The Strangers of Kindness Read Free Page A

brief confusion of pedestrians at the scene, then they sorted themselves out and moved on. If anyone noticed the Debtor bleeding from a dozen needles of glass in his back, no one commented or did anything about it.
    * * *
    So he was not a prime specimen when Jennifer Skoada spotted him as she drove her produce truck from the Old Market toward the 13th Street on-ramp. The bizarre sight made her quickly find a parking slot and walk back for a second look.
    She stood in front of the pillory reading the Court’s notice and chewing at a thumbnail. She circled the prisoner, eyeing him appraisingly but half-attentively. Finally she stood in front of him again, murmuring to herself.
    “A thousand bucks? I could do that. What would the projected value come to . . . it might work.” She checked her watch. The Courthouse would still be open. She leaned forward and lifted his head with a gentle pull under the chin. “You alive, pal?” His eyes opened and rolled back. “Well, hang in there, I may be getting you out of this.”
    Feeling reckless, she pushed the judge’s clerk a little bit about Theo’s projected value. “But he was a store owner, too, wasn’t he?”
    “Not really. Manager, say.”
    “But either way, he can do books and ordering and inventory, make change, deal with the public. That’s worth more than just farm labor.”
    The clerk cocked a sour eye at her, but added a few percentage points to the total anyway. Under his breath he muttered, “You’re lucky you’re pretty,” but he wouldn’t repeat it when Jennifer challenged him, having heard him perfectly.
    “So what’s the total?” she asked anxiously.
    “Six hundred sixty-five thousand, eight hundred eight dollars. That’s at $5.82 an hour, 2080 hours per year, 55 years to age 80. Of course, you own him till he dies, unless you sell him, and of course there’s nothing to keep you down to 2080 hours of work a year. But that’s just the formula we have to use.”
    Jennifer wanted to squeal and jump up and down. Added to the $400,000 her truck farm and house were worth, that put her safely over the million dollar mark. She signed the prelim commitment form and wrote down the court date. “The day after tomorrow,” she sang in her head, “I’m free! I’m free!”
    “Make sure they clean him up and put some clothes on him,” she told the clerk.
    “Standard issue,” was his bored reply.
    * * *
    Standard issue was walking him through the gang shower with all the other miscreants and giving him a pair of cast-off surgical pants with the drawstring waist, and a pair of paper prison booties. Nothing else. In the courtroom two days later Theo stood manacled hand and foot, the too-large scrubs hanging low on his hips, and he listened dully to what the Judge was telling him.
    “. . . the sentence of public pillory having been carried out, the statutes dictate the next step in this process is either transport to the nearest Federal penitentiary or the sale of the offender if anyone wants to buy him. In your case, Theodore Dahl, there is a purchaser who has come forward. Miss—ah—Skoada. Is she here?”
    Jennifer stepped up to the Judge’s bench. “That’s me, Your Honor.”
    “Your preliminary commitment form says you have agreed to pay Mr. Fred Slitter’s asking price of $1,000. Do you have it with you?”
    “Yes.” She handed him the envelope and as the Judge thumbed through the stack of twenties, she glanced at Theo, inert by her side. He was staring at a nonexistent place near the floor.  
    There were deep purple trenches under his eyes. Heavy bruises recorded the punishment his shoulder joints had taken in the pillory, and a smattering of smaller scratches and bruises were mementos of Surgery’s half-pint brigade. The glass nicks in his back were scabbed.
    “It’s all here,” the Judge intoned, and Fred stepped smartly up to the bench to receive the money. “Mr. Slitter, you and your attorney may start signing papers. Miss Skoada,