The Ravine Read online

  His psychologist was pleased that Danny wanted to ask for forgiveness and helped him write his response:

  Dear Mr. Grant,

  I was very touched to receive your letter. Of course I would be happy to meet with you, but I don’t know that I am worthy of such forgiveness. I have studied the Bible, and have come to love Jesus, but I am nowhere near being a forgiving person. The truth is that I am bitter about being in jail and seeing my life slip away, unable to do the simple things in life because of my mistakes. I hope we can meet soon because I want to reach the point where I can be free of my anger, and I am sure that just seeing you and being forgiven by you would help tremendously.

  I am very grateful for your offer.

  Yours in Christ,

  Danny Turner

  The warden was a little suspicious of Kevin Grant’s true motives. After all, it would be pretty embarrassing if Mr. Grant actually had retribution on his mind rather than forgiveness. But after meeting with him, he agreed to permit him a supervised visit with Tony and Danny.

  He arranged for them to meet in a small conference room that was reserved for family visits. The meeting would be private, except for the presence of a prison guard.

  Danny was the first to arrive. He was lead into a nondescript room that was painted the sort of muted color he had come to expect in institutions. He sat there in the room alone, and looked out the window. It was clear, except for the wire embedded inside the glass. In the distance, beyond the prison wall, he could see the town of Chillicothe, the church spires rising up above the surrounding buildings. It was two in the afternoon; outside the sun was shining and he knew the temperature was in the nineties. The air conditioner hummed away, so it was almost chilly in the room. He was glad he would see Tony, but had his doubts about how things would go with Grant. He still could not believe the guy was for real.

  The door opened, and in walked Tony. They had not seen each other in over a year, but they had spoken on the phone a few times. They hugged and then stepped back to look at each other.

  “Man, you look great,” Danny said, a little envious. “You look like you’ve been on vacation in the Caribbean or something!”

  “You look good, too, Little Brother,” Tony replied, but he was a little alarmed by the stilted sadness he detected in his brother’s eyes.

  They knew they only had a few minutes before Kevin Grant arrived, and so they talked quickly back and forth about how amazing it was they were having this meeting. Tony was totally convinced Grant was sincere. He had developed a regular practice of praying and reading the Bible himself, and understood the concept of forgiveness. “We need to forgive ourselves for our mistakes, first of all, bro,” he said, putting his hand on Danny’s shoulder, and looking him straight in the eye. “This isn’t BS. I’ve really changed.”

  Danny was about to say he could see that something was different about Tony, when the door opened again and there stood Kevin Grant. He hadn’t been able to attend the court proceedings due to his condition, so the last time these three were in the same room was on that fateful night, when they were clubbing and swearing at one another.

  The officer who escorted him into the room suggested they shake hands, and then said they should sit across from one another at the conference table in the center of the room—Danny and Tony on one side, Kevin on the other. The officer stood off by the window, but his nightstick swung by his side and he reminded the group that there would be no shouting or any other violent action. This was a highly unusual meeting, and they were only doing it “because of the persistence of Mr. Grant,” he added.

  Kevin looked different from the person Tony and Danny remembered seeing that night. He seemed older. That may have been due to the fact that the newspaper articles always included a picture of Kevin from his college yearbook or his wedding, and that was a long time ago. He was a clean-cut sort of guy, six feet tall, with dirty blond hair and dark eyes. He had grown a mustache, and that made him look a little older as well. However, he seemed imbued with a definite happiness, and greeted them with a wide smile that broke the ice.

  “I know you guys must think I’m crazy or some sort of religious fanatic, but I want you to know that I’m neither, and I appreciate this,” he said, gesturing as though inviting them to sit at his table for dinner, and then sitting down himself. “They’re only going to give us fifteen minutes to meet, so I want to say what I have to say, because I’ve been thinking about this moment for a long time.”

  Feeling incredibly uncomfortable, the brothers mumbled something along the lines of “no, we really are grateful, go ahead, and say what you want to say.”

  “Well, as I said in my letter, I spent the first few years after that night being driven crazy by my anger at the two of you and that other guy who killed himself in Gates Mills. I just couldn’t accept that anyone could be so horrible and selfish and brutal as to break into someone’s house, steal their money, and then beat me almost to death and throw my pregnant wife on the floor.” He looked at Tony when he said the last few words. This was not going the way the brothers had expected, and the officer moved a step closer to the table.

  “I would lie in bed at night and replay the incident, wishing I had taken the bat and smashed both of you in the head, and just put a stop to the whole thing. Why didn’t I defend my wife? I was angry at myself, and I felt like a coward, because when I turned on the light and saw the three of you, I was terrified for me and my wife.”

  “Listen, man, we’re sorry—” Tony started, but Kevin cut him off with a wave of his hand.

  “I know you are, because you got caught, but it easily could have gone the other way. I might have been killed, and Missy too, and it could have been a lot worse. But I wasn’t able to see that for a long, long time. After I recovered and could go back to work, and our son was born, I thought I would be able to get back to normal, but instead, I started sinking deeper and deeper into a depression. My wife made me see a shrink, but all he did was make me talk about my rage, and that just made it worse.

  “Then one night, I left my shop around eight o’clock, and I saw this guy Harold, who often slept on the grate outside my store to keep warm. He was talking to this very unusual-looking woman with long, white hair, who seemed to be very excited and then suddenly gave Harold a big hug. I like Harold and all, but, well, he was filthy, and I would never have even shaken hands with him, let alone hug him. But there she was, treating him like a long-lost relative. She was clearly a very spiritual person.”

  Danny now figured the guy for a religious nut who imagined he had seen the Virgin Mary or Mother Theresa on the street in Chicago, and he figured he knew where this was going. Kevin started to remind him of the sort of sucker who gets pulled into a church and winds up giving away the family jewels.

  “So, I was just walking on past them, and I gave Harold the wave and nod I usually gave him, when he called out to me and said, ‘Kevin, this is Joanna. Slow down, man. She wants to talk to you.’ Then the woman turned to me and said, ‘You must be Kevin. Harold has told me about your sadness, and I see it in your eyes. I have to tell you one thing. Let go of your anger. Give it to God. Go home tonight and pray for the men who hurt you. Do it every day, and really mean it. Speak out loud to God. Pray that these men you hate will be happy, and one day free, and pray for God to allow you to forgive them, because that is the only way you will ever be free. And, one more thing: your plan for tonight is a very bad idea.’” Kevin continued to speak, but tears started to run down his cheeks.

  “You see, when I met this woman, I was heading to my car to take all of the pills I had brought from home that morning. I planned to just sit in my car and die. I couldn’t see all the wonderful things I had to live for, like Missy and my son, my parents, my friends, and everything else in my life. I hated the way I felt, and I was filled with so much hate for the two of you, and for myself for not being a man that night, that I couldn’t even see what my death would do to all the people who loved me, and how muc
h I had to live for.

  “Then this woman gathered me into a circle with Harold, and the three of us prayed. She gave me this very intense stare, like she could see into my mind, and I went weak in the knees and almost fell over, but Harold held me up. Finally, when she was through praying, she held my hands and looked even more deeply at me, and then she touched my cheek. It was so gentle, like a mother touching her child. And then she just walked away.

  “When I got to my car, I looked at the bottle of pills, but instead of swallowing them, I prayed out loud like she said to do. I even prayed for you guys to have good lives, and I prayed to be able to forgive you, and I prayed for forgiveness for myself. And then the most amazing thing happened. I started to feel free. I felt God come into my life and I knew I had been blessed.”

  By now, all three men were weeping, and they just naturally reached out their hands and touched one another. The officer struggled to hold back tears. He knew this was a moment of grace like none he had ever seen before.

  Kevin asked if it would be okay for him to say a prayer, and the brothers both nodded. “Lord, thank you for bringing the three of us together today,” he prayed. “Help us to forgive one another, and help our wounds to heal. Please give my brothers, Tony and Danny, happy, productive lives with all the freedom your world has to offer. Amen.”

  They all leaned back in their chairs. The time limit had expired. The police officer took off his cap, put both palms flat on the table, cleared his throat, and said, “Gentlemen, I’m afraid our time is up. Mr. Grant, I’ll escort you out.”

  He broke protocol and turned his back while the three men hugged at the door.

  A battle raged inside of Danny later that night, when he was alone back in his cell. The voice threatened, screamed that Grant was just a kook, and that Tony hadn’t really had any sort of conversion. But Danny could not deny how he had felt the moment they held hands and said that prayer. He also had a vision of a woman with long, white hair and olive-colored skin, who was looking at him with the most beatific smile. He only knew her through Kevin Grant’s description, but when he closed his eyes he could see her as if she were standing right there in the cell with him.

  Danny knew something was different; it was like a wind had passed through him and wiped him clean. He didn’t want to be a cynic any longer. All night he tossed and turned, and had crazy, vivid dreams. When the morning light came through his window, he awoke. He was lying there, half awake, half asleep, when he heard the sound of beautiful music, like a mother singing a lullaby—only he knew it was meant to wake him up, not put him to sleep. Then he spoke to God. He rejected the voice he had heard in his head all these years. He acknowledged it for what it was: It wasn’t his friend. It was his enemy. It was evil.

  Danny and Tony were released roughly a year later. It seemed that everyone around them noticed a genuine change had taken place. The officer who was in the room that day was an old friend of the warden’s, and he told him his life had been changed when he watched those three boys pray.

  When they were given a hearing for early release, the committee considering their cases read letters of support from Linda, Kevin, and Missy Grant. Don Grant wanted nothing to do with it, however. Throughout their years in prison, Danny and Tony had maintained exemplary records, so they were on very solid ground. The decision to grant them early release was unanimous.

  As it turned out, Tony was released a day before Danny, so he was there with his parents to greet Danny at the prison gate the next day. Later that day, they went to a restaurant to celebrate, and Danny and Tony felt as if a miracle had happened. Everyone smiled, laughed, and cried with relief. Then Tony, ever the pragmatist, said, “I wonder if anyone will hire us, given our record.”

  Steve and Debby looked at each other and smiled, as if they knew a secret. “Well, boys,” Steve said, “I guess I could take a chance on you.”

  Then he explained that he had decided to leave Jayomar, but had saved enough money to start the sporting goods store he’d always wanted to own, and he wanted his sons to help him run it. The name even had a nice ring to it. He would call it Steve’s Sporting Goods. It was time for all of them to start over, he said. “Everyone deserves a second chance, boys. Let’s give it our best shot and see if we can’t make a success out of the place.”

  “So, how are you doing, Danny?” asked Mike Berger, Danny’s probation officer.

  “Well, I knew you were gonna ask me that, Mike, and I was wondering how I could honestly answer you. The truth is that things are better than I ever could have imagined. Working with Tony and my dad has been really good, and I have to admit that I’m just trying to keep it simple.”

  “Have you met anyone yet?” At their last meeting, Danny had mentioned he was pretty lonely, and that most of the decent women didn’t want anything to do with him. He had met a few girls, but just for fun, and he felt like life was passing him by. He was about twenty-six now, and most of his friends had gone to college, gotten into the workforce, and were married or about to get married. He didn’t want to settle, however. He wanted to meet someone he could count on as a life mate, so just getting involved with someone to pass the time was something he had decided to avoid. This was all part of the new Danny, the grown man who was honest with himself.

  “Well, Mike, that hasn’t changed much. It seems that a guy with a prison record isn’t seen as such a great catch. I guess I’m just gonna have to be patient.”

  Danny didn’t realize it, but his patience was about to pay off.

  That night Danny met up with Tony and a few of his buddies for their regular Thursday night game of hoops. They would generally get around ten or twelve guys on a regular basis, and play for about two hours before calling it quits. Of course, these were competitive men who played to win, but the idea was to get some exercise and have some fun. Danny and Tony got involved with this group shortly after leaving Chillicothe, when they met Mitch Bianci. Mitch was a young architect who designed the interior of the first Steve’s Sporting Goods store and, as luck would have it, became a trusted friend.

  Mitch had graduated from Geauga High a few years before Tony and Danny, and had gone out of state to college, so he wasn’t around town at the time of the incident in Chagrin Falls. After school, he had taken a position with an architectural firm in Boise, and had recently moved back into the area. He didn’t know the first thing about the Turner brothers’ past when he met with Steve Turner to discuss the interior design of the store. When Steve let something slip about his sons’ prison time, Mitch noticed his embarrassment.

  “Look, Steve,” he said. “I don’t feel that I’m in a position to judge anyone. I’ve learned that I’m better off leaving that to God.” Mitch said this in a way that impressed Steve. Here was a young man who wasn’t afraid to come right out and talk about his faith.

  “That’s how I try to live my life,” Mitch continued. “I don’t always succeed, but I try. I’ve certainly made my mistakes, and I don’t expect others to judge me, so I try to stay away from that. In my business, you go into people’s homes and you learn a lot about folks, even if they are only talking about adding on a bedroom or something. If there’s one thing you find out, it’s that nobody’s perfect.”

  Tony came into the room a few minutes later as Mitch was packing up to leave, and Steve introduced them. Mitch took one look at Tony and knew he was just the sort of guy who would fit in at the basketball meet-ups.

  “Tony, if you’re ever looking for something to do on a Thursday night,” Mitch said, “a bunch of us have a pickup game of basketball every Thursday over at the gym at St. Francis on Mayfield. We start around seven, and play until we’re ready to fall over.” Mitch sized Tony up as a pretty good athlete, at first glance, and they could always use another player for hoops. “Give it a try sometime,” he said, as he headed out the door.

  So the following Thursday night, Tony and Danny went over to the gym and, frankly, wowed the other guys. If there was one thing the Turner boys
knew how to do, it was play ball of any type. They immediately formed a genuine friendship with Mitch. Once they got comfortable with him, Tony mentioned something about their past. Danny always avoided the topic, but Tony took it for what it was. Like Mitch, he’d read several self-help books, and knew that hiding behind your secrets just brought you down.

  “Tony, can I ask you something personal?” Mitch said as they were toweling off one night.

  “Sure. Let me guess. You’re probably going to ask what it was like in prison, right?”

  “No, actually, I wanted to know what you’d learned from the experience.”

  Tony looked down for a minute, and laughed to himself. “You got about a week to listen to my story? I learned a lot, but it’s almost impossible to put it into words. I knew I was heading the wrong way for a long time, but, to tell you the truth, I think it started with simple things, like laziness and arrogance, or pride.”

  Mitch nodded. He knew what Tony meant because he had grappled with the same issues in his young life.