14 June 2014. Friday. 8:03 AM. Testimony from Bradley Jones Wilston. RE: Bar fight the previous night. Brought in by Police Station No. 3 on Terrace Ave.

I suppose I don’t know where to begin. My life keeps on taking these crazy turns, and not always for the best, let me tell you. I started out real bad. My mother a real good drunk and my old man gone from the moment my kid brother was born. Jaiden, that’s his name. Jaiden got into some trouble with the law as soon as he made it to the seventh grade. He got pulled in for stealing some sunglasses or something from a real nice store.
That was the last time I saw him. When I was fifteen. Now, four years later, I’m still clean. I never did any of that. I was the good one, even though most people assume I’m trouble. I hate that. I really do. People blaming me for their own problems. I never laid a finger on a single damn person and suddenly I’m being called in where there’s a fight.
I let it go when I got out of high school. Gosh, was it good to get out. As soon as the system took control of me, back when Jaiden was taken in and they saw how lousy my mother was, I sorta stopped caring about my schoolwork. Not that I ever cared much to begin with. I’m a solid C student, even in gym class, but with a beautiful A in English. Maybe I’m not that smart, I know it. But some of that old poetry really stabs me somewhere deep and thoughtful inside me. Call me crazy. Maybe I am.
Anyway, I made it out soon enough. I didn’t even apply to college. The community college around here sent me a letter saying they would love to have me, but I tossed it without a second thought. Like hell they would love to have me. Nobody would love to have me. Except the damn police. Still don’t know why I’m here. No, I do. You just don’t.
I guess I’ll get right to it, then. Enough about who I am.
When I was busted at that bar last night, I wasn’t looking to get into any trouble. Nothing against the law, I mean. It started with a lousy hand-written note that appeared on my windshield. My no-good old man left it there, saying he wanted to meet me or something. I still don’t trust it. Just like I don’t trust him, or anybody.
Anyway, I got to that bar the fight started in. The one on Angel Street. Yeah, that’s the one. Ironic, if I’ve ever heard it. That’s where all the bar fights start, you know. On Angel Street.
They let me in even though I’m underage. I get asked if I want a drink all the time, though. I’m nineteen and intentionally leave a little stubble on my face. It makes me look twenty-one. I’ve got some real dark features. Eyes, hair, five o’clock shadow. I sort of look a little dangerous sometimes. My hood on my sweatshirt is always flipped up and I’ve got my hands in my pockets like I’m carrying a gun or something. I’m not. I just don’t want anyone trying anything with me.
I don’t drink. Not since I saw all the things drinking made my mom do. I don’t ever want to be like that. Off the rails depressed about her husband leaving her with some kids and an unpaid mortgage and being psychologically insane from too much alcohol. I never spent much time at home. I was afraid she would start beating me if I did. It never got that bad, somehow.
The note that brought me to the bar. I showed up, went inside, and sat down. I ordered a Coke, I swear. By some dumb luck my old man ended up sitting down right next to me, without knowing it was me. Gosh, that stung. I recognized him. He hadn’t changed in the past sixteen years. So maybe I had a little, but still. I don’t think straight all the time.
We got to talking, a little rough at first. He started blaming me for our “family” falling apart. I sat there and took his s*** for a little while, and then I just couldn’t deal anymore. I punched the man. Right between the eyes. He never saw it coming, and neither did I. It was spur of the moment, as they say. The man just needed to shut up.
Maybe he had been drinking a little before he came to see me. He started raging, howling on about how hard I had hit him. The bartender called the cops then. I was still standing there, defensive, waiting for him to strike back. But he didn’t. He sat there like a little baby, crying his eyes out and asking for some ice to put on his head. That whole bar rushed to his rescue. I swear I haven’t hit a single person in my life before. I’ve never gotten in trouble or anything. Until last night.
Some skinny guys came up to me after that. They asked me what I thought I was doing, hitting an old man. I told them to sit back down and mind their own business, but they just kept at it. I wanted to plow them, too. I knew better at this point, though. So I sassed them around a little bit. Poked at them because they were tall and pale and real skinny. I called them stoners, and that got them real mad. I guess it was a bigger insult than I thought. Instead of hitting me, like I thought they would, they fell over on the ground. Some actors they were, moaning and holding their faces. The people who had been over with my old man turned and saw the ruckus those bastards caused.
The insults started flying. Somehow, I went from a kid with a troubled past trying to survive while being the best I could to a washed out drug addict who came to a bar to pick some fights before going home with a hooker. I don’t even know how that last bit happened. There might have been three chicks in that bar, none of them hookers. They were just trying to make me out the worst person they could.
That’s the story they told the police. That my old man had been sitting there, minding his own business, when I suddenly turned and punched him. No explanation, just out of the blue. The other two tried to confront me about it and so I drove into them, too. I started laughing when the men told the cops that. I swear I didn’t mean any offense, which is what they thought. They added “psychopath” to the list of my problems because I laughed a little. The real reason I started laughing was because I didn’t even hit those two guys. There’s not even a bruise on them, and they made out like I broke their collarbones or something. As if I could break a collarbone with my fist.
That’s about when I got hauled in. There was one more thing, though. My old man. I swear to God he smiled at me. Smiled as I was being pushed around by some guys in uniform. That just about did it for me. The whole night had been one bad hit after another, and he just made it so much worse.
I guess that’s about all. Thank you, I guess.

“Do you have the copy of Bradley Wilston’s testimony?” Nicole Shire called out to the bustling station. The sun had finally risen and most of the force and been at it all night.
“Yeah, right here,” Travis Dean called back, waving it in the air. “The kid’s good,” he told her, turning her around and walking with her to the other cops who had been called into the bar on Angel Street. “Everything he says is nothing compared to the statements we got at the bar.”
“Is he insane?” Nicole asked, scanning the testimony over again. “I just don’t see how all those men could unanimously tell such a different story.” Some of the other cops nodded in agreement.
“I don’t think so,” Travis told her, shaking his head. “Look at these files.” The officers crowded around his desk.
“No record… No alcohol in his system… Currently living on his own, not attending a school… Has a history of being in the foster care system… Wow. Maybe this is just a messed up kid,” Nicole said in astonishment. “Everything checks out.”
“Should we release him?” Travis muttered, looking into Nicole’s eyes for any hint of doubt.
“Well, he did punch a man,” she pointed out. “But I think we can just give him a stern talking-to about that.”
A cop in the back raised her hand. “I can go talk to him, if you’d like.”
“Sure, thanks, Julie,” Travis waved her off. “Case closed, then?”
“Case closed.”
The cops dispersed, tired from being up questioning half-drunken men all night. A mere ten minutes later, Bradley Wilston nodded politely to the officers he passed on his way out the front door. He caught a cab and left the station.
“We should get the kid help,” Nicole said sadly, walking back over to Travis. “I think he needs it.”
Travis nodded, about to open his mouth. “That’s a wonderful idea,” the chief of police approached them, smiling. “I like hearing you have a soft spot for some of our more mentally unstable citizens. What exactly is your plan?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Nicole mused. “Probably just a therapist. Someone who focuses on family.”
The chief nodded slowly, taking a sip of her coffee. “I was thinking more along the lines of a mental hospital, where he can get the meds he’ll need to live a healthier life.”
“Depression meds?” Travis asked.
“No, not those- How about we go talk to him now, about all this?”
Travis and Nicole exchanged a glance. “Chief, we let him go.”
She nearly spit out her coffee. “I’m sorry, you what?”
“We let him go,” Nicole said. “Everything he said checked out. He has no previous record, there was no alcohol in his system, he’s been in the foster case system-”
“Maybe that’s all true, but did you read the report I gave you?”
Travis shook his head slowly. “I don’t recall receiving a report from you, Chief.”
She stared at both of them, her expression becoming more furious. “We don’t know what happened. The men in the bar might be twisting the story, but chances are, so is our friend. We don’t even know his real name, much less how to track him down.”
“I have it right here- It’s all in the file,” Nicole countered.
The Chief let out a frustrated sigh. “Why is that…?” Travis asked.
“Well, for one thing, he’s been known to get in trouble and get off with a warning. We don’t know his record. That, and he’s a pathological liar.”
Nicole froze. “Then who’s telling the truth?”
The chief shook her head. “I guess we’ll never know, now, not without a miracle.”