Part 7 – Law Over Likes
The judge called it a review hearing. It felt like a pressure test.
We took the same pews as before—two steps back from the aisle, Sunday manners, phones off. Bear nodded once to the clerk, as if to say, we’re here to make your day boring again. The boys came in with their parents and counsel, smaller than headlines, bigger than a single bad hour.
The assistant district attorney laid out the restorative agreement like a blueprint—training, service, a school talk with Tom when safe, and strict silence online. “We’re not asking to replace accountability,” she said. “We’re asking to shape it.”
Defense counsel didn’t sell a sob story. She said “yes, Your Honor” to rails that taught instead of theatrics. The detective confirmed chain of custody and that the boys had handed devices for imaging without incident. Boring facts stacked like bricks.
The judge adjusted her glasses and read the new conditions line by line. No contact with Mr. Avery or his family. No posts about the incident by the boys or “by any proxy acting for them.” Devices available as scheduled. Curfew. School attendance. Counseling intake. Certified first-aid and CPR within thirty days. One hundred and twenty verified service hours in patient-facing environments where appropriate. A joint educational presentation with Mr. Avery only if medically cleared and only under court-approved facilitation.
She paused. “If you treat this like content,” she said, “you will meet me again, and I will be less patient.” Her voice was a tool, not a threat. The tall boy swallowed. The smallest boy nodded so small it was almost a blink.
Then came the wobble you always get when heat leaks in. A distant relative had posted overnight—“my boy isn’t a monster”—tagged with the school and a yearbook photo. It had three thousand shares before breakfast. The ADA flagged it, not to score points, but to preserve the rails.
The judge didn’t scold or grandstand. “Counsel,” she said, “your clients are prohibited from comments directly or by proxy. Tell your clients’ families that ‘proxy’ includes well-meaning cousins who think the internet is a living room. If it happens again, I’ll assume willfulness.”
Defense counsel turned to the parents. They both nodded, chastened, grateful for clarity. Rails only work if everyone sees them.
We filed out with no victory stance. Outside, a handful of signs popped like weeds—two shouting punishment, one shouting forgiveness, none shouting help. Bear didn’t take the bait. He steered us to the shade and said what he always says. “No statements.”
At noon, the boys started hour one.
No cameras. No applause. A fluorescent room at the community center, manikins lined up like quiet teachers. An instructor with a voice that could have cut through a storm showed them how to count compressions out loud, how to trade off without drama, how to map a person’s sternum with respectful hands.
“One-and-two-and-three…” the smallest boy stumbled and started again. The third boy nailed the rhythm, then shook his arms out and looked surprised by how heavy care can be. The tall one pressed hard enough and learned that ribs can creak even on plastic.
The instructor explained that help starts with sight—scene safety, calling 911, putting the phone on speaker, locating an AED, asking someone specific for help. She said the part that stuck with me. “The first skill is not skill,” she said. “It’s choosing the person over the performance.”
They stayed late to learn basic bleeding control. No theatrics. No gore. Just absorbent pads and calm instructions; pressure where pressure matters; the sentence “hold here, I’ve got you.” The smallest boy glanced at me and mouthed “I’m sorry” as if the floor could record it better than a microphone.
At the hospital, service hours began with linens and humility. An orientation desk handed them name tags that didn’t make them heroes. The charge nurse gave a tour that didn’t pretend a hallway can fix the world. “You’ll be where we need you,” she said. “You’ll be useful if you listen.”
They stocked gloves and restocked tissues in waiting rooms, the quietest form of mercy. They wheeled a cart of water down halls where fear tastes like metal. They learned to use their voices at doors: “Knock, knock—volunteer.” They learned the difference between doing and trying to be seen doing.
I watched from a distance and did not give them credit out loud. Credit is cheap. Hours are the currency.
Tech built a private compliance log the court could audit—dates, times, signatures, a redacted note when a patient’s family wanted to say thank you but not be a prop. The ADA set monthly check-ins. The detective reminded everyone that “voluntary” is a legal word with teeth if you chew it wrong.
Somewhere else, the internet kept being itself. New edits of the clip kept appearing with sharper arrows and duller hearts. A few good people started posting what we actually needed: How to call 911. How to keep a person talking. What to say to a panicked family member. Where to take a first-aid class. Tech collected those links to send to the ADA for that dry public page that saves lives one boring paragraph at a time.
That night, Tom asked about the training. I told him the count out loud, the surprise in a boy’s face when he realized care is manual labor. Tom smiled without showing teeth. “Good,” he said. “Let them be tired from the right work.”
He asked for pancakes in present tense, which made his wife laugh and then cry. She held his hand and told him the judge’s rails. He nodded. “Law over likes,” he whispered, and it sounded like a blessing.
Day two, hour eight: the boys folded gowns and learned that dignity happens in details. Hour twelve: the smallest boy carried a tray into a waiting room and a grandmother touched his sleeve and said “thank you, sweetheart” in a voice that turned apology into assignment.
Hour fifteen: the tall boy cleaned a spill without being asked and looked nobody in the eye because sometimes the right thing is better without witnesses.
On hour eighteen, the wobble came again.
An “influencer” messaged a parent offering a platform for “the boys’ side.” The parent, still raw, almost said yes. Counsel intercepted with the judge’s order toned in bold. The parent wrote back: We cannot and will not speak. Our kids will do the work quietly. The influencer posted a subtweet anyway. Rails held.
The ADA filed the modified release with the restorative addendum attached. The judge initialed the margins like someone drawing stitches. Defense counsel sent a copy to every adult in both houses and highlighted the word proxy three times.
We met that evening at the community center to rehearse the school program that would happen only when Tom was strong enough. No slogans. No trauma porn. Just a plain outline: call first, secure the scene, speak to the person by name, document for responders (not for likes), stay until help arrives. Tom’s line would be last: “That person you see is someone’s everything.”
Bear insisted we add a slide nobody wants to see: What Not To Do. No crowding. No speculation. No filming faces without consent. No posting plates. No guessing names. “Put the internet down,” he said. “Pick up the person.”
Hour twenty-two: the third boy helped a volunteer set up chairs for a blood drive. He asked how many pints made a day easier. “Every one,” the volunteer said. He signed up for the next appointment he could.
Hour twenty-six: the smallest boy stood outside the trauma entrance with a cart of blankets and learned that a warm rectangle can be the difference between shaking from fear and shaking from cold. He learned to say “I’ve got you” and mean nothing else by it.
That night, the detective called with a calm update. “Preliminary charges remain,” she said. “Your logs look solid. I appreciate the no-post compliance.” She hesitated. “There’s one more thing.”
A screenshot arrived on Tech’s phone. It was an “urgent fundraiser” page using Tom’s full name, a cropped photo from the hospital, and a QR code that led somewhere that did not belong to any patient advocacy office. The caption dripped syrup. The money ticker rolled fast.
My stomach went cold in a way sirens never made it. The page had a familiar rhythm: big words, small receipts, an owner with a username that sounded like a cause and a handle that had raised money for three different “families” this week.
Bear read it once and put his cup down so gently the table didn’t notice. “We’re not chasing that in public,” he said. “We report, we verify, we post one dry thing from the official page, and we ask the platform to freeze it.”
Tech had already filed the fraud report with receipts—a hospital note saying no fundraising had been authorized, the case page we’d built with zero donation links, the detective’s badge number in the subject line. The ADA emailed the platform’s legal inbox with the kind of sentence that makes review teams sit up straighter.
Tom’s wife looked at the screenshot and closed her eyes like a person hearing static on a channel that should hold a song. “Tell them to stop,” she said, soft but fierce. “Tell the world to stop putting their hands in this.”
I drafted the only post that fit our rules and our hearts. There is no authorized fundraiser for Mr. Avery. Please do not donate to links circulating online. If you would like to help, donate blood locally, learn first aid, or write a thank-you card to your nearest ER. We will share any verified needs through the hospital only.
We scheduled it, dry as toast, for the morning update. The detective called the platform again and said the word fraud slow enough to make it heavier.
Outside the hospital windows, the town glowed the way towns do when everyone’s screens are brighter than their porches. Inside, Tom slept with his hand on the rail like he was holding something in place. The boys finished hour twenty-eight and went home to curfews and quiet.
I stared at the fake page and watched the counter jump. It felt, for a moment, like watching a different kind of hit-and-run—no screech, no glass, just strangers skimming compassion and calling it a cause.
Bear looked over my shoulder and didn’t blink. “Tomorrow,” he said, “we start pulling that down, piece by piece.”
He checked the time, then the door to Tom’s room, then the message thread where the judge’s initials sat like small guardrails you could trust.
“Law over likes,” he said again, and this time it sounded less like a blessing and more like a plan.
The fundraiser ticked upward. Tech’s cursor hovered over Report Submitted. The official post sat in the queue, plain as a bandage. And somewhere, a dozen well-meaning people were about to share the wrong link with the right hearts.
We had our next fire. And we were going to put it out without burning the house.
Part 8 – Fixing the Feed
Morning made the fake fundraiser look bigger, not truer.
The counter jumped like a bad heartbeat.
Tech’s report receipts were lined up, time-stamped, boring in all the ways that save people.
Bear poured coffee and said, “We pull this down without lighting anything else on fire.”
The official update went live at eight.
No emojis, no exclamation points, no links to wallets.
There is no authorized fundraiser for Mr. Avery. Please do not donate to links circulating online. If you want to help: donate blood locally, take a first-aid class, or write a thank-you card to your nearest ER.
Moderation sat in the comments like a quiet bouncer.
By nine, the platform acknowledged our fraud ticket.
A message arrived that read like a shrug wrapped in policy.
“Under review.”
Tech forwarded the detective’s letter and the hospital’s line: no fundraising authorized, keep billing through normal channels only.
We called the number on the fake page.
It played a loop that sounded like sincerity on sale.
The detective took it from there, voice even, pen ready.
“Please preserve payment records,” she said. “We will need them.”
At ten, a community health center messaged our page.
They offered a block of free first-aid seats if we could fill them by the end of the month.
We posted the sign-up with the same dry tone we used for everything else.
“Spots limited. No pictures in class.”
The boys showed up for hour twenty-nine in hospital volunteer vests that didn’t flatter anyone.
They stocked cups and carried blankets and learned that kindness is heavy when you do it for more than five minutes.
The smallest boy practiced saying “knock knock—volunteer” until it sounded like a promise instead of a question.
The tall one avoided mirrors and did the mopping without being asked.
By noon, the fraud page was “temporarily hidden pending review.”
Two clones appeared with different avatars and the same pitch.
Tech filed the same paperwork again and again.
Bear kept us from blasting them publicly; he kept the family from seeing more than they had to.
In the waiting room, a stranger stopped me.
She pressed a folded card into my palm.
“For the veteran,” she said. “No names. Just thanks.”
I put it in the folder with the ER’s address and the blood donation map.
A local paper called about a quote.
I gave them the sentence we give everyone.
“We do not comment while a case is active. Please encourage readers to support hospitals, donate blood, and take first-aid classes.”
They printed it exactly, because good editors know that quiet can be news.
At two, a school district emailed the ADA.
If Mr. Avery wanted it, they would host a safety assembly when he was strong enough.
No clips would be shown.
They wanted students to hear a person, not watch a spectacle.
Tom slept through lunch and woke to the sound of his wife laughing at the coffee.
He asked for the simplest update.
“Rails holding?” he said.
“Rails holding,” I answered, and handed him the card from the stranger.
He tucked the card under his cup like a good-luck coin.
Then he asked if the boys were “tired from the right work yet.”
I told him about the blankets and the cart and the way one kid learned to count compressions out loud.
He nodded and closed his eyes like he was saving that picture.
The detective stopped by with real news.
The original fraud page had been suspended by the platform.
Funds were frozen, complaints were logged, and an investigator would contact donors for refunds.
“Clones keep popping up,” she admitted. “We keep filing. Law is slower than links.”
Bear met with hospital admin to put a verification line on their bulletin board.
No fundraising authorized for this patient. All financial matters handled directly with the hospital.
Paper on a wall is still the best algorithm some days.
The volunteer at the desk circled the line with a pink highlighter like a spell.
At four, Tech pushed a new page to our tiny site.
“Verification Keys,” it said, and listed two sentences that would appear on any real update.
Law over likes.
Pick up help first.
Copycats don’t copy humility well.
The boys’ hour thirty-four landed at the blood drive.
They unfolded chairs and set out cookies and watched people give without asking for a camera.
The third boy asked how many pints made a difference.
“Every one,” the volunteer said, which is the kind of math a heart understands.
A parent forwarded us a message from an “influencer” asking to “platform redemption.”
Counsel answered with the order, the rails, the word proxy underlined.
The influencer posted a vague thread anyway.
We didn’t bite.
That evening, we rehearsed the school outline again in a community room that smelled like industrial cleaner and art supplies.
No slogans, no slow-mo, no heroic fonts.
Just steps a teenager could memorize before panic took their hands.
Call first. Secure the scene. Speak to the person by name. Stay until help arrives.
Bear added a slide nobody cheers for: What Not To Do.
No crowding. No guesses. No filming faces. No posting plates.
A teacher previewed it and said, “Please include ‘Don’t prank call 911’.”
We added it because reality isn’t picky.
The ADA arrived with the restorative agreement printed on letterhead.
The judge had initialed the margins, neat as stitching.
Monthly check-ins. Verified hours.
A line in plain language: No content. No exceptions.
Tom’s wife read the line twice and exhaled.
“Thank you,” she said, to no one in particular and to everyone within reach.
The ADA smiled with tired eyes.
“Boring wins,” she said. “I wish it trended.”
In the lobby, a tiny scene unfolded that glued the day together.
A boy about the same age as our three walked in with his mother.
He carried a laminated card from our site—Call 911, then these steps—and asked where he could take a class.
His mother squeezed his shoulder like she was memorizing the shape of it.
At six, the platform finally emailed the detective: “Fraud page permanently removed, funds held pending claims.”
A second message followed: “We are monitoring for clones.”
No apology, just action.
Sometimes that’s enough.
We posted one more dry update and closed the comments for the night.
Fraudulent pages have been removed. Please continue to avoid links and focus on local help.
A few people complained about “censorship.”
Most people said, “Okay,” and booked a training slot.
The boys ended hour thirty-eight by wiping down chairs and stacking them in rows like a quiet skyline.
No selfies.
No proof for the internet.
Just initials in a log and a nurse’s thank-you that would never trend.
Right before sunset, the district wrote back with dates.
Tom was medically cleared for a short appearance next week if he felt up to it.
They offered the auditorium, a microphone, and a promise: no video in, no video out.
The boys would attend in the back row, with their parents, with their sleeves rolled.
I read the email aloud in the waiting room.
Tom listened with his eyes closed and a smile that was more relief than pride.
“Fifteen minutes,” he said. “That’s all I have in me and all they need.”
His wife nodded like a captain agreeing with a map.
Tech’s screen flashed a different kind of alert.
A new compilation account had uploaded an edit of the crash with captions aimed at the school, the time, the place.
“Show the truth,” the caption said, pretending it didn’t mean “show the worst.”
The view counter moved like weather.
We didn’t announce the assembly time publicly.
The district sent it directly to parents and locked the doors behind RSVP.
Security would stand by the exits the way good ushers do—visible, boring, kind.
Bear reminded everyone to pack patience and water.
That night, the smallest boy emailed the ADA a paragraph he’d written without help.
No excuses. No flourishes.
He asked to be allowed to speak for sixty seconds at the assembly, if Tom agreed, to say one sentence to people his age: Put the phone down first.
He added, “I don’t want to be seen. I want the sentence to be.”
Tom read the email in the blue light of a machine that ticked like a tiny metronome.
He looked at his wife and then at me.
“If I can stand,” he said, “I want him to stand beside me.”
He closed his eyes, not to sleep, but to keep the picture still.
Near midnight, the platform took down the compilation account that had targeted the school.
A new one appeared, smaller, sloppier, tired already.
Tech filed the same forms again.
Law is slower than links, but rails are stronger than a sprint.
We ended the day the way decent days end—by writing down what went right.
No one donated to a fake page after noon.
Three boys finished ten more hours without filming anyone’s pain.
A stranger signed up for a class because a dry paragraph told her how.
I turned off the lights over our little table and felt the fatigue that comes from pushing boulders uphill with gentle hands.
Bear checked the door locks like a ritual.
Tech set alarms for morning like a person who believes in sunrises.
The hallway smelled like lemon cleaner and hope that wasn’t trying to impress anyone.
As I left, my phone buzzed with the district’s final note.
Assembly confirmed.
Fifteen minutes for Mr. Avery.
We’ll make room for one sentence from a student—if Mr. Avery says yes.
I stood in the empty parking lot and let the night breathe.
Somewhere, a clone link was already growing back.
Somewhere else, an instructor was laying out manikins for a morning class that would teach a dozen kids to count out loud.
And somewhere in between, a gym was getting swept for an assembly where truth would try to sit still for fifteen minutes.
In my pocket, Tom’s four lines rustled like a small flag.
Accountability without spectacle. Learning without applause. Rails that teach hands. Quiet strong enough to hold a life.
Tomorrow we would walk into a room full of teenagers and ask them to choose help over heat.
And the next day, we’d find out if the internet could bear to watch nothing spectacular happen and call it good.
