The Family Hightower by Brian Francis Slattery Read Free Book Online Page A

work. By the fall of 1985 , he’s about seventeen and cocky, making a pretty nice chunk of change and still able to convince himself that he isn’t doing anyone any real harm. He’s using a bit himself, doesn’t see the damage, just the blurry memories of nights in Cleveland with pounding music and sweaty limbs in the clubs in the old warehouses, nights ending in spins and shouts on the cobbled streets. He thinks that by selling just to his friends—well, friends and friends of friends, and maybe a few people he doesn’t know at all—he’s insulating himself from the things he sees on the news. Then two of those friends flip their car going around Dead Man’s Curve right at the shore of the lake, the sharp bend in the interstate Clevelanders are supposed to know cold, cold enough to tell any out-of-towners they know who drive through the place on their way from Boston to Chicago to watch out. The friends are both good and high when they crash; for a few hours, neither of them knows how he ended up in the hospital, until they come down. Then they tell the doctors everything. The police, too. They point their broken fingers right at Petey Hightower, whom the police have had their eye on anyway. They’re not stupid, after all. They know his pedigree. They’ve got a hunch about the things his grandfather did. They’ve been watching the rest of the family, too, because something is just not adding up about them. And Petey’s not as smart as he thinks he is. Though some of the authorities are annoyed; they’ve been learning about Petey for a while because he seems like the kind of kid who might lead them into something bigger, something that a tenacious detective can build into a case that makes a career and puts a bunch of guys away in prison for a long time. But the accident and the outcry around it, because these are rich kids involved, you understand, forces the authorities’ hand. They don’t have enough to threaten Petey with to get information out of him. And they have to go to court with what they’ve got instead of what they think they could get if they just had the time to let it play out.
    At Petey’s trial, for possession of cocaine with intent to sell, the state’s lawyer lays out the best evidence he can, argues for the biggest sentence he can. He doesn’t say it but he means it: We put away black kids for this all the time, and it ruins their lives. Why should the rich white kids get off for doing the same thing? But the defense’s job is easier. Petey’s been careful about one thing—hiding his money—so the police don’t have serious evidence beyond circumstantial testimony that he deals. The defense doesn’t mind indulging in a little low-grade character assassination to undermine what Petey’s friends say about him, digging up people who say they saw the two kids in the crash buying cocaine from someone in the bathroom of a nightclub who wasn’t Petey, crack from someone in Tremont. The argument even taps into some high school gossip, suggesting that the kids in the crash were angry at Petey for stealing their girlfriends and wanted to get him out of the way. Why not frame him for some drug offenses? That part of the story doesn’t stick; it’s pretty implausible, isn’t it, reader? The judge isn’t impressed and tells the defense to calm down. Tells him that this is a courtroom, not a cafeteria. But the prosecution’s lack of hard evidence isn’t good enough for a big conviction. It’s also Petey’s first offense, and he’s a kid, not even eighteen. The judge reminds Petey of this and takes him down a peg—it’s clear he doesn’t like Petey very much—and sentences Petey to nine months of rehabilitation. The state’s lawyer gives the judge an accusatory look. You let him off easy. The judge pleads his case. I’m on your side. But this case