Miss Melody And The Jail Cell

The Uber came to a halt in front of the James County Courthouse, and for a moment Timothy just looked out at it through the window.  

A solid mass of grey concrete, with severe lines and tiny slivers of windows that stacked atop each other like the wounds from some great claw that had been dragged down across the face of the cubic building.

It was colorless, bleak, ugly, and uninviting.

A fitting place to house the mockery of justice that was our modern system.

He swallowed, adjusting the blue and white tie he wore beneath a cheap navy-blue sports coat.  He didn’t have the rest of the suit to go with it, so he had on dark blue jeans and a white collared shirt; fortunately the sports coats concealed the shirt’s short sleeves.

He watched as people streamed up the half-dozen concrete stairs leading up to the courthouse’s main entrance.  Many of them appeared to be lawyers, in slick tailored suits with briefcases in their hands and cell phones to their heads.  Others were average Joes and Janes like Tim, hoping to escape the clutches of the system with freedom and at least some small amount of cash left in the bank.

After the vultures feasted on their accounts.

Well, Tim thought after a moment, not completely like him.  He wasn’t in danger of going away to a cell for years; that was his brother.  But Tim’s bank account had felt the pecking nonetheless.

“We’re here, buddy,” said the driver from the front seat.  He was early middle-aged, with friendly blue eyes and a close-cropped blond beard, starting to go grey, that matched the curly hair atop his head.  

Tim turned to look at him and found that friendliness still there, but there was an insistence about his demeanor now.  A “get out, I got things to do” feel.

Tim couldn’t blame him; another pickup request had come in two blocks ago and the guy wasn’t out here taking schlubs like him around for his health.

Money to be made, and all that.

Still, for a couple seconds he felt a flash of anger at the man, like he was forcing Tim into the inferno that just might burn away everything he had known in his life to this point.

He almost lashed out, but he stopped himself.  Not the guy’s fault Sam had done what he had.

So instead, he nodded, said a quick “Thanks,” then got out.

The Uber sped off almost as soon as he closed the car door behind himself, and Tim wished he could be within it.

Sentencing was today, and he feared it was going to be bad.  Looking up at the court building, Tim wondered if he would ever see his brother alive and free again after today.

There was some hope; Sam had never been in trouble before.  Still…

The scene around him dimmed noticeably, and though he knew it was just a cloud passing in front of the sun, Tim felt a shiver of dread pass up his spine.  Like that cloud had been God’s confirmation of every fear Tim was harboring right then.

The moment passed, and Tim had to inhale deeply to suppress the shiver that wanted to become physical.

Man up, he told himself.  It might not be that bad.

He didn’t really believe it, but he squared his shoulders anyway, then resolutely stepped onto the first step leading up to the courthouse.

And his brother’s fate.

* * *

Forty years.

Tim trudged down the street from the courthouse, his hands in his jeans pockets, like a dead man.  

He could see, but despite the sunlight shining down and the brisk cleanness of the springtime air, the world was just a blur of shadows.

He could hear, but the whizzing of cars and the rumble of conversations from other pedestrians around him was muted, as if he was wearing earmuffs.

The world had lost form, muted and shadowed by the enormity of the concept that he was still struggling to come to terms with, even now almost an hour after the judge handed down the sentence.

Forty years.

Next time he saw his brother in the real world, Sam would be almost seventy.

At twenty-two, that was something Tim just couldn’t wrap his head around, and it left him with a leaden weight of despair in his gut as he walked, aimlessly toward…somewhere.

He hadn’t bothered with an Uber when he left the courthouse.  Wasn’t sure he could have thought how to even request one.

He just turned right…and walked.

And tried not to think, though the thoughts kept coming regardless.

Forty years.

What was he going to do?

When their parents were killed in a car crash when Tim was thirteen, Sam left college, came home, and got a job to provide for Tim while he finished up Junior High and High School.  Since then, he had been the rock Tim leaned upon every time he needed help, or a comforting hand, or just a kick in the ass.

Now he wouldn’t be there…

Also, what was Sam going to do?

Sam wasn’t a criminal.  He’d never been in trouble in his life, until he left the bar he and his buddies had been hanging out in and turned left when they turned right.  He made another turn and ran into a guy in ratty clothes holding a gun on another guy, who was begging for his life.

Sam always had a gun with him.  State law said he wasn’t supposed to in a bar, but the Constitution is the law of the land, not the whim of a tyrant in a local state house.

When he saw that guy trying to kill the man who was begging, Sam pulled his weapon and ended the threat.

The guy he saved didn’t thank him; he hauled ass away.

When the cops showed up, Sam learned the guy he shot was an undercover, and he quickly found himself cuffed and booked, charged with killing a police officer, along with a ton of lesser included felonies…and the misdemeanor of carrying while under the influence.

If his case had been tried twenty miles away, across the state line, he would have been tried under the reasonable man theory based on what he knew at the time.  But here the law for defense of others still put the knowledge of the person being defended upon the defender.

And the guy Sam defended knew he was a perp being taken into custody, so he had no right to resist the cop.

Sam didn’t know that.  Couldn’t know that.  But the law didn’t care.  It treated him the same as the perp.

The DA went further, though.  He dug through ten years of social media and found one conversation where Sam had not shut down a racist, and used that to say that since the cop was black Sam had killed him from racial animus.  That made it a hate crime.

Now Sam was an innocent man wrongfully convicted.  A righteous man sent to live with murders, rapists, and scum for most of the rest of his life.

How could he survive that?

How?

Tim wanted to scream to the heavens about the injustice of it all.  To shake his fist at God.  How could He allow such a thing to happen?

Fury—terrifying rage—wanted to burn through the ennui that coated Tim’s soul as he walked.  But those fires flickered impotently against the armor of numb disbelief that encompassed his conscious mind.

The anger was there.  He felt it; lived it; was it.

But he could not give voice to it.

It was like something another person was feeling.  Something he acknowledged from a distance, but didn’t fully experience.

And so he walked.

He lost track of how far he walked, and for how long.  But when he finally looked up from the sidewalk ahead of him, the sky was dim, almost fully dark.  The area was lit by streetlights and the signs above the entrances of the various shops and parlors that lined the city street ahead and to each side of him.

Tim blinked.  Where was he?  How far had he come?

He’d walked for hours, that was clear.  But in which direction?

He didn’t recognize any of the stores on this block, or the street—two-laned and moderately trafficked—at all.

Tim went to turn around, to get back to a place he knew, but stopped when his eyes landed on the storefront directly to his right.

It was brightly lit, and constructed in an old-fashioned manner that evoked images of comfortable diners.  Through the large windows on the storefront, he saw white tables, surrounded by pastel-colored chairs, and a glass-covered display counter in the back.  Baked goods were in the case, and an elderly woman in a flowery dress with a white apron overtop held court behind the counter.  

The sign over the storefront wasn’t lit but somehow it was still easily readable: Miss Melody’s Cafe.

Though he was still outside, the place radiated warmth, comfort, and welcoming attraction, and Tim could not help but step toward the swinging front door.

Then he was inside, and arpeggiated classical guitar music swept over his body from speakers he could not see.

The fragrance of baked bread, and other more sweet pastries that he could not name, flooded his nose, along with a comforting warmth that somehow was lacking in the streets outside.

Immediately it was like the tension in his body was leaving him, and he walked slowly toward the counter in back.

The woman there had her grey hair up in a bun atop her head.  Her round face turned toward him as he approached, and she put on a smile of welcoming compassion as he came to a stop in front of her.

“Good evening, dear.  I’m Miss Melody,” she said.

“Hello,” Tim replied, by rote, though he had no idea what to really say to her.

She seemed to understand, and nodded at him, then bent over to pick something up from behind the counter. When she straightened, she had a platter of cookies in her hands. 

Chocolate chip, and apparently freshly-baked.  One of them was broken in half, and the chocolate of the chips inside it was running, still hot and smooth from the oven.

Miss Melody extended the plate across the counter toward him.  

Tim reached out toward the cookies by instinct, but stopped before he could take hold of one.  He looked back toward her.  “How much?”

Her smile increased a fraction.  “First time visitors are free dear,” she said, and it seemed the air rang with her words for a heartbeat.

Tim nodded thanks, then selected one of the cookies and raised it to his mouth.

It was warm.  As warm as advertised.  And moist, and chewy, and the chocolate ran smoothly as he bit into it just as its companion’s innards had spilled so easily onto the plate.

The sweetness swept from his tongue through the rest of his body in a spasm of bliss that swept the numbness, and the fiery anger beneath, from him as though it had never existed.

For a time he was lost in the sensation of biting, chewing, and swallowing, and that was the entire span of his universe.  

Only that pleasant warmth, the ecstatic flavor.

But then after a few moments, the cookie was gone.  Tim opened his eyes—he hadn’t realized he had closed them—to find Miss Melody looking at him patiently with a kind smile still on her lips.

“Feeling better, dear?  Would you like some more?”

Tim opened his mouth to say yes, but then his cell phone beeped in his pocket.  He flinched, then pulled it out and looked down.

It was a text from Shania, his girlfriend.

The latest, of more than a dozen, over the last several hours.

“Where are you?  Are you ok?”

The time at the top of his cell phone screen took him aback.  He had been walking for a good five hours.  And he was supposed to meet up with her an hour and a half ago.

He’d blown her off without realizing it, and now she was worried about him.

“No thanks,” he said, not looking up from his phone.  “I gotta go.”

Somehow he registered Miss Melody nodding in response, though he wasn’t looking at her.  “I understand,” she said.  “Come back any time.”

Something in her voice made him look back up at her, and he did so just in time to see her pull the top page off of a calendar pad that was set up to his right atop the counter.

It was one of those pads that showed the current date, and could be pulled off easily.  And when she did so he could have sworn he saw little golden-yellow sparks fly away from the adhesive joint where the pages were bound together, for a second.

Miss Melody held the page out to him and he took it.

Glancing down, he saw the date dominated the page in bold, easy-to-read letters.  At the top was Miss Melody’s Cafe in the same script as on the sign out front.  Below the date was the image of Jesus holding a lamb in his hands, walking with apparent confidence and tender care from knee-high grass.

“The Lord is my shepherd,” was written in script below the image.  Then below that was the address to Miss Melody’s Cafe.

“Thanks,” he said, and looked back up and her and smiled in a way he hoped was grateful.  “I’ll do that.”

She nodded to him, and he turned to go.

When he reached the door, a bell overhead rang when he pulled it open.  He couldn’t remember the bell from when he came in, but he cast that from his mind and stepped across the threshold.

The world dissolved into golden-white light.

* * *

He was sitting in a small room with a set of bunkbeds on one wall.  The walls were whitish-grey, and dirty as though they hadn’t been cleaned in quite some time.  There were no other furnishings in the room except for a seatless toilet against the rear wall, and a small sink adjacent to the toilet.

He was on the lower bunk, and another man was next to him.  They both were wearing orange prison jumpsuits.  The man was Hispanic, and bearded, about forty-five years old with a closely-cropped beard and brown eyes.  He had a book open on his lap, and was running a finger along one page as he read.

“…he was crushed for out iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was placed upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

The man looked up from the page at him, his eyes narrowing slightly.  “Do you understand?” he asked.

* * *

He was standing in a common room next to the Hispanic man.  The man was about five years older now, but still strong and vibrant.  There was a group of ten or fifteen men seated in chairs looking at the Hispanic man while he stood, holding the book and reading from it.

He watched from his friend and mentor’s side, feeling pride in his friend’s ability to speak the word, but also joy that he could participate and assist.

* * *

He stood next to the Hispanic man, now much older as he lay on the floor convulsing.  Men in blue guards uniforms pushed him aside to get to the Hispanic man, and others in clothing that labeled them medics followed.  Then checked the Hispanic man over, then put him on a stretcher and wheeled him away.

His Bible lay on the floor where he had lain, forgotten in the haste to get him out of there.

* * *

He was sitting in another cell in the prison, just like the first.  Another man sat next to him.  This man was younger, just barely in his twenties, and blond, with piercing green eyes and a perpetually haunted expression on his face.

He read from the Bible, the same passage his Hispanic friend had used all those years ago to help bring him to peace and faith.  And over the minutes he saw the young blond man’s expression easing as he began to understand the message.

* * *

The blond, green-eyed man was older now, standing at his side as he addressed a gathering of twenty or thirty men in orange jumpsuits, all gathered in the common room.  The TV was going behind them but no one paid attention.

One man tried to barge in, to watch something, but all eyes turned on him and he quickly faded away.

Then they looked back at him, and he read to them.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures…”

* * *

He walked out of the prison, in clothes he no longer recognized but somehow still fit him after all these years.

His eyes alighted on Tim, accompanied by his bride, still as beautiful as the first time he met her when they came together to talk to him at visitation time, after they decided to get married.  Their children were with them, grown now.  With the grandchildren, they made quite a brood awaiting him in the parking lot.

Seemed like they took up half the place.

Tim walked toward him apart from the others, and they met, and embraced, and he felt joy.  Joy at release, and at being with his brother and his family again.

But not joy for freedom.  He had been free for years.

* * *

The world dissolved away into blackness, then a single spark of golden-light came into being; Sam’s face was easy to see within it.

From that spark of light showered dozens…hundreds…more.  The faces within them were unrecognizable, but at the same time somehow familiar.  Faces of men that Sam had helped lead to truth, peace, and the joy of true freedom even while within physical bondage.

The faces rushed past.  One after another after another, in a stream that seemed like it would never end.

* * *

Tim staggered backward as the world snapped back into place around him, the kaleidoscope of faces in golden white abruptly returning to the calm, warm, interior of Miss Melody’s cafe.

For a minute or so he just stood there, stunned.

Had he seen—?

Was it real—?

He shook his head, then looked back toward the old woman behind the counter.  She just looked at him, the same kindly smile on her face.

“Feeling alright, dear?”

Tim blinked, then realized that yes, he did feel better.  He nodded.  “Yes.  What was…  Was that real?”

Miss Melody didn’t reply, just raised an eyebrow at him.

His thoughts whirled.  Had he seen the future?  Seen what Sam would experience—some of it, at least?  

If that was so…no, it couldn’t be.

“What is this place?

Miss Melody just pointed up and behind herself, to where the same sign as hung above the place out front hung.  But now he noticed the text underneath the cafe’s name.  “Food for the body.  Healing for the soul.”

Tim shook his head, trying to make sense of it.  He couldn’t believe that what he had just seen was real.  But at the same time…

At the same time, the anger—the fury—over his brother’s fate was gone.

Well, not completely gone.  It would never be gone for as long as he lived; he knew that.  But it was reduced from a towering blaze, that had only not overwhelmed him because of his own disbelief, into a glowing ember.  An ember that he knew instinctively that he could control, and use to fuel something good.

But above all that…was peace.  Peace he didn’t think he’d be able to feel again, the assurance that it was all going to turn out right, for lack of a better word, the way God intended.

Tim wasn’t sure how he could believe that but still not believe that what he had seen and felt was real.  Maybe it was.

But that peace was real; he knew that much.

He shook his head, then focused in on the old woman again. “Who are you?”

“I told you, dear.  I’m Miss Melody.”

That didn’t answer the question.  But the finality of her voice said she would give no better answer.  So instead of pressing it, he said, “Can I come back?”

“We are always open to souls in need,” she replied.

He nodded, then he turned away, toward the door.

His cell phone chirped again as he stepped through out onto the street.  He looked at it again; Shania, of course.

He’d have to go deal with her.  But somehow he didn’t feel the urgency he had a moment—a lifetime?—ago.  For a second, he didn’t know why.

Then he realized; it wasn’t her face he had seen beside him through Sam’s eyes.

Tim spun around and looked back at Miss Melody’s Cafe.  And it wasn’t there.

The store behind him was a smoke and vape shop.

“What the—“

He looked down at the piece of calendar paper that he still held in his left hand, and blinked when he saw that it had changed.

The date was the same, and the picture of Jesus carrying the lamb.  But the address had shifted.  Now it just read, “Wherever needy souls are located.”

He looked back up at the totally normal storefront in front of himself, and swallowed.  Then he opened up the Uber app on his cell phone.

He wasn’t sure what his next step was going to be.  But he knew one thing: whatever happened, he was going to be alright.  And so was Sam.

He wanted to meet Sam when he came out from prison; meet him the way that vision showed he would.

So he put the numbness and the anger aside, and turned to face forward.