Consequences

By Katherine Velez

Joey Turner is a smart, handsome man who operates with impunity, cheating on his devoted fiancé, running numbers from the local speakeasy, and beating all who challenge or question him. But justice finds everyone sooner or later.

In 1931 Joey Turner is arrested for a brutal Christmas Day murder, a crime he didn’t commit. His alibi, the boss’s wife, betrays him and his past catches up as witnesses testify against him in a strong case of circumstantial evidence, assisted by his lifetime of immoral behavior displayed in court. Though his attorney, Stephen Bolt, believes he is innocent, Joey is convicted and sent to Folsom prison where he quickly makes friends with his cell mate, a lifer named Blick, who is in prison for killing his wife. Blick, an aging career criminal, is searching for an emotional escape from a life sentence.

Joey learns the ugliness and hardship of prison before prisoner’s rights existed. Warden Harding allows prisoner experimentation, a common practice during the time. Joey is hated by a sadistic guard, Morris. Through a series of events staged by Morris, the prison doctors determine Joey is a viable candidate for a promising new experimental procedure – the frontal lobotomy. In the meantime, Stephen Bolt and Joey’s family and fiancé have worked to free Joey. They are successful, but only days before he is released, Joey is lobotomized and returned to his family.

Joey’s change results in the transformation of the people around him. For Joey, Blick, Stephen and those in Joey’s life this is about redemption, suffering, and the hope that is the catalyst to that end. Justice also finds those who have wronged Joey in violent and unexpected ways.

Based, in part, on a true account with extensive research and rich in historical detail, Consequences is an exciting read as well as a book that addresses greater issues such as how even the most disheartened find hope in unexpected ways and society’s tendency to often value the very things that destroy it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Katherine Velez
• Release date: Jan 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466111288

Katherine Velez

I have a passion for writing with several more projects underway and near completion. I work as a therapist for a non-profit and counselor at a local elementary school as well as my own practice specializing in children, families, and couples. I hope you enjoyed Consequences as much as I enjoyed researching and writing it.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

1915

Hey, look what I found, Joey yelled. The two oldest boys, one dark-haired and the other blonde, were down the street intensely scanning the ground, but came running when Joey called. Joey smiled as if he had discovered treasure. He bent down and retrieved a cigarette butt.

The older, dark-haired boy approached and snatched it from his hand."

Gimm'e that, Joey. You’re too young to smoke.

He laughed at his own comment, pulled matches from his pocket, and lit the dirty remains of tobacco and paper, inhaling deeply. He smiled, exhaled, and said, Ahhhh. That hits the spot. I needed a smoke.

Joey marched up to him, hands on his hips, and demanded, Let me have some, Jack. I found it.

Jack tossed his head from side to side and, in a high pitched voice, mimicked the younger boy. I found it.

His tone changed back to his own and he said, Yeah and you lost it. It's minnow. Find your own.

He held it out, offering it to the blonde boy. Here Sam. You try it.

Sam pushed his black-rimmed glasses onto the bridge of his nose and stuffed a small notebook and pencil in his back pocket. Sam wanted to be a reporter and always carried his notebook, jotting entries whenever anything interesting happened as if he were reporting on them. He sniffed, a nervous habit, took the cigarette, and examined it.

Jack rolled his eyes in disgust and said, Geez, Sam. It ain’t a dead rat, for crying out loud. Hold it like this....between your fingers.

Sam tried to grasp the small bit of ember as his brother had done and, instead of looking smooth, he burned his fingers and dropped it to the ground. Sam winched, Ow! This ain’t worth it, Jack.

Joey bent over and picked up the butt. He placed it in his mouth and inhaled feeling the heat on his lips as the fire consumed the remnants of the cigarette. His eyes watered as the smoke rose into his face and filled his lungs. He choked and dropped what little was left.

Jack looked from Sam to Joey, disgusted. He sneered, I'm gonna have to find me some tougher runnin' buddies than my brother and my little cousin. And you two babies need to go find your mamas.

Even though Jack was twice Joey’s size, Joey bent over and head butted Jack in the stomach. Jack pushed him away and pulled back to hit him. Suddenly in the distance the three boys heard loud noises, a grown-up commotion, which sounded much more interesting than their skirmish. The boys fell silent a moment and listened. They heard a group of men, yelling, cheering. The boys looked at each other in silence for a moment. The realization hit them and all three yelled at the same moment, Fight!

The boys ran down two streets and came out an alley. They stood for a moment staring at the large group of excited men. Sam immediately pulled out the notebook and pencil from his back pocket and began writing. Jack gave him another disgusted look and asked, What are you doin’?

Sam smiled slightly and shrugged, If I’m going to be a reporter, I need practice.

Jack pushed him slightly and said, Fat chance, four eyes. Come on. I can’t see.

The small boys silently meshed with the clamoring crowd outside the slaughterhouse gates. Usually at quitting time the flood of men emptied the abattoir as quickly as the blood that poured from the cattle they spent their days butchering, but today there was reason to remain. Dozens of men, soaked in their own sweat and stained with the blood of unsuspecting animals, stood in a circle laughing, jeering, yelling, in sounds, loud, guttural, primal.

No one noticed them and, even if they had, the boys would not have been sent away. His ability to fight was the one true measure of a man. This was their inheritance, the only one they were likely to receive. They must learn to give and take a beating: no whimpering, no tears, and no quitting. They must learn to be men. In this filthy world childhood, like dreams, was not encouraged. There was always work to be done, especially for families often teetering on the precipice of starvation. It did not pay to be too awake or aware in this life. Those who were usually drank themselves back to numbness or were carried there by mental illness or the mindless work they were forced to do. Numbness was the only sure way to survive.

The packing house was a five story, gray building with stairs running vertically along its sides and a gated fence along the perimeter. Behind the packing house was another building with large chimneys exhaling smoke twenty-four hours a day every day of the year. This building sat next to the railroad tracks where refrigerated cars carried away animal parts to be consumed on America’s tables. And beyond that were the animals.

The cattle were imprisoned in large carrels of brown wood and barbed wire stretching far beyond the large packing house and smoking chimneys. These wretched creatures stood in a deep swamp of mud and feces, unable to move due to the sheer number of animals packed together. The essence of these animals filled the atmosphere, an air-born assault, heavy and pervasive. The smell, like the smoke, entered noses and pores contaminating every living thing, inside and out. The boys had never known clean air, uncontaminated by the stench of chimney smoke, cattle excrement, and poverty.

Yet more overwhelming than the smell was the sound of thousands of cattle packed together in one small place calling, lowing, moaning to each other, participating in the only instinctive activity they were allowed. Joey hated the sound. It was deafening and because of the bleakness of their fate it was easy for him to imagine their sounds as cries to heaven for salvation from this suffering.

Salvation would come, but the cows were unaware that in a short time they would be knocked in the head with a sledge hammer, lifted into the air by one shackled leg, and their throats would be slit leaving them to bleed to death, saved from another moment of existence such as this – man’s salvation, not God’s.

Surrounding the stockyards and packing house were row after row of two-story framed buildings, which housed the slaughterhouse workers and their families. They were mainly immigrants, first-generation Americans brought to this country by the dream of freedom or the nightmare of famine or both. The freedom often made little difference to men, women and children working twelve hour days.

The hunger was still there. The immigrant farmers and country folk who had once been at the mercy of Mother Nature were now at the mercy of their employer and the company store, the only store in town. It was coincidentally owned by the employer and costs charged were higher than wages paid. Credit was a way of life and employees were often no better off than indentured servants.

There was a school available for the children, but most were instructed by their parents to go to work instead. School did not make financial sense when a child could begin earning as much as ten cents a day to help feed the family. A full head was of little use on an empty stomach and not many could afford to look past today.

Joey was one of the few children his age still going to school, pushed forward by a mother with vision or, as his father often yelled, madness. Within the next few years however, pulled harder by life’s circumstances, he would find himself standing in blood, slitting the throats of dazed cattle, an accomplice in ending their miserable lives.

But today Joey was anxious to see what captured everyone’s attention in front of the packinghouse. Blows had already been exchanged when he arrived, breathless and expectant, weaving his way to the inside of the circle. Within the ring of men stood two bare-chested figures, one taller than the other. They faced off, fists raised, muscles taut, eyes fixed on one another. The shorter man had blood dripping down from his brow into his left eye. The taller man was bleeding slightly from his mouth and his left eye was red. Joey knew it would turn black shortly.

For men who spent their days killing defenseless animals in an unnatural way, fighting was their one connection to what they should be, what they were. This was a fair fight, an honest fight, man against man, and one of which the victor and the vanquished could be proud. Fighting allowed them to express their rage, frustration, and despair. While drinking was a means of hiding, fighting was the only acceptable way for them to unleash the insanity inside, but, like a homing pigeon, it always found its way back.

Sam and Jack immediately joined in, cheering for the tallest man who was the crowd favorite. Joey had never witnessed a fist fight between men. When his father drank too much he hit Joey’s mother, but it was not much sport and Joey always ran away to the apartment’s one bedroom or outside. He could never watch, but this was different. He could not stop watching.

He stood, eyes wide, his own fists clenched, fingernails digging into palms. He raised one fist to block the setting summer sun from his eyes. He could see the shorter man squinting as the tall one tried to maneuver him into that sun. The tall man landed a hard punch to the other’s jaw. The short man reeled, momentarily stunned. Joey watched from the front. A large man smelling of sweat and formaldehyde jostled him from behind, Get em’, Thomas. Watch your left now.

The loud sounds of the men hurt his ears. The tall man, Thomas, landed another punch. The short man fell, but got back up, swinging. One connected, hitting Thomas in the stomach. It took his breath for a moment, but then he began punching faster, harder. Another fist hit the short man’s face, his nose. Joey heard the crunching of cartilage. Saliva and blood splattered. Some hit Joey’s bare feet. The crowd of men roared. Joey grimaced and felt his whole body tighten. Thomas kept hitting and hitting, executing each punch with a scrapper’s sagacity. Soon even ability was not required, simply stamina. The bright red blood poured from the shorter man’s nose, his eye, his mouth. He was on the ground now. The other on top of him, hitting, punching, striking, jabbing, everywhere.

Joey could hear sound coming from the short man. It was whispers of sound, but grew louder with each blow. He was crying, Stop. Stop. Stop.

But the crowd also grew louder, drowning him out, Kill ‘im. Kill ‘im. Kill ‘im.

This was no longer a fight. This was a beating like when his father beat his mother. Joey no longer wanted to watch. He wanted to run away, but he was trapped by the crowd, by the large man behind him, by his own horror-filled curiosity.

The man fell silent. He was dead. He had taken on not only Thomas, but the crowd as well. The crowd cheered rhythmically for the winner, Thom…as. Thom…as. Thom…as.

Thomas stood over his victim, triumphant, smiling. His left eye was swollen almost shut. His mouth was bleeding. He was sweating, breathing hard. Offers of free drinks rose into the air like colored balloons commencing the coming festivities.

Someone got a bucket of water. Thomas put on his shirt and then washed the blood off his hands. When he was done he slowly poured the dirty, blood-tinged water on the dead man’s face. Joey yelled out, But he’s dead.

A voice behind him laughed and said, He ain't dead kid, but he might wish he were for a few days.

To Joey’s amazement the man sputtered and coughed. His eyes were swollen and his face bruised. His breathing was labored as air forced itself past the damaged cartilage in his nose and the blood poured from his mouth and lips down the back of his throat. His knuckles were swollen, torn and bleeding. As the crowd dispersed to the bar in celebration, the nameless, defeated man rose from the ground without assistance and stumbled home.

The boys stood alone marveling at what they had just witnesses. Jack threw up his fists, pretending to box, and said, Man, I'd like to be able to do that to someone.

Sam, still writing, said, Yeah, but think of that guy. He has to go home to his wife and kids a loser, all beat up. Then come back to work tomorrow.

You know, Sam that’s why dad's always calling you a sissy, Jack said, shaking his head in disbelief. We see a great fight and all you can do is write in your stupid notebook and worry about the loser. You keep a diary like a girl.

Jack snatched the notebook from Sam’s hand and ran back down the alley. Sam and Joey chased after him losing him on one of the streets. As they turned down an alley they saw Jack, his back to them, standing still, his head bent downward. He was urinating, which was not unusual in the back alleys. Sam approached him and demanded, Where is my notebook?

Jack motioned downward as he zipped up his pants. Jack grinned, I wanted to put my own thoughts down on it.

The notebook lay at Jack’s feet soaked in urine. Sam turned away, as if he could not face it. Joey felt an anger explode inside him at his cousin’s cruelty. Without thinking or warning, Joey ran up on his cousin and began punching him with his fists wildly, missing more than striking his cousin. Jack pushed him easily to the ground then kicked him hard several times. Joey cringed and lay still. Unlike the fight they had just witnessed, there was no one to cheer Jack on his victory. He muttered, Stupid saps and ran out into the street.

Joey rose from the ground, holding his side, and said, Sorry, Sam.

Sam shrugged, pushed his glasses back on his nose, and walked over to where his reeking notebook lay in a puddle. He said, It’s nothing. It'll dry out I guess.

Joey and Sam stared at the ground for several seconds. Joey knew Sam was different than most of the kids or even adults in the neighborhood. Sam was smart, which was almost as good as being strong. But Joey also knew, even at nine-years-old, that Sam was sensitive and that would only get him hurt.

Joey said, You know, Sam. You might want to toughen up a little. Maybe you better stop carrying that thing around, especially now.

Sam was determined, his jaw locked, and quietly angry in a way that Joey was not used to seeing in his cousin. Sam dismissed him and said, I'll get a new one. Somehow.

As the boys headed for home a primal feeling settled over Joey, like the storm clouds arriving overhead. Maybe it was the fighting or the weather, but Joey suddenly felt an urgent need to get home. He ran quickly and made it in the door just as the clouds unleashed and the rain started pouring down, angrily hitting the earth. Joey slammed the door and leaned against it, catching his breath.

Knock off all the noise, he heard his father grumble.

His father sat in a chair by the window in the living room looking out onto the road, which would soon be ankle-deep mud. He looked defeated and tired. His back was hunched, not from the years working in a coal mine in Ireland or over a decade in the slaughterhouse in America. When he was working his back was straight and proud. This was a curvature of despair and resignation. Joey knew his father had given up. Like the man in the brawl he had just witnessed, Joey knew life had beaten his father to the ground and he had cried, Stop like the man Joey had seen beaten today.

Joey walked quietly past his father, not taking his eyes off him, and into the kitchen. His mother was standing at the sink, peeling potatoes. Emily and Mary sat at the kitchen table. Emily was writing something with the stub of an almost-used up pencil and a piece of white paper. Mary chattered softly to her small stuffed rag doll. His mother turned and said to Joey, Thank goodness you are home. It is pouring outside. Where have you been?

Joey was still breathless and said excitedly, I was over at the pens and there were these two men fighting. It was…

Mary interrupted, Mother-r-r, I am trying to write. And what is that little street urchin doing hanging out down there anyway?

Joey stuck his tongue out at her and continued, This one guy got the other one on the ground and …

His father yelled into the kitchen, Keep it down in there. Damn it, Iris, keep those kids quiet.

Joey and the girls looked at their mother. Iris put her index finger to her pursed lips. She stepped next to Joey, bent down, and brushed his dark bangs out of his eyes. He needed a haircut, but then there was so much the family needed. His mother’s brown hair was pulled back into a bun and her face was lined with worry and disappointment. That was not new, but tonight was unusual. Joey saw something else in his mother’s face that he could not distinguish and whispered, Is it a bad night?

His mother looked at him for a long few seconds, smiled sadly, and nodded her head. She spoke softly, So we have to be extra quiet tonight. Maybe we can tell stories after dinner before bedtime.

Joey’s mother shared stories occasionally about his father, Joseph Turner, Senior. He had been a handsome man early in his life and when he had married Iris Johnson his eyes were unclouded, his thoughts clear, and his future lie beyond the Irish village where he was born and raised. He was a man with ambition and energy who had moved his wife from Ireland to Slaymore, California to be close to his new wife’s three brothers and make money through hard work and big dreams. But the story his mother told was of a stranger, a man that no longer existed.

The man Joey knew left in the evening and was not seen again until morning when he came home stumbling in the door way and vomiting after an all night binge. Joey’s father spent what little money they had on drinks and other women and everyone knew it. When there was no food in the house his mother went to her brothers, Brian, Richard and Henry, and they always helped her. She quietly nursed her countless black eyes and fat lips after beatings from his father. Over the last six months, since losing his job, the beatings and fighting were more frequent and his drinking increased. Joey often heard his mother crying late into the evening.

Joey’s mother picked up the potatoes and placed them in the pot of boiling water. She turned to the counter and began measuring the flour to make biscuits. She made a mountain out of the flour mixture and a well in the center then carefully poured milk into it. Joey whispered, Can I help?

Joey occasionally asked to help, especially with the biscuits, and his mother, always in a hurry, usually said no, but not tonight. Tonight she smiled slightly and said, Come on then.

Joey pulled a chair across the floor to the counter and scrambled to stand on it. He looked at the mountain of white mud-looking mixture anxious to put his hands in it when his mother stopped him. First, let’s clean those grubby things.

She took his hands in hers and ran them under the water scrubbing them with the bar of lye soap. She dried them with the corner of her apron and said, Now, have a go at it.

Joey put both hands in the soft mixture, kneading it as he had seen his mother do countless times. He squished it between his fingers and he felt like he was making mud pies indoors. He looked up at his mother, smiling, forgetting, for a moment, the man on the other side of the door. She was smiling down on him, too. The lines in her face softened when she smiled and she was pretty. He laughed out loud and said, I want to help with this every night. This is …

What the hell did I tell you, Iris? Keep those kids quiet, his father burst into the room, interrupting Joey in his work and play.

His father’s sudden appearance startled Joey and he wobbled on the chair top. Iris tried to steady him, but too late. He toppled to the ground in a small flour storm, hitting his elbow hard on the floor.

Owwww… Joey cried, grimacing in pain.

Iris bent over him to check his elbow. Joey noticed the girls were still as frightened deer at the table. Their eyes were like silver dollars. Emily clutched her rag doll to her chest and she was shaking slightly. Mary gripped her pencil tight in her hand, cowering back in her chair, as if trying to fade into the wall. Joey rubbed his elbow and looked up at his concerned mother.

I’m okay, he mumbled. She smiled slightly at him and rose to finish the biscuits and clean the mess.

Iris let out a breath she had been holding and, under it, said, Joseph, what are you thinking bursting in here like that?

What am I thinking? What are you thinking teaching this little muzzy to make biscuits? Ain’t we got enough little girls runnin’ around this place?

Joey knew this was a critical moment. If Iris ignored him, most likely he would go back to the living room, finish what was left in the bottle, and go to sleep. But this night was different and Joey could feel it as if a shift had occurred without notice, but Joey was not prepared for what came out of his mother’s mouth. She turned back to kneading the biscuits and quietly, as if announcing the time of day, said, Well, if there were a real man around this house, maybe I wouldn’t be teachin’ the boy biscuit making.

Joey felt as if everyone had drawn in, sucking the oxygen from the air, and holding it in their lungs. The only sound was the quiet kneading of the dough. Joey looked up at his father who stood glassy-eyed and looked as if he were trying to focus. His father, as if in disbelief himself, said, What did you say to me?

Iris turned, seemingly unafraid, but Joey saw her hands shake just a little. As if she were deliberately provoking him, she began to repeat herself, I said if there was a real man…

That was all she could utter. His father crossed the room, stepping over Joey, and backhanded his mother hard across the mouth. She fell to the floor still having the presence of mind to look at the girls and yell, Mary, take your sister to the bedroom.

His father stood over his mother and raised his hand toward the girls. He growled, Don’t you move. You need to see what happens to a woman who is disrespectful to her husband. Good lesson for ya.

He turned his attention back toward Iris and said, I been stuck in this hole all day with you and I am sick to death...

Iris, still on the floor, seemed to Joey as if she were encouraging his father in his anger. She yelled at him, Stuck here? Nobody's been keepin' you from looking for work. Well, don't expect me to clean up your messes anymore when you come in here after a full day and night of drinking, throwin' up what little food you've et along with your drink. You can sleep in it, for all I care. I won't be cleanin' it up this time. Not anymore.

His father raised his fist toward Iris and stumbled a bit, his equilibrium thrown off by hours of alcohol consumption. Joey, still on the floor, pulled at his father’s pant leg, hoping to take the focus off his mother.

I asked to help. I bothered mama into lettin’ me make the biscuits. It ain’t her fault.

His father turned and glared at him, like a cockroach on the floor. Joey could smell the alcohol on his father, seeping through his pores. Joseph Senior asked, So you like bein’ a little girl, is that it? You like doin’ women’s work? Why don’t we hire you out as a little house maid? You’re worthless, you are. A worthless brat.

His father kicked him in the side. It was not hard. Jack had kicked him harder just an hour earlier. His father’s aim was off slightly and he had difficulty standing on one foot to kick with any substance. While his attention was on Joey, Iris rose from the floor and took a dollar from her small black hand bag on the end of the counter. She waved it like a matador’s cape at a bull, trying to take the focus back to her and away from her son.

Here, she said. I saved this for you. Go to the pub and finish what you’ve started.

Joseph Senior turned back toward his wife, snatched the dollar bill from her, and then pushed her against the wall. Holdin’ out on me, huh? What other monies ya got stashed around this dump?

She said, That’s the last of it. That’s all we got in the world.

Joey had never known his mother to give father money. Usually she hid it from him, but tonight was different and he knew it.

Grand, his father smiled, an ugly, evil smile, and leaned in close to Iris. I’m off. Glad to be rid of the lot of ya.

Iris, who seemed to have lost all fear of his father tonight, whispered in an even, concrete tone, Judgment day is coming for you, Joseph Turner, and someday you will have to make amends for all the suffering you have caused. Judgment day is here.

Joseph Senior peered at her through his drunken haze and, for a moment, it seemed her words had reached him. And then he began to laugh. It began as a chuckle and shortly he was laughing so hard there were tears in his eyes. It was not the laugh of someone enjoying a good joke. It was an hysterical laughter. It was the unexpected expression of an undefined emotion. It was the laughter of someone who could not cry. Joseph Turner Senior walked out the door, laughing. The laughter rang in Joey’s ears long after his father was gone and on rainy nights he sometimes thought he could hear that laughter in the distance somewhere far away.

Iris returned to making biscuits. Joey picked himself up off the floor and washed the flour from his hands. The girls relaxed slightly and sat quietly for a few minutes as if trying to regulate themselves again. Iris popped the biscuits into the oven and turned to Emily, I am going over to the Martin’s to borrow a few eggs for breakfast in the morning. Your dad will be hungry. I may be a bit so watch the biscuits.

Iris left the kitchen and the children heard the front door close. Joey, still rubbing his elbow, said, "I hate eggs. It’s like eatin’ crap. I ain’t eatin’ anything that comes