No Matter How Loud I Shout by Edward Humes

like it. Several of them were on probation with the Juvenile Court; the tattoos were blatant violations, an instant ticket to the hall for each of them if word got out. Her probation conditions were specific: no gang tattoos. There is only one thing Carla can say.
    â€œSo when do I get mine?”
    Â·Â Â Â·Â Â Â·
    Within a week, Carla is missing, her mother is frantic, and Sharon Stegall is conferring in the hallway with Deputy in Charge Peggy Beckstrand. They agree she needs to be locked up. It is one more case for the head prosecutor to juggle as she prepares for her murder case against Ronald Duncan.
    â€œHow is that thing going, anyway?” Sharon asks, after the two womendecide to seek commitment to the California Youth Authority for Carla—if Sharon catches her before she ends up with a murder charge of her own to face. “That Baskin Robbins is right in my neighborhood. The owners were good people. You going to win?”
    Peggy shrugs. It is the same question she asks herself daily. “I’m pretty sure I’ll convict him, Sharon,” the prosecutor says. “But I don’t think anyone’s going to win.”

CHAPTER 3
Nine Days to Manhood
    â€œIt won’t be long now,” Ronald Duncan announces as he swaggers into the writing class on Unit K/L at Central Juvenile Hall. “Pretty soon, I’ll be walkin’ free.”
    â€œYeah, you and O. J.,” one of the other students says, smirking and cocking his head at the TV bolted to the wall outside in the dayroom, where tape of the ex-football player’s infamous low-speed chase is on the tube once again.
    Ronald ignores the remark. He is in unusually high spirits for a kid who just came back from court on the 8:00 P.M. bus, an exhausting day of thin bologna sandwiches and long waits in cold holding tanks punctuated by bewildering court appearances. He slumps into a chair, low enough to be eye level with the library table’s surface, a compact sixteen-year-old with broad shoulders and a small head, a sparse collection of whiskers curling from his chin like mistletoe. He has a wide, yellow-toothed smile that he wears often, but his expression is unintentionally disconcerting, because his dark brown eyes never quite manage to point in the same direction at the same time.
    â€œI’m tellin’ you, I’m on my way out,” he insists, but as is so often the case with Ronald, I cannot tell if he is serious or joking. The smile almost never goes away.
    â€œOh, yeah? Your trial go good today?” Chris asks. “Or you just plannin’ to bust out?”
    Everyone laughs, Ronald included, though there is an edge of nastiness to the amusement. He is not particularly popular in the class—quick to criticize, he never seems to write anything of his own—but there is little else to talk about in the lockup besides handicapping one another’s cases and figuring out ways to smuggle dope into the hall. So when he falls silent, someone prods again. “So how did it go?”
    Ronald shrugs. It is a chillingly nonchalant gesture for a kid with a double murder charge against him, for it is not pretense or bluster. “It went pretty good. I told them I was innocent.”
    The six other boys in the class nod. While in the courtroom, everyone here is innocent. Back on the unit, however, most of the kids say they pretty much did what they’re in for, or something close to it.
    â€œWhat’d you do, tell them you’re no killer, just a punk tagger?” Geri Vance asks. In the Juvenile Hall hierarchy, graffiti artists—taggers—are lightweights, commanding little respect.
    â€œTag-banger,” Ronald corrects quickly. “We’re a lot badder than just taggers.”
    The other boys in the small classroom laugh again. Ronald often tries to impress the others with tales of his supposed criminal prowess, no matter how counterproductive that might be for a