Dear Martin: Chapter 22 Summary & Analysis

Justyce is on the witness stand at Garrett Tison’s hearing. He has just delivered his testimony and thinks that everything has gone well. However, Tison’s attorney has just taken the floor to subject him to a cross-examination, and he can immediately tell that she’s “out for blood.” To begin, she gets him to admit that he and Manny were driving around instead of going on a hike, which is what they had originally planned to do. This, Justyce is forced to explain, is because Manny was upset after having heard that Jared’s parents were going to press charges against him for assaulting Jared. When Justyce is forced to say that Manny told him he hit Jared for making “an inappropriate joke,” the attorney says, “Hmm. Sounds like a fairly familiar set of circumstances, doesn’t it, Mr. McAllister?”

Tison’s attorney continues with her cross-examination, bringing up the fact that Justyce assaulted Blake and Jared at Blake’s birthday party. “It wasn’t unprovoked,” Justyce clarified. As he tries to explain the circumstances surrounding his fight with Blake and Jared on that night, the attorney asks a number of confusing questions. When she asks him to explain what happened more clearly, he says that he can’t remember everything in very vivid detail. She then suggests that this is because he’d been drinking, and he’s forced to admit that this is true. “Mr. McAllister,” the attorney says, “now that we’ve established that both you and Mr. Rivers had a history of responding violently to perceived verbal slights, let’s return to January twenty-sixth of this year.”

At this point, Tison’s attorney asks Justyce to read a clause from the City of Atlanta Code of Ordinances—a clause that prohibits excessive noise in public spaces. Once Justyce reads this aloud, the attorney says that Justyce and Manny were “in violation of the law” because they “refus[ed] to lower the volume of [their] music.” Going on, the attorney says, “Did the music you were listening to contain the line Here comes the fun…wait for the sound of the gun?” Justyce points out that this lyric has been taken out of context, but the attorney ignores him, adding that Manny swore at Tison and made “an obscene gesture” that could have been “perceived as a threat.”

“Are you aware that my client witnessed the shooting death of his partner by a young man physically similar to yourself?” Tison’s attorney asks Justyce. She then lets the court know that Justyce spoke to Quan, who “connected” him to “a group of young men with extensive criminal records and known gang affiliations.” She also gets Justyce to admit that he met with these “young men shortly before they deliberately” set Tison’s house on fire. As Justyce tries to clarify the conditions surrounding this visit, the attorney cuts him off, saying, “No further questions, Your Honor.”