by Jason Starr
My father came into the house. He grabbed me by the shoulders and bent over, looking into my eyes.
“Listen to me, just listen to me,” he said, talking very fast. “We have to make up a story—a good story, do you understand what I’m saying? We don’t have much time so listen to me, damn it. You did this, okay, not me. I’m an adult and if anyone finds out that I…they just can’t find that out—they just can’t, okay? So when they ask, when the police ask, when anyone asks, you say you did it. Say it was a fight—you were fighting. You and that kid Johnny Owens or whatever the hell his name was. You were fighting today at school so they’ll believe that. Say he came over, this kid came over, and you were fighting. Then you pushed him and he fell down. That’s all you have to do, okay? Say you pushed him and he fell down. They’ll ask you questions, but that’s all you say, that’s the whole story—you were fighting, you pushed him, and he fell down. Do you understand that? Can you remember that?”
“You mean,” I said, stuttering. “You mean…he’s dead?”
“Yes, he’d dead, you idiot. He’s fucking dead. And you killed him, not me. You killed him. I didn’t do it, you did. Can you remember that? Can you fucking remember that? No one was watching except you—you were the only one who saw. No one else saw so if you just stick to the story…if you just stick to the story—” He started shaking me. “Listen to me, Jonathan. Listen to me, damn it. This is the only way it can work—do you understand that? This is the only way. You’re a kid and it’s okay if two kids fight, but I’m an adult so no one can know what happened. It has to be our secret, okay? Besides, it was all your fault anyway. I mean, I don’t even know this kid. You killed him, Jonathan. You killed him. Just get that into your head and everything’ll be okay. It’s very simple—you were fighting and then you pushed him and he fell down. It’s all very simple. But you’ll need a bruise to make it look good. Otherwise they won’t believe you—they won’t believe you were fighting if you’re not bruised.”
My father stood back, then punched me as hard as he could in the nose. Before I had a chance to scream he punched me again, even harder, and I thought I heard a bone breaking. My nose was gushing blood and then I was crying hysterically.
“That’s good,” my father said, “cry. That’s perfect. Cry. Keep crying.”
* * *
I was on my knees, wailing into my bloody hands, while my father called 911. He told the operator that there’d been an accident, that his son had been fighting with another boy and that the other boy had fallen and seemed to be dead. Then my father gave the operator our address and hung up.
“Come on,” my father said. “We have to go outside.”
“I…I can’t,” I said.
“God damn it,” my father said. He went into the kitchen and came back with a dish towel.
“Here, put this over your nose,” he said to me. “Just do it.”
I held the towel over my nose, but it was still bleeding and the pain wasn’t stopping.
“We have to go outside now,” my father said. “If we’re in here when the police and ambulance come it’ll look suspicious. Come on, let’s get a move on.”
When we went outside to the driveway, two neighbors were already standing near the body. My father explained to them what had happened, how I had been fighting with the boy and accidentally pushed him off the porch. The way I was crying the story probably seemed very realistic.
I looked at Billy Owens’ dead body. He was lying on his back with his eyes wide open, a small pool of blood around his head.
The ambulance arrived about the same time as a police car. A larger group of neighbors was forming in the driveway. Everyone ignored me except Mrs. Dembeck, who lived across the street. She used to be very nice to me, sometimes inviting me into her house for cookies and hot chocolate on cold, snowy days. But now she was glaring at me, like I was a killer.
While the policemen were examining Billy’s body, one of the EMS workers examined my nose. The bleeding had stopped, but he said my nose was probably broken. He gave me an icepack to hold against it and said that I needed to go to the emergency room for X-rays.
Meanwhile, one of the policemen was talking to my father. The policeman was nodding, writing in a pad, while my father gave his version of what had happened. After a few minutes, the policeman came over to me.
“Hi, Jonathan,” the policeman said. “My name is Officer Pinelli. “I know this is very difficult for you right now and we’ll make sure you get taken care of. But can you tell me what happened here before?”
My father stood close by, listening, as I told the officer how Billy had come to my house, how he punched me, and then how I pushed him and he fell through the railing. The officer asked me a lot of questions about Billy—How did I know him? Why did he come over the house today? What was our fight about? I had never been a very good liar and I kept fumbling and stuttering as I spoke, but the officer seemed to believe me anyway.
Billy’s body was covered in a white sheet and taken away in the ambulance. Another police car came and then Detective Harrison arrived on the scene. The detective asked me the same questions that the officer had asked me and I gave the same answers.
Officer Pinelli offered to drive my father and me to the hospital to take care of my nose. My father offered to take me himself, but the detective said that it would probably be a good idea if the officer drove us because my father and I would need to answer some more questions at the precinct later on and that the officer could drive us there from the hospital.
In the back of he police car, my father and I didn’t speak. The ice pack had numbed most of the pain in my nose and I just sat there, staring blankly out the window.
My nose was only fractured and the emergency-room doctor said I’d be fine in a few weeks. He also that the blackness around my eyes would eventually fade. After a nurse bandaged my nose, a police officer took my father and me to the police precinct where the detective who’d been at the house was waiting for us. The detective asked my father and me all sorts of questions about what had happened, then he asked my father to leave the room. On the way out, my father glared at me and I was afraid he’d hit me again later if I didn’t say the right things to the detective.
“I know this has been a very long, difficult day for you,” the detective said, “but if you could just tell me what happened one more time I’d appreciate it.”
I was sitting across from him, looking down at my lap.
“We had a fight,” I said.
“In the schoolyard, right?”
I nodded.
“Who started this fight?” he asked.
“Me,” I said.
“Why did you start the fight?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
I was remembering how my father had told me to take Billy by surprise.
“Because I just wanted to,” I said. “At school, he makes fun of me all the time, and he said he was gonna beat me up. So I wanted to fight him before he could beat me up.”
“And you were both called into the principal’s office?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“And only Billy was suspended, not you?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Then what happened at your house?”
“The doorbell rang and Billy was there.”
“What did he say to you?”
“He called me names and he said he was gonna beat me up.”
“And then what happened?”
“He punched me in the nose.”
“How many times?”
“Two times.”
“And what happened after that?”
“I pushed him by accident and he fell off the porch.”
“Are you sure it was an accident, Jonathan?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“But are you sure? Sometimes people say things were accidents when they weren’t because they’re afraid they’re gonna get in trouble. Isn’t that what you did, Jonatha
n?”
“No,” I said.
“Are you sure you weren’t just so angry at Billy that you pushed him off the porch to get rid of him?”
“No,” I said, crying. “That’s not true. It’s not.”
“You can tell me the truth,” he said. “You’re not gonna get punished if you tell me the truth.”
“That is the truth,” I said.
A man came into the room. He had a handlebar mustache and he was wearing an old denim jacket.
“Is that him?” he said. “Is that the kid?”
Detective Harrison got up and stood in front of the man, blocking him. Then two other men came into the room and grabbed the man with the mustache from behind.
“You little son of a bitch!” the man yelled at me. “You killed my son! You killed my fucking son!”
The men pulled the screaming man out of the room. But I could still hear him yelling, “That little fucking bastard! That little piece of shit!”
During the commotion, my father entered the room.
“All right, I think this is enough questioning,” my father said to the detective. “We’re going home now.”
“I’m not through yet,” the detective said.
“I don’t care,” my father said. “You made my kid cry and I think that’s enough for one day. Please have a car take us home.”
The detective agreed to let us go home, but he said that he couldn’t guarantee he wouldn’t have to speak to me again.
When my father and I arrived home, it was almost dark. There was still a chalk outline of Billy’s body in the driveway and about a dozen neighbors were still standing around outside the house and in the driveway, including some kids I knew. Everyone was suddenly quiet as I followed my father up the stoop.
My mother was home. She’d already heard what had happened and she was angry at my father for not calling her at work and telling her. Then my mother hugged me tightly and told me how much she loved me.
“Don’t worry, everything’s going to be okay,” she told me. “You don’t worry about anything.”
My mother continued to hug me for a long time, then I told her I had to go to the bathroom. In the bathroom, I cried some more, thinking about everything that had happened, afraid for what would happen next. Now everyone in the neighborhood believed I was a killer and everyone at school would believe it too. Billy Owens’ friends would probably give me the worst beating of my life. Or maybe they’d even kill me.
When I left the bathroom, I heard my parents talking downstairs. From the landing at the top of the stairs, I eavesdropped.
“I don’t know why he was fighting with this boy in the first place,” my mother said. “It isn’t like Jonathan to fight.”
“All kids fight,” my father said.
“Not Jonathan,” my mother said. “Maybe that’s why he was acting so strange yesterday. He wouldn’t touch his supper.”
“Look,” my father said, “I think the faster this whole thing blows over, the better it’ll be for all of us.”
“Did he talk to you about anything…anything that was going on at school?”
“No, of course not.”
“I’ll have to call the school and find out.”
“Just let it be,” my father said.
“You mean just pretend this never happened?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you want to do that? Something like this won’t just blow over. He’ll need counseling—he’ll have to work out whatever he’s feeling.”
“He’s not getting any counseling.”
“Are you crazy? He was traumatized today.”
“He’s a big kid. He’ll be fine.”
“He won’t be fine. How can you say he’ll be fine?”
“I don’t want to discuss this anymore.”
“Well, I want to discuss it.”
“That’s enough.”
“It’s not enough. Don’t tell me when it’s enough. I’ll tell you when it’s enough.”
There was a loud smacking sound and I knew my father had slapped my mother across the face the way he sometimes did.
“You fucking bastard!” my mother screamed. “You goddamn son of a bitch!”
A door slammed and there was silence.
* * *
In the middle of the night I woke up and my father was sitting next to me in bed.
“Jonathan,” he whispered, “wake up. Wake up, Jonathan.”
“I’m up,” I said in hoarse voice. I’d been crying before I went to sleep and in the middle of the night and my pillow was still wet.
“What did the detective ask you?” he said.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Come on, he must’ve asked you some questions. Did you stick to the story?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You did good, Jonathan. I’m very proud of you.”
It was the first and last time my father ever said he was proud of me.
He kissed me on my forehead and left the room.
* * *
I didn’t want to go to school and my mother wanted me to take a day off too, but my father insisted that I go. As usual, my father got his way.
There were a few reporters waiting outside the house. My father told them that I wouldn’t make any public comments. Then my father led me past them as they shouted: “Why did you do it, Jonathan?” “Did you kill him on purpose, Jonathan?” “Do you feel any remorse, Jonathan?”
The reporters followed my father and me the entire two-block walk to school, shouting more questions. I wanted to tell them the truth, but I knew I couldn’t do that, that I’d never be able to do that. I started crying and my father said, “Just grow up for chrissake. You didn’t do anything wrong. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Near the entrance to the school, I fell to my knees and refused to go any further.
“Get up,” my father said. “Get up before you get me very upset.”
I got up slowly and went into the school.
In the hallway, on the way to the classroom, kids stopped and stared at me and they started whispering things to each other. I was afraid that the kids would start calling me names and threaten to beat me up, but nothing happened.
Mrs. Rosenberg stopped me when I came into the classroom.
“Jonathon, how are you?” she asked.
“Fine,” I said, continuing past her.
I sat in my usual seat in the back of the class and opened my loose-leaf. As Mrs. Rosenberg taught a math lesson, a few kids turned around and looked at me, but no one said anything.
During lunchtime, I thought I’d get beat up for sure. Billy’s friends were probably gonna all attack me at the same time, and the rest of the kids would cheer them on. Sure enough, a minute or two after I sat down, Ronny Harrison and Craig Stern, two of Billy Owens’ best friends, came over and sat down across from. I decided that when they started to beat me up I wouldn’t do anything. I’d just get beat up and hopefully that would be the end of it.
“Hey, Jonathon,” Ronny said. “We were just wondering—you wanna come sit at our table?”
I knew it was a trick. Once I got to their table, they would all start beating me up.
“That’s okay,” I said.
“Come on,” Craig said. “You can sit in Billy’s old seat.”
I decided to go, figuring if I was going to get beat up eventually I might as well get it over with. But, instead, all the kids were nice to me. They didn’t say anything about what had happened with Billy and Ronny even invited me to his birthday party.
During the rest of the day, other kids who’d never said a word to me before came up to me and started trying to be friends with me. I felt like I’d killed The Wicked Witch of the East. I’d thought that everyone liked Billy, but I realized that everyone hated him as much as I had, including his best friends.
Later in the afternoon, Mr. Greenberg, the principal, came to the clas
s and took me back to his office to speak with him in private. I thought he was gonna scold me, or even suspend me, but he seemed happy that Billy was gone too.
“I just wanted to tell you that no one here at the school blames you for what happened yesterday,” he said. “It was just an accident, an unfortunate accident, but still an accident, and if you ever want to talk about it I just want you to know that I’m always available for you.”
