We got our tickets for the new Thor movie and stood in line for popcorn. “I could just kill him,” Naomi said, gritting her teeth. “Honest, I could. Is that bad? Is it wrong if I kill him?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I don’t see why that would be an issue. He’s your brother—it’s almost expected.”
“Right? If someone’s going to kill him, it may as well be me,” Naomi said. Hopefully no one in line with us was paying too much attention. “I’m just kidding,” she said. “I’m not serious. I wouldn’t do that, but I want to, strongly.”
We were up next in line. “Popcorn?” I asked. “Do you want to get one and share?” Naomi nodded.
I looked around to see if anyone I knew was in the theater with us. I was actually there with a pretty girl and not my parents or sister for once, which felt pretty good. Naomi was looking around also, but she had other things on her mind.
“It’s hard not to look at all these people and think of what they say on Facebook pages or on websites,” Naomi said. “Do you think that or is it just me? Nobody ever says I deserve to be pulled over. Nobody tells me I look like a criminal. But they must be thinking it, because someone posts all that stuff.”
“Everyone has something to say online. It’s the Internet,” I said. The theater was full, and everyone was lost in their own groups. “There’s no consequence, so they say whatever stupid thing enters their heads. The rest of the time they’re all too busy with their own lives to pay attention to anyone else.”
“Well, stop right there. Racism exists,” Naomi said. “It’s not like it only happens when people are online and bored and anonymous. But you picture it in, like, really rural areas, and backwater places. Not … here. Why would you even live in the city if you thought like that? Those comments are on local news sites. They’re about our neighborhoods.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Really,” I said. “I just meant I wouldn’t take it personally. People are big shots online. Everyone wants to be the funniest, or the most controversial. Because nobody cares what you say online. You can get away with anything. So they just say whatever.”
“So you don’t think anyone’s looking at us?” Naomi pushed. “They’re all too wrapped up in their own lives?”
“No one’s looking at us,” I said. “If it’s not their lives they’re wrapped up in, it’s their cell phones. Taking selfies. The lights will go off soon anyway. Everyone will forget everything as soon as the movie starts.”
“So no one is paying attention and they’ll forget us anyway?” Naomi asked, and pulled me in for a long, slow, very public kiss. She grabbed some popcorn out of my bucket and flashed a mischievous grin before popping one into her mouth.
“Wild child,” I said, impressed.
*
Dad was on his laptop when I got home. He was always on there now. He had the large coffee mug out, a bag from the bakery down the street. His brow was furrowed. He didn’t even seem to notice me come in. He was muttering to himself.
“Stop it, already,” he said. “Leave it alone, just leave it alone.”
“Hey,” I said, walking over to the table, peeking at the laptop screen. “What’s going on?”
“I was a hero just weeks ago,” Dad said. “Everyone was celebrating the good deeds of James Wilcox.”
“And now?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
“The gorilla thing,” Dad said. He pushed his laptop away. “Nobody cares about the gun stuff, the threat. It’s the gorilla. Everyone’s flipping out over some gorilla comment I made a year ago and nobody cared about then. It isn’t even racial, you know? How is that a black thing? If a guy looks like a gorilla, I’m gonna call him a gorilla. I don’t care what color he is.”
I could see a comment thread on his screen that must have twenty back-and-forth replies on it. “Is that you?” I asked.
“This guy FThePolice95 won’t drop it. He just keeps arguing. Every time I reply, there he is ten seconds later,” Dad said. He was rubbing his temples, he could have been sitting there all day. “He’s the goddamn King Arthur of the Internet. I’ll write him all night if I have to. I’m keeping my name clean.”
“Ninety-five is probably his birth year. It’s some kid in his early twenties,” I said. “Look at all those other responses. You’ve gotta get off of there.”
“I’ll get to them,” Dad said. “I don’t have a job to go to. I’ve got the time. I’m not letting Sharp win this one, Walter. You want to make yourself useful, there’s a pot of coffee in the kitchen. Fill this up for me.”
Dad pushed the mug over and pulled his laptop back in front of him. Barry already won. You can’t beat FThePolice95. You can’t beat them all.
Chapter Eleven
The Monday morning sky was a pale light blue with pink highlights. I stepped off the bus, which was mostly full of freshmen and sophomores this year, my head still trying to make sense of how that date had gone so wrong, so fast. As far as I knew, Jason and Naomi were laughing about it over green tea later that night. That was the way their family functioned. My goal for the day was to find Jason and see if we were cool, but somehow Lester found me first again. He was getting out of his dull-red nineties Mazda as I passed him, and he walked with me to the building.
“Wally Wilcox!” he said. “Do you want a ride to school, man? The bus is not cool. I’ve got a fresh new window and everything.”
“Thanks, I’m good,” I said. “It’s just a few more months.”
“Yeah, but you’re dating now. You’re going to parties, making friends,” Lester said. “You don’t want to be on that thing. Hey, we need to catch up. Your dad, man, what do you think? Officer Wilcox. I can’t even believe the stuff I’m reading.”
“That’s about what I think,” I said. “I don’t believe it.”
Lester got the door and kept walking with me inside as I headed to my locker.
“Well, I’m biased,” Lester said. It was football season and he had his varsity jacket on. “It’s kinda hard for me to side with the police on any issue. Did you know they can arrest you for just standing somewhere?”
“Like, loitering?” I asked.
“Yeah, loitering,” Lester said. “You know Calvin? He’s cool, and personally, I don’t think he’d lie. But that’s just me. Like I said, I’m biased.”
“There’s more to it, though,” I said. But really I knew as much as anyone about what had happened. “Nothing I want to get into. I don’t really want to talk about it, anyway. I want to keep as separate from all that as I can.”
The school was filling up, as we had about ten minutes until first period. Lester kept walking with me, saying hi to people in the halls until we got to my locker.
“Hey, so Jason,” Lester said to me, a little more quiet than his normal talking voice. I opened my locker, and he stood on the other side of the door. “I’m not supposed to say anything, but he’s a little salty.”
“Salty?” I asked. I’d say he was worse than salty, last I saw him.
“Yeah, angry,” Lester said. “Did you really not tell him about the Naomi thing? That’s bro code one-oh-one. If it were me, I wouldn’t start a relationship dissing a girl’s family, but that’s just some free advice. That’s a bad foundation, bad mojo, right?”
“I wasn’t staking her out, going in for a move or something,” I said, getting salty myself. I couldn’t find my algebra book. My locker wasn’t big enough to lose things in. “It just happened. When there was something to tell, we told.”
“Hey, you like the CD I burned?” Lester asked, dropping the subject and ignoring my tone.
“Yeah, I did,” I said. I wanted to stay friendly with Lester anyway.
“I knew it!” Lester said, and made a fist. He slapped me on the back. “Hey, take it easy, Wally.”
Lester walked down the hall, light as air for a large guy and a spring in his step as usual. He joined up with some other kids not far down. I shut my locker and walked the other way.
*
We’d been getting rain and flurries the past few days, and the lunch-outside season was passing. Nate, Kate, and I had to eat inside the cafeteria for our break. The lunchroom scene was loud and smelly. Nate described it as a mix of bologna, tomato soup, and cleaning agents. Kids got their soda caffeine fix, saw the end of the day coming, and couldn’t stay attached to their seats. Maybe we were old souls; our little group preferred to talk about TV and movies than to participate in the lunchtime noise factory. The rowdier tables sat any number of undesirables, Beardsley and Frankie included.
“Wilcox,” I heard in a weaselly voice. He didn’t even have to fight—his speaking voice was a punch in the face. Beardsley pulled his chair over to our table. He had a buttoned-up shirt over his skinny frame, shaggy hair falling into his eyes. “Wilcox, how’s it going, man?”
“Fine,” I mumbled, and bit into the grilled cheese I’d gotten from the café. There was no good way to get rid of someone like Beardsley.
“It’s like a whole new Wilcox in the halls now,” Beardsley said. Even his smile you wanted to smack off. “What’s going on with your girlfriend, man? You hitting it?”
“Knock it off,” I said, and put down my food. “I’m not doing this with you.” I didn’t want Naomi to even enter his warped brain.
“Leave him alone,” Kate said. She didn’t have an ounce of fear in her, and she barked her command full of disdain. “Go find someone else to pick on.”
“Why does everyone always think I’m picking on them?” Beardsley asked. “I’m helping my buddy out, and no one asked you anyway, Kate.”
“Don’t talk to her, Beardsley,” Nate said, more authority in his voice than Kate’s, even. “Get out of here.”
“Or what?” Beardsley asked. This could get ugly fast. Nate didn’t back down from anything, and neither did Beardsley. I disappeared from the confrontation. I wasn’t proud of it, but that was my instinct. To find a shadow and hide in it.
“That’s up to you,” Nate said. He was good. He seemed legitimately tough with essentially the same build as me.
Beardsley laughed. He put his arm on my shoulder, gripped tight, and made my skin crawl. “See? You see that? Nate gets it.” He slapped his hand down on the table with a loud smack, drawing attention from other tables. “You’ve got a pretty girl like Naomi Mills and you can’t do a thing to stick up for her. You can’t even stick up for yourself. You’re like a damn mouse.”
“Beardsley,” Nate said, “turn around and go back to your table before I slam your face into it.”
“Nate, shut up,” Beardsley said, showing no visible sign of fear. “Nobody cares about you.”
“Just get lost,” I said. Mumbled. Whatever. I was busy twirling my spoon in my yogurt.
“You know why I can’t get lost?” Beardsley asked. He got in closer, talked quieter. “Because I’m like you. I like dark meat, too. I’d probably mess my pants with Naomi. That’s why I have to ask you: is this whole thing some kind of cover-up? Did your dad make you do it? Everyone knows your family’s racist. I mean, your dad should be fired, like yesterday.”
“No, he shouldn’t,” I said, too flustered and angry for wit. “He’s not racist.”
“It’s a fact, kid. Don’t even argue it. You look dumb,” Beardsley said. “My dad says every cop in his department is racist. Just be real about it. If I polled everyone in the cafeteria, one hundred percent of them would agree your dad should be fired. Come on, let’s make a bet.”
“You want to skip next period, Beardsley?” Nate said. He was as fed up as I was. “We’ll go for a walk.”
“You’re so tough,” Beardsley said. Frankie was laughing at the other table like this was a stand-up act. Big, dumb Frankie. “I’ve got a test after this, so I’ll take a rain check.”
Beardsley turned to a girl at his own table who had been listening to his performance. “Do you follow the news?” Beardsley asked her. “Do you know Officer Wilcox? The ‘racist cop’?”
“Get the hell out of here,” I said, and got out of my chair. “Leave me alone.” Nate got out of his chair, too. Then Beardsley got out of his. Kate buried her head in her hands.
The standoff was over before it started; Mrs. Opton, with her absurdly large glasses, made her way over and asked us what was going on. By the time we all got our nothings out, the bell rang anyway and that was the end of lunch. A second later, Beardsley pushed in his chair and grabbed a half-eaten slice of pizza from a plate at his table that wasn’t his.
“Nice talking, Wilcox,” he said as he took a bite, and headed off. Frankie was right behind him, laughing and shaking his head. I shrugged an apology to Nate and Kate, grabbed my stuff, and walked around Mrs. Opton to head out myself.
I was going to have to avoid the cafeteria, apparently. Everyone had bolted for the doors at the same time, and I couldn’t breathe. I waddled one baby step at a time, someone’s backward Yankees cap nearly touching my face. “Are you Walter Wilcox?” a tall blond freckled girl asked me on the other side of the cafeteria doors. “Your dad’s…”
I gave a noncommittal nod. I kept walking, and she rushed ahead to keep pace. I had a math class to get to.
I’d felt a little more “fishbowl” since this whole thing started. People didn’t go up introducing themselves to me, but I’d become something of a curiosity. Didn’t mean I enjoyed it or wanted to answer anyone’s questions, though. Or hear their opinions.
“That must be crazy,” she said, and walked with me, out of the crowd. “Don’t listen to Beardsley. He’s a sad little boy. Your dad is a hero.”
“Really?” I asked. I’d been consumed with the idea of being a target, worried about backlash or embarrassment. He wasn’t “town hero” anymore, after all. He was “racist cop.” I was taken aback to hear someone say something nice and actually acknowledge he wasn’t trying to do anything bad. It just turned out that way.
“Truth is, we live in a crappy city,” she said. “I know I don’t feel safe at night. There’s a lot of crime and bad things happening to people here. Like, I get the whole profiling issue, I get why it’s controversial, and I don’t think all blacks are crazy, violent people or anything like that. But,” she said, and I could tell we were taking a detour here I wasn’t on board with, “if you’re a good citizen, then you have nothing to hide, right? And if you’re not a good citizen, then I don’t care what you think. If it’ll make everyone else in the city feel safe to walk around at night, I don’t think anyone should have an issue with getting pulled over or checked out. It’s exactly what this city needs.”
I didn’t think that was what my dad was saying at all, but I really didn’t know for sure. Maybe he thought like this girl did …
“But you or I wouldn’t get pulled over and checked out, right?” I asked.
“If we looked threatening or suspicious, then absolutely we would,” she said. “But my mom works in the court system, and she says it’s a statistical fact that more crimes are committed by black people.”
Why was she telling me this? Why did she even think it was okay to say this stuff out loud? I had to look around to be sure no one else was listening, or thought I was somehow contributing to this diatribe. She was talking to me like people talked online. Right after I’d told Naomi people didn’t actually talk like that, that they were just looking for attention. You rolled your eyes reading it online. Hearing it out loud made me feel sick.
“It’s part of living in a city,” she went on. “Think about it, think of every building on every street and how many people are packed together in each one. You end up with people who have stuff living a short walk from people who don’t. It’s them and us, and we rely on people like your father to keep us safe. He’s a hero.”
If stuff was what separated us from them, then I was them, and so was Dad.
*
I was cutting in the kitchen: steak, potatoes, rosemary, lettuce, and tomatoes. We only had a few meals that we cooked, and this was one of them. I dropped the c
hunks of steak into the frying pan, and the olive oil popped and splashed. Dad had me cornered.
“So were you ever going to tell me?” Dad asked me, cleaning up some of the dishes we’d used in the sink.
“Tell you what?” I asked, although I could guess from his tone what he meant. There was only one thing I’d been keeping from him.
Dad turned off the faucet and dried his hands. “I have to see on Facebook that my son has a girlfriend?” Dad asked. “That’s why you were hiding it every time I asked? ’Cause she’s a black girl?” He tossed the dishrag to the corner of the sink and crossed his arms.
“No,” I said. “I wasn’t hiding anything. There’s nothing to hide.” What did he see on Facebook? I wondered if Naomi had changed her Facebook status, if it changed something on my profile. I wasn’t even Facebook friends with my dad. I didn’t even know he had an account until all this mess started.
“How long has this been going on?” Dad asked. How long officially, how long since I’ve been talking to her, or how long since I first saw her?
“Not too long,” I said, putting the salad together. I couldn’t read Dad, but he wasn’t happy. “A week, maybe.”
“No, this has been going on more than a week,” Dad said. “You never thought to tell me? Walter, I asked you straight up if anything was going on. Repeatedly. I’m not blind. Coming home late, out all the time, that dippy smile on your face. I knew there was a girl. You lied to me.”
“Whatever, it wasn’t a lie,” I said, which was kind of true. “I was figuring it out.”
“And in all this figuring out, it didn’t dawn on you to look at what’s going on with us right now?” Dad asked. He got the spatula and passed me to the stove. “It’s kinda bad timing, don’t you think? Do I have to say why? All the girls at school and you picked the one that’s gonna be news. Not smart, Walter, not smart.”
Bright Lights, Dark Nights Page 15