The motion for bail reduction was filed in October 1997, but many long months dragged by before the appeals court finally turned down the request. During that time, Nick's frequent collect calls from the jail pay phone to speak to his aunt, his brother, his girlfriend, and his 7-year-old nephew became less and less frequent.
"We had phone bills like $600 and $800 a month," Phyllis says. "But I wrote to Nick and said, if it's the money, please don't worry about it. We just have to hear from you. We have to hear from you."
At the other end of the living room of Phyllis Jolly's house, listening to her tell the story of the months when he didn't call, Nick drops his head and shakes it slowly back and forth. "It just got to where it was so bad in there, talking to people outside just made it worse."
Ultimately, the case against him fell apart under its own weight. Robert Dark claims it fell apart because Helena Ceaser failed to show up for key appointments and even for court hearings. She says that's a lie: She told Channel 4 she was ready to testify any day Dark wanted her to.
Whatever the details may be, until the case against him collapsed, Nick Jolly had to lie on that bunk in the 30-man tank in the North Tower of Lew Sterrett for the first 14 months of his adult life after high school and wonder what in the hell had happened to him.
"That's the question I sleep on every night," he says. "I wonder, Why me? She's been knowing me since grade school. Her brother who got killed, him and me were friends. We had never had no confrontations or nothing. We were just friends."
Pacing around his aunt's living room, gesturing broadly with his hands, Nick Jolly says, "When you're a fresh high school graduate, you're just starting to get your thoughts together, your frame of life. And I'm lying up there thinking about it. It seems like the justice system works against every young male minority. They can just take you and do whatever they want to with you."
Just in case Nick Jolly foolishly thought his nightmare ended the day they finally sent him home, the police came around and paid him a little visit a day later. They hauled him out of a friend's car and told him he was under arrest for those pesky traffic violations they'd arrested him on in the first place.
Holding a wrist out tentatively, he shows the scar where they clamped the cuffs down hard on him. "They said, 'We just let you out for a little bit, Jolly. Now we're taking you back where you belong.'"
As soon as he got before a judge, the judge agreed that 14 months in jail probably could be considered more than enough time already served for his traffic violations, and he was sent home again. But the lesson was clear. Whether the case against him was ever good or not, whether he was guilty or innocent, none of that mattered. Now, by beating it, he had pissed off the system.
"I honestly think the Dallas Police Department wants to get me so bad, they would have someone plant something on me," he says. "They got me so scared, if someone tried to break in my house, I'd be afraid to call the police, because they might come and take me to jail. That's why I just stay at home and try to keep to myself.
"I can't get a job. I went to a plant the other day with a friend. They hired him and not me. Later that evening, my name came up on the news again.
"I got the big picture now. The system is dirty. It's corrupt. The Dallas Police Department is dirty, and I honestly think they want to pull me down to their level. But I'm a strong man. Just because the system is corrupt, I'm not going to let it corrupt me.
"I just want people to know how I feel. I feel like I'm an animal, trapped inside a cage. I'm free, but I'm not free.
