The Iron Sharpeners

Why? Because miracles did happen and it was scary.

Six months ago, proof of his innocence had surfaced through a fluke. He was minutes away from walking out of Tennessee State Prison a free man, so why did he feel so lost? Because of Micah Carter. For most of his time in stir, he had shared a cell with the elderly trustee. Right now, the old man lay stretched out on the other bunk. This, Peter realized, was probably his final chance to ask the question that had bedeviled him from day one.

"Why'd you do it?" he blurted out at last.

"Why did I do what?" Micah wheezed.

"Take me on...protect me when I first got to this dump then arm-twist me into getting a useless law degree?"

Totally convinced that he was wasting his time, Peter had spent years hitting the books simply to keep Micah off his back. Two years ago, he had taken the bar exam and passed with the second highest mark of those taking it. Didn't matter a hoot or hollar back then. Mount Everest blocked his way to a practice of said law. He still had fourteen years to do and wasn't a state in the union who'd let an over the hill ex-con practice law.

"Useless, was it?" Micah chuckled.

The old man’s good humor never seemed to fail. Sitting up, he eased his legs off the bunk and sat rubbing his chest as if that would erase the cancer corroding his life away. In his mid-seventies and emaciated by chemotherapy, Micah’s skin looked like a moldy black walnut, dark and cracked. Despite his pain, love of life blazed, undefeated, from his rheumy eyes while a grin showed off a solid set of natural teeth. Of course, the State of Tennessee had been providing free dental care for Micah Carter back since 1947.

"Funny you should ask that just now. Been thinking on it myself," Micah drawled pensively. "Reckon you reminded me of myself when I was nineteen, skinny as a rail and scared of life, but still fighting."

Peter chuckled wryly as he walked over to the tiny window, barred, even though their cell was on the third floor. "That I was," he sighed, "Only I'd call it rebellion."

He gazed up at the blue sky for a long time remembering those first few days in prison. Back then, he had gone from disbelief, to rage, to frustration. Rebellion against his situation had gotten him more than a few beatings in the early days, and the rank stench of human elimination and the acid scent of disinfectants had kept his nostrils raw. The noxious odors, along with the cuts and bruises, had long ago faded.

Oddly, two weeks ago, when freedom stopped being an elusive dream and had become a reality, the odors had begun to bother him again. Turning, he crossed his arms over his chest and slouched against the concrete wall behind him.

"The day I got here, I was angry all the way down to my soul. I'd only been part of the gang a couple of weeks before the rumble. Oh, I knew right off that Jojo was a nut, but I had no idea how psychotic he was until the night we raided the Holy Blues' turf."

"Don't try to con me, boy. You already had a rap sheet." Micah wheezed deeply, then a series of coughs racked his bony body.

Knowing better than to offer help, Peter waited until the spell passed before retorting, "Petty stuff. Food and beer lifted from convenience stores. Same from the fast food joints I worked in. I mean, what the dickens was I supposed to do? My old man took a permanent hike when I was thirteen, and I guess Mama just got tired of trying and took off, too. At least, that's what the cops kept telling us after she disappeared."

He sighed sadly. "Only God knows what really happened to her in that cruddy migrant camp."

"So at sixteen you became Maw and Paw to your siblings."

"Had no choice. When the social worker showed up at the camp saying she was going to put Jody and Tim in foster homes – homes not a home, we took a vote, packed our clothes, and sneaked out the back way – and – Micah, are you all right?"

When the old man began gasping for breath. Peter fell to his knees by the cot. Micah held up a hand and shook his head. Placing a mask over his face, the old man drew a deep breath from the oxygen tank by his bed. Gradually, he relaxed and began to breathe normally. As normal as a man could with less than a half a lung, Peter mused.

A petite black man from rural Tennessee, Micah had opened fire with a double barrel shotgun on the two white men he had found in his bedroom. There had been no question the two had beaten and raped his pregnant wife. However, it had been 1947 and an all white, all male jury hadn't taken too kindly to Micah's brand of justice. They had sentenced him to death the very day his wife and child died from her ordeal. The presiding judge, refusing to justify his decision had commuted Micah's sentence to life.

For fifty-six years Micah had prayed fervently and fought diligently to get his conviction set aside. Tragically, the old man had only months left to fight and pray. Cancer was sapping his strength and chances day by day, and the pain in Peter's heart equaled that in the old man's lungs.

Over the years, Micah had become, first Peter’s protector, then a mentor, and now, his savior. It was bitterly ironic, Peter thought. Now that he could repay all that Micah had done for him, actually take care of the old man, Micah had used his considerable legal skills and contacts to set him free.

"Time, Keyes," a guard called as he unlocked the cell door.

Peter picked up an expensive briefcase, a parting gift from Micah. It contained a brief for a law suit against the City of Memphis, the police department, and the two cops who had deliberately destroyed evidence that proved he was innocent in a gang killing. A second sleeve contained all the photographs his brother and sister had sent him over the years, and his one precious picture of his mother. As for his real father, Peter mentally consigned him to burn in hell.

As he turned to go, Peter’s gaze fell on two diplomas hanging beside the door. Micah Matthew Carter, Doctor of Juris, and above that one, Micah Matthew Carter, Doctor of Divinity, both degrees earned through correspondence from the University of Tennessee. Like the Birdman of Alcatraz, Micah had not wasted his fifty odd years in prison. Nor was Peter the first innocent man who had gone free through the old man's legal expertise, perseverance, and prayers. Sadly, each time, Micah had remained behind.

Still, the old man struggled weakly to his feet, wearing a proud grin.

"Now, you remember, boy," he said, taking up an argument that had begun the day Peter learned that he had been exonerated. "We got enough high price mouthpieces for folks who ought to know better but don't give a hoot. It's the little folk who need your legal counsel."