The Ravine (9 page)

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.

“Things just came easily to me when I was young. I didn’t have to study much, but always got good grades. I was usually the best player on any team we had, and sports was pretty much my life. Then, when I discovered that the cute girls and the easy girls in school went for my bad boy act, I just played that up.

“Before I knew it, I was out of high school. When I didn’t get an athletic scholarship, I was pretty surprised. So rather than paying to go to school, I figured, screw them, I don’t need to waste my time with that. When I look back, I can see that if I hadn’t let my pride get in the way, things would have been different.

“It’s no one thing, Mitch. It’s lots of little things put together. So, I accept that prison may have been the best thing ever to happen to me, and now I intend to work my ass off to make something of myself instead of feeling sorry for myself. You get it?”

“I get it,” Mitch said, and he really did.

Around that time, Tony met a smart and attractive young woman named Emily, and it was clear they had fallen in love. She accepted him for who he was, despite his past mistakes, and she encouraged him to grab life with both hands and go for it. She was a big fan of his Thursday night hoops because she knew how good it was for him to excel at something again, and frankly it got him out of her hair for a night. He was nuts about her, and the feeling was mutual. Danny and Mitch were both a bit envious, which meant they teased Tony endlessly about Emily.

Time wore on and Mitch and Danny continued not to be so lucky in love. Because Danny was such a good-looking guy, he didn’t have any trouble getting dates, but when he saw the relationship Tony had with Emily, he knew that real love was worth the wait. Mitch was a bit of a perfectionist, and was convinced he would know the right woman on sight when she came along. Danny told him he had been reading too many of those weird books he was always talking about, but Mitch was unshakable in his conviction. So there they were, both reasonably good catches in their twenties who had outgrown the dating game. And that’s how they found themselves on a Friday night with nothing to do.

After hoops that night, Danny mentioned he’d run into a girl he knew from his childhood, who had told him about a club up in Putin-Bay, on Lake Erie, where they had terrific live music every Friday night. It was called Lakeside Bar, and she had suggested they check it out. Initially Mitch wasn’t very interested, until Danny told him that Macon Peach, an Allman Brothers cover band, would be playing. They were supposed to be incredible; the two guitarists could knock off the harmonic lead guitar parts note for note. Mitch liked Southern rock a lot, but he absolutely loved the Allman Brothers, so he was sold.

As they expected, the dance floor was crowded when they got there, and Danny looked around for his friend, Carolyn Hamilton. Danny felt a special bond with Carolyn because of her father’s visits when they were at Chillicothe, though they never talked about that time. Finally
he spotted her across the floor, with an entourage of guys circling her. When she saw Danny, she ran over and told him how glad she was that he had made it because she had someone she wanted to introduce—or rather reintroduce—to him.

“Reintroduce, what do you mean?”

“A long time ago, when you were leaving the field after a game, I introduced you to my good friend Rachel, but you were too busy running off to a keg party to notice,” she said, with a laugh.

“Well that sounds like me, back then. By the way, I want you to meet my friend, Mitch.”

All this time Mitch had been standing there, admiring Carolyn’s golden hair, deep-blue eyes, and great shape, feeling a little like Michael Corleone when he was struck by the thunderbolt. He was smitten just looking at her, but then when she laughed and smiled, and he heard her voice, he literally felt a flash. He felt as if he had known her all his life, though he had yet to say a word to her. He knew she was the one he had been searching for.

Mitch, who was normally quite talkative, was speechless. He opened his mouth and out came a sort of croaking sound, leading Carolyn to cup her ear and shout, “What did you say?” The music was pretty loud, so that gave him a chance to regroup.

Danny jumped in to save his friend. “Mitch is a great guy. He’s an okay basketball player, but just about the best architect you’ll ever meet. He went to Geauga a few years ahead of us.”

Mitch got back to his natural footing and started talking about the high school, and some of the teachers there. Carolyn said her favorite was Mr. Ercolano, and Mitch mentioned that he’d heard he quit teaching to go write the Great American Novel, and on it went. Then Carolyn spotted Rachel, and said excitedly, “Danny, there she is. Come with me.”

For the rest of his life, whenever he heard the opening licks to “Sweet Home Alabama,” Danny would think of Rachel. Because the instant he took her hand, that’s the song the band broke into.

Rachel let out a screech of delight and started dancing to the music. “I just love this song! You want to dance?” she asked Danny, grabbing him by the hand as they disappeared onto the dance floor, not to be seen again for hours. Mitch and Carolyn eventually made their way outside where it was quieter, to a veranda that overlooked Lake Erie. They began the conversation that would continue to this day, fifteen years of marriage and three boys later.