Justin Taylor entered the courtroom, unable to force himself to look either left or right at the people filling the room.  The only thing that brought him back to Pittsburgh was a burning desire to see Chris Hobbs punished for what he had done to Brian.  He knew his testimony was of the utmost importance in accomplishing that outcome.  Every detail of that horrific night was permanently etched in his memory, making a good night’s sleep almost impossible without the aid of sleeping pills.  Even with the pills, he sometimes abruptly awakened in the middle of the night with the cracking sound of a bat hitting bone, reverberating through his head like thunder before a storm.  He would jerk up from his bed, sweat dripping from his face, followed by tears.  Most nights, when he did fall asleep, he would hear his own voice echoing in his brain… ‘your fault, all your fault’.  He would remember how Brian once warned him that antagonizing Hobbs on Liberty Avenue had turned him into a ‘real’ enemy. 

Justin took the stand, raised his right hand, and swore to tell the truth.  Briefly he glanced over at the table where Chris Hobbs sat.  For a moment the old spirited Justin showed in his face.  His eyes blazed with a hatred that threatened to engulf Justin with its intensity.  He looked away quickly, forcing himself to remain in control.  He couldn’t afford to look like an aggressor in front of the Judge.  He wanted to look over at the other side where he knew Brian was sitting, but he was too afraid he would lose it.  His mother kept him informed as to Brian’s progress.  She always made it a point to keep in touch with Debbie, so that she could be a source of information for Justin.  Jennifer let him know that Brian was physically back to his old self.  He had even returned to work the previous week.  Justin was enormously relieved to hear that, but news that Brian still had no memory of the past year tempered any joy he might have felt.  It only reinforced his decision to avoid Brian.  He had no doubt his former lover would not welcome being confronted by the person responsible for his situation.

Justin settled into his seat, giving all his attention to the Prosecutor in front of him.  The next half hour was sheer agony.  He was forced to re-live much of what led up to that horrific moment when he realized what Hobbs was about to do to Brian, yet too late for him to stop it.  When they reached the point of describing the actual act itself, Justin could hear the crack of the bat as if it was happening again.  His body began shivering.  He felt his heart pounding, but there was no warmth from increased blood flow.  He felt cold all over. 

Brian’s eyes were riveted on the young man as he testified.  He couldn’t help noticing how Justin’s face softened when he described how Brian had shown up at the dance unexpectedly.  For a brief moment he saw Justin’s eyes come alive.  Surprisingly, Brian felt his heart quicken slightly.  Instinctively he pushed the feeling down.  Brian Kinney doesn’t do emotional reactions, he reminded himself.  When the Prosecutor started to question Justin about the bashing itself, Brian saw a completely different Justin Taylor.  He could tell that talking about it was extremely traumatic for the young man.  His eyes glistened with unshed tears and his voice kept breaking.  But Brian also saw that there was an inner strength in young Justin.  Each time it appeared he would not be able to go on, he would suddenly straighten his spine and start again, with even more of an edge to his voice as he recounted the attack.  This definitely impressed Brian.  This fit in better than his first impression, as to what his friends had been telling him all along about Justin’s personality.

Once the Prosecutor asked his final question, he turned Justin over to the opposing counselor.  Without warning, Brian felt that strange reaction again, something akin to anxiety and fear, as he watched the lawyer approaching Justin.  It was as if he couldn’t stand the thought of someone hurting the young man, but again he pushed the feeling away.  Justin sat up straighter in his chair.  He took on the look of a man ready to face an enemy in battle.  For all intents and purposes, that was exactly what he was about to do.  Justin wasn’t naïve.  He knew from the reports he received from his mother that many in the town were saying that he and Brian had been asking for trouble, as if they had gotten what they deserved.  He had no doubt that Hobbs’ lawyer would do his best to play that angle up with his questioning.  It wasn’t uncommon for defense lawyers to try and turn their clients into the victim.  Justin was not having any of that!  He was determined to show Hobbs up for the evil creature he truly was.  The first questions were almost innocuous.  Justin did not relax, however.  He sensed what was coming.  And it did.

“Before we get to that night… the night of the Prom Dance… let’s go back a bit, shall we, Mr. Taylor?” the lawyer began.  “Isn’t it true that you had a confrontation with my client in the locker room of your school, in which you came on to him, forcing him to deflect your advances?”

“That’s not the way it happened.”

“Perhaps it’s a matter of perspective.  But then, didn’t you use that brief encounter against my client, to embarrass him in front of his friends later on?  Wasn’t that the whole point of your attempts to seduce Mr. Hobbs, just so you could then make him an object of ridicule with his peers?”

“I didn’t have to seduce him.  He wanted me to jerk him off.  And as for what happened in the street that night, he provoked me with his snide remarks and name calling,” Justin answered tersely.

“Then let’s….”

“I’m not through,” Justin interrupted him.  “The only thing that happened on that street was verbal sparring.  Hobbs and his friends were on our turf and deliberately baiting us, but no one laid a hand on him, or any of the others.  The only physical violence came from him later on.”

A tiny smattering of applause followed Justin’s words, but was instantly quelled by the Judge’s gavel and a stern warning.

“So, you admit that you went out of your way to provoke a reaction from my client, just as you went out of your way to put him into a compromising position in the locker room.”

The Prosecutor stood up.

“I object, your Honor.  Is there supposed to be a question in there somewhere?”

“I’ll re-word it, your Honor.  Didn’t you deliberately put my client into a compromising position in that locker room, just so you could use it against him when the opportunity presented itself?”

Justin turned towards Hobbs, giving him a knowing stare.  “All I did in the locker room was give him what he wanted.  That he denies it, even now, doesn’t change that fact.”

The lawyer decided to move on, realizing he wasn’t going to get the reaction from Justin he was hoping for.

“Let’s move on to the night of the Prom Dance.  Isn’t it true that you invited your lover to the dance, for the sole purpose of provoking a negative reaction from my client?”

“I invited Brian to the dance because I wanted to be with someone I cared about on such a special occasion.  I had no ulterior motive.”

For the first time, Justin glanced over at Brian.  Their eyes locked for only a second, before Justin looked away.  Brian felt a stirring in his loins, which utterly shocked him.  It was harder to push this feeling away than the others.  For that one split second, Brian thought he could understand why his friends kept insisting he felt something different for Justin Taylor.  He leaned forward, not wanting to miss a word the young man said.

Through another half hour of questioning, Hobbs’ lawyer tried to paint Justin and Brian as the provocateurs, who knowingly set his client up for trouble.  No matter how he worded it, Justin never gave answers that bolstered the defense’s theory.  Finally, Justin stepped down.  Next came a slew of character witnesses for the defense, all of them describing a stable young man, with a brilliant future in front of him.  They made special note of how he was already being punished by losing his football scholarship, thanks to the permanent damage to his knee from the brutal bashing by Justin Taylor.  As each testified, the gall rose higher and higher throughout those who supported Brian and Justin.  Debbie had to be restrained from bursting out with protests by the firm hand of Mel, who as a lawyer was well aware of how damaging such an outburst could be to their case.

Finally, the defense also rested their case; all this done without Hobbs ever taking the stand.  The decision was now in the hands of Judge Dixon.  All eyes were on the judge.  He paused for only a moment, then abruptly announced that he would take time to go over all the testimony, and then he would render his decision in the morning.  An audible groan was heard, as he stepped down from his high bench, and exited through a side door.  The bailiff dismissed the courtroom, and everyone poured out into the corridors.  Debbie and the others surrounded Brian outside the courtroom, as if to shield him from any further harm.  Debbie was particularly pissed when she spotted Hobbs with his circle of friends and family and witnessed the smug expression on his face.  It was as if he already knew he wouldn’t be punished.  Before she could react, however, she also spotted Justin.  He was standing with Jennifer, off to the side, as far from them as he could get in the narrow hallway.  She broke away from the others, moving quickly so that she could keep Justin from leaving before she got the chance to talk to him.

“Sunshine!” she called out, as she approached him.  “Please don’t leave.”

Justin had been about to do just that, but stopped in his tracks when he heard Debbie call to him.  He had only hung around after his testimony in hopes of hearing a verdict from the Judge.  When one was not forthcoming, his only thought was to escape all the feelings that seeing Brian and the others had stirred up in him.  Hearing Debbie’s voice made that impossible.  He wasn’t about to ignore the woman who had treated him as a third son… who had never failed to support him and love him unconditionally.  He turned to meet her embracing arms. 

“It’s so good to see you again, Sunshine,” she whispered in his ear.  “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

Justin felt a bit of trepidation.  If anyone could persuade him to come back into the fold, it was Debbie.  That would interfere with his plans.  He wanted nothing more than to avoid Brian, with the hope that his former lover would never remember how much pain he had brought into his life.  But there was no way he was going to be so disrespectful as to say no to her request. 

“Can you come by Mom’s place in an hour?  We can talk freely there,” he responded.

Debbie agreed, hugged Justin once more with vigor, then returned to her group, who couldn’t fail to notice where she had gone.  She ignored their questions.  Her mind was strictly on how she was going to handle her meeting with Justin.  She prayed she would find the right words to comfort him and get him to see things differently.

The next morning dawned bright and clear, with a cloudless blue sky and perfect temperature.  The feeling of hope for justice pervaded the side of the courtroom, where all of Brian’s supporters sat.  That included Debbie, who was still smarting over her failure the previous night to convince Justin to remain in town, after the trial was over.  Nothing she said made a dent in his conviction that Brian was better off with him as far away as possible.

During their talk, he reminded her of all the trouble he had been for Brian, even before the Prom tragedy.  He brought up how his own father had tried to injure, if not kill, Brian by crashing into him on the road.  He reminded her how that event led to his moving in with Brian, which led to the loft being burglarized, due to his forgetfulness.  He also reminded her how he added insult to injury by ‘borrowing’ Brian’s credit card, enabling him to run away to New York City, forcing Brian to come looking for him.  He kept bringing up how he constantly went out of his way to insert himself into Brian’s life, even when the man kept telling him to go away.  When Debbie tried to remind him that all that paled in comparison to how Brian ended up caring so much about him, he countered with the fact that if Brian hadn’t given in to his persistence, he never would have been nearly beaten to death by Hobbs.  By the time Debbie left for home, she felt fairly certain Justin would never be a part of their lives again. It was just one more reason she wanted to see Chris Hobbs receive the maximum punishment.

The time had finely come for one and all to hear the verdict, as Judge Dixon entered the courtroom, and took his seat.  The room was filled with an undeniable tension.  Judge Dixon cleared his throat and began giving his decision.

“This has been a very difficult case to decide.  On the one hand, we have an older successful businessman who, through no fault of his own, became the victim of an uncontrolled burst of rage that never should have happened.  The fact that it was fueled by a combination of alcohol and provocation really is no excuse, although it does explain why it happened.”

Brian and his supporters felt a chill.  They were already sensing what the judge’s words were leading up to.

“On the other hand, we have a young man with his whole future lying brightly in front of him, who allowed said provocation to overcome his better judgement and perpetrated a violent act that has to be punished.  He is already suffering a degree of punishment by losing his chance at a college scholarship, which will impact the rest of his life.  I do not believe the Defendant had any intention of causing death at the time of the incident.  Thus, I do find the Defendant guilty of Assault in the First Degree.  In addition to time served, the Defendant is given three years, to be suspended barring any further acts of violence in the future.  He is also given three hundred hours of community service.  Court is dismissed.”

Judge Dixon hurried away from the growing sound of anger and confusion he left behind him.  Debbie could be heard crying angry tears while being comforted by those around her.  Brian sat numb, but not at all surprised.  Hobbs left the courtroom in a hurry, surrounded by friends and family who were feeling both relieved and joyous.  As he stepped towards the doors leading into the hallway, he couldn’t help noticing his old nemesis, Justin, sitting at the very back of the courtroom.  For one brief moment, a look of pure white-hot hatred passed between them before Hobbs was rushed out the doors.  Justin had felt many emotions throughout his young life, but nothing comparable to what filled his mind and body now.  Nothing in life made sense anymore.  Maybe nothing ever would again.

To be continued……………..