says it doesn’t matter, that it happens, that it’s normal. I felt really low at that point. I asked her for some paper and a pen, she provided them and I wrote out instructions for her to give to my father and my friend. I tried to use the internet, but the military was way ahead of me on that one, they had already deleted my account. I scrubbed at my face, as if I would be able to erase the puffiness around my eyes and cleared my throat. I told her I was ready.

I step out of the room and am greeted by my First Sergeant. He looks at me with kind of sad eyes. They weren’t exactly forgiving, but more-so knowing. I gave him a head nod, and he returned it. They told me I had five minutes to give hugs and say my goodbyes before they handcuffed me. They told me this was special treatment. I hugged everyone, tears welled up in my eyes, I held them back, but everyone could see them. I repeated the instructions I had written down, just to insure that the proper parties got the information. I didn’t take the full five minutes, I had already said my goodbyes the night prior.

I turned back to my First Sergeant and said that I was ready. They cuffed me, loosely, treating me fairly well for a criminal. My hands were cuffed in the front, my legs cuffed together. I told them I wasn’t going to run, they said they knew that, but they had to observe protocol. We walked down the stairs and out of the building. There was a van parked out front, not a police van, but a normal mini-van. This is what I was to be shuttled around in for the next few days.

We traveled to the urinalysis center. An older gentleman handed me a cup and said he was going to watch me pee. I was familiar with this and was silently thanking myself for not smoking marijuana with my buddy the night before. I pissed in the cup and asked him a few questions, questions that I thought would help overturn the results of my trial, but again, this peculiar legal system is neither just nor fair. I was taken to county jail and was housed there for the next three days. I was taken out for medical exams and paperwork signing, all of which meant little to me. The people I met there were mostly good, just having screwed up once or seven times.

On the day they pulled me out of county jail, they took me back to the squadron building and had me shave and shower, two things that you were lucky to do in county. While I was walking through the building, one of my good friends sees me, and he’s an upstanding higher-ranking member of the military, and he yells out that he loves me. When people look at him, he just explains that I’m going to jail and that the military screwed up. He engraved a spot in my heart as a friend forever. This was merely the beginning of my punishment; I was taking it well so far. This was the beginning of the deterioration of my sanity. This was the beginning of the break down of a young man. This was only the beginning.

[Venomous Vixen]

I am not sure why I waited so long to read this... and now I realize, somehow I knew it was not going to be pretty but rather would tug at my heart. I was right. It is really hard to judge your actual use of the English language with something as real and true as this. There were some patches of roughness, in particular the overuse use of the phrade "I remember" or "I remembered' near the beginning. That being said it does not matter, this is not a tale for the grammar gods, this is a brutal turn in the life of a man. One of my favorites... "...just having screwed up once or seven times". Maybe the only point I really chuckled in this, because I think we have all had those friends that rank up there on the seven times but have good hearts... just lack some common sense. The last line was a perfect stopping point, made the reader starve for more, the questions came flooding through my mind and made me want to demand the next chapter, like a trainwreck, not wanting to read it but knowing I will have to, need to. So where is it?