Killing Chase

by Ben Muse

  It wasn’t until we were deep into sixth grade before I started looking at her differently. It was as if a switch flipped one day in Mrs. Channing’s sixth-grade class. This was an awkward time for me. Aside from wanting more time with my parents, this was the first time I’d felt jealousy. She and I were inseparable through seventh and eighth grade, but sometimes I’d see her talking with another boy at her locker, and I would get angry. We would talk about this, and she would playfully slap my arm and tell me I was being silly.

  As much as she claimed the differences in our lives didn’t matter, I was only invited to her house one time. It was late spring in eighth grade, and her mom was home on a rare day off. I had convinced Bailey to let me come over. I’d never even ridden a school bus until that day. The bus had one stop and that was the sprawling mobile home park. Fifty or so kids exited, and I caught many of them staring at me, wondering how it could be that I was in their world. I knew most of them, but it was as if a wall went up when I stepped off the bus.

  Bailey grabbed my hand, and we silently walked to her trailer. As we entered, I could smell cigarette smoke, and I heard someone crying quietly from a back room. Bailey told me to have a seat on the couch, and she walked down the narrow hallway to the back of the trailer. I stood there instead and took in my surroundings as I listened to their muffled voices. The interior was like nothing I had ever seen before. My bedroom was bigger than the entire trailer. The walls were a light-brown wood paneling and were bowing in places. The carpet was also brown and peppered with numerous darker spots. A black Naugahyde couch, that had seen its heyday in the seventies, sat against the back wall and sagged in the middle, begging to be put out of its misery. A twenty-inch, black-and-white TV sat on a wood laminate stand by the front door. Next to it, a standard box fan blew a combined smell of stale cigarettes and hastily sprayed vanilla air freshener in my direction. A floral print recliner sat catty-corner across from the couch, its left arm pressed into the kitchen counter.

  Pictures of Bailey covered the walls, from birth all the way up to the most recent eighth-grade spring picture. This one was my favorite. She had a big smile, and her eyes had an understated intensity that said she was going places, places that didn’t involve cheap wood paneling and dirty carpets.

  “Mom’s not feeling well, so I thought we could maybe grab some Cokes from the fridge and walk down to the inlet. It’s where most of the kids in the trailer park go to hang out.” She looked nervous when she said it. Seeing where she lived, I wondered if sometimes maybe the circumstances of their lives overwhelmed them sometimes. I also wondered how I could help.

  We grabbed the drinks from the aging fridge and a big bag of Ruffles BBQ-flavored potato chips and entered a meandering trail behind the trailer park. We could hear kids screaming in delight even before we came to the end of the small wooded trail. The inlet was a small arm of the Cape Fear River. It was a wide, brackish-looking body of water. An old dilapidated dock jutted out twenty feet or so, and a tire swing hung from a mossy oak that arced out over the water. We sat down on top of a large boulder, in the shade behind the dock, and popped the tops on our Cokes.

  “To friendship,” Bailey said, and she laughed as we clinked our cans together. She was acting more like herself. We sat there quietly eating, drinking, and watching kids in different-colored bathing suits swing out and drop into the inky water. Three kids were fishing on the dock and one was at the very end, throwing out a white cast net. He was a scrawny boy from our homeroom class, Ethan. He would throw the net out into the water and let it sink. Five to ten seconds later, he would pull it in, with some crab, fish, or shrimp trapped in the netting if he was lucky. I didn’t see him catch anything, and I wasn’t sure if he was fishing for fun or to put food on the table. The odds were probably close to fifty-fifty for either option.

  “Well lookie-lookie who decided to join us today, Queen Bailey herself,” said a loud voice at the entrance to the trail. I looked over to see the biggest eighth-grade asshole in Brunswick County, Cameron Tanner, and one of his friends, Danny Sullivan. They were dressed in cutoff jeans and cutoff flannel shirts, and each was carrying a fishing pole and a white, hard plastic minnow bucket.

  He looked at me and chuckled. “And joining her, the prince of Cape Fear Junior High, the honorable Richie McDouche.” They both laughed.

  Bailey rolled her eyes and said under her breath, “Just ignore him.” She knew my dislike ran deep for Cam and his bullying ways. He played linebacker on our junior high team, and we had almost come to blows several times throughout the past season. We were about the same size, except he was a little more country strong, but had the brainpower of a lima bean. I watched as they walked onto the dock and made a beeline for Ethan’s fishing spot.

  “Hey shithead, catch anything?” Cam said as he flipped Ethan’s hat off his head and onto the dock.

  “No,” Ethan said meekly, and my anger began to rise.

  “Cool it, Chase. He’s not worth it,” Bailey said. She grabbed my arm.

  “Time for you to move along, peckerhead. The real fishermen are here. Amiright, Danny-boy?”

  “Beat it, retard,” said the brainless wonder, Danny Sullivan. The irony in his statement was lost on him.

  Something snapped in me. I hopped off the rock before Bailey could stop me and ran toward them. Maybe I was trying to impress her. Maybe I just hated bullies. Ethan was gathering his net in, and Danny and Cam were facing the inlet, getting ready to bait and cast. On the dock, I sprinted toward the two and put my foot into Danny’s backside, sending him headfirst into the water. Cam turned to face me, and I wondered why I didn’t shove him first.

  “Hey, asshat, you are going to apologize to Ethan here, or by God, I’m gonna stomp your redneck head in between these creaky old dock boards,” I said as menacingly as possible.

  “Can’t swim,” said Danny, panicked, as he broke the surface. By now, everyone had their eyes glued to the drama at the end of the dock. Cam couldn’t decide if he wanted to throw down with me or save his friend. He decided to jump in and struggled to pull the screaming and flailing Danny to the bank. Danny dragged Cam under as they edged closer to land. I couldn’t care less if they both drowned, but as fate would have it, they eventually made their way onto the bank, spent and soaked. I walked over to them and motioned for Ethan to follow. The color drained from his face as he slowly followed me.

  “Ethan is still owed an apology by you two Neanderthals, and I swear you’re both gonna give him one, or I’m throwing you both back in the water.” Cam looked up at me, exhausted, and with hatred in those eyes. Danny, still breathing hard, continued to look down, but offered a weak, “Sorry, Ethan.”

  Cam decided to fight another day and mumbled, “Sorry.”

  Their fishing gear and reputation were both at the bottom of the inlet as they stood and made their way slowly back to the trail. The walk of shame. Cam looked back before leaving and said, “This isn’t over, Hampton,” before they disappeared down the trail. It would take four more years before it was over.

  I turned to look for Bailey and saw her with her arms folded and a look of utter disgust on her face. She was standing by the boulder.

  “Are you proud of yourself now, Chase? Do you feel like the big man on campus? You know all you’ve done is make it worse for everyone who enjoys it here. They’ll be back, and where will you be the next time they bully someone?” she screamed. I’d never seen her this angry before. Ethan tapped me on the back, and I turned around. I could barely hear him.

  “Thanks, Chase,” he said, eyes still down. I immediately felt sorry for my actions, because Bailey was right—there would be a next time and I wouldn’t be there to stand up to them. I turned to see her slowly making her way back to the trail, and I rushed to catch up.

  “I’m sorry, Bailey. I don’t know what happened. I just hate how they treat people. It isn’t right,” I pleaded.

  “Chase, I just want to go back to the trailer. You can call Mattie to come pi
ck you up. I knew this would be a bad idea,” she said as she stormed off.

  She didn’t say another word to me. When we got back to the trailer, Crystal was sitting outside in a fraying lawn chair and smoking a cigarette. Her eye looked bruised, and she looked away as she said hi to me. I wondered if one of her admirers had received some bad service from her. I went in and called Mattie to pick me up.

  ***

  Mattie Harper was like a mother to me. She helped me with homework and answered my questions about life that sometimes came to a young male on the cusp of puberty. She prepared my breakfast, lunch, and dinner and made sure I had clean clothes ready in the morning. She had her own quarters in the house and managed the estate staff with an iron but fair fist. I guessed she was in her mid-sixties, but she had the energy of a thirty-year-old, and she had been with us for as long as I could remember.

  Without her, I pictured the house imploding and chaos reigning. Mattie was everything I wanted in a mother but didn’t have, and I think I would have been what she wanted in a son. I never heard that affirmation but I felt it when we were together. She never married, never had kids. We were her family, or more accurately, I was. One morning, four years into my prison sentence, the estate’s main housekeeper found her lying on the floor of her room, dead from a massive heart attack. I petitioned the state to attend the funeral, but the request was denied. That night was the only time I allowed myself to cry in prison.

  ***

  I entered my father’s study later that night after the dock incident. He was sitting at his desk, hunched over, crunching the numbers, always the numbers. An antique banker’s lamp on his desk was the only light in the room.

  “Dad, do you have a minute?”

  “What’s on your mind, Chase?” he said without looking up.

  “I’m just worried about Bailey and her mom. I was over there today, at their trailer, and dad, it’s not a nice place to live. I wish they could just move in with us. Plus, her mom was crying, and she had a black eye.”

  He removed the glasses perched on the end of his nose, sat back in the chair and looked at me. He was thinking and running his fingers through his thick, brown hair.

  “Her mom works at the Three Sisters, right?” he asked.

  “That’s right, why?”

  “Tell you what I’ll do, son. I’ll stop in tomorrow and talk to Crystal. It’s on my way to work. Sometimes folks are too proud to ask for help. I’m glad you care about Bailey. She’s important to you, isn’t she?”

  He’d know this if he took any interest in me whatsoever, but I don’t want to spoil the moment we’re having and the chance to help my friend.

  “Yes, dad, she means a lot to me.” He nodded his head, lost in thought, as if he were devising a plan to get Bailey and her mom out of that dump of a trailer park.

  “Okay, bud, run along. I’ve got some work to finish up here. I’ll see what I can do,” he said, head already back in the numbers.

  At school the next day, Bailey came up to me at my locker before lunch and asked me to step outside into the central courtyard. We walked out to the apple tree that grew in the middle, and she looked around nervously, grabbed my face with her hands and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

  “I’m sorry I got so mad at you yesterday. I realize you had the best of intentions, and I think you were very brave to stand up to Cam.”

  I stood there, stunned. If I died at that moment with my back against the apple tree, I would consider my life complete. Being kissed by this beautiful creature overwhelmed my senses. The rest of the day passed in a blur, as did the last month of eighth grade. We were soon into our summer vacation, about the third week, and we had plans for her to come over and swim one afternoon. I had decided the week before that I was going to profess my undying love for her. Mattie could see it in my eyes and actions and told me I wasn’t girl crazy, I was “Bailey” crazy.

  “Boy, that girl done got in your head somethin’ fierce,” she’d say with a laugh, when making my lunch or watching me after a phone call.

  Crystal was due to drop her off around one thirty on that hot summer day. My bedroom overlooked our long, straight driveway, and I sat perched in the window, and watched for that old, gray Ford Escort. I expected to see it any minute. One thirty became one forty-five, which soon turned into two, and there was no sign of Bailey or her mom. I called her home and a message told me the number had been disconnected. I redialed, thinking I had erred, but I got the same message the second time around. I thought it sad that they couldn’t afford their phone anymore, which got me to wondering if my dad had any luck in convincing Crystal to let us help. I assumed her mom didn’t have a cell phone either. By two thirty, I had a feeling she wasn’t coming over so I asked Mattie to drive me to her trailer. Crystal’s car wasn’t in the small gravel parking spot, but I did notice a trashcan overflowing with bags of trash. I knocked on the door, and no one answered. I tried to open it, but it was locked.

  “Let’s go, Chase. They aren’t here,” said Mattie.

  An older woman, with her hair in curlers, stepped out from the trailer next door. “They done moved out ‘bout three or four hours ago. A man helped ’em load up a small U-Haul, and they just left. Crystal said they were headin’ to greener pastures, whatever that means.”

  Just like that, my world flipped upside down. My best friend was gone without so much as a goodbye. I would see her again, but time and circumstance has a way of changing people.

  ***

  “Hamp, where you been?” I heard. I snapped back to the present and realized I was standing next to my now unlocked cell door.

  “You were thinking about her, weren’t you?” he said, as he pulled up his pants, his business completed.

  “What do you mean, Sam? Who am I thinking about?” I said uneasily. How on God’s green earth does he know I’m thinking about anyone?

  “Why, Bailey, of course. The girl from your dreams. You woke me up last night saying that name over and over and over.” Hearing someone else say her name was like having my heart pierced with a sharp icicle. It was cold and it hurt, more than I’d ever care to admit.

  “Take care, Hamp. Wherever you’re going,” he said, finality in his voice. I opened the cell door, turned, threw up a half-hearted wave, and walked out without saying goodbye.

  Chapter 3

  After breakfast, I walked over to T Wing where the prison library was located. It was a five-hundred-square-foot room with bookshelves on each wall and a desk in the middle. From five forty-five to seven forty-five a.m., I sorted, repaired, checked out, and checked in books. There were over seven hundred books in our collection, from the American classics to crime fiction to religious texts. We had twenty-five King James Bibles and two Korans, and these books were always checked out. Redemption was big in prison. I spent most of my time repairing them, and I requested new Bibles, but requests moved through the chain like cold molasses in winter.

  I supposed I could ask my father to donate fifty Bibles, but I’d rather not. Starting tonight, I will need his unwitting help to ensure I remain free. Free. The last memory I have of freedom is the day before I reported to the New Hanover Correctional Center in Wilmington. Wednesday, March 16, 2005. I should have been the starting pitcher for the Foggy Harbor Hawks that day, but instead I was at home, left to my own devices. Mom drank herself into a stupor and stayed in her bedroom, and my father went to work as if it were just another ordinary day. I spent it alone, in the beach cabana, just watching the waves come in, listening to the music on my iPod, and wondering how I would survive the next twelve years locked up. I had no calls or visitors—just Mattie, who would occasionally come out to sit and talk.

  I spent that day thinking about the night of December 11, 2004, the night the trajectory of my life changed. Understanding that day, however, required backing up to Friday, December 10, 2004—one of the greatest days of my life. We played the Butler Bulldogs in the 2A State Championship game in Charlotte. The game was close and went do
wn to the wire. We got the ball on our twenty-yard line, down two, with a minute and a half left on the clock in the 4th quarter.

  The stadium in Charlotte was packed and the noise was incredible. Somehow, three pass plays later, we were sitting on their twenty-five-yard line with one timeout in our back pocket and thirty seconds remaining. We’d been getting good yardage all game long on screen passes to our stable of scat backs, but there was no way we were putting the ball back in the air and risking a turnover. I faked the handoff to the right and ran a naked bootleg to the left, catching them flat-footed. I made it to the twelve before one of their linebackers brought me down. Butler called timeout immediately to preserve some time in case we made the field goal. With twenty-one seconds left, my good friend Zack Griffin split the uprights, and we were up by one. We kicked off and pinned them on their twenty-five. Two plays later, Cam Tanner—yes, that Cam Tanner—picked off their quarterback, and we had our state championship. It was surreal.

  We celebrated on the bus the first three hours of the four-hour trip home and pulled in to Foggy Harbor High at three thirty a.m., exhausted. As a group, the team decided there would be a bonfire on the beach Saturday night to celebrate.

  Fast forward to Saturday night. About three hundred people had gathered on Atlantic Beach. It was a cold night, and the air had a salty crispness to it as the wind blew in from the ocean. The bonfire was lit at seven thirty, and by nine thirty, most of the attendees were as well. Everyone was feeling it; we were all ten feet tall and bulletproof. A state championship for the trophy case, one week of school left before the eighteen-day Christmas break, and for me, a full four-year scholarship to play quarterback at Clemson. The Can’t Miss Kid.