On Monday, when we got there at 8:45, the courtroom was packed. There were even people standing in the hall. Cory met us and took us to the witness room.

"Why are there so many people?" I asked.

"Jury selection," he said. "We sent subpoena's to 500 people."

"Why so many?"

"Well, usually about a third don't show. Others are excused for various reasons like they can't hear or they have been convicted of a felony. They'll try any excuse they can think of that the judge might allow. Also, there are three criminal courtrooms in this building. Trials will be conducted in all three courtrooms on and off all week. The most important trial gets the big courtroom, the one on this floor. We won the lottery and get the big room. Because this trial is likely to take the longest, we also get to select jurors first. They will send our rejects to the other courtrooms for voir dire."

"What's voir dire?" I asked.

"Haven't you taken civics yet?" Cory asked.

"It's one of my classes for next year."

"Voir dire is when the lawyers get to talk to the prospective jurors. We talk to them and ask them questions. We sort of get a feel for their personalities and their likely views."

"Oh, the time when lawyers get to dismiss jurors they don't think will vote their way," I said.

Cory laughed. "Well, that's the simplistic version. We have to give a reason for dismissal. We can only dismiss a couple of people without giving cause. Anyway, jury selection will take at least all morning. It could easily consume the whole day in a trial this complex."

Cory introduced us to a lady he called Ms. Shelley. He said she was the jury coordinator. "She'll take good care of you. I need to get in the courtroom for voir dire."

Ms. Shelley smiled and checked our names on her list. "If you give me a cell number, you don't have to hang around here. Jury selection will take at least until noon, maybe longer. I'll text you when I have some idea how it's going."

"Can we watch voir dire?" I asked.

"No, I'm afraid not. Potential witnesses aren't allowed in the courtroom until after they testify." She looked down at her list. She looked up with a surprised look on her face. "You're on both lists, CW. You won't ever been allowed in the courtroom until both the prosecution and defense rest. And, you, Mrs. Braisford are on the defense list. Since the prosecution goes first, you probably won't be needed until later in the week. It just depends on how fast the trial moves."

"Okay," Mom said. She gave her the number, and we left.

"Looks like we have a morning to kill," she said. "Got any ideas?"

"There's a CCs across the street. We can get coffee and a roll."

"That might burn an hour if we stretch it," Mom said.

"The library is about three blocks that way." I pointed south. "We could go there and read or surf on their computers or something. My I-pad's in the car. That would be a place with air conditioning where we could pretend we weren't waiting for a text from the court."

Mom laughed. "Who would have thought we'd be looking for an air conditioned place in March. The weather this year has been strange."

We'd eaten breakfast before leaving the house, so we decided to skip CCs and head to the library.

We should have just slept in. Jury selection wasn't finished until 3 pm. By the time they were seated and the judge had talked to them, the legal day was almost over. The judge decided to dismiss them and start with opening arguments the next morning.

"Can we just call in tomorrow?" I asked Ms. Shelley. "We're probably not going to be needed then either."

"Sorry," she said. "Court is one of those hurry up and wait situations. You have to report in every morning. The DA might decide to move a witness up on his list. A plea could be reached overnight and everyone dismissed. You just never know what's going to happen."

The next day Mom and I decided to take a deck of cards and the crib board, as well as my I-pad and her Kindle. We figured it would be just as easy to sit in the witness room as to wander around looking for things to occupy us.

We spent Tuesday playing cards and reading, except when we left to get some lunch. On Wednesday, Cory came in just before lunch. "We've presented most of our case," he said. "We will have the Livecam guy on after lunch. We're going to show the video feed from the night of the accident. After that we're going to do a video interview with BJ. You will be last up. The three things will probably take most of the afternoon. I imagine the defense attorney will start presenting his case tomorrow."

"We'll be here," Mom said. "We've sort of gotten accustomed to the place."

We left to get some lunch. We ordered fried catfish, but my stomach was tied in knots. I just picked at my food.

"Don't tear it up," Mom said. "We'll take it to go. I'm sure you'll be hungrier once you've testified."

"Yeah. I know we've been over everything, but I'm still nervous."

"Me, too, and I won't even be in the room."

We got back to the witness room at 1:30. We hadn't been in any hurry. We knew it would take a while with the other two witnesses. We were the only ones in the room, except for Ms. Shelley. I guess she'd dismissed everyone else. No one expected the defense team to be calling any witnesses until the next day.

Mom and I tried playing a game of crib, but I kept adding things wrong. Finally, she said, "This is pointless."

"Yeah," I agreed.

She folded up the board and put it and the cards in her bag. She looked towards Ms. Shelley. She leaned across the table and took my hands. "Can I pray for you?" she asked.

"Out loud?" 

"If it's okay. It's not like we're in Starbucks or anything."

I glanced over at Ms. Shelley. She was reading a book. "I suppose."

Mom bowed her head and I followed suit. "Father," she said. "Truth is part of your character. Help CW to tell the truth in such a way that the jury will see his sincerity and believe him. Calm his nerves and fill him with your peace. He is your child. I know you love him. I put him in your hands. Amen."

When she stopped, I kept my head bowed for a minute before saying, "Amen." I wasn't comfortable praying out loud, but I told God thanks for being in my corner and asked him to help me be the witness he wanted me to be.

I looked up. "Thanks, Mom. That helped still the butterflies in my stomach."

Shortly afterwards, Shelley's phone buzzed. "You're up, CW," she said, just as Cory came through the door.

Mom squeezed my hand. "I'll be right here praying."

Brock was doing the questioning. He put me at ease by asking me simple stuff to start, before getting into my relationship with Jake and Marlow with it's deception. He led me through why I had started hanging out with them. We covered all the stuff about the breaking and entering in my crib and eventually the pantry. He wanted to stress that Jake bragged about knowing how to get into locked places. He took me through the fact that we drank but took pains to hide the empties so that Mom wouldn't know. He asked me about the false-back in the cabinet and what I found inside. Finally he got to the night of the accident. I explained that joyriding was my idea. It was my way of getting back at Mom for her deception with the camera. I explained about putting the mini-cam in the helmet, planning to activate it later so I could taunt Mom with what I was doing while she was at a New Year's bash. Finally he took me through the sighting of BJ and the wreck itself.

I glanced at Jake and Marlow while I was being sworn in, but didn't look their way while I was on the stand. All through my testimony, I focused on Brock. It helped that Brock stood to my right. By standing to the right, he kept me from having to look toward the defense table, which was to the left of the prosecutor's table. Several times he walked over toward the jury, which was to the far left. I knew that when he did that he wanted the jury to see my face and my sincerity. I would look at Brock and sometimes beyond him to the jury, but I pretended the defense table wasn't there. I knew from his warning, though, that the defense attorney would do just the opposite.

When Brock finished, it was the defense attorney's turn. He started by introducing himself. He was native American and his name was Gregory Sly Fox. I grinned when he said the name. It sounded like the name of someone who would be in Jake and Marlow's corner.

Seeing my grin, he smiled back at me. "I know," he said. "Great name for a defense lawyer, isn't it?"

He then directed my attention to the defense table. I looked at Jake and Marlow. They were slouched in their chairs and staring sullenly at me. Surprisingly instead of feeling fear or guilt, what I felt was sorrow.

"Do you know the two young men sitting over there?" he asked.

"Yes sir."

"How do you know them?"

"I hung out with them for a few months."

"So they were your friends?"

"I thought so at the time."

"When did you decide they weren't your friends? When the DA told you it would be to your advantage to testify against them?"

"No sir. I realized that they weren't my friends when I was lying in a hospital bed trying to remember what happened the night of the accident. When I remembered yelling at Jake that BJ was going to turn left and realized he didn't slow down or anything, that's when I started to question his friendship." I took a breath, intending to tell about making the list and recognizing the deception, but the lawyer rushed into the silence.

"When you talked to the police while you were in the hospital didn't you tell them that Jake didn't hear you?"

Brock had cautioned me against answering more than was asked, but in this case I figured the Sly Fox wanted me to just say yes. Instead I made sure the jury knew that a simple yes was not enough.

"I told them I thought the wind blew my words over my shoulder and that Jake might not have heard me."

He picked up some papers from the table. "This is a transcript of your statement from that day. Read the end of this paragraph here, please.

I knew he wanted the jury to hear my words but not Jake's so I purposefully started with Jake's words, reading quickly before he had a chance to interrupt. "Jake said, 'It's that loser BJ. Let's scare the shit out of him.' He gunned the bike and started to pull into the left lane. I screamed, 'No, he's getting ready to turn left,' but the wind grabbed my words and blew them away. Jake didn't hear me."

When I finished reading, I saw Brock trying to hide a grin while Mr. Sly Fox glared at me. "There were no clarifiers like thought or might not in that statement were there?" he asked.

"No, sir. At that time..."

He cut me off. "No explanation necessary. You answered the question." He looked down at his notes. "You have testified that Jake and Marlow broke into your crib on several occasions. Didn't you purposefully leave the window unlocked so they could do that?"

"The first time, they left school early. I didn't know they were there until I unlocked the door, and they yelled surprise."

"So they weren't really breaking and entering, they were planning a surprise for you?"

"I don't think the law makes a distinction based on the reason you break into someone's place. I asked them how they got in and Jake pointed at the window and said it was a piece of cake. Marlow said they were pretty good at sneaking around."

"But you didn't tell them that you didn't want them doing it?"

"Not then, but..."

He cut me off again. "So they climbed in an unlocked window to surprise you? Did you leave the window unlocked on other occasions so that they could get in that way?"

"I locked the windows every night and told the guys they weren't allowed to be there if I wasn't present. When it got cold, after they had been expelled from school so they couldn't go there, they asked me to leave the window open so they could go in and get warm after Mom left."

"And on the night of the accident, you actually helped them to sneak into the shed you call your crib."

"I did. I..."

He interrupted me. "Whose idea was it to hotwire the motorcycle and take it for a joyride?"

"I met Jake and Marlow for lunch and suggested it because I was mad at my Mom, but..."

He cut me off . "So it was your idea and Jake and Marlow just went along with it. Didn't you tell them it was your motorcycle so they would think it was okay to take it?"

"No. I told them it was Pop's motorcycle and that I didn't have the key yet. I wouldn't get it until I was 18. That's when Jake said he knew how to hotwire the bike."

"You just told me it was your idea to hotwire the bike."

"We had the conversation about the bike belonging to Pop and Jake knowing how to hotwire bikes weeks before we decided to take it out for a ride."

"How convenient," he said. "You seem to have a lot of convenient remembrances when it's to your benefit. Didn't you tell the police that you had amnesia and couldn't remember the accident? Then after they told you that they were going to charge the three of you separately, you changed your tune, didn't you?"

"I told them my memory was fuzzy, and I couldn't remember much about the accident. I thought maybe I had amnesia or something, but after a few days, when they reduced my drugs, I started to remember. It's in that transcript you had me read from."

"And that statement was given after you were advised that you were going to be charged along with your friends."

"Yes, but.."

"Yes is sufficient." He interrupted me one too many times.

"You keep interrupting me. Is that because you don't want the jury to hear explanations that might not be to the benefit of your clients?"

"I'm the one asking the questions, young man. Just give your answers as succinctly as possible."

"Yes, sir." I thought about adding "short and sweet it is," but thought that might sound like a smart-aleck.

"You've been quite the rebel over the last few months, haven't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"You dragged my clients along with you, didn't you?"

"No, sir."

"You've been drinking, lying, and cheating and getting them involved, haven't you?"

"I only drank when Jake bought the brews and insisted. I never drank heavily. I didn't get a DUI the night of the accident because my levels were legal. I lied and cheated to help them out, at least that's what I thought I was doing."

"So, it was all their fault?"

"No, sir. I chose to do it, so I'm to blame. But you asked if I was doing it and getting them involved. I just wanted you to know it was the other way around."

"So, they're to blame for you putting the Oxy in the saddlebags, too?"

"I didn't put it there."

He jumped in quickly. "So you say, but it was your Dad's name on the bottles." He turned to the judge. "No more questions at this time, Your Honor, but he is on my witness list, and I may recall him later."

"You may step down," the judge said. "Because you're on the defense witness list, you must leave the courtroom."

I left. As the door shut behind me, I heard Brock say, "The defense rests, Your Honor."