Tom inched his head up a little higher so he could see what the woman was staring at. A jolt rocked through him as he was finally able to discern the entire picture. There was a white kid, a tall one, lying unmoving on the ground.
He managed to inch himself back into the parking structure. He raced up the stairs to the second floor and pulled out his walky-talky.
“Control, this is Guard 4,” he said softly, trying to keep the niggers from hearing him and to keep the trembling out of his voice.
“Guard 4, this is Control. Go ahead.”
“There’s been a shooting outside of the west entrance of Parking Structure A!”
“Control to Guard 4, please repeat.”
“I said there’s been a shooting outside the west entrance of parking structure A. We need an ambulance and the police over here! There’s a man lying on the ground surrounded by a gang of folks. The victim is a white male. It looks a little bit like Kevin Hart. There’s a gang of n.... black people around him. They did it!
“Ten-four!”
Tom let go of the send button on the walky-talky and sat down on the top step to wait for the sound of the sirens.
Damn niggers! That’s what they get for letting them in a good school like this one.
Her mind...what mind? How could wit, intellect, knowledge of history, literature, and science stop this? How could her education, her doing well in school, her understanding of logic and foreign languages stop this? How
could her love for her family and friends stop this? How could her love for Kevin stop this? Her mind was useless to her. She felt it beginning to shut off.
It was only when she saw Kevin’s head move that she realized that the pool of blood was beneath his legs.
“Felice.”
Her paralysis was broken and she ran over to him.
“I’m here, hon.” She looked around to see, almost for the first time, that the fraternity brothers hadn’t fled and that Malik was beating the daylights out of one of them. It barely registered on her that it was Andre Carter.
“Malik! Kevin’s alive! Call an ambulance!”
She saw Malik stand up. As he turned to her, he let Andre’s unconscious form drop to the ground. He kicked it and then ran over to them. Felice noticed that his face was wet.
“Don’t worry, brother,” he said to Kevin, as he bent down opposite from Felice. “Somebody must have heard the shot because I hear an ambulance.”
A lone siren could be heard in the distance, but Felice thought she heard multiple car engines much closer. Then the sound ceased. Doors slamming and feet pounding against concrete became the dominant sounds. Then,
inevitably, there were the sounds of multiple gun bolts being cocked.
“Freeze, all of you! Police. All hands where we can see them!”
Felice looked around perplexed. Did they mean her? She didn’t want to leave Kevin. Then, suddenly, she had no choice.
“Get up! What? You think you’re too cute to get shot?” Felice turned toward the sneering male voice and came face-to-face with the barrel of a .44. In disbelief, she slowly stood up, raising her hands in the air, just like she had seen TV criminals do. They actually thought she had something to do with shooting Kevin!
The ambulance, after destroying much of NMU’s landscape in that area, screeched to halt, as the emergency medical technicians nearly simultaneously jumped out and ran to the rear of the vehicle. Within a few seconds, they were at Kevin’s side. Felice could hear them as they quickly went through their ‘ABCs,’ which she vaguely remembered from a CPR course she had taken in high school.
Please, God, don’t let him bleed to death.
The police had made Malik get up from Kevin’s side as well. About twelve police officers had surrounded the entire
group, herding them into a pack. Handcuffs were placed on every one of them, including Felice and a waking Andre Carter, who was in no shape to resist. Felice looked at the policewoman who placed her hands behind her back.
“We didn’t do anything,” she pleaded with the woman, as she inclined her head toward Malik. “He didn’t do anything! The one with the green shirt...he’s Kevin’s friend and I’m Kevin’s fiancée. We were trying to save him from the others.”
The woman was about to give her a sarcastic, disbelieving response, when one of the EMTs breathlessly approached them.
“Excuse me officer, but the patient is calling for a Felice LeCroix. He says she’s out here and that she’s his fiancée.”
“I’m Felice LeCroix.” The officer looked at her. Still, disbelief filled her face.
“Do you have some ID?”
“Yes. It’s in my backpack over there.” She gestured again with her head.
The woman seemed to take her time getting to the pack. Felice was frantic. The EMT gave her a sympathetic look.
“Will you get it out, already?” the EMT shouted. “He’s bleeding to death. We’ve got to get him outta here!”
The woman reached into the pack and slowly took out the wallet. Felice’s driver’s license was right in front.
“Felice,” the woman read slowly. “Le... it’s too dark. I can’t see this face.”
Her voice was sardonic. She walked up to another officer. “Can you see this face? Think that’s her?”
Before the other officer could reply, the EMT had located the sergeant of the group.
“Sergeant, one of your officers is endangering the life of the patient! Did you recognize the patient at all? It’s Kevin Hart and he’s calling for a Felice LeCroix, the woman that you guys have under arrest. Your officer seems to not want to let her go. She says her name is Felice LeCroix and your officer has her ID. I don’t know what your officer’s problem is, but I do know this: if he bleeds to death, I’ll make sure that everyone in New Mexico knows why!”
The sergeant sprang immediately to action.
“Williams,” he shouted at the policewoman. “What’s the hold up? Let me see that ID!” He trotted over to her, literally snatched the license from her hand and trained his flashlight on it.
“It’s her. Get the cuffs off her so she can go with the ambulance. Now!”
Williams took the cuffs off and Felice ran to the back of the ambulance. One of the EMTs tending to Kevin stuck out his hand and helped her in. Within less than a minute, siren blaring, the ambulance was on its way.
“I keep telling you I had nothing to do with this. The man that got shot was my friend.”
Malik sat being questioned in an interrogation room in the APD precinct closest to NMU. He had insisted on his innocence throughout the entire trip there and when that had no effect, he had begun insulting the officers, questioning their intelligence.
By the time the group had arrived at the precinct, all of the officers were tired of him. In lock-up, they had isolated him from the Taus, and now, one of the officers questioned him alone.
“Don’t try to get out of this,” the officer now said. “Your friends all said that you were with them,” he lied.
“Then they’re lying and they are not my friends,” Malik said vehemently. “They are the ones who ganged up on Kevin and they shot him. My other friend, Felice, the girl that went with the ambulance, and I had just walked up when they shot him.”
The officer hunched down directly in Malik’s face.
“Don’t give me that bullshit. All of you ganged up on him, for whatever reason. Maybe just because you found a lone, unprotected white boy, or maybe because he was getting himself some black pussy that you wanted.”
Malik had just about had enough. He put his face even closer.
“Look. Are you stupid or something?” he sneered. “All you have to do is ask anyone on campus or ask Felice or ask Kevin when he wakes up. I’m his best friend.”
“We’re asking you, stupid.”
“You police.” Malik’s voice had dropped to a calm and conversational tone. He stared unblinkingly into the man’s eyes.
“You’re all the same, whether i
t’s here or in Detroit. Can’t you hear? I told you what happened. All you see is my black face and it blocks your ears. That makes you think I’ve lied or stolen or tried to kill someone. I’ve told you the truth. If you can’t hear it, that’s your problem.”
This is going nowhere, thought McDuffy. This smart-mouthed nigger needs to be convinced that talking is in his best interest.
McDuffy looked at the suspect for a moment, receiving an equally straight gaze in return. Yeah, this one is too smart for his own good. He needs to be shown what he really is.
McDuffy stepped to the door of the room and opened it slightly.
“Walters, come on in,” he said softly.
The door opened wider as he stepped back. McDuffy watched as Hayes turned around to see what came next. He grinned at the fear that he saw in Hayes’ face. Then, after an instant, it was gone. Walters was six feet eight inches and close to three hundred pounds. McDuffy watched as Walters bore down on the suspect and reached out to slap him with his massive hand.
“What are you looking at, nigger,” the huge police officer roared. “I didn’t give you permission to look at me!”
Malik’s face felt as if someone had hit him with a boulder. He put his hand to the moistness he suddenly felt trickling from his nose. He looked at his hand. Blood.
The new officer was suddenly opposite of Malik, on the other side of the table. The man picked up the table and hurled it against the wall. Malik started to get up from the chair, but the man was lightning-quick for his size. Malik’s shoulders were gripped by two vise-like hands as he was slammed back onto the chair, nearly overturning it.
“Going somewhere? We’re not through talking.”
The man’s voice had dropped to a near-whisper. Malik sat as far back in the chair as he could. The man’s crotch was just about at the level of his nose.
“So you don’t want to cooperate with us. How about if I make you suck my dick? Think that’ll make you a little more talkative?” He grinned over McDuffy.
“I’ve told the other officer everything I know. I swear it’s the truth.”
Malik was struggling to keep the fear out of his voice. Suddenly he heard a voice in his head, one that he thought he recognized. Be strong. Be strong, little brother. It was...Alex. But how could it be? Alex was dead eight years. Murdered. Murdered by...by Detroit police officers.
Alex had been a gang member for sure, but on that night he had been doing nothing illegal--just hanging out on the corner with a couple of friends, not a block from his parents’ house.
The police had just walked up on him and shot him in the back of the head. They claimed he had pointed a gun at them but the witnesses—the ones who refused to talk to the police--had said that he had his hands in his pockets. No arrests were made and the officer who had done the shooting kept his job, and Malik’s mother lost her mind.
Malik’s fear died away. He looked up at the huge man’s eyes. They were brown and nearly opaque. There was not an ounce of hatred in them, not an ounce of anything in them--just the neutral eyes of someone doing his job, whatever that job might entail. His eyes had the impartiality of a corpse. Evil, thought Malik as if in greeting. This is evil; with a bare enough face for anyone to see.
The man lifted Malik off the chair by his neck. Malik grabbed at the man’s hand, struggling against his superior strength, to no avail. He tried to speak, but his trachea was nearly cut off.
Malik tried to break his fall as the man tossed him toward the wall. His slender body crashed against one of the legs of the table that had been tossed there. His legs suddenly began to feel numb. He coughed as breath returned to his body, then he looked up at those dead eyes again.
“Is that the best you can do?” Malik’s near breathlessness couldn’t hide the sneer in his voice.
“Us niggers are a little harder than that. Is the truth too hard for your monkey-mind to grasp? Fine. It’s still the truth and it won’t change just because you want it to. I told you I had nothing to do with the shooting. Beating the shit out of me won’t change it.”
The man cocked his head sideways at his quarry, as though a new tactic had suddenly jumped into his head.
Malik watched calmly as the man put his hand out to the other officer. The other officer pulled his nightstick off his belt.
There was one consuming thought in Malik’s head as his consciousness, his life, slipped from his grasp. All praise due to the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please let my Daddy get through this, dear Jesus Christ..
Please don’t let this break his....
Tale of the Tigers
Chapter Fifteen
Blackness was Kevin’s world, at least for the moment. He sensed that there was another world, the one in which he belonged. It was a world that he dreaded reentering, but it was his world, nonetheless. He struggled to find that other world, but it seemed as though his mind were trudging through a tar pit. His mind began to tire and he dissolved back into the peaceful blackness.
Kevin’s eyes opened wide. He was finally in that world, that terrible, horrible world. It was a world of whiteness; white walls, white sheets: a hospital. For nearly a minute, he
had no idea how he had arrived in that place or why he was there. Then, in a flash, he remembered. He had been shot.
He tried to bounce out of the bed, but some heavy burden was weighing him down. His large body rebounded and he banged his head slightly on the headboard.
He pushed the covers off himself and recognized his millstone as an old acquaintance. From hip to ankle, his left leg was encased in plaster. A frightening thought entered his head, but he pushed it away.
Where’s that damned button? But before he could find it, a nurse was opening the door.
“Hello, Mr. Hart. Glad to see your eyes opened. Do you remember what happened to you?”
“Yes. I was shot. Where are my father and my fiancée?”
“They’re right outside. I’ll get them for you.” The nurse left the room.
In a few seconds, the faces he most wanted to see were coming through the door. Herbert was red-eyed and looked like a man who hadn’t slept in days, but when he saw his son’s eyes open and directed at him, he smiled wide. Then he approached the bed, sat down, and kissed Kevin on the cheek, something that he hadn’t done in years.“Hi, Son.” Herbert’s voice was breaking.
“Hi, Dad. Felice?”
Felice stood a few feet from the bed. She looked at Herbert, as if asking for permission to come over.
“Come on, honey,” said Herbert. He got up and led her by the hand. Felice looked at Kevin as though he would disappear at any moment.
“Come on over here, girl. I don’t have all day,” Kevin smiled at her. She walked slowly over to the bed, sat on the edge of it and laid her head on his chest, as tears streamed down her face. Kevin curled her unruly hair around fingers of one hand.
Herbert watched them, trying to control his own tears. “I’ll leave you two alone for a moment.”
“Thanks. Daddy?” Kevin looked at his father, his voice that of small child.
“Yes, son?”
“I love you.”
The dam that Herbert had been trying to hold back broke.
“I love you, too, boy. You are my entire world.” He looked at Felice. “Take all the time you need, little girl. Time
is something that can’t be wasted. I’ll be back in a minute, son.”
“Okay, Daddy,” said Kevin. Herbert stepped through the door.
“Hey, now,” Kevin said softly as he raised her face up. “I’m alive. I’m all right.” He kissed her softly on the lips.
“Thank God. When that gun went off, I just knew you were dead. I didn’t even notice at first that the bastard had shot you in the leg. When Malik...,” her voice broke a bit. “When we walked up, the gun was pointed at your head.”
“I saw Trevor grab the guy’s arm just before he fired. Before that, Trevor had been trying to talk him out of shooting me. So, I guess I owe
him my life.”
“Don’t tell me that. Don’t try to make me feel anything but hatred for them,” spat Felice. “If they hadn’t ganged up on you in the first place...none of this would have happened!”
“But it’s the truth, baby. I’m sure the police want to talk to me and I’ll tell them that.”
“The police!” Felice sneered. Kevin saw another blaze of hatred in her eyes, one which seemed not to be directed at the Taus.
“Don’t look like that,” Kevin said softly. “You’re messing up a pretty face.”
“Kevin...” She was holding something back, something terrible.
“Football. I won’t be able to play anymore, will I?”
Felice sighed. “According to the doctors, they don’t know. But...they doubt it. Your thighbone was hit. You’re going to be in that cast for a while and after they take it off, there’s going to be some physical therapy. At least that’s what they told your dad.” She paused.
“There’s...”
Kevin put his head back on the pillow. “I guess I figured that out once I woke up and saw that thing on my leg. But I didn’t want to admit it to myself.” He sighed. What now?
“I guess Malik really will be paying for everything,” he went on. “Is he outside? Go get him for me, would you?”
At Felice’s silence, he lifted up his head and looked searchingly at her. There was something more, something worse, but he couldn’t fathom what it might be. What could be worse than his not being able to play football anymore?
“Felice, what’s wrong? Is there something else you need to tell me?”
“Malik’s dead, Kevin,” she whispered, the tears starting to stream anew. “They killed him,” she sobbed.
“What...what are you talking...?” His throat was suddenly as dry as the West Mesa. It seemed that his mouth no longer was able to work. “How...the Taus killed...how could they have...?”
“The police killed him, Kevin,” she poured out. “Just as we walked up on you and the Taus, Carter shot you. Malik rushed him and beat him senseless.” Her face was puffy and gray.
Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game Page 18