No Matter How Loud I Shout by Edward Humes Page A

kid trying to get out from under a murder charge. He is wasting his time, though: Most kids who have been in the system as long as his classmates have possess finely honed bullshit meters. They can tell in a moment from Ronald’s showy bravado and too-cool patter that before his arrival at the lockup, he never did much of anything wrong, always small and quiet and slightly left out, invisible in class, invisible to girls. He just had this slightly off-kilter appearance, and people always assumed the worst, giving him a wide berth, the way you would a quiescent yet mean-looking dog. In the lockup, they know better.
    â€œDidn’t you tell us you had blood all over your clothes or your backpack or something?” one of the other kids asks. “How’d you explain that?”
    Ronald’s grin widens a notch. “I said I was walking home that night and I flagged down this van, so I could hitch a ride with this dude I know. And when I got in, there’s blood all over and a sack of money on the floor. And he tells me, ‘I did it. I killed them.’ It’s like, I didn’t know until I got in the van, and by then, all the blood was all over me.”
    The other kids are genuinely interested now, intrigued by the notion that you could climb innocently into a van and suddenly be thrust into the middleof a murder. It is not such an outlandish notion to the kids in this room: Three of the six students in the class this night are charged with murder simply for being willingly present when someone else did the shooting or stabbing. Now they wonder if they can learn something from Ronald they might be able to use in court. Enjoying the spotlight, Ronald continues to recap his testimony, slipping into the street slang he has carefully cultivated since entering the hall, hoping it will give him standing.
    â€œSo then they ask about the money I’m supposed to have stolen from my bosses, that I supposedly killed them for. And I say no, I got that from this dude’s van. I told them that I just reached down and picked up some of the money sitting there on the floor of the van and said, ‘Break me off.’ ”
    The other kids stare at him, then shake their heads, immediately losing interest. Someone mutters the word “Fool,” and Ronald looks confused. “What’s wrong with that? Wouldn’t you want to break off some of the money for yourself, too?”
    â€œMan,” Geri says with disgust, “no wonder they want to fry your ass, talkin’ that kind of shit in court.” Geri, facing his own murder rap, has written a series of eloquent letters to the court, polishing them in class, acutely conscious that he will walk into court presumed to be a monster, and that he will have a tough time combating that perception. “You go into court, you’re not on the street, dummy. You think that judge is going to believe anything you say now? Break me off. He’s gonna break you off, all right. Break you off right into prison.”
    Ronald just shakes his head at this piece of wisdom, still smiling his invulnerable, indecipherable smile. “Can’t send me to prison,” he says mildly, and this irks Geri even more. Because, unlike Ronald, Geri can go to prison.
    The last student arrives a few moments later and I start the class with a five-minute writing exercise. Ronald declares his intention to write a quick page about a boy wrongly accused of murdering his bosses. “I’ll call it, ‘Innocent Blood,’ ” he says, inscribing the title onto a piece of blue-lined loose-leaf paper with a wobbly flourish.
    For the next five minutes, he seems to be concentrating on his work, but when the time comes to read aloud to the class, Ronald is the only boy in the room whose page is still blank.

    T HE first time Peggy Beckstrand saw him, Ronald Duncan giggled and smiled over his shoulder at his parents sitting in back of the ancient