Ring in Mine #3: Nephi & Jerome: Chapter 39
Sorry for the delay. I write on an iPad but edit on my desktop. I've been in the middle of a remodel. The desktop has now been reassembled.
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Thanks Zach for your editing skills. ----------- Chapter 39
Jerome snuggled into Nephi in the flickering light of an old movie on the television. The compound had settled for the night when the phone interrupted the quiet dialog announcing someone was at the front gate. Adam had stressed the increased need for security at night. Jerome switched the television to channel three. Drake's truck replaced Humphrey Bogart. Drake looked stressed. Another young man was leaning into Drake.
"Hello." The passenger worried Jerome. Jerome was glad the camera lens wasn't visible at night.
"This is Drake. I need to talk with Jared. It's important. Something has happened to his Grandmother."
"Let me get Jared for you." Drake always called Jared's grandmother Marie. What was Drake trying to tell him? Jerome watched the guy with Drake. Was that a gun in the shadows?
"Can't you buzz me in. If you ask Jared he won't want to talk with me. It's important."
"Are you alone?" It was a gun providing Drake's cooperation.
"It's just me." Drake answered.
"I have to walk downstairs and open the gate. Hold on just a minute." Jerome hung up the phone and dialed Adam's room. "Adam, I'm sorry to wake you, but one of Jared's friends is at the gate. His passenger has a gun. He's tried to warn us something is wrong by mentioning Marie and lying about being alone."
"Give me five minutes and then open the gate." Adam answered.
Jerome watched the clock, counting down the minutes and then pressed the code to open the gate. ----------- It was a long five minutes for Drake. How had he let himself get involved with these guys? It was cool, at first, being part of the group. They included some of the coolest kids in school. It was the first time he didn't worry about being hassled. When Drake was with the boys, Jared found somewhere else to be. Jared didn't understand, they needed friends besides each other. The group was always doing something fun.
Things went well until the day Drake drove the guys to the convenience store.
"Keep the truck running. We'll be right out."
The guys jumped into the truck and yelled `drive'. They were all laughing as they drove into the canyon. Sitting around the campfire the leader threw Drake a beer. Drake wasn't a drinker, but he put the can to his lips and took a sip.
"That's not how men drink. You're not gay, are you? The last queer that joined the group had a terrible accident. Remember Thomas?"
"Didn't he fall off the back of the bleachers and broke both his legs?" Drake asked.
"Fell? I like that! He broke more than his legs! There are reasons his family moved." Drake didn't like the implications the leader was making.
It wasn't long before there was another beer run. "Drake can I borrow your jacket? Hand me that baseball bat!"
Drake wondered why they needed his jacket and a baseball bat to buy beer. Around the campfire Drake noticed the guys wore gloves and had blood on their clothes, including his jacket. They stuffed Drake's blood splattered jacket and the bat into a garbage bag. Their clothes went up in smoke. They pulled new jeans and t-shirts out of a gym bag.
"What's with my jacket?"
"That is your membership insurance. If you try to leave the group, the police will find the garbage bag. It's enough evidence to convict you for emptying the till and killing the clerk."
Drake didn't know how to get out of the group intact. "Why do you hang with that Jared kid? You know he is gay or is he your boyfriend? The only way to prove you are a real man is to out your friend."
Drake tried not to think about the day he betrayed his best friend, but he couldn't shake the visions of Thomas's body lying on the ground. ----------
Now he was betraying Jared's friendship again. Drake knew if he didn't get into the compound he would be dead. He tried to tip Jerome off, referencing Jared's grandmother.
His heart fell when the gates opened. He drove towards the house. There was only a single bulb lighting the parking area. The only free space was under the bulb. The gate into the compound was open. Didn't they get the hint something was wrong?
Drake opened his door and stepped out of his truck. There was a moment as his passenger climbed out the passenger door when the car was between the gunman and Drake.
"Drake drop!" A voice shouted. Drake fell to the ground.
"Drop the gun or you are dead where you stand?" Sean's voice called from the darkness. The barrel of Sean's rifle was visible from the roof.
"This is the police. If you drop the gun, you will deal with me. If you point your gun anywhere but the ground you deal with the crazy man on the roof. I don't want to do the paperwork for a punk like you." Adam shouted from the darkness.
The kid wasn't stupid. He'd rather be in detention than the morgue. He dropped his gun. Adam stepped from behind the bus. He was wearing his boots, boxers and gun belt.
"Don't shoot, I didn't have a choice. They threatened to rape and kill my little sister. She's only twelve." The kid looked fifteen at most. "Don't take me to jail. Someone has to take care of Angie. Dad died years ago. Mom hasn't been home for weeks. The landlord wants the rent."
With the kid in handcuffs, Adam took the time to get dressed and then called the Chief at home and explained the situation. "Yes, Chief I think that might be for the best."
"Kyle, I'm giving you two choices. If you are telling the truth, we bring your sister here where you will both be out of the gang's reach, or I can take you downtown." In his uniform he looked the part of a no-nonsense cop. "If it turns out you are not telling the truth, it's straight downtown and we throw away the key."
Adam and Sean accompanied Kyle home in Adam's police car. Jerome and Drake followed in the larger pickup. Kyle opened the apartment door. His little sister was right there to greet his brother.
Adam surveyed the apartment. The kitchen was bare of food except a carton of milk, cold cereal and a few cans of food and boxes of macaroni and cheese. Stacks of bills and nasty notes from the landlord covered one end of the table. The one bedroom had a full mattress on the floor. Kyle slept on a foam pad in the corner of the main room.
Jerome and Drake arrived with stacks of flattened boxes and packing tape. Kyle identified what was theirs and what stayed with the apartment. A final sweep, checking behind and under furniture filled a final box.
Kyle and Angie rode back to the compound in the truck with Jerome. It was well past midnight before Kyle and Angie fell asleep in the twin beds in Holly's third bedroom.
"Tonight, you will share a room. We will get everything figured out tomorrow." Holly tucked them in and turned off the light. Kyle lay looking at the ceiling by the soft glow of the night light. What had just happened?
Kyle was carrying groceries for tips. No one would hire a fifteen-year-old. It had been a tough summer. During the school year Kyle and his sister Angie got one good meal a day at school. When his mother was around, she drank most of the social security disability check. Kyle missed his father. The photo in his uniform, the medal and the flag from the casket was all he had to remember his dad.
Kyle had worked all kinds of odd jobs to buy food for him and Angie. He remembered the day Josh, the quarterback from the high school football team, tossed him a bag of white powder. "I'll give you ten bucks to hide that in your pants."
Ten dollars was more than he had earned all week. He hid the bag down his pants. The guy ran 100 feet farther and stopped to look into a store window. A moment later two cops ran up to the guy. They frisked him and found his wallet, loose change and a house key. They were angry.
"Hey boy, what's your name?" Kyle turned to see who the officer was talking to. "Did you see this kid throw anything?"
If he produced the bag, he would lose ten dollars and would end up in trouble for having a bag of cocaine. "No sir. He ran straight to the window. They have the newest tennis shoes that came in yesterday." Kyle had drooled as they set the display the previous morning.
"We'll get you next time!" The officers left.
"Meet me at the park in ten minutes." Josh told Kyle.
Kyle arrived at the park and sat on a bench and waited. He swapped the baggie for the ten dollars. Another day they paid Kyle twenty dollars to squeeze through a small window into the basement of a record shop downtown. All he had to do was open the back door from the inside.
They paid the twenty dollars and told him to get lost. Kyle didn't want to know what they were doing. He wanted to run, but he walked down the street and into a grocery store to buy a carton of milk and some hot dogs. Hot dogs were cheap and you could eat them cold.
Then next day the record shop was a smoldering heap of debris. He knew he was in trouble. Today he had tried to say `no'. They informed him what would happen to his little sister if he didn't do what they said. Before meeting with Drake, Kyle had emptied the bullets from the gun.
Could this place be his way out? Would he and his sister find safety here? The internal struggle continued in his dreams. Noise from outside woke Kyle. It took a moment to remember where he was. He had dreamed this was a reform school. Angie was sleeping and his bed was soft. He fell back into slumber.
"Time to wake up. I let you sleep in today. We don't want you to miss breakfast." Holly had been through the boxes and laid out the cleanest clothes she could find.
Dressed, Holly led the two children through the kitchen and out of the apartment. It puzzled Kyle, but he held Angie's hand as they followed Holly. They cut across the courtyard. Kyle looked around. This place was big. Angie couldn't take her eyes off the pool.
"Do we get to swim?" Angie asked.
"No one uses the pool. . ." Holly paused as she picked up a toy car from the path. Angie's face fell. Then Holly finished. ". . . without adult supervision. Everyone else has been doing chores since 6:30. We all pitch in so no `one person' does all the work. This evening you can learn the chores. We will find something you don't mind doing."
The number of people standing at the table surprised Kyle and Angie. The new family members stood next to Holly.
"We have one more to arrive." Nephi said from his wheelchair at the head of the table.
Kenton hurried to the table, his hair still wet from the shower. "The newest alpaca has arrived. Both mother and baby are doing fine." Kyle became nervous seeing the guy they sent to kill him standing at the same table.
"That's great to hear." Nephi introduced Kyle and Angie. "For now, we have two new family members. They seem to have misplaced their mother. Chief Thompson has his office trying to find her. Everyone welcome Drake home. He will stay in the safety of the compound for reasons similar to Kyle and Kenton."
Jared and Drake stared daggers at each other across the table.
"Remember, until they feel comfortable talking about their past, don't push them to talk." Nephi finished with the prayer.
Angie's eyes grew wide watching the variety of foods being passed around the table. She wanted some of everything. Holly took over. "Do you like scrambled eggs?" Angie nodded. Holly asked, Angie nodded, Holly put some on her plate. They repeated the process for each platter. With all the food on the table why did Holly put small servings on Angie's plate compared to the others. Kyle grew angry.
"Angie if you want more of anything just ask someone to pass it." Kyle then understood. No one was skimping on his little sister's servings, Holly had left room for a little of everything. When others helped themselves to second helpings Kyle found the serving platters were also offered to him. If this was some kind of reform school, he would be a willing inmate for meals like this.
Nephi met with Kyle and Drake in the small office in the house. When Nephi felt he had the whole picture, he asked Drake to show Kyle to the conference room in the main office.
Kyle first met with the Foundation lawyer. "Kyle you could be in a lot of trouble after last night. I know they threatened you and your sister. That is why you are here and not downtown. Tell me everything you can remember. Just start at the beginning."
"I am Kyle's lawyer. I think we need to talk first." Leonard and the detective left the office. Behind the closed door. Kyle told his story beginning with the day of the first baggie of cocaine
While Kyle confided in his lawyer, Drake was talking with Leonard and the detective. "Drake, what does the gang have on you?" Leonard asked straight out. Drake told about being a getaway driver and the jacket. He also told his fears about Thomas.
"My office has had no reports of a convenience store clerk being beat to death with a baseball bat." Leonard looked to the police detective.
"There was a robbery involving a baseball bat. The clerk decided that the fifty dollars in the till and a case of beer wasn't worth a broken limb."
Leonard spoke up. "The gang will assume you talked even if you don't cooperate. With your information we could shut part of the gang down. My office will accept probation with an expungement on your eighteenth birthday."
Drake realized he would be safer telling the police everything he knew. He trusted Uncle Leonard. Nephi had rolled in at the end of the conversation. "Leonard, he will need that in writing before he says anything more." Nephi turned to Drake. "Did anyone read you your right to remain silent?" Drake shook his head.
"Drake until you have a deal in writing you are done talking." Nephi turned to Leonard. "Drake is part of the family; he is always welcome here. Before Kyle begins, he also needs any deals in writing. I trust you Leonard, but not necessarily the justice system." Nephi tried not to look toward the police officer.
"I've been talking with the judge. This isn't a gang of kids from the west side. These boys have influential parents. That's why it's been so hard to make anything stick." Nephi explained. "The judge has signed off on having Kyle and Angie stay with us for now. So, until we have guarantees in writing nothing happened last night."
"You are obstructing our investigation. Maybe you need to be the one going downtown." The officer threatened.
Nephi pointed to the security camera and the notice under it stating that the recording included audio to improve customer service. "That will look good on the news. Officer beats confession from paralyzed youth." There comes a time when you don't give a damn. Nephi had reached that point.
"I will interview the young man with or without your permission." The officer opened the door interrupting Kyle and his lawyer. The officer didn't make the same mistake again. He read Kyle his rights, then the questions began. With each question beyond general information, the lawyer shook his head.
"On the advice of my lawyer, and because I fear for the safety of me and my sister, I invoke the fifth amendment." Kyle read from a card in his hand.
"This is getting us nowhere." Leonard interrupted. "Give me some time with Kyle's lawyer."
While the lawyer's talked, the police detective insisted on talking with those involved with the preceding evening's events. Nephi hadn't been involved. Leonard had warned him about commenting on what he didn't know firsthand. Sean was out in the field overseeing the landscaping groups. He could be anywhere. Jerome was at school. Nephi wasn't sure where Adam was.
The officer's frustration grew. "Why are they not here? There was a shooting last night."
"I'm not sure where you get your information. There were no shots fired last night. From what I have heard the only gun mentioned had no bullets in it." Nephi answered. The officer's red face showed his growing anger. Nephi decided he could get away with another round of cop baiting. "Like I said earlier nothing happened last night."
The officer lost the battle he stormed out of the video taped office. Nephi decided not to mention the cameras filming the parking area.
As the lawyer's finished negotiating, the detective returned somewhat calmer than when he left. Leonard called his office and outlined the deal he wanted to offer both Drake and Kyle. "Their testimony could make a real difference in shutting down gang activity on the East Side."
"What can these kids tell us that is worth all this fuss." The detective fumed.
"Remember the record shop arson that killed the owner. Kyle can tell you who did it, and who conspired to kill Kenton. He can also identify which gang members had him hold drugs when the police were closing in. Drake can point the finger at the perpetrators of many robberies and the ones responsible for the attack on the Thomas kid.
The fax machine printed out the plea deals for the boys. With everything signed Kyle used Jared's high school yearbook to tell his story and identify gang members matching them to a list of crimes.
"I think we should take Kyle into protective custody." The officer announced.
"How many times did the police raid this place when it was a polygamist refuge? Did they ever find the patriarch?" Nephi didn't give the officer a chance to answer. "We are a secure compound. We have our own certified teacher. Kyle, Kenton and Drake will attend class here." Nephi chose not to antagonize the officer by insinuating that there had to be a dirty cop for these kids to keep getting off.
With all the statements written and signed the officer left. "Nephi, thanks for watching out for these kids. The police can overreach themselves." Leonard gave his nephew a hug. "I hope you get feeling better sooner than later."
"A lot of things will never get better. I ask myself would I do it again if I knew the cost?" Nephi asked. "The question keeps me awake at night."
Jerome stood at the door. "You know you would do it again. That is just who you are. What would you think of housing another officer at the complex? Maybe a good-looking guy, not like that slouch Adam."
Nephi grabbed the whiteboard eraser and threw it. It hit Jerome as he dodged to the side. "Well it hasn't ruined your aim. Maybe later, we can try a little target practice." Jerome wiggled his eyebrows. "Physical therapy isn't until this afternoon, let's check on the landscaping teams."
It was a struggle to get Nephi into the truck. They stopped first at the Johansen's. The progress pleased Nephi. "I think we need to give Sean that raise. Everything looks great." The day had pushed Nephi to the limit.
"We need to discuss the future and here is the perfect place." Jerome helped Nephi from the truck to his chair. Sitting side by side with the graphic designer at the print shop, they worked out the details for the holiday lighting flyer. She promised to have a first mockup right after the holiday.
Jerome ran into Bertram's and returned with Nephi's favorite sundaes. As they sat in the parking lot, devouring hot fudge brownie sundaes Jerome brought up another topic.
"Nephi, when we shared our vows, Clarke asked if we would lovingly accept children given to us by God. I know we have a houseful of littles but I've been thinking. We have Jerry, maybe we should try for a little Nellie or Norbert?"
Nephi stared out the window in silence. In Jerome's sales classes they said at moments like this the first one who talks loses. Had he crossed the line. He wanted a child with Nephi's genes. Sariah had mentioned she would carry the baby. It wouldn't be adoption because Nephi would be the father.
As the front gates opened Nephi broke the silence. "That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. With everything going on how could we live with that. I put my foot down. It will be over my dead body, there will never be a little Norbert in this house." Nephi paused as Jerome walked around the truck to help him out. "Now a little Noah would be nice, but never a Norbert."
Nephi checked his watch. "We have just enough time to try getting pregnant." Nephi made race car noises as they rushed to the bedroom. For the first time Jerome appreciated the taller mattress. It was perfect. After getting the fires started Nephi lay on the edge of the bed. Jerome supported Nephi's legs on his shoulders. He slid in and out of his lover being careful not to hurt him.
Before Nephi could come Jerome rolled an untreated, unlubricated condom on Nephi's member. "I'm not sure this is what they meant by having safe sex. Shouldn't you be wearing the condom?" Nephi asked.
"We don't want you smelling like cum for your therapist, do we?" Jerome smiled. The final thrusts as Jerome came pushed Nephi over the edge. Jerome removed the condom with minimal spillage. Nephi's load looked huge in the tip of the condom. Jerome tied it off and put it aside.
"We need to get you to the gym in time to meet your therapist." Jerome supported Nephi as he moved to his chair. Jerome knew Nephi had to get used to doing things on his own.
While they were rolling toward the fitness room, Sariah collected the condom of Nephi's semen.