One of the articles from the mass of clippings about the burglaries reads, in speaking of Arnold De Marzio, as follows: 

De Marzio's attorney said the youth's act is "entirely out of character withe his family background." He read three letters from persons who asked leniency for the youth.

Well la-di-fuckin'-da. Three character witnesses. An attorney. Things my dad didn't have. Should we feel sorry for the guy because his family had enough money to pay for an attorney, enough friends who'd stand up for him in court and demonize my father as the bad influence? 

Though I don't doubt he was. A high school dropout, with only a tenth grade education? A guy who'd earned a Dishonorable Discharge by the age of eighteen? 

I want to have a pity party and bitch about how the poor are mistreated in the legal system. Part of me feels a surge of injustice and gets rankled. The kid from the "good family" gets let out, while the kid from the "bad family" stays in jail. It's a drama that gets played out, usually along race lines, a dozen times a day in every big city in America. 

My dad knew what it was like to be on the wrong side of that line. Maybe that's why he had this poster of Malcolm X on his writing room wall later in life, when he thought he was getting it all figured out. When he thought he knew who was downtrodden and who wasn't.