Circle of Silence

by Carol M. Tanzman

  “Jagger said that, too,” I mumble. “He thought it had to be just him and me—”

  Raul slaps the coffee table, as pissed off as Omar. “We would have spread out, Val. From the bus stop to the park. So if, or when, they changed the plan, one of us would have followed.”

  That catches Marci’s attention. “What do you mean, change the plan?”

  “Val said they never got to the flagpole. That means they headed him off at the bus stop. I bet MP never planned to go to the park.” Raul shoots me a dark look. Is he upset that he wasn’t there to save Jagger? Disappointed that we blew the story? Or jealous because I spent so much time with Jags? “The only reason MP told Jagger to go to the flagpole was in case he spoke to someone else.”

  As soon as he says it, it’s obvious. Once again, I’ve been outmaneuvered. I can’t look at Raul. He’s absolutely right. I made all the wrong choices.

  * * *

  It’s two in the morning. Marci insists that I stay overnight. After everyone leaves she offers to take the air mattress, but I make her sleep in her bed. I figure I’ll be awake all night, so why not let one of us be comfortable?

  Quietly, I take her laptop, prop it on my knees and sign in to my email. Nothing from MP. Furious and devastated beyond belief, I decide that this time I’ll be the one to make contact. It’s not like I expect an answer. But I have to let the double agent know the consequences of his betrayal.

  I waited at the flagpole. No one came. Why did you lie? How could you leave Jagger in the warehouse, in the dark, with a rope around his neck? I found him, but it might be too late. If he never wakes up, I want you to know it’s as much your fault as mine.

  * * *

  It takes two days before they let me into the ICU. Jagger’s completely still, almost unrecognizable.

  His face is puffy and swollen. An angry red mark circles his neck. One end of an accordion-like plastic hose attaches to a tube that disappears down his throat. The other end is hooked to a machine. He can’t breathe without it.

  Seeing him frozen in the twilight world of a coma is more than I can bear. The nurse walks me out. She smells like coconut, her dark skin soft as she puts an arm around me. She speaks with a New Orleans lilt.

  “You the girl who found him?”

  I can barely nod. “Will he be all right?”

  “Nobody knows, cher. He could wake up tomorrow with little or no damage. Depends on how long his brain was deprived of oxygen. Or…” She hesitates.

  Part of me does not want to know what’s on the other side of that sentence. But another needs to find out every bit of information. Not as reporter, but as punishment.

  We stop in the middle of the hallway. Doctors and nurses pad softly around us, giving us space. They’re used to tragedy.

  “Tell me,” I whisper. “I have to know.”

  Quietly, the nurse utters words I will never forget. Once said, they can’t be taken away.

  “He could stay like this. Not livin’, not dyin’. A persistent vegetative state is what they call it.” She gives me a look with eyes that have seen it all. “You don’t want that for him, cher. Trust me. You don’t.”

  PART THREE

  DECEMBER

  26

  It’s funny how you can get to be a high school senior and never really understand the word crisis. Not that I haven’t lived through plenty of bad days. Zits and flunked tests and, oh yeah, getting cheated on by my boyfriend. But nothing, until now, has come close to the literal meaning of the word. Zero hour, point of no return, doomsday, death’s door. The last an all-too-real reminder of what’s actually going on in hospital room 225.

  The team lives in a fog. None of us can do much except go through the motions. WiHi, hospital, home. Any moment we expect, hope…pray that Jagger will get better. Homework, tests, deadlines. None of it means a thing. Thanksgiving arrives, and then it’s history. The weather is a merry-go-round of slushy rain, bright sun, snow flurries—but Jagger’s condition does not vary. He’s living, if you can call it that, in a time warp of nothingness. Can’t move, can’t speak, can’t seem to wake up.

  After two weeks, the time comes when even I have to stop the daily pilgrimage to the hospital. Marci drags me to her house at the end of the day to force me to write the paper Mrs. Orapessa assigned.

  I stare at the book. “My brain is mush.”

  “Come on, Val. The extension runs out tomorrow.”

  “So I’ll flunk. Why does it even matter?”

  Marci throws a pillow at me. “Jagger would not want you to blow senior year. Colleges look at first-semester senior grades. You know that—”

  “And I don’t care. No college should accept someone as stupid as me. Someone who let Jagger go through with that…”

  The obsessive guilt loops constantly. In the waiting room, during all-too-brief visits with Jagger, in bed at night.

  “Valerie!” Marci’s voice is sharp. “Jagger chose to put his head into that rope. They didn’t hold a gun to his head.”

  “How do you know?”

  She looks directly at me, slumped beside her on her bed. “I know. The members of MP might think they’re cooler than Italian ice, but they’re not the Jersey Mafia. Jagger thought if he played along, finished the initiation, you and he would break the story.”

  “Since when are you a Jagger expert? You don’t even like him.”

  Marci’s pissed. “I’m not gonna vote him Most Popular, but the dude almost died to get the story. It’s impressive, okay? I understand why you’re in love with him—”

  “I am? You do?”

  “Yes.” She sighs. “But I’m not sure how to tell Raul.”

  “Omigod, Marci, I’ve been sick about that, too. I don’t want to hurt him. He doesn’t deserve it. The only reason I said yes to the dance is because I decided to try…to see if maybe it would work out—”

  “The whole thing’s my fault, Val. I pushed you into it.” She pulls the hair band from her ponytail and shakes her head as if some brilliant thought will wriggle loose. “We’ll figure something out—”

  Mrs. Lee knocks on the door. “Turn on the TV, girls. Channel 5. They’re doing a story about your friend.”

  In a flash, Marci’s got the remote. Emily Purdue, makeup perfect, suit immaculate, stands in front of Brooklyn Hospital.

  “…teen, playing Pass Out, discovered hanging by a rope in an abandoned warehouse weeks ago, has been in a coma ever since. The game, considered autoerotic, led to at least two teenage deaths last month. Is this the new high? Will it turn into an epidemic?” She looks directly into the camera. “For more information on this dangerous fad, click the ‘See It on TV’ link on our website. Emily Purdue, Channel 5 News.”

  Hot lava erupts in my veins. For the first time in weeks, a burst of energy gets me moving. Within seconds, I’m on Marci’s computer.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “Looking up the phone number for Channel 5 News. We need to talk to Emily Purdue. I need to talk to her. Tell her she got it wrong.”

  * * *

  The members of TV Production huddle in the cafeteria. Raul nibbles a greasy cafeteria calzone. I haven’t touched my sandwich; Marci’s taken maybe two bites of salad. Henry’s making milk doodles across his tray, using his straw as a pencil. Omar’s uncharacteristically subdued. For the last two weeks, he’s been as devastated as I am, as if somehow he should have sensed what Jagger and I were up to.

  Despite my at
tempt to reach Emily Purdue, which consisted of refusing to get off the phone until I was transferred to her voice mail—“Please leave a name, message and valid contact number”—Channel 5 rebroadcast the segment during the ten o’clock news. By morning, text messages, like smoke signals, have crisscrossed the Heights. Every kid at WiHi, it seems, has seen the piece, setting off the gossip mill like never before.

  “She made Jagger seem like such a loser,” Henry moans. “When really, he’s a hero.”

  Raul drums his fingers against the tray. “We need to get back on the story. Get it right. Unlike Channel 5.”

  “Val and Jagger tried,” Henry says loyally.

  “That was then. This is now.”

  “Why are you being so harsh?” Marci asks.

  “Because this is the answer to MP’s prayers,” Raul tells her. “Campus News doing nothing, too upset about Jagger to work the story. Or have us doubting ourselves after watching the way Channel 5 reported it. Either way, we’ve backed off.”

  “You think that’s how Emily Purdue got the story in the first place?” I push my sandwich away. “Someone from MP tipped her?”

  Raul shrugs. “Or the cops. If it’s the third bad Pass Out incident in a month, they’d want the public to be aware. Parents, kids.”

  “You must have some idea what to do next, Val.” Omar leans forward. “Where’s their weak point? What’s the angle?”

  “I wish to God I had something. The only thing I can think of is someone should talk to Taneisha again. Maybe she’ll feel bad and spill. I know she’s lying about how she got hurt.”

  “Jagger found out she’s in MP?” Henry asks. “That’s something, at least.”

  Exhausted, I rub my eyes. “Not specifically. The only thing we’re positive about is that he was the second person asked to join. There was an accident during the first initiation. Taneisha’s the only one who fits. Type of accident, right time frame.”

  “Were they playing hangman with her, too?” Raul asks.

  The bluntness of his words makes me flinch. I glance at Marci. Does Raul know about Jagger and me? She shakes her head slightly. Still…

  “Taneisha refused to talk to me, Raul. Her mom said it happened on the Promenade near the globe statue. You know how that end of the walkway is below street level? Taneisha said she was by herself, tightrope walking the sloping wall after the rainstorm. It’s a steep curve and everything was still wet. She slipped and fell. So no. It wasn’t Pass Out. They saved that wonderful activity for Jagger.”

  Omar crumples his napkin in disgust. “It’s not just an activity, Val. It’s some kind of criminal.”

  He glances at Henry.

  “I looked it up,” Henry says. “Reckless endangerment is the least of it. Someone could make a case for attempted manslaughter. Maybe murder. They left Jagger hanging. That’s a lot more than a ‘fun’ initiation stunt.”

  “Not if Jagger agreed to do it,” Raul argues. “If you voluntarily do something stupid, it’s your own damn fault if you get hurt. Look at it from the cops’ point of view. It’s the third time in a month some kid gets hurt trying Pass Out. They jump to the obvious conclusion. Jagger heard about it and found a vacant building with a group of other kids. They were experimenting. Daring each other. Being dumb teenagers.”

  “But we have proof it’s more,” Marci says. “Maybe Val didn’t have it with her then, but you kept the note, right? The one the kid wrote telling you about the first initiation and how it went bad.”

  “Yes. Of course I saved it.”

  Raul clears his throat. “But the note’s anonymous. Just like the writing in Omar’s basement. Police work’s got to be the same as reporting. Unless the cops verify the source, what can they do? Especially since there’s no actual threat involved. Even we don’t know for sure if the note’s telling the truth. Someone could have made it up.”

  Henry looks thoughtful. “Did Jagger read it?”

  “Yes! Trust me. I begged him not to go through with it.”

  “Then Raul’s right. If he did it willingly, understanding he might get hurt, it’s on him,” Henry says reluctantly. “The police can’t do anything to them.”

  Marci shakes her head. “Not true. MP left him like that.”

  Omar hits the table impatiently. “Hold on. Why is everyone assuming the cops are ignoring what Val told them? I bet they at least checked it out. Asked Mr. Wilkins. ‘Yes, some group appeared out of nowhere. I tried to find out who’s involved, but you know how kids are.’”

  “Which means it was the police who went to Channel 5.” Raul looks around the table. “So far, there haven’t been any arrests at school. That’s not the kind of thing that stays secret for long. Obviously, the cops are stumped, too. Let’s do something useful to help them. Get at least one name. Nobody cares about this as much as we do.”

  “What if I visit Taneisha?” Marci says. “If she leads us to a second source or proof that MP is behind the initiations, we could go to the police and run the story. That would make everyone happy, right?”

  Around the table, heads nod.

  “If you go to the hospital or her house, Marci, someone else should go back to Red Hook,” Henry says. “Talk to the warehouse guys next to the abandoned building. One of them might have seen a bunch of kids hanging around. Maybe we can get a description.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Raul says. “Action. I’ll go with you. Omar, how about you team with Marci?”

  I can tell Raul’s concerned about sending Omar to the macho part of Red Hook. The artists who live there might be cool—but they’re outnumbered by warehouse and factory workers. The kind of guys who might decide Omar’s a bit too flashy for their taste.

  No one, including Omar, wants to deal with that.

  “What about you, Val?” Marci asks.

  My anger at Taneisha is so intense I’d probably break her other leg if I talked to her. How could she be loyal to people who hurt her? What kind of spell, or charm or just plain charisma, does MP have? If she’d told the truth in the first place, Jagger would not be in a coma right now.

  “I won’t be much help,” I say.

  “That’s fine,” Raul tells me. “Henry and I could really use you. Except for buying stuff at Ikea with my dad, I’ve never been to Red Hook.”

  “There’s another thing we could try.” Henry’s learned not to get flustered when everyone looks at him. “You know those emails Val got? The ones telling her where to meet? I can show them to someone I know.”

  “Computer geek?” Raul asks.

  “Yeah. My friend Toby. She’s a chess-playing computer genius. She might be able to get the IP address.” He glances at the look of confusion on Marci’s face and adds, “Every computer has a specific one, like a fingerprint. Hopefully, Toby can track down who sent the emails.”

  “That would be awesome!” I say.

  As if to punctuate the feeling, the bell rings. Kids spring up, laughing, pushing. No one at our table moves, however. Everyone’s focused, hell-bent on stopping MP. It’s not only the story the team wants. Or making sure no one else gets hurts. It’s personal. Without anyone quite knowing how it happened, Slacker Jagger burrowed his way into each of our hearts.

  The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

  The ceremony of innocence is drowned.

  W.B. Yeats

  MP LOG

  No one noticed me watching the parade. Doctors, nurses, red-eyed mother, sobbing WiHi assholes.


  It’s extremely amusing. Campus News spinning their wheels for so long trying to find me. And there I was. Fifteen, maybe twenty feet away. Watching. Listening. Laughing my ass off.

  I sat in plain sight across the hall. “Grandpa’s so out of it,” I told the nurse, “he doesn’t recognize me.” She agreed it was very sad.

  After everyone left, I slipped across the hall. Took pictures of him all tubed up. Close-ups of the bruises around his neck because that shit’s awesome.

  The genie’s out of the bottle—that’s for sure. And there’s no way he goes back in. Been out ever since the new girl slipped on the ledge. Phantom thinks I pushed her, but I didn’t. I got in close, and maybe she felt something and moved too much to the right, but I can’t take credit. Just a lucky accident that proved how easy it can be to terrify them. To show the world how meaningless their petty lives are.

  A rope. A box. A plan.

  It’s all I needed to make a nightmare come true.

  27

  The bus pulls up in front of the glass-topped bus shelter. The door hisses open and the three of us exit into a partly cloudy afternoon. Not much wind, the temp hovers somewhere in the mid-forties. I go straight into reporter mode, lock my feelings up tight and lead the boys through Red Hook’s narrow streets.

  “That’s it.”

  Henry takes in the unused building, the fence. “How’d you get inside?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  At the side yard, I point out the loose, rusted chain. Push the gate to widen the gap. Henry slides in first. He helps Raul, who’s got at least twenty pounds on him. I slip through last, and they fall in behind me as I move toward the back door.

  Something’s changed.