None of the shocks of the previous two days had prepared him for the lightning bolt at the bottom of the list. It was the name that was now flashing on his vibrating cell phone: Jared Ralston.
CHAPTER 3
“What the fffff…?” Melvin Brown sputtered, spraying the screen of his laptop with flecks of half-chewed Cheerios.
The ESPN homepage he’d been perusing was suddenly being overrun with frame after frame of obscene pictures and videos of prepubescent boys. Each window he managed to close seemed to spawn two more.
“What the hell is going on?” he whispered, as he raced for the phone to call his cable company.
“Para Español marque dos,” came the cheery recorded voice on the other end of the line, followed by a long pause. “We are currently experiencing higher than average call volumes. Your estimated wait time is… eighteen… minutes.”
“I can’t wait no damn eighteen minutes!” he shouted into the phone.
“Your time is valuable to us,” the chipper woman’s voice answered on queue. “Press one now to leave your name, phone number, and a brief message, and our next available customer service representative will return your call shortly.”
Yeah, right. Leave a message that your computer’s being overrun by child pornography.
As more and more repulsive images flashed up on his laptop, he tried to shut it down, but his keyboard was frozen. He even tried holding the power button down for what seemed like a full minute — nothing.
Finally he slammed the cover closed.
And that’s when the volume came on. Full blast. Godawful sounds from the disgusting videos filled the room.
In full-scale panic mode, he darted over to the window, threw down the street-facing shade and turned back frantically to his computer. Tiny blue lights indicating continuously streaming data flashed relentlessly from the side of the keyboard as he turned the volume of his TV all the way up to try to drown out the vile sounds blaring from his computer.
Then without warning a pounding at the door joined the din. It wasn’t the inquisitive knock of a neighbor wondering if everything was ok. Whoever was behind that door was coming in, invited or not.
The flashing blue lights on his laptop maintained their frenetic pace.
“Just a minute,” Melvin yelled over the roaring TV. “I’m getting dressed.”
“Mr. Brown? Open this door!” came a booming voice from the hall.
“Yeah. Two seconds,” Melvin yelled back, heading for the bathroom in a full sweat.
He turned the water on full-force in the tub and then ran back to the living room, where he thought he could hear the jangling of keys from the hall. The super must have been with them.
Grabbing his laptop, he ran for the bathroom, just as he heard the deadbolt release.
“Mr. Brown! Come out here with your hands up. We’ve got a warrant.” They were inside the apartment.
He raised his computer high over his head and then slammed it down as hard as he could on the tile bathroom floor, tossing the remnants into the half-full bathtub. Finally, mercifully, the only noise to be heard was from the blaring TV.
Wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, he looked into the bathroom mirror to see four of Newark’s finest over his shoulder, standing next to his superintendent in his living room.
Two of the officers charged into the bathroom and lunged for the mangled laptop. “Mr. Brown, you’re under arrest for possession and distribution of child pornography. You have the right to remain silent…”
The words trailed off, as Melvin’s attention turned inward, incredulous that this was happening to him. He’d checked out the occasional nude woman on the internet, but who hadn’t? He’d never paid for anything. And the sites he’d looked at were more R-rated than X — never even remotely close to kiddie porn.
Could this have been some kind of virus that had hit the ESPN website? That was probably his only hope. But if that had been the case, why were the police immediately breaking down his door? Someone had to have set him up. But who? And why? He didn’t have an enemy in the world. He hardly had any acquaintances.
“You think they’ll be able to salvage it?” one of the officers asked his partner, inspecting the soaked remains of the laptop.
“Oh yeah. The geeks down at forensics’ll have this downloaded by lunch,” the second officer answered. Then he turned his gaze to his suspect and sneered, “I wish to God this pervert would’ve resisted!” The statement was loaded with false bravado, made only after Melvin was securely cuffed — and everyone knew it.
Melvin Brown was 6’6” and a chiseled 245 pounds. Bad knees and a string of concussions in his sophomore year were the only things that had kept him from playing defensive end in the NFL. Instead, after a couple of years of college, his scholarship lost and no other way to pay for the remainder of his education, he’d joined his family’s meatpacking business.
For the past several years he’d kept mostly to himself, both at work and afterward, spending the bulk of his time watching and reading about sports, unable to kick his unhealthy habit of ruminating over what might’ve been if he’d stayed healthy — or at least finished college.
His massive shoulders slumped, and his chin hung down to his chest, as the officers led him out. Tears began to well in his eyes as he caught sight of the basketball he’d gotten autographed by the entire New York Knicks basketball team. He’d envisioned the day he would present it to his son. The son he’d just discovered he had. The son who still didn’t know his dad existed. The son he’d now probably never be allowed to meet.
“Get some clothes on that monster for God’s sake,” the officer in charge shouted, looking him up and down. “Pants only. I don’t want those cuffs off him until he’s down at the station.”
Four stories down, on the opposite side of the street, Aaron Bradford removed a small earpiece and powered down his laptop, as he fired off a text to his boss:JQJ is a go.
J’Quarius Jones swung around the three-point arc to the baseline, pointed heavenward, and took flight off of both feet. The defender in front of him stepped up to try to take the charge, forcing J’Quarius to straddle and then elevate right over him. At the apex of his jump, he met the ball with his fully-outstretched right hand and then hammered it down through the hoop in one fluid motion.
A veritable lightning storm of flashbulbs diffused across the bleachers, as the crowd erupted. He hung on the rim for half a second, allowing himself to enjoy the moment, before gently coming back to earth.
A rising eighth-grader, he was 6’4” with a nearly 7-foot wingspan and a 38-inch vertical leap. He was two inches taller than the opposing team’s center, but with the agility to play guard — the epitome of a man amongst boys. He hadn’t lost a game in over two years, despite the fact that he’d been forced to change teams three times in that span.
With his team up by thirty and only a minute and a half left to play, number eleven coolly strolled over to Lincoln Junior High’s bench, giving a low five to the last kid off the bench who had the unenviable task of replacing him. The crowd was still on their feet, half continuing to cheer and half headed for the exits. Three division I head coaches in attendance jockeyed for position to make eye contact, frustrated that they weren’t allowed any more substantial contact with a kid his age.
He took a seat at the end of the bench and leaned forward with a wet towel draped over his head. Sweat and water from the towel mixed on his face and dripped onto the floor below, but no tears. He wouldn’t allow that.
J’Quarius had been raised by his grandmother from infancy. He’d been told that his mother had died during childbirth, but his grandmother didn’t like to talk about it. And he knew nothing of his father.