UPDATE ON:
Seventeen and Down and Out

Back a few of weeks ago, (Scroll down to June 11, 2010)I wrote a brief piece about a neighbor’s youngster, a seventeen-year-old boy,, who was on the run, wanted for grand larceny. Once he heard there was a warrant out on him, he rabbited, running away along a route he had planned, apparently, for some time against the moment of an imminent arrest. “You’ll never find me,” he once boasted, his bravado directly related to the blunt he had smoked a couple of hours back.

There isn’t much use arguing with an alkie or junkie when he’s high. But you can learn one hell of a lot about him simply by listening and asking an occasional question.

While I was enjoying a beach brake three weeks ago, the kiddo returned home from the lam and was promptly arrested and thrown into the slammer. Not kiddie jail, known as YDC hereabouts, but big boy jail, the adult Law Enforcement Center located in the ass end of downtown Macon.

And there he sits still. I know that for a fact because he tried to call me a few minutes ago, but yours truly doesn’t accept collect calls from the slammer. Social Security checks don’t allow for too much excess, expensive frivolity like that.

He will be convicted, eventually. Right now he’s just sittin’ in the hoosegow, twiddlin’ his thumbs, probably reading a little, avoiding Big Bubba, hopefully. There is no trial in sight according to the boy’s mother, just the slow march of time as he waits for the ponderous wheels of justice to turn.

Is it ‘justice’? Thought I knew what that meant once upon a time. As I get older the concept becomes less clear with every passing year. I read Plato as a youth, in Greek and in translation. Plato might have understood the essence of justice, but I do not.

Not even sure if I understand Plato any more.

This is THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE and I am Don Brunel