by Kim Purcell
“What do you think’s happened to him?”
I swallow. I could just walk right past her into my house. But then I think of the police, who “don’t have the resources” to look for a kid like you. Johnson’s cold blue eyes. How you winced when I put the ice pack on your ribs.
“I think he was attacked,” I say. “He was jumped a few weeks ago in the same place, same time, same everything, because he’s black.”
She shoves the microphone into my face. “You really think this might be a hate crime?”
“Yes.” My voice cracks.
Her fake eyelashes blink twice. “Well, why did those boys beat him up last time?” Like it’s your fault.
“One of them, a guy named Dave Johnson, was jealous. He didn’t get scouted, and he was mad at Chris because he did, so he beat the crap out of him.” I’m trying to speak calmly, but all I can see is your swollen face that day at your house, and the words spill out. “It was five guys to one. They broke his ribs, beat his face up real bad.”
“How awful.” Her voice oozes fake sympathy. “But that doesn’t mean it was racially motivated. Or a hate crime. It sounds like boys being boys.”
“What?” No joke, I want to tell her where to shove that microphone, but I think of you, how you’d say that’s not going to help, and I hold back. “That’s not true. They called him the N-word. They’ve been harassing him for months. That’s not boys being boys. That’s racism, straight up. You can even talk to another guy, one of his best friends, Tim Pinochet? He’s a member of the Lummi Nation? He said when he played the Heights, they were always saying things about him, too, when the ref couldn’t hear. Guys like that, they want to put people in their place. Johnson couldn’t stand it that Chris was better than him after playing for three years when he’d been playing his whole life. He told Chris he got scouted because he’s black, not because he’s good. He tried to tell him that he wasn’t that special, even though he is.” I blink away some tears. “He really is.”
She makes sympathetic noises. “I’m sure he is, sweetie. But this is a pretty serious allegation. It sounds like they were jealous of Chris. You really think it was racism?” She’s holding her breath, hoping I’ll say something even more “shocking.”
“Nobody ever thinks they’re racist. Doesn’t mean they’re not going to lose their shit when a black guy’s better than them in baseball, better at school, better in every way.”
She’s not buying it. “He’s not exactly defenseless, is he?”
What the hell does that mean? Blood drips out of my eyes. Words shoot out of my mouth, like darts, as I rage at this woman about racism, about her racism in particular, about how she better not try and justify the horrible things they did to you.
Bloodhound Blondie waves her hands. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
I stop talking. Holy crap. I didn’t mean it like that.
That’s what I told myself when I called you an animal. I know about the history of black oppression, I know how white people treated African Americans like animals during slavery, and yet, somehow, this is the word that I grabbed. Like a kitchen knife resting on the table, I reached for it and I stabbed it into you. I should have apologized right away. I am so sorry.
I’m not better than this woman. I’m not better than anyone. In fact, I’m worse. Because I love you and I still called you an animal. I would have said it to a white guy—in fact, I have said it to white guys—but you aren’t white, and I still said it. At that moment, it was the first word that entered my brain. Why was that? Why didn’t I stop myself? Why didn’t I say sorry?
If you come back, baby, I’ll do anything to make it up to you.
“Phew,” she says to my silence. “I’m just saying, logistically, could those boys have seriously harmed him, you know, because he’s a physically large person?”
Beth walks up to the fence, grips it in her hands. “Jessie, you don’t have to talk to them.”
“He doesn’t believe in violence. They could easily have thrown him in the river,” I say, quietly, glancing at Beth.
Her eyes look sad. Her cigarette shakes in her hand.
“Jessie!” Steph is stumble-running across the street in her big-ass slippers. Yep. She’s worried. “Where the fuck have you been?” Her hair is piled up on top of her head, and her makeup is a mess. “I’ve been calling and calling you,” she says, ignoring the cameras. “I was so worried.”
I hug her back and then look at the reporter. “I’m done.”
“That’s a wrap,” she says, like she made the decision to stop. She turns to her camera guy. “We can still get it on the eleven o’clock if we hurry.”
The scraggly-haired camera guy lowers the camera and looks in my eyes for the first time. “You take care.” He gives me a quick smile, and then looks away, like he’s embarrassed, and he follows the reporter lady, who’s already taking fast steps back toward the white van.
“Thanks,” I say to Beth, as we pass her. She nods and takes a drag from her cigarette.
We walk around the house. Steph wraps her arm around me. “What the hell were you doing down there so late?”
“Steph. I think he might be dead.” That word is heavy.
She guides me toward the back door. “He’s not dead.”
“We have to find out if Dave Johnson can whistle,” I say.
She looks at me like I’m crazy. “What are you talking about?”
11 PM Sunday, the news
Steph is pressed beside me on my old sofa, watching the television. The news is about to come on. We’re scarfing down frozen pizza that I heated up in the microwave, and it’s not bad. I feel like I haven’t eaten in days.
“Lots of people can’t whistle,” Steph says.
“But it eliminates people.”
That commercial you love with the babies dancing in the mirror comes on. I picture you dancing beside the TV, being a goof. You like to make fun of your awkward dance moves, your snaps, your stiff side to side. I love that about you. You say you love my wild dancing too. I hear your voice now: “Baby, you move your body in all the right ways.”
The Komo 4 music plays. You’re the lead story.
They have your graduation photo, probably from the website. The anchor, Betty Jenkins, is saying a bunch of nice things about you. You’re a straight-A student, a popular kid, set to go to North Carolina State University on a baseball scholarship. But she doesn’t say what a good kisser you are.
My stomach is in knots. She cuts to a shot of our school and goes to that reporter woman who’s speaking so fast, she sounds excited. “Christopher Kirk went missing on Friday night. He told his mother he was going for a run, but he didn’t make it home.”
Then I’m on that damn little TV screen with my helmet. You can’t see my bike, so I look like the kind of person who needs a helmet.
Under my name, it says Former Girlfriend like a scarlet letter. Oh my god, I’m so mad. “Fuck you,” I yell.
And then, I’m talking on that little TV screen—no, I’m raging on—about the racism in this town.
Oh my god. My eyes look wild. I wish I could put up a disclaimer that I haven’t slept in forty hours. Maybe it’s superficial of me—yes, it’s definitely completely and totally superficial of me—but it’s brutal watching myself on television. My voice is higher and I look fatter. They say a camera adds ten pounds, but it’s more like thirty. I know you’d disagree, but the evidence is right there. My lip is quivering when I talk and truly, I can barely watch it. Do I really go around town looking like that? When it switches to Josh, I can finally breathe. My face is hot, no joke. He looks straight in the camera, calm and clear. “Chris, if you’re listening to this, just call and let us know that you’re okay.”
Tamara is next. Telling her goddamn story about the fence. “He came by the barbecue, looked over the fence at me, and said he’d see me later.” Her face screws up into a butthole, then she goes on, “Something must have happened.”
Then it’s
Tim, and he backs me up, agreeing that people of color experience racism in this town. “I’m from the Lummi tribe.” There’s a cut, like they did some editing. “People call us names, sure.” His face twists angrily. “No doubt Chris faced it too, worse even. Maybe he headed back to Brooklyn. I would have, if I were him. But maybe it’s something else.”
Then your dad is on that screen. He has the same jawline as you. Different eyes. I’ve always thought your dark eyes with those long eyelashes were just like your mom’s. He says some stuff about how they’re hoping for the best. If anyone has information, please come forward, and then he says, “Chris, son, if you’re listening, we miss you. We love you. Please come home.”
Oh man. You would have loved to hear your dad say that. You would have loved to be here to see him. I close my eyes and try to get some mind-reading action happening. Get home fast. Your dad’s here!
Detective McFerson gives the number to call for tips and says anyone who wants to join the search tomorrow can meet at the parking lot out by Matheson at nine in the morning.
Now the reporter is talking into her microphone in front of my house, like they always do with the tragedy behind, only the tragedy apparently is our sad, ragged lawn with that damn tire.
“Police aren’t saying they suspect foul play, but there have been accusations of racism in Pendling and he was recently attacked in the area where he went running.” She finishes with some trite thing about how the search is continuing for one African American kid in this white community.
It bugs me how she said nothing about you, who you really are, how you’re the best listener I’ve ever known, how you’re kinder than most people deserve, how you have principles that you stand up to, even when it doesn’t help you. She doesn’t talk about how you smile every time I walk into a room or how you can run your hand along the curve of my neck and calm me down in the middle of a tirade. I need you to do that now. Oh my god, I miss you.
After you, there’s a story about fighting in Syria. You were before Syria.
“You did it.” Steph bumps me with her shoulder. “You got your search.”
It’s hard to feel reassured, though. I mean, we’re searching for you in the friggin woods—after two days, you’re either dead or nearly dead.
“Can you believe she said I was his ex-girlfriend?” I say.
“She’s an idiot.” Steph gives me a quick smile.
“Did I sound crazy? You can tell me. For real.”
She takes in a deep breath and holds it. Then she says, “You sounded great. Don’t worry. You did a good job.”
I frown at her. Why is she acting like this?
“It’ll help,” she says. “I’m just worried, like, how people will react about the racist stuff. You know how people are about this town.”
“Whatever.” Maybe she thinks I looked like a freak, but if it helps, I don’t care. I’d do anything to get you back.
Steph lets out a big old yawn, stretching her arms.
“You should go home,” I say. “Sleep.”
“Nah,” she says. “I’m staying here.”
She’s the twelve-hour-sleep queen. “Go,” I say. “You’ll be miserable if you don’t get your sleep. I’m fine.”
“You sure?” She grabs my shoulders and stares into my eyes. I put on my most “fine” face. Finally, she says, “Okay, I believe you. I’m going.” She throws her arms around me, squeezes my guts out. “You call me if you need me—for anything. I’m leaving my phone on.” Then she steps over the mounds of crap to exit my house.
But when she’s gone, I miss her. I’m not fine. It’s too quiet without her. I look down at my phone and read a text from Josh.
He writes: Chris is going viral
12:11 AM Monday, trolls
Holy crap. I stare down at the screen. Josh is right. Social media is going crazy. All the online news sites are talking about you. You’re trending.
I get another message from Josh: Our website crashed
Me: Oh no
Josh: Ok now…I had to up the hosting
The headlines are: “Missing Black Teen Athlete in Small White Town,” “Superstar Athlete Missing,” “African American Baseball Star Feared Dead,” “Missing Black Teen Suffered Harassment.”
I look at my email and the protest organizer, Steve, has emailed me back and he said he contacted everyone he knew. They’re tweeting about you. He’s going to come out and help search for you too.
Are you somewhere looking at the coverage online? Do you see #chriskirk? You’re famous. But you got lots more moments of fame ahead of you. This isn’t your ten minutes of fame.
I start tweeting all the amazing things about you, so there’s more than you being the possible victim of a hate crime. You are so much more than what these people may have done to you.
I look at my notifications. It’s exploding. I got, like, a hundred retweets, and a bunch of follows. I read through the notifications. My gut clenches. Some people are saying horrible things. About you. About me.
My heart hammers in my chest. I feel scared. I feel unsafe in my own home. I don’t understand. How can they climb into my computer, say these things about me and you? They don’t even know us.
Josh: You should go offline
Me: Why are people like this?
Me: They can fuck themselves
Josh: You can’t win this
I type back to the trolls and call them racist pigs, horrible human beings, your-mother insults. I’m not really taking the high road, I admit it, but they are slimeballs. They type back. It gets more vicious. I think of how you said violence begets violence, hate begets hate.
My phone rings.
It scares me so bad, I let out a short scream.
Fuck. I reach for my phone. My hands are shaking. I look down at the screen. It’s Steph. I push TALK.
“I was just thinking”—her voice is all high-pitched and scared, like she knows—“maybe you want to sleep over at my house tonight?”
I haven’t slept at her house in ages, and it feels weird. Even when we were younger, most of the time she slept at my house. As disgusting as it is, my house has always been the good house.
I look down at my laptop, at people, mostly white men, who are writing all kinds of horrible racist and sexist things to me. If you read what they’re saying, you’re going to want to give up those nonviolent principles. Part of me wants to beg her to come back, spend the night here with me, but she sounds scared enough already.
“Steph, I told you, I’m fine.”
“Okay,” she says. “But I’m leaving my phone on.”
We hang up and I look down at the responses. At one in particular.
Yur dead
If you were here, we’d laugh about the spelling, but you’re not. So it’s kind of scary. At least these people don’t know where I live. I’m more worried about my backpack. If that whistler guy returns, he can see my ID.
Our home phone rings. I think it’s Steph, so I pick it up. “I told you, I’m fine.”
“Bitch.” It’s a low growl.
I slam the receiver down.
Holy crap. Our phone is unlisted. I jump up. My mom isn’t much for comforting me, but she’s here at least. How did he get my phone number? Is that the whistler? What if he’s outside? What if he found my backpack, and knows where I live? The goddamn keys are in it.
I sneak up the stairs, into my mom’s room.
My heart is thumping. I want to wake her up. I want to crawl in next to her, like I used to do, when I was little. I want to snuggle in next to her warm body and breathe in the smell of baby powder. I want her to tell me it’s going to be okay.
“Mom?” I whisper.
She’s not moving. What if she’s dead?
My voice sirens out of me. “Mom?”
She groans, shifts in her sleep, rolling under her sheet. But she doesn’t wake up. Must have taken sleeping pills.
Outside, a car alarm starts to beep. It’s the neighbor’s car on th
e street. Is someone out there? We live on a dead-end street. Why would anyone be out there now? What if the whistler guy breaks into our house? He’d probably kill himself trying to kill us. Well, he’d kill my mom. She’s a sleeping duck. But I could just hide under a pile of crap.
Dad said he was going to leave the gun, that it would be in the closet, in the back, on the right-hand side. The closet is blocked by stacks of clothes and linens higher than my head.
It’s hard to see in here. The light from the hall creeps into the room, but all these piles block it. I heave stuff away from the closet doors and finally crack them open.
I reach up to the top shelf of the closet. Around the back. To the far right side. My hand touches something hard and cold. It scrapes against the shelf. Slides into my palm.
It’s heavier than I remember. Cold heavy metal.
I ease out of the room, holding the gun in front of my body, and close the door behind me. I look around for something to block the door. There are a bunch of my grandma’s old pots at the entrance to the kitchen. I place the gun on the floor and bring the pots in front of Mom’s door to block it, just in case. I make a mental note to move them in the morning.
The gun is back in my hand. I dodge the piles leading to the stairs, more of my grandma’s stuff. I round some chairs piled up on top of a coffee table, keeping an eye on the floor. Don’t want to trip and shoot myself by accident.
The stairs are blocked with large black plastic bags filled with old recycling and non-food garbage. The front door is still locked. But I don’t know about the back door. If the guy found my keys, he could be here now.
The car alarm is still blasting outside—sounds like a fire truck.
I make my way, slowly, down the steps, holding the gun out from my body, this grizzly bear of mechanical things. Guns don’t kill, Dad said. People do. It’s just metal. Until it bares its metal teeth and rips your neck out.
Dad would want me to protect myself. But you’d hate it.
I slide around the mountain of stuff, half of it from my grandma when she passed away, over ten years old now. Mom didn’t want to throw anything out.