“That’s your generation,” Naomi said dismissively. She didn’t know when to quit.
“This is messed up,” Jason said on his way out of the room. “I don’t want any part of it. No cosign from me.”
I felt like scum, like a bad friend, and I wasn’t entirely sure why. I hadn’t picked Naomi over Jason. I hadn’t done anything to Jason.
“I should get going,” I said, resting my forehead on the top of Naomi’s head. I guessed we’d won, but I felt exhausted. I was leaving the house in a relationship with an amazing girl, but we’d lost our steam. We’d been met with warning and caution and, in the case of Jason, flat-out disapproval. No “cosign.”
“I’ll see you at school,” Naomi said. She had a slight smile, at least. We didn’t kiss or anything, not in that room. But she touched my hand as I opened the door and left.
The secret was gone. The weight of keeping it had been lifted, but it was replaced with another weight that hadn’t been there before. This wasn’t going to be as easy as it should be.
Chapter Nine
“Can you take us through that night?”
“I can try, but most of it would be pretty boring,” Dad said, and took a sip from his water.
Dad was on the evening news, 10 p.m. edition. Sitting across from him was hard-hitting news anchor and sometimes interviewer Erika Vasquez, a transport from New York City. She was pretty, in her thirties, Latina. She had a red pantsuit on, red lipstick, brown curled hair. She was very pretty but known for her no-nonsense interviews, which had us all on the edge of our seat as we watched.
“Being a cop is not as glamorous as it looks in the movies,” Dad said with a smile. Dad looked relaxed, dressed up in a dark shirt and tie. They sat in two big brown chairs in front of a dark blue backdrop of the city. Bright studio lights gave Dad a glint of sweat. “I’m no Iron Man, although I have been told I look like Robert Downey Jr.”
“You have?” Erika asked, disbelieving. She had the more flattering camera angle.
“Really, being a cop entails a lot of sitting,” Dad continued, ignoring her question. She smiled. Dad could put on the charm for an attractive lady, but even charm could go any way. He could embarrass himself. “Waiting, observing, all of which takes skill. But the interesting part of the night in question involved Calvin Temple, who I just happened to pull over during a routine stop, a taillight thing, driving a little slow. I was observing, and certain details I’d heard regarding this thief stood out to me, three things in particular: the red hat, the garbage bags, and the gloves. None of which are enough to make an arrest, but enough to—”
“Were you originally assigned to this particular case?” Erika asked, and tilted her head. There was the setup. Dad wanted to clear his name, but this was too dangerous. This one interview, this one lady in the chair across from him, had the power to make our lives a nightmare. The interview had been recorded earlier this afternoon, and Dad had said it’d gone well, but they could do anything in editing.
“I was not assigned to that case,” Dad admitted. She was going to throw him under the bus. “But we’re all certainly aware of what’s going on in the neighborhood. And of course we’re expected to take action when we see something that’s not quite right.”
“So you ask a few questions, I’d imagine, and there was a physical altercation?” Erika asked. Dad nodded along with her questions. I couldn’t tell if she was going for a scoop or what. Maybe the news station worked with the police—maybe Dad had more control than I thought. So far he’d been handling her questions really well, but she could make a name for herself if she played her cards right. We just had to wait and see whose side she was on.
“There was an altercation, although the term is a little mis-leading,” Dad said. “Or open-ended, I suppose. I could pat you on the back, and it’s a physical altercation. But what happened was he didn’t like where the questions were going. He’s eyeing his car, and he walks away. I pull him back because we’re not finished.”
“He was bruised,” she stated firmly and clearly, a slight nod to confirm the fact.
“Kids have bruises,” Dad said. “He could have gotten that bruise anywhere. I don’t know what he was up to five minutes before he saw me. Hell, I’ve got bruises I can show you. I’ve got a wicked bruise on my shin from a car door.”
“You mentioned earlier that a cop’s job isn’t ‘glamorous.’ I believe that was the term you used,” Erika said. “But there’s a certain notoriety for solving a case like that one.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got that, and I can do without it,” Dad said, leaning back a bit, comfortable. “Let me sit around and observe any day. It’s not about notoriety. It’s about safety—I want to make sure the people in my city can get where they’re going and feel safe doing it. It’s not about the police chasing down bad guys and taking them out. We are the community. We want to blend in and keep everything on the up-and-up, and that’s it. We serve you. Some kid breaking into homes, stealing what we work hard for, invading privacy, making all of us feel less safe, in some cases attacking us? That isn’t helping his community. He’s a detriment, and we’ll see. Personally, I think the burglaries go away.”
“Let’s hope, James. Thank you for coming on,” Erika said before facing the camera and sending to commercials. I didn’t know if she sounded convinced or suspicious or what. I guessed she asked the questions, let Dad talk, and left the rest up to the audience. Not the best scenario, not the worst.
“Well? Did I look okay?” Dad asked, getting up and turning off the TV. It wasn’t the hatchet job I’d feared. He was funny, self-effacing, but came off like he cared about the city and was doing the right thing. I’d think it was how you’d want your law enforcement to sound. He’d gone over it a hundred times with Ricky, too, so the interview was a big deal.
“James, you did wonderful,” Rosie said. She’d come over to watch with us. “I think you’ll win over a lot of people.”
“Thanks, Rosie,” Dad said. “You know what else was cool? I got to meet Brandon Peters when I was in the studio.”
“The weather guy?” Rosie asked, eyes lit up. “I love him. He is so nice. He does events in the city all the time. He’s so sweet, so good with kids.”
“He’s great, even off camera,” Dad said. “Big poker fan. I tried to get myself invited to one of his games but no dice. The studio is small, too. The weather center is right on the other side of the news desk.”
While Dad and Rosie chatted about weathermen, I was sitting at the living room computer to look up the news site and check out the video of Dad’s interview there. That was where everyone could leave comments. He did well, but truthfully he could only sway opinion so much. Nothing up yet. Maybe it’d stay below radar still.
“How do I Google myself?” Dad had asked me, standing over me at the computer. He was in a good mood, especially with company over.
“You go to Google,” I said. “And you Google yourself.”
“Smart-ass,” Dad said. “What else can I do? I want to find detailed stuff, time frames, specific websites.” He was pretty old-school when it came to computers. He had e-mail, he went online, but he wasn’t really “connected” 24-7 like most people.
“You can use quotation marks around multiple words, like a name, to search for exactly what you want,” I told him. I showed him how to narrow the results down by time, so we could see stuff posted only after the interview. I showed him too much, probably. Dad was used to being supercop, man around town, but not everything said online about him was going to be good. In fact, with this case going on, I couldn’t imagine he’d want to know what anyone was saying about him. Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and watch him drown himself.
“Let me take a look, Walter,” Rosie said, and I got out of the seat. “I’ll let you know if it’s safe.”
“I wouldn’t do it,” I said. Dad didn’t grow up with the Internet. He just kind of found it as an adult. He thought the world was his friend
online, but of course I knew better. “Who knows what’s on there. The Internet’s a wasteland.”
“I’ve gotta be online. It’s a preemptive strike,” Dad said. “These are things you have to think about now. This isn’t five, ten years ago. You have to think ‘online.’ You have to consider your social-media image.” Dad sounded convoluted. He really was a mess. I didn’t know a single person who used the term social media in regular conversation. “People can smile to my face, Walter, tell me I’m doing a good job, but online it’s a whole other world, brother. You have to look at your public image and your online profile.”
My dad called me “brother.”
“Your father’s being proactive, sweetie. It’s a good thing,” Rosie said in her soothing voice. “Now is not the time to sit idly.”
“You guys don’t understand the Internet, though,” I said. “These people are going to bait you in, get you to say something stupid, and then it’s all over. It’s called troll-baiting, and you’re going to play right into it.”
“You’re assuming I’ll say something stupid,” Dad said, exceedingly proud of himself. “I’m right, Walter. I haven’t done anything wrong, and that’s my advantage. There’s no slipping, no saying something stupid, because all I have to do is tell the truth, and I win.”
I was on an after-school special. Dad was still convinced he was supercop, but he was just the underdog now.
“There’s a lot of links here,” Rosie said in the glow of the computer screen. “I hope I don’t click the wrong thing and give your computer a virus, James.”
“I’ll click it, Rosie,” Dad said, and Rosie wheeled the chair away from the computer. Such a gentleman.
“It’s a dangerous time, Walter,” Dad said to me. “People see a news story like this and they’re all culture vultures. Everyone expects that the cop is crooked, the world is racist. And they’re hunched over, primed to pounce with fingers wagging, the mob mentality. Once that kicks in, it’s over, I’m out of a job, doesn’t matter anymore who’s right and who’s wrong.”
“Do you have a plan?” I asked. He had awareness, at least, but it still felt like he was in over his head. I guess that couldn’t be avoided.
“Yeah, I have a plan,” Dad said. “I need to defend myself and what I know. And I know what happened that night. Have some faith in me. For now, I just need to keep this thing from going viral.”
I went to check out what I could on my laptop in my room. Plan or no plan, I could still stay a few steps ahead of him.
Our local news site had some comments on the interview now. They were more revealing than the actual news. Everyone seemed to have issues with the police department. One person said she couldn’t get past the bridge without doubling her chances of getting stopped. One person got the same officer pulling him over every time. Another person said they had to deal with three cops for going ten miles over the speed limit. Mr. Mills was right: the race stuff got heated quickly.
*
Proud Whitey: Uh-oh, it was a black kid? Start the timer! How long before this guy’s lynched by the media?
The Real Deal: Lynched? Really, that’s the word you’re going to use?
Proud Whitey: Waaah. How much does it pay being a professional victim? I could use the work.
Miss Monroe: You’re the one making it about race. Sit there complaining and collecting your welfare checks.
*
I closed my laptop, got into bed, and hoped all this bad-cop business would be gone by morning. I fell asleep to the sound of Dad typing away on the computer.
*
Dad was glued to his computer the next few days, and I tried to stay out as much as I could. It’s a weird thing for me to sneak out of the house and have a secret from Dad, especially a cop dad, but he was so involved with everything going on in his own life he didn’t bother to ask where I went anymore. So I was at Naomi’s a lot.
Naomi’s room was at the top of the stairs, and the next room over was Jason’s. Privacy was not an option. We were allowed in there as long as the door was wide open. It was a new feeling to be in a girl’s room that wasn’t my sister’s. It was kind of the same, with the same stuff you wouldn’t find in a boy’s room—makeup, teen magazines. But it felt a little more dangerous when it was your girlfriend’s room.
It was both crowded and clean, full of stuff but organized well. There was a TV, an iPod speaker setup, a desk with her laptop, books and magazines, DVDs, a walk-in closet. Almost every corner of the room had some unique use. Each wall had its own central purpose—the door, the mirror, the window, the closet, and the bed.
Naomi and I were kissing there until we heard footsteps approaching. Then they stopped, and turned around, heading back away. We laughed. Naomi picked up my hand and was studying my hand and fingers, then reached over for a marker and started to draw. The marker tickled my palm.
“This is the only thing I can draw,” she said. “I had a book on drawing when I was a kid. The only thing I remember from it is how to make this cat.”
“This is my favorite cat,” I said. “I’m going to adopt it.” The cat was simple and cute. I couldn’t draw much myself but had sketchbooks of comic-book characters I’d try to copy. I was okay at it.
“This door was open wider before, wasn’t it?” Naomi’s dad said, suddenly in the doorway, shoes off. He was finding ways to mask his footsteps.
Naomi had fought for the bedroom use. Her parents were initially set against it, and I was fine with whatever. If they didn’t like us being in the bedroom, then I was happy wherever we ended up. But Naomi argued that all her stuff was in her room. Her parents argued she could bring it out into the living room. She argued, “But you’re in the living room.” And they argued that so were a nice big TV and a comfy couch and plenty of room. Naomi insisted not everything she has to say needs to be heard by her mom and dad. But really she just wanted to be able to kiss.
“Put a brick there or something,” Naomi said, finishing the cat drawing. “There’s a draft from you walking by it every ten seconds.” Sarcasm was so prevalent in the house it wasn’t even acknowledged half the time. He set off to look for something heavy to block the door open.
“I want to draw you something,” I said while admiring my cat.
Naomi reached under her bed and pulled a sneaker out. She wanted me to draw on the shoe so she could look at it wherever she was.
I played with the marker cap while I thought of what I could draw. I thought of comic-book characters, the sea monster I had at the sushi place. I thought of noir movies. I decided on a cityscape. The view from on top of the city. I started by drawing boxes for each of the buildings and a skyline behind them.
Music started blaring from Jason’s room. He was listening to Notorious B.I.G.’s second album. Naomi rolled her eyes and pulled her laptop up onto the bed. She opened up Facebook.
“Have you seen this?” she asked. “It’s a page about the burglaries and all that stuff. Some stuff about your dad. Everyone keeps liking it, so it’s always on my profile.” The page was called POLICE AND COMMUNITY IN EAST BRIDGE. It was supposedly about local politics, but it’d been made right after the Temple case blew up, and that was all anyone talked about on it. There were kids from school on there, people I recognized from the neighborhood, some people I didn’t know, and, of course, some trolls. I had seen it, but I hadn’t gone looking for it. Facebook and sites like it were a clutter for commentary I tried to avoid. I was connected like everyone else, but you lose something in all that connectivity. Individuality gets lost in the noise.
“There’s a picture of my dad,” I said, looking at the screen. It was a picture from a newspaper article my dad was in a year ago. He’s standing by his police cruiser with sunglasses on. He looked a little conceited out of context, when you grouped the picture with the case that was going on.
“You might not want to click it,” Naomi said, spinning the laptop to me. “I can’t vouch for anything crazy that people write on there. I’m no
t even allowed to post on this page.”
I clicked on the picture.
Fannie Sanchez: Same guy that pulled my kid in for doing nothing. Wrong place, wrong time, I guess?
Darren Harrington: It’s a long line of bloated egos, police force is full of em, they just want the badge and the gun so they can play tough guy.
Arturo Morrison: He couldn’t handle my gramma.
Ken Palmer: I’m not urging anyone to do anything stupid, but I know this guy’s address, DM me.
Naomi pounded the wall with her fist and startled me. “Jason, turn that down!”
I backed out of the picture and spun the laptop back to Naomi. “Yeah, I’ve seen enough,” I said. This was getting unnerving, fast. Was that even legal? I didn’t want to look at Facebook again.
Naomi clicked on something. “It looks like your dad is replying to posts on here. That’s probably not good,” Naomi said. I rested my head on Naomi’s leg.
“There is no universe in which that is a good thing,” I said. The music was still blaring. “I don’t want to look at it. What’s he saying?”
“Just defending himself,” Naomi said, presumably looking for anything interesting. “He’s on, like, every post almost. He’s all over this page.”
“Your gonna lose your job,” Naomi read, overpronouncing the misspelling of you’re. “They should just start clean with a whole new police department.”
“It’s ‘you’re’ gonna lose your job,” Dad had replied. He was correcting grammar. My dad wasn’t getting trolled; he was the troll. Naomi and I laughed at that. I needed a laugh. Hopefully he could pull some strings and get the address guy arrested before anyone took him up on it.
“A week ago I wouldn’t have imagined this would be an actual issue in my life,” I said. “My dad on the Internet, riling up drama.”
Bright Lights, Dark Nights Page 13
