The Old Man in the Club Read Online Free PDF Page B

dealership and opened her door for her. They didn’t believe that. They said I opened the door while she was in the car and pulled her out.
    â€œThey also said someone saw my car at the lake and saw me sitting in the car as the woman jogged past me. I didn’t remember her. But because I didn’t tell them that I stopped to smoke a joint, they used that against me, saying I knew that if I had told them that I was there, they would link me to being where the woman was.
    â€œIt was crazy. My family went broke paying for lawyers to defend me. They lost their house. My father even lost his job because it was a horrific crime. The woman was white, a mother of a young boy, and by all accounts a great lady. I remember feeling that way about her during that ten-minute test drive. She was very pleasant. Anyway, the people on my dad’s job associated my charges with him and didn’t want him around the office anymore. It was a total mess.”
    Tamara sat there listening intently, as if she were hearing a storyteller weave an intriguing drama. Only it was Elliott’s life.
    â€œAnd although so much money was spent and because the crime was so horrible—the woman’s head was bashed in with a tree branch—they had to find somebody guilty of it. And that somebody was me.”
    Elliott turned to Tamara and looked into her eyes, eyes that expressed confusion and empathy at the same time. “Do you know what it’s like to stand before a courthouse full of people and be called guilty, knowing you did nothing?” he asked, his voice much softer and poignant. It was as if telling the story pained him.
    â€œI was a total mess. It was unreal, unbelievable. In the newspaper the reporter in the courtroom wrote about me pinching myself after the verdict was announced. I thought I was dreaming and Ineeded to pinch myself to see if I was awake. I kept doing it, hoping I wouldn’t feel it, but I did. And I started crying. I looked at my family and friends and they were all so upset. It was crazy.”
    â€œElliott,” Tamara said with sorrow in her voice, “I’m so sorry. I don’t even know what else to say.”
    â€œYour empathy says a lot,” Elliott responded. “I appreciate that more than you know.”
    He looked away and took a deep breath. He had not told this part of his story in some time, but with each sharing of it came pain and anger that was so intense he could almost touch it. He was not the most fun person to be around when he was that way. He was sensitive and quick to lose his temper, even thirty years later. But Tamara made it more tolerable because she did not look at him with judgmental eyes and shared no doubting comments or body language.
    In fact, she rose from her chair and went over to Elliott and kneeled down in front of him. She rested her arms on his knees.
    â€œI am so sorry you went through that,” she said.
    He hugged her, and they remained embraced for a few minutes, neither of them saying another word.

CHAPTER THREE:
Kicking It Up A Notch
    T he next morning, as the sun peaked above the Atlanta skyline, Elliott awoke to the sound of the shower. He was slightly disoriented and it wasn’t until he grabbed his glasses from the nightstand and put them on that Tamara’s dress came into focus, sprawled over a chair in the corner.
    He pulled the sheets up to cover his body. He was in fantastic shape, considering his age, with still-muscular arms. But the slightly protruding belly bothered him. He was not the Adonis he once was; he was a stereotypical prisoner in one way: He buffed up while behind bars. But over time, his workout regimen waned. He was conscious of his body because he figured Tamara was used to twenty-something physiques with low body fat.
    The more he sat there, the more the night came back to him. He recalled that they left the balcony and Tamara was not interested in spending time in the living room.
    â€œWhy