My second son was rescued from the mason jar of a small town.
Like most- if not all- teenagers do:
He raced towards the no-no’s of the world.
Swept up in the thrill and excitement of experiencing every-little-thing that anyone had ever said was a “bad idea”. Throw himself into it- he did.
Just like his running- face thrown back, chest out, tilted backwards-racing forwards...
With a dozen little legs trailing behind.
One time,
Mid-race,
He had split his leg open doing a wipe-out.
Me and my mum gagging at the sight of blood oozing down his leg and pooling in his flapping sneakers-
I can still picture the blood droplets flipping off his flying legs,
Lit up, as the sun snatched them out of the air.
He came in second,
To the horror and delight of the worried crowd, who swallowed him up to stop the bleeding.
That was how it was, with son 2.0
So as his older brother rebelled in a more subtle and condensed way-
Devon shot out of the gate and hurtled himself directly into the nick wells’ version of life.
You know the nick wells of the world.
The small-town-big-deal, did enough blow to cave in his nose sorta character.
Career criminal sort, with the family that keeps it in the genes.
The “everyone is friends with or knows stories about” person, who is surrounded by the succubi that inhabit dirty deeds and dark pleasures.
The nick wells of the world are those who feed addiction by feeding the addiction of others.
I know you know them,
And Dev had a propensity to discover why he should not be, one of the nick wells of the world.
He was mighty intelligent about it, for the most part.
Or at least, it seemed that way to me, looking back on it.
He held a sort of “ownership” of it-
Keeping his stories straight-
For the most part.
From my point of view,
It began to catch up with him as quickly as it had started,
Yet not nearly as quietly.
He had screwed up, here and there along the way;
Enough to not go unnoticed.
I was in the states helping with a Yoga Studio the first time “shit got real”
He had been accused of stealing a bike off of High school property,
Barely evading charges by insisting he had “borrowed it” with no intent on keeping it.
But he was dabbling with some dark dudes, in dark corners, doing dirty deeds.
He knew we knew.
But he wasn’t quite done yet.
He tweaked the attention of a certain officer.
To this day, I can’t figure out if the cop was trying to rail road him, punish him or teach him a lesson. Depending on the day and situation,
I can be swayed in my thoughts about his motive-
Satisfied I will likely never know With 100 percent certainty.
I suspend conclusive judgement on him...
Still think he’s a jerk tho.
Jussayin.
Any way,
Devon carried on,
He was in and out,
Here and there.
Coming and going.
I was aware of much more than I was willing to be confrontational about,
But we talked enough that I knew that HE knew, that I knew enough of what was going on to be both concerned and ticked.
Not the kind of “pissed off” that meant I wouldn’t help-
More the kind of:
Freaked out
Scared something was going to go terribly wrong
Irritated with the poor choices
Seeing how bad this could go real fast-
Kind of ticked off.
But I also knew that people gotta find out.
I had to fuck around and find out-
So does every body else.
If you don’t fuck around and find out-
Then you end up a brainless meat puppet that has no idea why they do what they do...
They just dance monkey.
So I knew that Devon would have to figure it out...
Or this would be his life.
He would be another nick wells;
A spider in a jar.
Sometime around that,
Or perhaps even earlier...due to incompetent police work (honestly, not a pat phrase or statement... the charges were laid MONTHS after the incident)
He and some friends,
Doing what drunk and high idiots do-
Nabbed an ATV off some guys property,
Went joy riding,
Crashed it,
Had that “shit, what do we do??” Moment.
Decided to take it apart and try to hide it.
Didn’t do it well.
So in between the ATV and the first day in court:
Devon had a whirlwind of
“Not ideal” incidents, pelted at him and lobbed back by him in rapid succession.
“Pew Pew” -Merica
I can’t speak for him,
But my assessment of the situation was:
Lord have mercy on his soul.
I wanted to be able to shake the bad decisions out of him,
But also wrap his behind in bubble wrap.
I became aware of his ‘stalker police-man’ shortly before our first jaunt to court.
He had been grabbed with a wee baggy of weed in his boxer-short waist-band.
To say “wee baggy” doesn’t even really describe it clearly enough.
“Wee” being one of those mini-baggies, folded in half- about the size of a square One dollar coin.
“Weed” being what the kids refer to as a “nug” of pot, no bigger than your pinkie fingernail.
He claimed it would have been more if stalker boy had gotten to him sooner-but not by much.
He was more of a consumer than a hoarder.
Little-man-syndrome cop had put on quite the production,
Snatching the baggie out of his waste-band.
Hauling his arms behind him,
Cuffing him,
Dragging him to the back of the car by the cuffs-
Yanking the arms up, and out-
To prove a point.
Devon had no power in this situation-
The power laid in the big-man’s hands.
When I saw my skinny kids’ wrists-
Purple, bruised, deep red gashes, swelling up yellow and white around the bony prominences of his hands and climbing up his arms.
What on earth had he done to warrant this?
It wasn’t as if it was going to kill him...
But still...
Overkill.
The charges were laid for a class 2 felony,
Being he was a minor, the charges would likely be reduced, however the charges aimed high in order to hit as they were disseminated.
There was minimal chance that Devon would get off Scott free.
The burden of proof was on the prosecuting officer to provide,
And he certainly had plenty of reason to delay...
He’s a mighty busy guy.
Meanwhile, the case around the ATV was being formed,
And even though the primary subject of it should have been the adult involved...
Big boy cop guy decided to try and smother Devon.
The motion to try Devon on all counts, combined, was under way.
See, he was only a few short months away from being an adult.
If he were convicted of a misdemeanour as a minor,
There would be zero chance that the theft charges would stick.
But buddy cop-guy would not have that happen.
Nope.
He wanted Devon to stand-
Charges compounded-
With the burden to prove that he was NOT trafficking in drugs and stolen goods-
AS AN ADULT.
Check mate.
I could not tell you why.
I have no idea what went down between them that ignited this guy’s motivation.
But I do know that it is a fact-
Not a dramatization or exaggeration:
Shortly after the in-and-outs with Court,
I would say a handful of months-at the most.
Devon and I were making the hour trek to work on foot, down the high way out of town.
We worked at a slaughterhouse that bordered the town limits, with only 2 ways to get there-
Highway or muddy fields.
So highway it is!
We are laughing and talking, probably listening to music, since we usually did.
Cop car...well...SUV zooms by.
Does a crazy, rapid U-turn-
Pulls up to us-
Calls Devon by name.
Lights flaming.
“We got a call about two people walking on the highway- Looking in people’s fields”
“Looking in people’s fields?” I shoot back.
“Yea” He snorts- realizing as he’s sizing me up, that I’m not a kid.
“Where are you heading?” He demands- posturing as if I might whip out an AK-47 if he took his eyes off us for a blink.
“To work. I am Devon’s Mother” I shot back at him- two barrels loaded bitch.
He gestured towards Devon, as if to indicate that he (Devon) was to blame for some supposed call.
“So, you are telling me, that someone called YOU-
About two people walking on the highway?”
I don’t clearly recall the exact order of events during the exchange, because I was seeing red.
“Who does he or she think he or she is?”
But I do know that he was barely pulling away when I was on the phone with the local police department-
Demanding to know if they had received a report about 2 people (us) walking on the highway.
They hadn’t.
Big surprise.
This guy-having issue with Devon- was not a fabricated fiction.
It was our reality.
I too, had a similar history with being black-balled,
To a lesser degree,
As a teenager and young adult...
That rolled its way along with me, to that very day on the side of the highway.
Small towns don’t forget.
Small towns don’t forgive.
You are-
Forever suspended in their minds,
A spider in a mason jar.
I knew Devon needed to get out in order to get on.
I’m not sure how much he knew it...
But there was no question in my mind,
Staying was not an option.
The last day in court for Devon was a win.
I’m not sure if he ever fully realized,
Until today,
HOW MUCH of a win it was.
The representation pointed out that no proof had been yet provided for the original charge, and to drag it out would be a drain on the court system.
Presiding judge commented on the birth date of the defendant,
Eyes glimmering as she recognized what was coming down the pipe.
Case dismissed.
No one willing to be a party to what was clearly a blatant attempt at destruction.
Had Devon’s bully been successful, and slid it by Counsel’s notice-
Devon would have been tied to Wellington County with an anvil around his neck.
There would have been no rescue.
Having to do his probation, or pay restitution, with a conviction on his adult record,
His window for blowing that joint would have snapped shut,
And Wellington County would have captured another soul.
Like a spider, suspended on it’s own web in a glass jar...
Devon’s life would have looked so different.
That’s how it is,
To jump ship from your own vessel.
Avoid being burned up in your own fire.
You have to race out of that jar, before the lid snaps shut...
Or spend your time plotting your escape.
The nick wells never do-
They set up shop in their jar and become Queen of the Mason’s. Raising generations of masonlettes.
Stealthy spiders-
Like me
Eventually do escape...
But “to where”? Has to remain a mystery, because remnants of Mason life stay with you.
But I do have hope that the second sons of the world-
Who narrowly escaped the jar.
Might gain higher heights.
With all 8 legs intact, because someone held the lid open during their narrow brush with it-
Maybe they can build a fortress in the trees and feed off the flies that land on the leaves.
Get higher.
Be freer.
Than all the bullshit below.
That would be brilliant.!