Over the course of the past year a gradual role reversal from dependent to caretaker — and from boy to man — had taken place, as colon cancer slowly, mercilessly ate away at his grandmother. He’d been the one to pick up her prescriptions at the drugstore at all hours of the night. He’d learned to change her IV bags when she could no longer eat so she could continue to live at home and not in the hospital. He’d been her psychologist when she’d felt like giving up. He’d taken odd jobs at neighbors’ houses to make ends meet when she’d been denied social security disability. He’d stayed home from school on days when the home health aides had called in sick. If it had been an option, he would have quit school altogether.
Two months ago she’d died. Expectedly. But it was devastating. J’Quarius’s only other relatives were his great-grandparents in Mississippi who were too debilitated to make the trip to New York for their daughter’s funeral, much less adopt a 12-year-old.
He boarded with random friends for a few nights at a time, but eventually he found himself in the state’s care at an orphanage, where he quickly discovered that there’s a big difference between being blind your whole life and abruptly, permanently losing your sight. The other kids near his age were lifers with no foundation and no direction. They’d been in foster homes for brief stints, but they’d always returned, never really knowing what family was. The orphanage was their home. J’Quarius didn’t have much in common with them and didn’t want to; he just wanted out — anywhere.
In effect, he was a divorcee looking to rush back into marriage, not because he was on the rebound but because he’d actually been painfully lonely for years. He was desperate to reclaim his childhood before it was gone forever — to be looked after, guided and, hopefully, loved. But he was terrified that no one would take a chance on a hulking soon-to-be 13-year-old in a grown man’s body.
Melvin sat in stunned silence, staring blankly at the table in front of him as his lawyer laid out the charges. “We’re gonna beat this,” Leonard Weinstien said, with more revulsion than conviction in his voice.
“I’ve negotiated your release on the condition that you not go within 100 yards of a school, church, daycare facility, or orphanage. Melvin! Did you hear that? Are you listening?” his lawyer asked snapping his fingers, looking for any kind of response. “I said orphanage too. Have you got it? Don’t go near it.”
“Where do we stand with the DNA testing?” Melvin asked mechanically, his stare unbroken.
“That’s off the table right now,” his attorney gasped, incredulous at where his pervert client’s priorities lay. “That should be the least of your worries.”
“Can I go now?” Melvin asked resolutely, standing up but keeping his head down.
“Melvin, listen. These are serious charges,” Weinstien said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Your laptop is loaded with files going back years. You might eventually be able to get some supervised visitation if we can…”
“Can I go now!” Melvin asked again, his voice booming behind an eviscerating glare that clearly caught his diminutive lawyer off guard.
“Y-yes. Yes. Sure. Yeah. Legally you can go. I’ll, uh, I’ll call you tonight.”
Melvin turned and left the room without another word, leaving the door open behind him.
Montay was the oldest kid in J’Quarius’s orphanage at 16 and was essentially a prison yard boss in training. He had lackeys, smuggled in contraband, intimidated other kids and confiscated and redistributed most of the gifts that came in. But despite always being the prime suspect whenever something happened, he was never directly caught doing anything of substance by the staff.
J’Quarius had become Montay’s unintentional rival from the first day he set foot in the facility. Four inches taller and 25 pounds heavier than the home’s heretofore largest resident, he held minor celebrity status for his basketball skills, and he paid absolutely no mind to the orphanage hierarchy Montay had spent years cementing.
On the Sunday of his third week at the orphanage, J’Quarius sat quietly by himself, finishing up a late breakfast in the dining hall.
Montay was always at his most active on the weekends, when staff was thin.
As he approached J’Quarius’s table with a few of his friends in tow, he kicked the doorstop out from under the door, sealing off the exit to the dining hall . J’Quarius kept his head down over his tray.
Montay then sloppily slid his tray down, knocking J’Quarius’s glass of orange juice off the other side of the table. J’Quarius jumped back onto his feet with lightning quickness and snatched the glass on its way down between his thumb and middle finger.
“Oh no,” Montay whined tauntingly. “I’m so not sorry.”
“No need to be, man. Just a couple drops,” J’Quarius said, avoiding eye contact and casually setting his juice back on the table.
Again Montay slid his tray into the glass, more forcefully this time, spilling its contents all over the table.
“Look dude, I’m just trying to finish my breakfast. I’m not after anything you got. I’m not trying to stop you from doing whatever it is you do around here. I don’t even know you,” J’Quarius said softly, sopping up the mess with a stack of napkins.
“Everyone here gets to know me — and answers to me,” Montay snapped.
J’Quarius exhaled slowly and shook his head. “Fine,” he sighed, taking the last bite of his cereal and lifting his tray up to go. He moped over to the trash can, stepping over the extended leg of one of Montay’s lackeys.
“Things can be real easy or real hard in here. It’s up to you,” Montay said, uncomfortably close to J’Quarius’s face. “Now, I see you got two pairs of shoes. The way I see it, no one needs two pairs. I want your high tops.”
“No,” J’Quarius said disinterestedly, putting his hand on the doorknob to leave the dining room.
Montay slapped J’Quarius’s forearm, ripping it off the knob. “I don’t think you heard me! I said I want those shoes.” His minions were closing in.
J’Quarius grabbed the doorknob in a second attempt to leave. Again Montay’s hand slapped down on his forearm. “Where do you think you’re going? We’re not done,” Montay snarled.
This time, J’Quarius’s hand held fast on the knob. He lifted his head up from the resigned position it had been hanging in and straightened up his shoulders. Then slowly, deliberately, with Montay’s hand still clutched onto it, he raised his arm up to the deadbolt on the dining room door and twisted it locked.
Montay took a quick step back, his sneer fading fast, trying not to let his sycophants see the fear in his eyes. But before he could figure out what was happening, J’Quarius’s hand was gripped tightly on his throat.
J’Quarius effortlessly spun him around and threw him into the door. Teeth gritted, tears spurting sideways out of his bright red eyes, J’Quarius unleashed a year’s frustration on this petty, insignificant thug who happened to be looking for trouble in the worst possible place at a catastrophically bad time.
With one powerful hand, he lifted him up off the ground by his neck, leaving Montay kicking and flailing his legs helplessly 18 inches off the floor. Veins bulging from his neck and forehead, J’Quarius rhythmically slammed him against the reinforced glass of the windowed door, all the while keeping a maniacally vacant stare fixed on Montay.
Two orphanage workers on the other side of the glass scrambled for the door shouting at J’Quarius to stop as they fumbled with their key rings.
An amalgam of emotions — grief from his grandmother’s death, hopelessness that he’d never get out of this place and resentment for having been cast as the town jester playing for the crowd’s entertainment on the basketball court, yet going home alone to an orphanage every night — manifest as unadulterated rage.