Chapter Text
His lawyer is younger than his little sister.
Painfully fresh faced and red haired, freckled, which is a jarring reminder of Half-Sack that Juice wasn’t ready for. Another dead brother, another body buried in the dirt; one of what could be hundreds for all Juice knows.
He doesn’t keep count.
Personally, he’s killed seven people. But the one he regrets the most is the woman, the mother of that twisted little boy who shot up his school. She wasn’t a real threat, she was an addict with paranoia.
Juice knows what that feels like.
He hasn’t had anything sweet for three days, and it might fucking kill him. The thoughts are crawling around in his head like lizards, whispering their not so sweet nothings and every sound may as well be bullets; they ping of the edge of his skull and make the world hurtful.
But he had to be clean for his hearing, if he goes in flying high and shows himself in a bad light there’s no way he’s leaving this circle of hell anytime soon. It had been Tully’s idea, along with some other pearls of wisdom between the calming verses of Bronte.
Guy sure loves his poems. He’s a cultured racist.
He told Juice to wash thoroughly, shave, but let his hair grow to at least half disguise his regretful head tattoos. Juice can’t exactly scrub up, but he can at least not reek to heaven and back.
Finally, he said look as pathetic and harmless as possible; which shouldn’t be too hard for Juice. Apart from the weight he’s lost, and the exhaustion, he’s got a pretty little cut through his eyebrow over a disagreement with one of the fine gentlemen he lives with.
The guy was Latino, he called Juice a disgrace to people, his race; for letting a Nazi make a bitch out of him. It was the same shit Juice feels on the inside but this time he was coming from someone else’s mouth.
Quite an out of body experience.
Juice doesn’t care, didn’t care, he just wanted to finish his cake (which is second favourite after pie) but the guy kept pushing.
“Are you alright, Juan?”
He never said the twerp could call him that, the last person who used his Christian name was his mother; and she, just like Bobby, Opie, Sack, Clay, Gemma, Jax and uncountable others is dead and gone.
The guards pulled them apart when Juice lost it in the cafeteria, with Tully watching on, head tilted as if watching something mildly interesting. Juice is glad he didn't intervene.
Juice was muscled back to his box. Tully was fine to stay out of the fight, but he wasn’t too happy that his plaything got damaged.
The mouthy fucker was found slit from belly button upwards, laying like a dead fish in a puddle in the shower block.
One less cockroach. Still, the fact Tully had killed for him made Juice feel owned even more then when Tully put his hands on him.
No one so much as met Juice’s eye after that without Tully’s permission.
His entire world is controlled by one man.
“F-Fine, got the flu. That’s all.”
It’s a shitty cover story, but the kid buys it. He looks all puppy like and sympathetic, clearly he’s not going to last long in this profession. He’s the kind of guy that gets fucked in a place like this.
“We can always postpone the meeting, you need to be focused and ready. They’re going to grill you there.”
Juice has to clench his jaw to disguise his chattering teeth, it comes off as irritation. “No. We do this now.”
The thought of waiting, of sitting in his tiny concrete and metal cage with nothing but Tully and the thoughts for company are motivation enough; no matter how shitty he feels, he needs to take this leap.
He remembers something Tully said a while ago.
-----
Tully sits back, thinking, the gears in his hateful mind are turning. “How about I arrange something for you, baby?”
Juice is getting that cold feeling again. “Arrange what?”
“A care package if you will…” He folds his hands in his lap, considering Juice. “Just to help you get back on your feet, you deserve a break, baby, life has been mean to you.”
-----
He wonders if Tully is truly capable of pity, of sympathy, or if he’s just going through the motions to appear that way but is still stone cold on the inside.
Juice saw a movie once, back when it was all still good and he had club and a real life, called Invasion of the Body snatchers. It was a dumb 50s movie that had terrible effects and corny music; the premise being that aliens from outer space invaded earth and replaced the human population with identical clones. But the clones were devoid of human emotion.
Now that, that’s Tully.
Strange what Juice thinks about when his face is pressed into the mattress with Tully is grunting and thrusting behind him.
Why a man with his philosophy has taken such a vested interest in what happens to a half black mutt is beyond Juice.
Most things are beyond him, the coke has fried his brain and now it’s sparking away like electricity and everything is white flashes and incoherence.
----
“Blow fucks you over, baby. You got a ninety minute cool down before the cravings start. I don’t envy you.”
----
Juice drags his sorry ass over to the chair he’s supposed to sit in, when he does the world spins and he has trouble focussing on the faces staring at him.
The kid lawyer takes his own seat, opens his briefcase and shuffles a few papers around.
It’s real annoying, the noise amplified and getting on Juice’s nerves.
Finally, his eyes begin to work and Juice takes note of an older guy with a beard in a suit. He looks serious, well groomed, if a little bored. Of course, this is his job, he does this every day.
“You’re Juan Carlos Ortiz?”
If Juice were in a better place, he’d give a smart answer, but today his responses are robotic and to the point. He’ll tell them the facts, nothing more.
They won’t take anything else from.
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr Ortiz, I am Commissioner Giles and this here is Commissioner Rose.”
There is a woman sitting on his left, maybe forty years old or so. She’s got a motherly look to her, a softness appears around her eyes when Juice studies her more closely. He must be a real sight if the higher ups are feeling sorry for him already, he’s practically oozing helplessness and apathy.
“You have served ten months of your sentence, is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
It feels like a thousand years.
He’s got the scent of a wounded animal, he’s crawling in front of the headlights in the hope of some mercy.
Juice knows that she is the one he needs to appeal to. Giles is more detached, brisk in the way he does things, no doubt wanting to get this over with so he can grab a coffee and a cigarette break.
“According to what we have here, this isn’t you’re first time in prison.”
“No, sir.”
Giles frowns down his reading glasses. “First conviction was when you were sixteen, for petty theft, then again at eighteen for possession of Class B banned substance, and assaulting a police officer.”
They’ve got themselves a whole file on Juice and his sins, he feels mighty special.
“Could you tell us a bit about that?”
His lawyer looks slightly uneasy, as if Juice is going to bite their heads off for asking about his teenage binges of destruction and anger.
“My mom was a user, so was my sister. I found the stuff in the house and got hooked, even after I left home I still found ways to score. The stealing was to feed my habit.”
“How old were you when you used drugs, Mr Ortiz?”
“Fifteen.”
“Are you still using drugs now, Mr Ortiz?”
“No sir, I got clean when I was twenty two, I haven’t gone back to it. Don’t intend to.”
They nod in unison, and take some notes.
That should please them, Juice thinks.
The rest is just his own history being parroted back to Juice, he’s only listening to half of it, barely even that really; he’s only manging to answer when they ask him direct questions.
Criminal possession of a weapon. Drug use. Dangerous driving. Fleeing Police.
It doesn’t look good.
The room is too hot.
“-And you were stabbed in San Joaquin County Correctional Facility?”
“Yes, ma’am. Through my back. Missed my vital organs. I was very lucky.”
Lucky. That’s what Juice has never been, is lucky.
He called Agent Stahl a bitch when she came to see him and he meant it. He hopes maggots make a nice meal of her.
“What happened?” Commissioner Rose asked, she’s concerned; Juice can use that.
He shrugs. “Racists didn’t like the colour of my skin, I didn’t start it, ma’am.”
There’s something in her eye, she understands, or she thinks she does.
He’s sweating like a sinner in church, he’s fanning the collar of his jumpsuit but he’s burning from the inside out and it’s not working. Oddly, out of nowhere, he’s ravenous. He thinks about all the food he used to eat in a random order; rice, chocolate, beef, apples.
“Do you have any ongoing appeals?”
“No, sir.”
He’s crazing real good roast potatoes like nobody’s business.
“You seem to have gotten numerous injuries in prison, Mr Ortiz.”
If only he knew. The beat downs, the stabbings, they’re walks in the park on a nice sunny day in comparison to what’s happening now. Tully uses lube, which makes it tolerable, but each time he pulls out he takes more and more of Juan Carlos with him.
“I guess I look like a good punching bag to people.”
They probably don’t appreciate his tone, but he’s having trouble staying awake and keeping his stupid tongue under control. The room is tilting.
“Mr Ortiz?”
Juice concentrates on his breathing, on getting himself back to the now and ignore the clawing thoughts telling him he needs the white powder more than he does air. “I’m sorry…”
God, what’s happened to him? Why is he sorry?
Is he sorry he’s a junkie?
Sorry he exists?
Sorry he’s wasting their time?
“Are you feeling okay, Mr Ortiz?” She must have children, she must do.
“I have a virus. But I’m okay.” He’s gotten better at lying, Tully has taught him how.
“Would you like a glass of water?”
The offer, the kindness is unexpected, and Juice is taken aback by it. “Yes, please.”
His pleases and thank you’s may score him some points, they might not.
But he’s willing to try.
----
“The eyes baby, it’s all about the eyes. If you make your eyes look sincere than it doesn’t matter what you say, they’ll believe it.”
“Is that how the Nazis got people to buy into their bullshit?”
“Nah, baby, they weren’t selling a lie. It was the truth, which is the most powerful tool a man has.”
----
The meeting drags, the questions become more and more personal, but they’re only doing their job; they need to figure Juice out, they need to see if he’s safe to be let out into the world.
His lawyer checks his watch.
More legal talk.
Somewhere words like ADHD and OCD float around but Juice has negative associations with labels so when they come up he lets his mind drift during those parts.
“Do you have any plans for your release, Mr Ortiz?”
No, nothing, he has nothing. He is nothing, he’s dead to the only family that kept him sane. He licks his lips, opens his mouth and says the first thing that comes to his mind.
“I have a sister, in Queens. She’ll come down and help me out with stuff.”
Of all the dumb shit that has come out of his mouth this is an absolute classic. Maria hasn’t spoken to him in over five years, and they didn’t exactly part ways on a positive note.
She was pregnant, again, and despite promising Juice she’d get clean for her baby he saw her dealer skulking out of her apartment building like a weasel. He’d seen Abel, he’d seen what it did to Jax and Wendy.
It was too much, he let her have it. He may have gone overboard, but he was so angry at her. She threatened him with a kitchen knife, Juice told her that they were done and took his leave.
“What, may I ask, are you going to do for employment?”
----
“What can you do, baby? Got any skills? Apart from being pretty?”
----
“I am a mechanic, Ma’am, and I’m good with computers.”
She smiles, kindly, and Juice thinks that he could like her.
He can’t get a read off Giles, and he doesn’t know what the guy thinks of him; not much probably.
Juice knows he’s screwed it up good, all he wants is to crawl away and hide.
“Is there anything else you would like to add, Mr Ortiz?”
“Yeah…” Juice sits up straight, he meets their eyes, and he holds their gazes. From somewhere deep inside himself finds a steady voice. “I’m sorry for what I’ve done, I regret it deeply. I want to apologise to those officers that I put in danger.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible, Mr Ortiz, but I’m sure they’d appreciate it.”
He’s got her hooked, he keeps going.
“I know I deserve to serve my full sentence but I really want a chance to prove to myself that I can make my life better. That I can be a better person and give something back to the community.”
Juice lowers his head in humility, the edge of his vision is a snowy colour.
A sort of contemplative silences fall over the room.
“Thank you, Mr Ortiz, you will be notified in due course when a decision has been reached.”
They shake hands, and he’s aware his hand must feel pretty gross; his skin is covered in a layer of moisture which chills him all over.
His kid lawyer doesn’t stick around, he’s probably got at least ten other cons to follow up on today, so Juice lets him go with nothing more than a nod.
----
“Sounds like it went well, sweetheart.”
Juice hates how Tully sounds, he’s not a god, he wasn’t there, he doesn’t know how it went.
“I blew it.” He mumbles. “Made a lie about my sister, said she’d help me when I got out. It was bullshit.”
Tully looks at Juice out of the corner of his eye. “They’ll like that, they like a nice family story, brother and sister reuniting again to set the brother back on the road to virtue. Downright biblical.”
Juice shivers. “Have you really read the bible?”
“Catholic parents, baby.”
“What happened to ‘love thy neighbour’ then?”
Tully looks wry. “It never went into specifics about what colour your neighbours had to be, sweetheart. And don’t get into the thing with the Jews.”
Juice groans, a long, drawn out sound of pain. “I’m fucking dying here.”
“No baby, it’s called withdrawal.”
“You gotta give me something…” He’s begging now.
“Can’t do that, sorry.”
He’s not fucking sorry, Tully is never sorry for anything. He could hook Juice up, he’s just refusing too.
“Why the fuck not?” The thoughts were whispering to him again.
Tully took out Bronte, flicked to a page and began to read in his head. It was his way of ignoring Juice when he was becoming ‘difficult’
“It’s for your own good. They’ll be watching you even closer now, can’t have you strung out if you’re going back into the big wide world, baby.”
Juice growls with what little energy he has left. “You’re such a superior asshole.”
Truthfully, Tully likes the control, likes watching Juice squirm and writhe because Tully has denied him something.
He could get stuff from someone else, there are other dealers in this place, but the neo-Nazi keeps Juice too close.
“Shhh…” Tully comes to sit on the bed. Juice is clutching the mattress, unable to move except for the tremors in his body. His legs are sprawled out over the floor, he can’t get up; his knees are shaking too much.
This reminds him of when his appendix burst.
Tully pets him, lazily lets his fingers trail behind Juice’s ear and scratches at the soft flesh he finds there.
Juice makes a quiet noise. Unintelligible.
“Hush…” Clearing his throat he read aloud until Juice has fallen into a disturbed, uneasy slumber.
Tomorrow would be worse.
----
The ancient printer splutters into life, making a low whirl as the cartridge inside darts back and forth; marking the paper with a series of letters and numbers.
The paper jams, and the old machine is unable to spit it out.
The secretary sighs and puts down her coffee cup, rising from her chair in a huff to the failing printer. She’s been begging for a new one for months, but apparently the budget won’t stretch that far.
Cursing the penal system under her breath she gives the paper a real good pull, ripping it across the page in the process. Hissing like an enraged cat, she discards the paper into the waste basket and calls through the thin walls to her boss.
“Mr Russell! The printer is fucked again!”
“Language, Diane, this is a work place.”
At the bottom of the metal wire basket, the words on the page are readable in thick, black ink, cut off midsentence by the tear;
DECISION
BY COMMISSIONER GILES AND COMMISSIONER ROSE
DATED: 06/20/2013
PAROLE GRANTED
CONDITIONS: I will seek, obtain and maintain employment / or an academic / vocational programme. I will submit to substance abuse testing as directed by my parole officer…