by Jason Starr
It seemed strange to me that Mr. Greenberg wasn’t angry at me. After all, he had no way of knowing whether it had really been an accident. The police were still investigating and, for all Mr. Greenberg knew, it could’ve turned out that I’d killed Billy on purpose.
But, later in the day, I realized that Billy had been a big headache for the principal, getting into trouble all the time, and Mr. Greenberg was just glad that Billy was gone.
I guess kids always became more popular after they beat up someone, but since I’d done more than beat up someone, I’d killed someone, and not just anyone—Billy Owens, the toughest kid in the whole school—I became more popular than Billy had ever been. I wasn’t just Jonathan Zimmerman anymore—I was Jon Zimmerman, the cool tough kid no one wanted to mess with.
Detective Harrison came to talk to my father and me several more times, but my lying was improving. I didn’t feel like I was just telling a story anymore to cover up for my father. I wanted to believe that I was the killer and eventually I started to believe it. When I thought about that afternoon I’d see Billy and me fighting on the porch and then I saw myself, pushing Billy through the railing. My father had nothing to do with any of it.
One night, my father came into my room and told me that the investigation was over—the police believed our story. It seemed like everything in my life was gonna be great, but the very next day I came home from school and my father was waiting for me at the door.
“Now you’ve done it you little shit,” he said. “Now you’ve really done it.”
I had no idea what I could’ve done wrong. I’d been lying to the police, telling the exact story my father had told me to tell.
I tried to run away, to hide in my room, but my father grabbed me from behind. He stuck some piece of paper in front of my face.
“You know what this is?” he demanded. “You know what this is?”
I shook my head.
“It’s a summons,” he said. “We’re being sued. Billy Owens’ parents are fucking suing us for ten million dollars. You know what that means?”
I shook my head, starting to cry.
“It means they’re saying it’s our fault. They’re saying the railing was busted and should’ve been fixed. But this isn’t our fault, is it, Jonathan? It’s your fault. If you didn’t start this whole thing with this kid, none of this would’ve happened.”
I broke away and ran up the stairs. Or at least I tried to run. Halfway up, my father grabbed me and he carried me into the study. I was screaming and crying, but this only made him angrier.
“God damn it, Jonathan,” he said.
He put me down and then he punched me in the face. I fell to my knees, sobbing, tasting blood on my lips.
“Get up,” he said. “Get up and act like a man.”
I didn’t budge.
“I said get up!” he yelled, then he grabbed me by the hair and lifted me to my feet.
“Stop,” I begged. “Please stop!”
He cocked his fist again, then he let go and said, “Get the hell away from me, you fat piece of shit. I don’t wanna see your fucking face.”
* * *
I cried until I feel asleep. When I woke up the room was dark and I heard my mother and father arguing. I opened the door a crack and heard my father telling my mother about the lawsuit. Then my father started yelling at my mother, the way he had at me, and I thought he was gonna hit her.
Later, my mother came into my room. I thought she was gonna tell me that she’d had enough of my father, that it was time to pack our things and move out. I was starting to imagine how great it would be to live someplace else, far away from my father, when my mother said:
“Why did you have to do it, Jonathan? Why did you have to do it? You ruined everything, our entire lives. We’ll have to sell the house now, we’ll be poor forever, and you don’t care, do you? You just don’t care.”
I didn’t understand why my mother was so angry at me, why both of my parents seemed to hate me. I wanted to tell her the truth, but I didn’t. I just let her go on blaming me for everything.
At school the next day, Mrs. Rosenberg noticed the fat lip my father had given me and she asked me what happened.
“Nothing,” I said. “I just fell.”
“It doesn’t look like that could’ve happened from a fall,” she said.
“It did,” I said. “I was playing outside and I tripped and I fell on my face.”
Mrs. Rosenberg said she would talk to me about it again later and she seemed disappointed in me.
But the bruises seemed to make me even more popular with the kids in my class. Now I was even tougher and more dangerous than I’d been yesterday and everyone wanted to be my friend.
In the schoolyard, I was hanging out by the handball court, talking to Ronny and Craig and some other guys, when Ronny started making fun of Paul Steinman. Paul was short and very thin and wore thick glasses. All the cool kids in school always picked on him.
I went over to Paul and stared at him without blinking. I remembered what my father told me, about how I had to be a man. I liked seeing how afraid Paul was, how I was making him cry.
“What’re you gonna do, bony ass?” I said. “Huh? What’re you gonna do?”
Paul covered his eyes, crying harder. I put him in a headlock, then I started punching his face as hard as I could as kids gathered in a circle surrounding us, chanting, “Fight, fight, fight, fight…”
