Dan Bravata was a short, good-looking, twenty-four-year-old Italian kid from Milwaukee with a rap sheet that dwarfed his age. Most of his offenses were petty misdemeanors, the glaring exception being the one that netted him eighty dollars and three to five years because he’d been stupid enough to use a gun.

According to prison records, he came from a good middle-class family, wasn’t dyslexic, didn’t have attention deficit disorder, didn’t use drugs, and was a high school graduate—all facts that put him in the clear minority of inmates. A rebel without a discernible cause, he wouldn’t reveal what traveled on the byways of his twisted brain, and he was stubborn and tough and thought he knew all the answers.

In a dark ten-by-ten cinder block room that smelled of dank cement and disinfectant, Dan sat on a steel chair staring at Jason and refusing to say anything. This was their fourth session, and it was much the same as the first three. No matter how much Jason tried to reason with him, the kid said little, and what he did say failed to shed light on his situation. Despite the boy’s tough facade, Jason had a hunch he was a decent human being. He’d find out today or tell the prison he wouldn’t waste another hour on him.

“You could get out of here in six months, Dan. You could live another sixty years if you’d straighten up and fly right. The way you’re going, you’ll be dead before you’re thirty. Are you smart enough to comprehend that?”

His despising blue eyes and smirk said “screw you.”

Jason pushed his chair back and stood behind it. “Why are you so angry?” He shoved the chair hard against the steel table. He might have to call on the boxing skills his father had taught him, but the time had come to change tactics. “Are you stupid? That it? Too stupid to talk? Nothing in that reptile nerve in your head faking it as a brain?”

Dan flushed. His lips pressed together hard against his teeth.

“Did your old man beat you because you’re stupid? That it? Or maybe you like being cooped up in here with all your boyfriends?”

Nothing.

“Was your mother a hooker who didn’t know your old man from her last trick? That why you’re angry? Poor Dan: A stupid hooker’s son. Why don’t you go wallow in your own stupidity? I’m not wasting any more time on you—gay Danny Boy Blue!”

Dan shot from his chair and vaulted across the table. Boxing would have no place here. Jason’s lucky kick caught Dan square in the crotch, followed by an elbow to the cheek that crumpled him to the floor. Jason pinned him to the concrete.

“I want to help you!”

“Go to hell, you son of a bitch! You can’t talk about my mother like that!”

Jason slapped him hard.

“Stop! That hurts! You broke my face!”

“Want another one?”

“No!” He began to cry. “Don’t hit me again! Please don’t hit me!”

Jason pulled him to his feet and held him in a bear hug. “I won’t hit you any more, Dan. Never. You’re a good man. You’ll make the world a better place. Believe it!”

The fight left the kid. He wrapped his arms around Jason and held on as if his life depended on it. “Please don’t hit me. I don’t want to be hit anymore.”

“When you get out of here, your life will be better. But you have to get out. I’m sorry for those things I said. I didn’t mean them.” Jason stood back and gripped him by the shoulders. “We need to clam up about this. Not a word. You banged your face on a door. Don’t give them an excuse to investigate. You could stay in here another two years. They’d break you. You with me on this?”

“Yeah.”

Jason pulled into a convenience store parking lot on his way home. What awful, disgusting things he’d said to that kid. What kind of person would say what he’d said? Words could do as much damage as bricks and bats and even bullets. Would the ploy work? Would more damage be averted if it did? Twenty-six years ago he thought the end justified the means. He still felt that way about what he’d done back then. What about this time?

The feel and sound of his elbow ramming Dan’s cheekbone brought on the same reaction he’d had when he drew blood from his father the last time they boxed. Jason had vowed never to box with his father again.

He turned off the ignition and rolled down the window. A waft of air made him realize he was soaking wet. The queasiness in his stomach subsided as his brain took over. Theologians to the contrary, don’t we justify means in so many ways? Making a moral call on a naked action is one thing. What if it wears clothes of circumstance? What is ultimate good? Who defines and determines it?

Jason closed his eyes. Philosophy 101 stuff he’d always taken for granted: The end never justifies the means. A dictum in the seminary as clear as the air on a frigid winter afternoon beneath a sun devoid of heat. Here in the terrifying world of clashing ambitions the air was murky, the moral distinctions less discernible.

Back at the old brewery, Timothy looked worried. “Better hope the kid keeps quiet. Was there a video monitor in the room?”

“Hasn’t worked for at least a year. Budget cuts.”

“Your record is clean. I’ll help any way I can. I don’t want to lose you.”

“It’s not about me. I believe he’s a good kid who needs help. If they ban me, I’ll depend on you to let me know when he’s released.”

Warden Thomas Bushman was a former prosecuting attorney who loved Jim Beam and water cocktails with a sweet onion garnish. He lived by his personal mantra: “Rules are rules. You follow the rules and build a case brick by brick that no one can break down.”

He had no bricks unless Dan Bravata ratted, a distasteful but common expression in this dwelling of the hopeless.

When Jason’s next session with Dan took place a week later in the same small cubicle, Dan’s bruised face, the color of raw meat gone bad, brought back a touch of the nausea Jason had experienced in his car after their fight. Something in Dan’s eyes—was it a pleading look?— showed through his sullenness and provided Jason sufficient beachhead to proceed.

“They told me my cheekbone is cracked.”

Not a time for sympathy. “You doing okay otherwise?”

Dan nodded a fraction of an inch.

“Tell me about your life at home. Your parents were teachers, right?”

His distrustful eyes searched Jason’s face. “My old man’s a coach. Teaches math too. My mom teaches English.”

“You’re way ahead of most of the other guys in here. Did you get along with your folks?”

No answer.

“You’ve got to cut me some slack here.”

Silence.

“Okay, my friend. I apologize again for those terrible things I said to you. I feel bad about them, but I said them on purpose. Listen up.” He slid his chair around the desk next to Dan and straddled it.

“Let me get personal. Life can be a bitch. We have to deal with it. I used to be a priest. Taught at a private college. Had a cozy life. Troubles came. I’m no longer a priest. I live in a room not much bigger than this one in what used to be a brewery. You can help me atone for my past, or you can make my life—and yours—worse. Your choice.”

Dan looked confused.

“You can help me by letting me help you. Know what you face when you get out? You’ll walk around with a big red F on your forehead. F for Felon. Try getting a job. Try getting respect. Oh, sure, the drug pushers and pimps and other phonies will pretend to be your friends. And you’ll be back in here before you know it.”

“Hester Pryne had to wear a red A.”

“You’ve read The Scarlet Letter?”

“I told you my mom teaches English. I liked that book. Wasn’t fair what they did to Hester.”

The rush Jason felt made him unsure of his voice. He hesitated.

Dan stared back at him. “How can you help me?”

“For openers, I can help you find a job and a place to live when you get out of here.”

Dan fixed his eyes on the table. “My mom is beautiful. She’s small like me. The old man is six-four with muscles that won’t quit. He always made fun of me. If I talked back, he slapped me. When I wouldn’t go out for football, he roughed me up. It was really bad when he drank. I could handle the slaps and punches. His words hurt more.”

“He belittled you?”

“Put me down every day. Made me feel like a pile of crap.”

“But you did finish high school.”

“Barely. Thanks to my mom.”

“That’s a big plus.” Jason looked at his watch. “I have a class in two minutes.” They both stood. “You are going to leave this prison and never come back, Mr. Bravata.” He laid his arm over the young man’s shoulders. “Never. Trust me.”

Next Chapter: Chapter Ten