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The red, white and blue Trailways bus pulled out of Bangor
on a snowy Sunday just after 7 a.m.
Bus 909 was Boston-bound.
It was the start of a two-day trip to Baltimore for Yong Jones.
It also promised the end of an even longer journey that she
had begun four years earlier. Soon she would learn if her son's
stolen soul could finally rest in peace.
James Langhorne, the man accused of shooting Yong's 24-year-old
son during a robbery, would go on trial in two days. Yong believed
that if Langhorne were convicted, her son's spirit would no
longer be damned to wander between Heaven and Hell waiting for
his murder to be avenged.
As the bus rumbled south on Interstate 95 to Boston, Yong thought
about how her son died. How the bullet entered his left eye
at a downward angle. A Baltimore homicide detective had told
her her son may have been kneeling when he was shot.
She could not drive the image from her mind. Was he begging
for his life? Was he struggling with his attacker? Above: Yong
Jones clutches the locket she carries containing a college graduation
picture of her slain son, Laurence Jones Jr. The memento comforted
Yong on her journey to Baltimore to attend the trial of the
man accused of shooting her son in 1993.
She stared vacantly at the black ribbon of road stretching before
her. A gold, heart-shaped locket hung around her neck. Inside
was a photograph of her son, smiling in his blue, college-graduation
gown.
She squeezed the locket, thinking of the 600 miles that separated
her from Baltimore and her son's soul.
Somewhere south of Portland, Yong began to feel nausea. She
headed down the bus aisle to the bathroom. Her younger sister,
Yong Im Chung, and Yong Im's son, Jea, watched as she slowly
stepped to the back of the bus.
Yong Im stared at her boots. Yong was her only surviving sibling.
Their brother, Wonhee, had died of pleurisy soon after the Korean
War.
Now Yong Im worried that her older sister would soon die, too.
She was certain a verdict of ''not guilty'' would kill Yong.
Please let my sister live, she asked God.
Jea gazed out the window, alone in his thoughts. He anxiously
awaited his first glimpse of the man accused of murdering his
cousin. Jea and Larry Jones Jr. had spent so much time together
growing up that they were more like brothers than cousins. Jea
wished Maryland still had public hangings. He believed Langhorne
deserved to be strung up in the city square. Above: In the weeks
before James Langhorne's murder trial, Yong Jones grew increasingly
worried that the man accused of shooting her son would be found
"not guilty."
Four hours after they left Bangor, Jea, his mother and aunt
waited at Boston's South Station to board a bus headed for New
York. They looked for Brenda Lawson, Yong's close friend. Brenda
had traveled from her Winterport home the day before, staying
the night with a friend in Boston to break up the long trip.
Years ago Brenda had taken a bad fall, injuring her knees. She
now used a cane to walk and suffered constant pain in her legs.
Though it would be excruciating for her to sit in a cramped
bus seat for 10 hours, she wanted to do it for Yong. Over the
past four years, Brenda had spent hundreds of hours comforting
Yong and helping her keep the pressure on the Baltimore police
while they investigated Larry's murder.
She wasn't about to abandon her friend now. Like Yong, Brenda
had to see this journey to its end.
Just after 12:30 p.m. the bus pulled out of South Station, bound
for New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal.
Later that night, as millions of football fans watched the Super
Bowl match between the Denver Broncos and the Green Bay Packers,
Yong, her sister and Brenda left their hotel and walked toward
West 38th Street for dinner at a Korean restaurant.
Yong ate most of her beef soup and nibbled on rice and spicy
Korean vegetables. After dinner, she pressed her chest and grimaced.
On the walk back to the hotel, she suddenly covered her mouth
and bent to the gutter, releasing her dinner. ''Oh, no,'' she
murmured, as her sister grabbed her arm, helping her to stand.
Less than 20 steps later, Yong leaned to the gutter again. ''Oh,
Lord,'' Brenda said quietly. ''I don't know how she's stayed
alive. She can't keep anything down anymore.''
The three of them, Yong held up by her sister, Brenda hobbling
on her cane, made their way past the yellow-bricked St. Francis
of Assisi Church. A likeness of the saint ascending to heaven
stared down at the trio. Slowly they walked back to the hotel.
The next morning Yong tried to sleep while the bus headed toward
Baltimore. Early in the afternoon, the bus passed a green highway
sign that read ''Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University.''
Yong thought of the prestigious school and her son's hope of
getting his master's degree in psychology there. Three months
after he moved from Bangor to Baltimore to pursue his dream,
he was shot and killed.
The bus pulled into the Baltimore terminal. Yong clutched the
railing as she wobbled unsteadily off the bus. Brenda watched
her and shook her head. ''Her iron will is the only thing that
has kept her going,'' she said.
Yong handed her bags to a cab driver and gave him the name of
their hotel. She gasped and tried to stifle her sobs as the
cabbie drove toward downtown. The bewildered driver handed her
a paper towel to dry her eyes.
''My whole life is in this city,'' she said, dabbing at the
stream of tears rolling down her cheeks. Yong's sister sat quietly
by her side, wiping away her own tears.
As the city's skyline loomed closer, Yong asked the driver:
''Do you know which building is Johns Hopkins University?''
''No,'' he said. ''Sorry.''
''It's OK,'' she answered in a thin, empty voice.
Yong stared out the window at the tall glass buildings that
glittered in the afternoon sun. ''I think my son's soul is
floating around here somewhere,'' she whispered. ''I think
he knows I'm coming.''
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