She didn't sound apologetic, he thought.

He hung up feeling as though he was heading to court without anyone on his side.

::

Davien could feel jurors' eyes crawling over his face. He stared ahead, focusing on the prosecutor, just as Schulze had recommended.

Davien, by then 20, shifted in his wheelchair on the stand, looking down at the gallery. He recognized Santana's mother. She and another son testified that Santana was home with them at the time of the shooting. It was their word against Davien's.

No one from Davien's family was there. He didn't tell them about the trial because he didn't want to put them at risk if gang members showed up.

He tried to clear his throat; his mouth was dry. In a court system that was handling more than 1,800 attempted murder cases, 600 of them gang-related, he felt lost.

He hoped jurors could read him, the way parents read a child. Jurors needed to see that he was no gangster. He just happened to be young and black and in the wrong place.

Surely the lone black juror, a woman staring at him from the front row, would understand.

Santana, 23, sat 15 feet away, slouching into a baggy dress shirt.

The prosecutor asked Davien to demonstrate how his attacker pointed the gun.

Davien extended his willowy arms, clasping his hands in the shape of a pistol. He winced. His back ached every time he bent his 6-foot-4-inch frame to the microphone.

"Where was it being pointed?" the prosecutor asked.

"At my face."

He could feel sweat spreading under his arms, wilting the new button-down shirt he had bought at Target for the trial.

"Did you see anyone in the car?" she asked.

"I saw a driver and a passenger," Davien said, without looking at Santana.

"Did you know who said, 'Hey, fool'?"

"The passenger," he said.

"Did you get a look at the passenger?"