Microsoft Word - Talkers_Redemption_Lane.docx

had dragged him into rooms that were a blur of faces, and
    he had given his depositions. He couldn’t remember much of them.
    He’d had Staind playing in his head, practically their whole last
    album, and the things he said and the things people said to him
    were not ever going to stick.
    He remembered Jed, who had given him an actual hug, the
    kind with the double fist bump on the back, and told him it was
    okay—as long as Brian wasn’t in trouble, it was okay. Jed hadn’t
    gotten in trouble either. Melville had kept his word on that, but Talker
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    had insisted he not be there when Jed testified. He didn’t want to
    hear about the fight from anyone but Brian.
    Henries was there, and he gave Talker a wide berth. At one
    point, as they’d waited in an echoing hallway with pristine granite-
    colored tiles on the floor, Henries had made a crack about Talker’s
    courtroom attire. Tate had borrowed a pair of Brian’s nicest khakis
    and a button down shirt, but he’d kept the woolen half-glove, and
    the eyeliner. Melville had snapped that if the guy didn’t shut up,
    someone else would puke on his shoes, and Henries had sulked by
    the water fountain for the rest of the wait.
    And in the end, all that mattered was that Talker made it.
    Talker’s testimony made it happen: Trev was a bad guy, Brian had
    been, if not legally right then at least morally strong, and Trev’s
    response was out of proportion. Trev gave up his two buddies, hired
    thugs, both of them, and he’d done it through a broken nose. (Go,
    Jed! Tate wished for money, just so he could buy Jed something
    kick-ass for Christmas, or even for his kids!)
    Tate had seen Trev, from a distance, being escorted through
    the corridors in handcuffs, with his head up and a sneer twisting
    what Tate had once thought of as a handsome face. At the end of
    the day, the Assistant District Attorney had been happy to cut a deal:
    if Trevor didn’t press charges against Brian, his own charges would
    be assault with a deadly weapon as opposed to attempted murder.
    Given the lengthy prison stay that the second charge would
    probably have landed him, he pled out, and took the eighteen
    months offered. It wasn’t forever—it certainly didn’t seem long
    enough—but it would keep him out of their hair until they could
    toughen up. And a guaranteed restraining order upon his release
    made Tate feel a little bit better as well.
    Talker didn’t even want to think about what would happen to
    Trev in prison. There was no righteous excitement about the tables
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    being turned. He didn’t gloat or feel justified or vindicated as Trevor
    had been walked through the courthouse. He didn’t even think
    about shouting, “Hey, Trev, now you’ll know how it feels!” The whole
    thing just made him want to vomit, and Lyndie was having a hell of
    a time trying to get him to eat as it was.
    He’d disappeared for a moment then, and when he’d come to
    himself, he’d been sitting on one of the hellaciously cold granite
    benches that were part of a fountain sculpture in the front of the
    courthouse. He sat there, knees drawn up to his chest, until Lyndie
    and Doc Sutherland found him, and pulled him to his next paneled
    room, with his next group of people he would never remember.
    The only thing that kept him focused that day, the only thing
    that kept him from losing it, from throwing up and shaking and
    needing sedation on the stand, was the idea of visiting Brian.
    The swelling in Brian’s face went down daily. By the time they
    brought him home, there were still visible bruises, but the stitches
    had been taken out, and the disfigurement was, for the most part,
    gone. What remained was… Brian. Brian who would listen to Tate
    rambling about his day—good or bad—with wide, appreciative eyes,
    and a quiet comment now and then to let Tate know that he was
    totally invested in the conversation. Brian who told Tate how brave
    he had been, without any irony at all, and who talked about
    Christmas like it was a big deal, and Tate’s biggest Christmas
    present wasn’t just that they were both going to live.
    Brian, who, the day after Talker had given his deposition, had
    shoved his bruised, aching, healing body to one side of his hospital
    bed, forced Tate to lay up beside him, put the iPod ear buds in and
    just held him. It had been awkward, and probably painful on Brian’s
    part, but for Talker, it