XIX
It is Thursday evening, and it’s Donnell’s first visit to the Ohallowbee Detention Center since the incident that caused Brandon to be hospitalized. The boys can’t wait to see him. As soon he enters the room, he’s bombarded with questions about Brandon. A few of them seek a private moment with Donnell, but Officer Williams forbids any such communication.
Donnell begins by passing around a black binder that contains clear pocket sleeves bearing pictures. Inside are pictures of himself showing off various possessions that he used to own as a drug dealer. Row upon row and page after page display cars, women, and jewelry. There’s one in particular, though, that repeatedly receives “oohs” and “aahs.”
It is a picture of Donnell sitting at a dining room table with a half-million dollars in cash laid out before him. It’s something the boys and the staff have never seen the likes of before. They all know the money in the photo is real money. It isn’t hard for them to figure out at that point that the man standing before them is the real deal.
A hand goes up.
“Yes, sir?” Donnell asks the young man.
“Man, Mr. White, you had all that bread . . . Why didn’t you quit while you were ahead of the game?”
A few others chime in, uttering, “Yeah, for real, though, you were crazy, Mr. White.”
“Well, that’s an easy one to answer. Honestly, I think you may already have the answer to that question. It exists within the reality of your current situation. This might sound like a stupid question to ask,” Donnell says to one young man, “but have you ever committed any crimes in your lifetime?”
“Ummm, duh, Mr. White. Why else would I be behind bars?”
“All right, how many times did you commit those crimes before being caught?”
“I really can’t say, Mr. White, because I was on the streets for a while before I got caught.”
“But you kept committing those crimes until you eventually got caught, right?”
“I guess so. Yeah, you could say that.”
“Did you ever think about stopping while you were ahead?”
“Not really.”
“Why not?”
“Probably because I was way too busy getting money to be thinking about getting caught—or anything else, for that matter.”
“Precisely my point. I rest my case. The more we get away with things, the more we tend to have a false sense of invincibility. We’ve seen it in the movies and in real life. Gangsters hardly ever decide to retire. Normally they’re forced into it. The signs are there all along, and so are the consequences. Somehow the illusion of escaping karma trumps all logic. We then exercise rationality over common sense and see no reason to stop. I hope this answers your question.”
The expression on the faces of the boys and staff said it all. Boy, were they all discombobulated. From that moment on, they all knew they had to thoroughly think their thoughts through before presenting them to Mr. White.