Duty or Desire Read online

  “Sweetheart?” Is that Mom?

  A groan escapes from the bottom of my throat, and I become aware of a small searing pain in my head. But it’s hard to open my eyes for the moment.

  “Don’t strain yourself, Chrissie Bear.” A low baritone voice—my father—tells me. I hate it when my dad calls me that. But I’m so glad to hear him.

  “I can open my eyes.” I see hospital sheets covering me and three people supporting me. Mom and Dad sit on small hard chairs pushed tight against the bed. Lacy stands behind them.

  “How you feel, sweetheart?” Mom asks.

  “My head hurts.” I reach toward my head and feel the harsh texture of bandage that is bigger than my hand. The bright lights feel like needles in my eyes, but I open them when I hear Lacy’s voice. She gazes down at me with a scrunched up face and tears in her eyes.

  “When they did that to you . . . I was so scared and angry.” Lacy breaks eye contact and looks down. “And helpless.”

  “It’s okay, Lacy . . .” I start.

  “No, it isn’t. Lacy told us everything,” Mom says. “I’m going up to the police department tomorrow. I am telling them I’m going to sue their sorry selves for messing with my baby.”

  “Mom, look, d- . . . don’t . . . make a big deal out of this,” I say, still foggy, and as the memory rushes in, I want to push it out, forever.

  “Chrissie, what they did was completely out of line,” Mom presses. “Look at you.” Her voice cracks.

  “But—”

  “But nothing,” comes an angry voice from the corner. Lex. Lacy’s brother.

  I feel like I’m going to throw up. “I need the bathroom.”

  Mom lowers the metal railing on the bed. When it hits the rest of the bed, it clangs. To Mom, Dad and Lacy, it sounds like nothing; to me, it’s like a gong ringing in my ears.

  I get up with the help of Lacy and Mom. It feels a bit funny to walk again. I don’t remember details—I just remember the pain as I got beat. I don’t know where the first hit was, or if there was more than one. My mind is fuzzy like an out-of-focus photo. The only thing that’s clear, other than the pain, is that Lacy is crying silently, just like my body is doing. Mom helps me back into the bed. I lie down: eyes closed shut, ears ringing loud, and heart beating louder.

  “So what are you going to do?” Lacy says through a combination of stifled sobs and sniffs.

  Mom’s got that tone in her voice like Minister Gibson gets sometimes: old-school hellfire and brimstone. “First step would be for your mama to go up to that police department and file charges or a lawsuit. Whichever one I see fit.” I wince. The world seems loud, and I just want quiet.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I whisper. “I don’t want this to hover over me.”

  “What? This already is! Look where you’re lying!” Lacy shouts. I motion for her to keep her voice down. “If you don’t do something, I will!” she threatens.

  “Look. Anger got me here. I don’t want that to hold power over my life,” I say softly.

  I hear the door open and slam; it must be Lex leaving. He wouldn’t care about obeying hospital quiet rules. I open my eyes. Mom avoids looking at me; instead, she plays with her wedding ring. She suggests I pray for guidance. It’s her answer to everything.

  “I think it’s best that Bear makes her own decisions. It’s up to her what she chooses to do. I’ll support her and so will you,” Dad states.

  “Robert, I can’t believe you are letting them get away with this!” Mom argues.

  “I hate this too, Tonya, but what do you want me to do? Bomb the police department?! I still have to be alive to walk my baby down the aisle!” Dad pauses and then takes a softer tone. “At this point, it’s let go and let God.” That’s one of his favorite expressions. Neither Mom or Lacy say anything. The room is silent except for the beeping machines taunting me: do something, do something, do something.

  “Robert, let’s talk outside,” Mom says, which means they don’t want me to see them fight. Once the door closes, it’s back to the beeping. I feel Lacy’s hands: one of them touches my cheek, the other is holding my left hand. When I squeeze back, tears spill out from both of us. Me, cause I’m in pain, and her, I guess, because she couldn’t protect me. Like the coiled snake that’s tattooed on my chest, Lacy’s ready to strike against any enemy.

  5

  ALEJANDRO

  “We never got the paperwork, Alejandro,” says Mrs. Olsen, a Southeast High School counselor. I sit across from her in her office, at a desk older than both of us combined.

  “They said—” I begin.

  But she’s not listening. “Even so, I doubt those credits would transfer.”

  “They said they would.” I hate asking for help.

  She peeks at the computer on her desk, the phone in her hand. “I’m sorry.”

  “But I have to go back to school, my caseworker said.”

  Mrs. Olsen sighs like somebody standing in the cold waiting for a late bus. “I believe your court order would say you have to go to a school, not this school. With your past, I—”

  “Look, I’m done with all that.”

  Another sigh, this one deeper, like she forgot how to breathe. “Maybe it would be best if you looked at other options like a GED.” She won’t make eye contact, which is fine with me. I don’t need to look at another overdressed, overweight, middle-aged white woman who has no patience with the likes of me.

  “I don’t want a GED!”

  She frowns; it suits her. “If you expect to go to college, then—”

  “I want to go into the Marines, like my brother. You need a real diploma, not a GED.”

  She starts typing on her computer like she doesn’t believe me. Or maybe she’s just bored.

  “Perhaps summer school at one of the district’s alternative schools.”

  I crack the knuckles of my left hand against my head, right by the scar. “Too many bad influences at those schools. I want back in here, to be with Eduardo and the rest my friends and—”

  “Alejandro, we need students at Southeast interested in succeeding, not socializing.”

  “That’s me.”

  She’s still typing. Her phone buzzes. And, of course, she sighs.

  She picks up the phone. “I need to take this.” She starts talking into the phone about lunch plans, so I get up before I go off on her and follow my own plans: Don’t engage, walk away.

  It’s the middle of third period, so the halls are kind of empty. Part of me just wants to walk into a classroom, like Mrs. Thomas’s English class where we read cool books, or Mr. Perez’s science class where he actually taught you how to solve problems, not just memorize a bunch of junk.

  I wait around until the bell rings to start lunch, then beeline to my buddy Eduardo’s locker. I hope nobody from my past sees me— Olishia or 26ers—but I make safe passage. When Eduardo shows up, I reach out to hug him and notice his arm in a sling. His right arm, his throwing arm.

  “What happened?” I ask. He doesn’t answer but gives me a look that says it’s not baseball related. He’s the varsity catcher, but at home, mostly what he catches are his Dad’s punches and kicks. I point at the arm. “Look like we’re in the same place. Lost our old teams, got to find some new ones.”

  “You get your old schedule back or what?” he asks, and I tell him, and it’s like it used to be between us. Even though Eduardo wears a catcher’s mitt rather than a 26er tat, we’re closer with more history than I was with any of those guys. Even when I turned to the streets, he never turned his back on me or let me down. We talk until the bell rings.

  “I better go,” I say. “I don’t want you to get in trouble. Or me.”

  He nods. “Trouble finds you. But guess what? You’re not the only one.” The joy in his voice gets pulled like a plug. He takes out his phone, clicks and clicks. “I wanna show you this.”

  The video’s jumpy, like whoever shot it had a shaking hand. The audio’s not much better, but I rec
ognize the voices shouting orders at this young black girl. I can’t see her face. Seconds later, I hear the billy club connect, most likely to that girl’s skull. I know it’s the same cops that got me five days in the hospital and six months in Woodland. The girl hits the ground with a thud, although I can barely hear it over the other girls’ yelling.

  “What do you think?” Eduardo asks.

  I take the phone from his hand, silently memorizing the name LovelyLacyLOL, the person who posted the clip.

  “Alejandro?” Eduardo asks.

  “I think I have to meet her.”

  6

  CHRISSIE

  “I got you something,” Mom says. She hands me a small package on her way to the kitchen. I rip open the back like I used to do with presents on Christmas morning.

  It’s the new Call of Duty Xbox game. I hope it can relax me, distract me from the pain, but mostly clear out the memory that serves more as a never-ending nightmare.

  “Thanks, Mom! I’ve been waiting to get this!” It’s been out for some time; Mom must’ve bought it last week after I showed her my report card, mostly A’s and a few B’s.

  “Did you hear from your teachers?” Mom shouts from the kitchen over sounds of her making dinner. My nose perks up, waiting for the smell.

  “Yeah. Mrs. Lautner called and said she hoped I’d get better. Mr. Turner said he’d give me an excused pass on our calculus test.” I state robotically. School just doesn’t seem important now. Nor do those “get well” flowers and cards overfilling the table from every fool boy at Northwest thinking cheap red roses and Dollar Tree sympathy is gonna win me over. I didn’t want anything to do with those boys when I was healthy, even less so while I’m healing.

  “That’s good, sweetheart.” She reappears with a bag. “Listen, I found a cute hat at Burlington for you to wear tomorrow when you go back to school! People won’t even notice that scar!” Mom says with a smile, like some hat is gonna make a difference.

  I touch the bandage on my forehead.

  “I’m fixing your favorite cornbread and stir-fry too—” She’s still talking on her way back to the kitchen as I tear the plastic off the game. The sound reminds me of when they pulled the tape off my wrist after the IV. Is everything now going to remind me of the hospital, of my injuries? I turn on the TV, put the game in the Xbox and sit down in the living room, but can’t make myself play. I stare at the blank screen acting like a mirror. I don’t like what I see in the TV, on or off.

  When Mom doesn’t hear the game start, she asks, “Chrissie, what’s wrong?” She stands at the edge of the kitchen. “Sweetheart?”

  I point at the blank black screen. “I can’t turn on the TV anymore without someone talking about police brutality or seeing a million videos on YouTube about how the police are the new gang of America!” I pull out my cell phone and flash it at her. I got Lacy to take down the video she put up, the one Robin took, but not before it blew up among my friends. Lacy named me, but the video’s so bad, especially once they hit me, you couldn’t see the cops’ faces clearly.

  My cell has been blowing up nonstop with messages from cousins, plus hundreds more people I don’t know, leaving their opinion about the situation. Memes, Instagram reactions, Tweets. I feel like a celebrity for all of the wrong reasons. It seems like there’s a hundred friend requests from each site and even more direct messages saying how sorry they are for me. How I should pray to God. Links to law documents on my civil rights. Thinking about it overwhelms me; I am not Sojourner Truth or Mary McLeod Bethune or Betty Shabazz. I am Chrissie C. Ross. Normally, I want to be a leader, but not like this. A week ago I was a happy person; now, I’m a hashtag.

  Mom doesn’t say anything, so I get up, walk over to her and start scrolling. Even as I do, my phone buzzes. Incoming call. Lex. I ignore it.

  “I just want to be a regular senior.” I say, pouting like I’m seven, not seventeen.

  “You should pray,” is her answer. She returns to cooking; I stew in my own juices.

  I go back to the couch and plop down carefully. I creep up the volume as loud I can stand it and enjoy killing the bad guys in uniforms on Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. I disappear into a game of fiction based on fact. Before I know it, I don’t even bother with the nonstop buzzing from my cell phone. My phone notifications blend in with the hail of bullets.

  7

  ALEJANDRO

  “It’s gone,” Eduardo tells me in between dual-player Xbox action. He’s struggling with his busted wing. “The video.”

  “Why? It was just up yesterday. You save it?” I ask. He shakes his head no.

  “You remember the girl’s name who posted it?” I nod, not sure how that is going to help. He pulls out his phone. I tell him the name and he looks for other videos she posted.

  There are silly videos as well as serious ones from debate team and clips of Northwest girls’ softball. Eduardo clicks to the Northwest web page and looks under athletics, then under girls’ softball, and sure enough, there’s the girl from the video in the middle row. Lacy Benson. Just as quick, Eduardo finds her on Facebook, but everything’s locked down. “Now what?” I ask.

  “Who you know at Northwest?” he asks. I start to answer, but stop. “What’s wrong?”

  I fumble with the controller, killing time, avoiding the obvious. “Only guys I know from Northwest are people I met locked down at Woodland and JDC. Or 26ers. So that’s a bad idea.”

  “Maybe we could go up into the neighborhood and ask—”

  I try not to laugh at innocent Eduardo.

  “There was one guy I knew in JDC who sucked at basketball worse than me.” I don’t relish the memory of my feeble attempts to bring my lame game against some icy playground players. “He said he wrestled. I think his name was Curtis something. All mouth, no muscle.”

  “Got ’em,” my fast-fingered friend says with a smile. “Check him out.” We look over his Facebook page and not only is it him, but that girl Lacy is in a few of the photos.

  Eduardo hands me his phone. “You wanna log on and message him?”

  “I deleted my page,” I confess. I’ve told him some of the stuff that Big C and Lorenzo said and did, so he doesn’t need to ask why. A bunch of wannabes up to destroy me. I shut everything down and now I’m a digital ghost.

  Eduardo’s half listening as he’s scrolling the guy’s page. “This Curtis guy’s an idiot. He put his phone number in a post and doesn’t have his settings to block it.” He shows me the post. I grab a marker off the table and write the digits on my left arm. “You think he’ll help?” Eduardo asks.

  I pick up the Xbox controller to get my blood racing. “Curtis was in for hitting his mom, but he spent nights crying in his cell. I told him I’d watch out for him. He owes me. Hit ’em up.”

  ***

  “Why are you calling me?” Lacy asks when she finally returns my seventh message a little before midnight. Ricardo’s not happy to hear the phone ringing this late, but it’s not like I have anything else to do, unlike him and Mom who work in the morning. Olsen still won’t let me into Southeast, so I’ll probably do summer school someplace else. “How’d you get my number?”

  I don’t snitch on Curtis. “Did you post that vid of the girl hit by the cops?” is all I say.

  “How’s that your business?” Lacy asks.

  “How’s the girl? Is she a friend of yours?” I match her query for query. We go back and forth for a while, getting nothing but frustrated with each other. But she doesn’t hang up, which gives me hope. “She okay? That looks like a nasty hit she took.”

  “You tell me why you want to know and maybe I’ll tell you something,” she says. The snap in her voice has vanished into the night turning into morning. “Don’t lie to me.”

  I sit on the floor in the kitchen, the only place with a phone with a new number that Mom got to stop Big C’s calls. We go back and forth, like Eduardo and me playing catch in the backyard.

  “I want to talk to her.” All the pressu
re goes on the word “want.”

  “She just wants it to go away. I think she’s wrong, but—”

  “She is wrong. You’re right, Lacy.” I say firmly, like I just threw a high hard one. “It won’t go away if you don’t do something, ’cause those two cops will do it again. Trust me.”

  “I don’t know you. Why should I trust you?”

  I touch the scar on my head. “’Cause they did the same thing to me in Powderhorn Park.”

  She makes a sound like a tire going flat, then says, “Serious?”

  “An old white cop with a big scar, and an Asian guy, maybe Hmong, younger, right?”

  She doesn’t say a word, and I’ve got her.

  “The white cop used the club, right?” More silence. “Lacy, is that what happened to your friend?” I ask. “They hassled her and rather than taking it, she talked back, and it ended with her in a hospital.”

  More silence, like she’s needing all of her energy to think about what to do or say.

  “Except for me, they called it resisting arrest, and added on other charges, so after I got out of the hospital, I got placed in Woodland Hills. I’m home and that life’s all behind me, except—”

  And I let the last word of the sentence hang like bait. She bites. “Except?”

  “Except I want to make sure those guys don’t get away again.” I say each word with clear conviction, just like they taught us in group. “I think you feel the same way.”

  She says nothing, which says everything.

  “Let me talk to your friend. If I had a chance to—”

  “She’s not gonna listen to somebody she don’t even know if she won’t listen to—”

  “I don’t need to say a word,” I say hard, fast. “I’m gonna show her the scar on my head.”

  “That sounds creepy coming from a stranger.”

  I laugh. “You’re right. But I’m practically family now, right? Your friend’s blood relative.”

  “How’s that?” she asks.

  “We got our skulls crushed by the same cops. Same blood running from our heads.”