Steve Reba: Better Than Not Trying
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With the confederate battle flag high atop a pole in the foreground, he trudged up the courthouse steps. It was a toss-up as to what made it more difficult for him to move, the oversized jumpsuit hanging off his thin frame or the shackles running from wrist to wrist and ankle to ankle. His mother looked at him, then at his juvenile correction officer escort, then at me. She was crying. The officer let mother and child speak for a moment. They moved off to the side, and we asked the officer why our small, gaunt client still had clothes that were three sizes too big. His answer was something to the effect of he’s so much smaller than the other residents, and the facility doesn’t stock jumpsuits that size. Sensing his answer to be inadequate, he jumped into a monologue on the facility where he currently worked, the facility he worked at previously, and his retirement that was days away. He spoke with the boldness that comes with leaving something entirely. He chastised the system, its failures, its apathy, its infectious numbness. His discontent waned and he directed his attention back to the youth in chains, summoning him into the courthouse. Mother hugged son. Son, unable to separate his arms to complete the action, leaned into his mother’s grasp. I sat in the hallway outside the courtroom jotting down some final notes before the hearing. There was no holding cell, so the officer sat in the opposite corner of the hallway next to the youth who was despondently swatting at flies circling his head with both hands. After a few swats, each one a little less enthusiastic than the last, he gave up and put his head in his bound hands.