My Name Is River Blue

by Noah James Adams

  I was not nearly warm enough in the cold air that blew down on me from a ceiling vent and raised chill bumps on my naked arms and legs. My nervous stomach added to the cold air to make me shake in my seat, and I wondered if Officer Ripley was freezing me for disobeying Officer Woods.

  I had no idea of the time as I waited alone and shivered in the depressing room. There was no clock, and the officers had the cheap wristwatch that Mrs. Paulson bought me for my eleventh birthday in December. I could hear no sounds of activity outside of the room, and I stared pleadingly for attention at the wall window, which I guessed was one-way glass. Either no one was watching me, or they didn't understand that I was about to freak with frustration over having to wait in the cold room until I heard from the Paulsons.

  My anxiety grew worse when my bladder gave me the first sign that I would need to use a toilet soon. I knew from experience that adults worked at a speed that suited them, not kids, and since I was a state kid, I was the least of the cops' worries. Every few minutes, I glanced from the window to the door and wondered if everyone had forgotten me. Would the Paulsons even know where to find me?

  When I heard the doorknob turn, I stared in that direction and saw an officer poke his head into the room. Sounds of voices, footsteps, and ringing telephones flowed past the blue uniform to my ears, and it comforted me to know that there were people outside my room.

  "You need anything, kid?" From the look on the officer's face, and the way he committed only his head to the room, I realized that the man wished for a quick, negative response so that he would not have to waste any effort on me. Too bad. I did need something, and I had become aggravated enough that I didn't care if I bothered him.

  "I need to use the bathroom," I said.

  Officer Poole exhaled loudly. Obviously disappointed, he motioned me to the door.

  "Stay right with me," ordered Officer Poole. He placed one large, beefy hand around the back of my neck and pushed me down the hall. He stopped and guided me through the doorway of a men's restroom. "You need to do number one or number two?"

  "One," I said.

  "That's good. Use this first urinal."

  The man's hand gave me a gentle push in the direction of the urinals, which were across from three toilet stalls with doors. Officer Poole directed me to the closest urinal instead of allowing me to use a stall because he was supposed to keep an eye on me. I unzipped, quickly turned into a stall, and began draining my bladder before he could stop me. Having had very little privacy during all my time at the boys home, I wasn't shy, but I needed to make a point. Even if I was the only one who understood, I wanted to feel that I had at least a little control over my own life. The cop yelled at me for my disobedience, and I ignored him.

  When I finished, I washed my hands, and the officer guided me back down the hall to the same room. I told him I needed something to drink, and he told me I would have to wait. I told him that the room was too cold, and he said I wouldn't be in there much longer. I asked if he had any weed I could smoke, and he said I would have to wait. I'm serious.

  I took the same seat and watched Officer Poole leave me alone in what the sign outside the door said was "Interview Room 2." Shivering again, I wished that I could have gone to the hospital with the Paulsons. I wondered how badly Trevor was hurt that it took so long for the doctors to fix him. I hoped that they finished with him soon, so I could go home and take a nap in my warm room.

  I reasoned that the hospital only allowed real family to be with a patient. Since the Paulsons never left one of us kids home alone, and the housekeeper was off that day, it made sense that they would ask the police to keep me at the station. Senator Paulson was an important man, and it didn't seem too weird that the cops would do him a favor. Still, the way the cops were treating me felt wrong.

  After what seemed like another hour, I heard the AC system shut down and abruptly end the flow of freezing air coming from the vent above me.

  Once again, I heard the doorknob turn, and I watched a middle-aged man enter the room. He wore a wrinkled, blue suit, and when his jacket moved, I saw a brief flash of a shiny badge on his belt. He appeared to have used a bottle of oil to slick down his hair that was thinning all over his head. The man carried something that looked like a small radio and set it down on the table in front of me.

  Following the man into the room, Miss Martin, my latest caseworker from DSS, carried a bottle of water and a protein bar, placing both of them on the table in front of me. Both adults smiled and sat down in the chairs across from me. The man's smile was phony and forced, and even though the woman's smile was genuine, I sensed that she was struggling to maintain it.

  Miss Amy Martin, a pretty, dark-haired woman in her late thirties, had the greenest eyes I had ever seen. She had been my caseworker for six months since Mrs. Glover quit for reasons unknown to me. I met Miss Martin the same day that I moved to the Paulsons' home where she visited me at least once a month. She had always been friendly to me, and I sensed that she genuinely cared about the kids assigned to her. She was rare.

  "River, these are for you," said Miss Martin, nodding at the water and protein bar. "I thought you might need a snack. How are you doing?"

  "I've been cold, thirsty, and hungry for hours." I tore the wrapper from the protein bar before I attacked it.

  I was already big for my age, and I had the natural appetite of a boy in the beginnings of a growth spurt. As a state kid, I knew better than to play with food, so I ate anytime I had the chance. I glanced at Miss Martin's watch and saw that it was already three o'clock, which meant that I had been at the police station for over four hours and had not eaten anything since breakfast seven hours ago. What was taking so long to fix Trevor?

  "River, I'm Detective Walls, and I'm going to be working with Miss Martin today to help you." He grinned with teeth that were stained like a dirty toilet bowl, and his breath reeked of cigarettes and coffee. Spider veins raced through his bulbous nose, reminding me of the homeless drunks who lived under the viaduct in the old part of town. I suspected that the man had no interest in my welfare and that he was an accomplished liar.

  "How's Trevor? Did he get stitches?" I spoke while I chewed, and I didn't care if it was impolite to talk while I ate. I was starving, and Mrs. Paulson wasn't there to correct my poor manners or my grammar.

  Detective Walls glanced at Miss Martin, whose smile faded into quivering lips before she answered. "River, Trevor was hurt badly. It was very serious. Didn't you know that? I'm sorry, but Trevor died at the hospital three hours ago."

  I stopped chewing and studied the faces of the adults. I knew that Trevor was hurt when he fell from the tree house because he wasn't moving and worse, after he hit the ground, he didn't cry. He made a sound like a short grunt, then nothing more. Trevor was only five years old, but it still didn't seem such a long fall to me, and it never occurred to me that he might die. I wondered how badly Mike felt, and how angry his mom and dad were at him for pushing his little brother out of the tree house.

  Senator and Mrs. Paulson had punished Mike a few times for being mean to Trevor, but if they turned their backs, Mike would still give his little brother a hard time. I felt sorry for Trevor, and I would usually play with him to make up for how his older brother treated him. The younger boy had begun to act as if I were his real brother, and it made Mike angry when Trevor said that he liked me best.

  When he was acting bossy, Mike would tell me that I could only play with him and not Trevor, and Mike always had to have his way. I was just a state kid, and what I wanted didn't matter to him. There were times when Mike was nice to me, and there were other times when he liked to remind me that his house was not my real home. Still, for the most part, we got along pretty well because I usually tried to do what Mike wanted and because he knew not to push me too far.

  I was sad about Trevor's death, but by that age, I rarely showed my emotions as I did when I was younger. I had begun to change when I left the Abernathy's' home where I had given my
whole heart to a family just to lose them. I grew even more reserved after Mr. Carver gained my trust only to betray me in the worst of ways. I gradually stopped assigning much emotional value to any relationship. By the time I went to live with the Paulsons, I had a difficult time expressing myself in a way that most people would find normal.

  "Are they mad at Mike?" I asked. Mike could be a pain in the butt, but I knew that he didn't intend to cause his little brother serious harm. As was normal for Mike, he just didn't think before he did something selfish and stupid.

  Miss Martin acted surprised by the question. "Why would they be mad at Mike?"

  "Cause Trevor died," I said. Why didn't she get that?

  "River, I need you to tell me what happened today at the tree house," said Detective Walls. "I need you to tell me how Trevor got hurt. Take your time and be sure to tell me only the truth. Understand?"

  "I think so." I took another bite from the protein bar, and worked some caramel off the roof of my mouth so I could speak. I saw Detective Walls and Miss Martin look at each other as if my eating bothered them, but I didn't care. I wasn't giving up the protein bar unless one of them made me.

  "Wait, before you start," ordered the detective. I saw that Detective Walls had a tape recorder, not a radio as I first thought. I listened as the man said the date, time, and who was in the room. I remember thinking it was cool to be recorded and wondered if he would play it back for me. "Okay, River, tell me what happened this morning at the tree house in the Paulsons' back yard."

  ***

  I told the story of how Mike and I grew hot and sweaty after playing football in the back yard, and we decided to take a break in the tree house where there was usually a cool breeze passing through. We climbed up the ladder that was nailed to the tree trunk, and both of us were sitting inside the house when we heard five-year-old Trevor calling us from the bottom of the tree. The little boy asked if he could come up with us, and Mike told him to go away. Trevor was determined to join us and climbed the fifteen feet to the entrance. As he tried to throw a leg onto the floor of the tree house, Mike yelled at him and used his foot to shove his little brother. The smaller boy lost his balance and fell backwards off the ladder.

  I heard Trevor's scream that ended with a grunt when he hit the ground. When Mike realized that his little brother had fallen all the way to the bottom of the tree, his face turned white, and he quickly crawled down a few rungs of the ladder, before dropping the rest of the way to the ground. It was the fastest that I had ever seen him come down from the tree house.

  Mike took a quick look at Trevor and yelled loudly for his mom, who had heard Trevor's scream and was already running out of the house. I stayed in the tree house and observed the scene below me because there had been times in the past when people had yelled at me for getting in the way. Even Senator Paulson had told me to stay out of family business that didn't concern me.

  Mrs. Paulson, dressed only in her bathrobe, rushed to Trevor, screamed his name, and began wailing. She cradled his head and stroked his hair while she spoke to him as if the unconscious boy could hear her. Neighbors began to come out of their houses, and I heard the woman next door tell Mrs. Paulson that she had called 911.

  At first, Mike stood quaking quietly by his mother's side, but he soon began yelling and wildly waving his arms. He pointed up at the tree house, and I couldn't understand his words, but I saw Mrs. Paulson briefly stare at me before turning back to Trevor. When he kneeled on the ground beside his mother and brother, Mike's body shook with his sobs.

  I was still unsure of what I should do, but I climbed down from the tree and stood out of the way while we waited for help to arrive. I reasoned that Mrs. Paulson would tell me if she needed me to do something, but no one spoke to me. Mrs. Paulson continued to cry while she held Trevor's head in her lap. I noticed bloodstains on her robe and the grass.

  Soon, I heard the screaming siren of an ambulance that stopped in front of the house just before a police car arrived. Mrs. Paulson spoke to the police for a moment while the EMTs were getting Trevor ready for transport to the hospital, but she never said a word to me before she and Mike simply left with the ambulance.

  One of the police officers spoke on his radio while another one stood with me. A few minutes later, another police car arrived with two men in suits. They walked towards the tree house while the police officers from the first car told me to come with them. They didn't give me a reason, but I assumed that the Paulsons asked the police to take care of me until they returned from the hospital.

  ***

  After completing my story for the detective, I thought I had given a good account and I looked to him and Miss Martin for approval. Their faces told me that I must have left out something or said something wrong, but as hard as I searched my memory, I couldn't come up with anything else to tell them.

  "River, I want to help you," said Detective Walls. "I can't do that unless you are one hundred per cent honest with me. People make mistakes and eleven-year-old boys make lots of mistakes. Don't be afraid to admit that you made a mistake or else we can't help you fix it."

  I saw Miss Martin stare at Detective Walls as if he had grown a horn in the center of his forehead. The man kept saying that I had to tell him about a mistake I made, and I couldn't think of a mistake.

  "I ain't sure what you mean," I said. "What do you want me to say?"

  The detective shook his head. "No, River. It's not about what I want you to say. I want you to tell the truth. Tell us what you did wrong at the tree house. Something you're sorry for doing. Then we can all get out of here and make everything right."

  I suddenly thought I had it. "Okay, when I got down from the tree house, I shoulda told Mrs. Paulson that I was sorry?"

  The detective showed his yellow smile and gave a smug nod to Miss Martin. "Okay, now we're getting somewhere. What were you sorry for?"

  "I shoulda said I was sorry that Trevor fell?"

  "Don't you mean that you were sorry for making Trevor fall?" The man nodded his head up and down as he spoke.

  "No. I didn't make him fall. Mike did. I done told you that. Remember?"

  Detective Walls dropped his smile. His face grew stern. "River, you know that's not true. Before I can help you, you have to admit your mistake like a good boy who is sorry for what he did. We know what really happened. You pushed Trevor Paulson out of that tree house. We can't fix things and forgive you if you keep lying about it and blaming it on Mike."

  I looked at Miss Martin, who dropped her gaze to the tabletop. I realized why the police took me away, and I certainly understood what "mistake" the detective expected me to admit. Most normal kids would have been shocked and scared to have a cop wrongly accuse them, but the only thing that surprised me was how long it took me to catch on to what the cops were doing. I could hardly believe that I was stupid enough to think Mike would tell the truth instead of blaming Trevor's fall on me. I should have seen it coming.

  I had learned early in life that I was an easy target for a regular kid to use as a fall guy. Adults, including cops, usually took the word of a white kid with parents and a home over the word of a kid like me. It didn't surprise me that Mike had lied to his mother who then told the police that I was responsible for Trevor's death. It was not the first time that someone had falsely accused me of something, and it wasn't even the first time that Mike had done it. It had just never been anything so serious.

  It took me only seconds to assess my situation. In my mind, I could hear Sean as he taught me one of many lessons on surviving in the system. I knew that my chances of convincing anyone of the truth were slim, and that no one cared enough for me to fight on my behalf. Still, no matter what the liars promised, I was not going to make it easy for them. I was not going to volunteer to be their victim. I didn't know what they planned to do to me, but I intended to make it as difficult as possible for them, and I didn't mind pissing them off while I was at it. I was not the same cooperative kid that I was when the detective an
d Miss Martin first sat down with me. I was angry and barely controlling it.

  "Well, River. What's it going to be?" Detective Walls asked.

  "Everything I said is true. You say you want to help me, but you're only trying to trick me into saying what you want. Miss Martin, you knew what he was doing. How come you just believed what he said and didn't ask me? You're supposed to be here for me cause I don't got parents. He tried to scare me into telling a lie, and you still didn't say nothing. I'm done. I want a lawyer like I shoulda got in the first place."

  The detective maintained his composure. "River, you're making things harder than they have to be."

  "You mean I'm making things harder for you. I want a lawyer," I said flatly. "The first thing I'm telling him is that you asked me stuff before anyone told me my rights. You guys kept me here for hours in a freezing room with nothing to eat or drink. I needed to go so bad I almost pissed myself. Right before you guys walk in the door, it's like magic the way the AC turned off after it blew cold air down on me for hours. Then you come in trying to trick me into taking the blame for what Mike done."

  "I checked the report before I came in here," said Walls. "Officer Ripley and Officer Woods read you your rights when you came in the station, and they checked on you every thirty minutes. You never asked for anything except to use the restroom. Miss Martin has been here as your guardian during questioning."

  "Liars. Nobody read me no rights. One cop told me to come with him while Mrs. Paulson went to the hospital. Two other cops said what they was doing was procedures for any kid staying in here a while. Then they took my stuff and sat me in this cold room. I asked them if I was arrested, and they said not to worry cause it was just procedures. Officer Poole took me to the restroom right before I had an accident. I asked him for something to drink and told him I was cold. He told me to wait and just left me in here."