Times and Seasons Read Online Free

judge! It’s out of my hands.”
    “It’s not out of your hands,” he said. “You can get me a lawyer.”
    “Of course I’ll get you a lawyer, but that doesn’t mean you’re going home.”
    “But you’re my mother. They can’t hold me here. I’m only fifteen. It’s not like I shot somebody and have to be tried as an adult.”
    “Mark, don’t you understand what you’ve done? This isn’t like when you broke a rule at school and got suspended. This is the law. You broke it, and you’ve been arrested. They have evidence.”
    “But it’s practically my first offense.”
    “It is not your first offense. It’s your third offense. There were those little matters of car theft and vandalism.”
    “But I didn’t do those things, Mom. I didn’t steal Craig’s old man’s car, and I didn’t so much as pick up a can of spray paint at their school. I just got run in with them. I was practically an innocent bystander.”
    She wanted to break the closest thing she could reach, but since that was Mark, she pulled the chair back out and sat down. Mark slowly took the chair across from her. She sat there, face in hands, staring at her son. Was he really oblivious to what lay ahead of him?
    “Mark, I don’t even know any lawyers in Breezewood. I haven’t needed a lawyer since my divorce, and that was inKnoxville. Steve is working on trying to get one. He knows somebody at our church. But I can’t believe I’ll have to hire a lawyer to defend you for selling drugs.”
    “Mom, I’ve learned my lesson, okay?”
    She dropped her face back in her hands and squelched the urge to scream. How could he treat this like it was a traffic violation? She leaned forward and locked onto his blue eyes. They looked so soft, so innocent. He was too young to be facing a charge like this. Too young to commit this kind of crime. Too young to grasp the reality involved.
    Her mouth trembled. “Mark, I was so proud of you last week,” she said. “You hit a home run the night of your birthday. And then just a week before that you finished the school year with Brenda and made all A’s and B’s. I thought maybe we were finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel, that there was hope that you’d gotten through that rebellious phase, and that now you were trying to buckle down and do the right things. I didn’t know you were out buying drugs and selling them.”
    “So I guess now you’re not going to let me go out of the house for the rest of my life.”
    Her eyes shot up like a backdraft blaze, and she almost dove across the table. “Mark, don’t you understand? The State of Tennessee may not let you out of the house! You may be locked up in the juvenile detention center. Do you understand what you’ve done?”
    “No!” he said. “Mom, they don’t lock you up for doing a favor for one friend who turns out to be a Benedict Arnold.”
    She wanted to slap him, but she knew better. Holding her hands in the air, she cried, “ Yes, they do! They caught you red-handed. You sold drugs to a police officer, Mark. It’s your third offense. Don’t you get it?”
    “I didn’t know he was a police officer. He had long hair and a goatee, and looked like a kid. Isn’t there something called entrapment?”
    “Mark, you did it. You did it, and that’s all there is to it. They caught you.”
    “Okay, so you’ve made your point,” Mark said. He looked down at his finger as he rubbed at a spot on the table. “Mom, I’m really sorry, okay? I’m sorry I messed up your shower. I’m sorry I trusted Ham Carter.”
    “Mark, they said the judge won’t see you until the morning, so you’re stuck here at least one night, and I hope that’s all. For the life of me, I hope it’s not going to be longer than that.”
    Mark sprang out of his chair, his mouth wide open. “Mom, you’ve got to be kidding! No way can I stay here all night!” He got to his feet, and she saw that he still didn’t get it. His ready-to-leave posture