Juvenile Crimes - Chapter 23

Reevaluations

The Interview continued…

“If you get the job and you’re on it for a while, you’ll see that it sort of gets in your blood,” Peter assured me. “You might be able to make more money on the defense side, but you’ll find that there’s far more personal and job satisfaction as a prosecutor. It’s hard to do anything else as a lawyer once this job becomes a part of you. It’s also much easier to sleep at night knowing your job is to do the right thing.”

“My dad sort of sees it the same way,” I replied. “He definitely wants me to go this direction. And as I sort of explained before, I’ve always wanted to do something meaningful with my career. This would be a great start.”

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Coquille, Oregon, mid-February 1996 continued…

Following my banko filing in early February, the daily grind continued apace. Without question, I was still seriously depressed, though I tried hard not to show it. Every day was a constant stream of sifting through human misery and trying to do the right thing in each individual case. I worked up to 60-70 hours a week sometimes, and when I wasn’t working, I was alone and sad. I had already been through so much disappointment and pain, and all I saw in front of me was more of it for me to help sort through…but for other people. That’s the position I accepted.

I sucked it up and did the job.

Protect who I could protect, help who I could help, and punish various assholes as best I could according to their misdeeds. That was how I viewed my job, and it was my only satisfaction - that feeling of accomplishing those goals on a case, in court or out. The idea of doing justice helped buoy me through the river of shit in which I found myself. I actually was doing the right thing, at least as best I could under the law. And THAT, I did very well. I already had of profound sense of Justice before taking the job, and the results got noticed, apparently, because Peter started his habit of telling me at least twice a week, “I hear you’re doing a great job! Keep it up and the raise is coming.” Or similar words to that effect to praise my performance and hold out the carrot of my deeply needed raise.

Through all the traumatic experiences I had had up to this point, I had come to believe very strongly that when it hurts the most is when you need to be your best. Learned the hard way, from failures and not living up to my own expectations. But I believed - and still do - that’s where true character is built. It’s that place or set of circumstances in life that separates the strong from the weak, the honorable from the damned, and sometimes the survivors from the dead. It is getting back up and putting yourself together again after getting your ass kicked over and over again that builds quality character and resilient internal strength. I had failed plenty of times in my various pursuits, but I would not fail myself. My sense of honor demanded me to step up and do the job no matter my own personal bullshit.

I guess that’s what being a “professional” is supposed to be, too. So I was.

In other words, I had to claw my way out of this pile of shit or drown in it.

So I kept clawing.