Bright Lights, Dark Nights (25 page)

“Yeah, I did,” I said. I wanted to stay friendly with Lester anyway.

“I knew it!” Lester said, and made a fist. He slapped me on the back. “Hey, take it easy, Wally.”

Lester walked down the hall, light as air for a large guy and a spring in his step as usual. He joined up with some other kids not far down. I shut my locker and walked the other way.

*   *   *

We'd been getting rain and flurries the past few days, and the lunch-outside season was passing. Nate, Kate, and I had to eat inside the cafeteria for our break. The lunchroom scene was loud and smelly. Nate described it as a mix of bologna, tomato soup, and cleaning agents. Kids got their soda caffeine fix, saw the end of the day coming, and couldn't stay attached to their seats. Maybe we were old souls; our little group preferred to talk about TV and movies than to participate in the lunchtime noise factory. The rowdier tables sat any number of undesirables, Beardsley and Frankie included.

“Wilcox,” I heard in a weaselly voice. He didn't even have to fight—his speaking voice was a punch in the face. Beardsley pulled his chair over to our table. He had a buttoned-up shirt over his skinny frame, shaggy hair falling into his eyes. “Wilcox, how's it going, man?”

“Fine,” I mumbled, and bit into the grilled cheese I'd gotten from the café. There was no good way to get rid of someone like Beardsley.

“It's like a whole new Wilcox in the halls now,” Beardsley said. Even his smile you wanted to smack off. “What's going on with your girlfriend, man? You hitting it?”

“Knock it off,” I said, and put down my food. “I'm not doing this with you.” I didn't want Naomi to even enter his warped brain.

“Leave him alone,” Kate said. She didn't have an ounce of fear in her, and she barked her command full of disdain. “Go find someone else to pick on.”

“Why does everyone always think I'm picking on them?” Beardsley asked. “I'm helping my buddy out, and no one asked you anyway,
Kate
.”

“Don't talk to her, Beardsley,” Nate said, more authority in his voice than Kate's, even. “Get out of here.”

“Or what?” Beardsley asked. This could get ugly fast. Nate didn't back down from anything, and neither did Beardsley. I disappeared from the confrontation. I wasn't proud of it, but that was my instinct. To find a shadow and hide in it.

“That's up to you,” Nate said. He was good. He seemed legitimately tough with essentially the same build as me.

Beardsley laughed. He put his arm on my shoulder, gripped tight, and made my skin crawl. “See? You see that? Nate
gets
it.” He slapped his hand down on the table with a loud smack, drawing attention from other tables. “You've got a pretty girl like Naomi Mills and you can't do a thing to stick up for her. You can't even stick up for yourself. You're like a damn mouse.”

“Beardsley,” Nate said, “turn around and go back to your table before I slam your face into it.”

“Nate, shut up,” Beardsley said, showing no visible sign of fear. “Nobody cares about you.”

“Just get lost,” I said. Mumbled. Whatever. I was busy twirling my spoon in my yogurt.

“You know why I can't get lost?” Beardsley asked. He got in closer, talked quieter. “Because I'm
like
you. I like dark meat, too. I'd probably mess my pants with Naomi. That's why I have to ask you: is this whole thing some kind of cover-up? Did your dad make you do it? Everyone knows your family's racist. I mean, your dad should be fired, like yesterday.”

“No, he shouldn't,” I said, too flustered and angry for wit. “He's not racist.”

“It's a fact, kid. Don't even argue it. You look dumb,” Beardsley said. “My dad says every cop in his department is racist. Just be real about it. If I polled everyone in the cafeteria, one hundred percent of them would agree your dad should be fired. Come on, let's make a bet.”

“You want to skip next period, Beardsley?” Nate said. He was as fed up as I was. “We'll go for a walk.”

“You're so tough,” Beardsley said. Frankie was laughing at the other table like this was a stand-up act. Big, dumb Frankie. “I've got a test after this, so I'll take a rain check.”

Beardsley turned to a girl at his own table who had been listening to his performance. “Do you follow the news?” Beardsley asked her. “Do you know Officer Wilcox? The ‘racist cop'?”

“Get the hell out of here,” I said, and got out of my chair. “Leave me alone.” Nate got out of his chair, too. Then Beardsley got out of his. Kate buried her head in her hands.

The standoff was over before it started; Mrs. Opton, with her absurdly large glasses, made her way over and asked us what was going on. By the time we all got our
nothing
s out, the bell rang anyway and that was the end of lunch. A second later, Beardsley pushed in his chair and grabbed a half-eaten slice of pizza from a plate at his table that wasn't his.

“Nice talking, Wilcox,” he said as he took a bite, and headed off. Frankie was right behind him, laughing and shaking his head. I shrugged an apology to Nate and Kate, grabbed my stuff, and walked around Mrs. Opton to head out myself.

I was going to have to avoid the cafeteria, apparently. Everyone had bolted for the doors at the same time, and I couldn't breathe. I waddled one baby step at a time, someone's backward Yankees cap nearly touching my face. “Are you Walter Wilcox?” a tall blond freckled girl asked me on the other side of the cafeteria doors. “Your dad's…”

I gave a noncommittal nod. I kept walking, and she rushed ahead to keep pace. I had a math class to get to.

I'd felt a little more “fishbowl” since this whole thing started. People didn't go up introducing themselves to me, but I'd become something of a curiosity. Didn't mean I enjoyed it or wanted to answer anyone's questions, though. Or hear their opinions.

“That must be crazy,” she said, and walked with me, out of the crowd. “Don't listen to Beardsley. He's a sad little boy. Your dad is a hero.”

“Really?” I asked. I'd been consumed with the idea of being a target, worried about backlash or embarrassment. He wasn't “town hero” anymore, after all. He was “racist cop.” I was taken aback to hear someone say something nice and actually acknowledge he wasn't trying to do anything bad. It just turned out that way.

“Truth is, we live in a crappy city,” she said. “I know I don't feel safe at night. There's a lot of crime and bad things happening to people here. Like, I get the whole profiling issue, I get why it's controversial, and I don't think all blacks are crazy, violent people or anything like that. But,” she said, and I could tell we were taking a detour here I wasn't on board with, “if you're a good citizen, then you have nothing to hide, right? And if you're not a good citizen, then I don't care what you think. If it'll make everyone else in the city feel safe to walk around at night, I don't think anyone should have an issue with getting pulled over or checked out. It's exactly what this city needs.”

I didn't think that was what my dad was saying at all, but I really didn't know for sure. Maybe he thought like this girl did …

“But you or I wouldn't get pulled over and checked out, right?” I asked.

“If we looked threatening or suspicious, then absolutely we would,” she said. “But my mom works in the court system, and she says it's a statistical fact that more crimes are committed by black people.”

Why was she telling me this? Why did she even think it was okay to say this stuff out loud? I had to look around to be sure no one else was listening, or thought I was somehow contributing to this diatribe. She was talking to me like people talked online. Right after I'd told Naomi people didn't actually talk like that, that they were just looking for attention. You rolled your eyes reading it online. Hearing it out loud made me feel sick.

“It's part of living in a city,” she went on. “Think about it, think of every building on every street and how many people are packed together in each one. You end up with people who have stuff living a short walk from people who don't. It's them and us, and we rely on people like your father to keep us safe. He's a hero.”

If
stuff
was what separated us from
them
, then I was
them
, and so was Dad.

*   *   *

I was cutting in the kitchen: steak, potatoes, rosemary, lettuce, and tomatoes. We only had a few meals that we cooked, and this was one of them. I dropped the chunks of steak into the frying pan, and the olive oil popped and splashed. Dad had me cornered.

“So were you ever going to tell me?” Dad asked me, cleaning up some of the dishes we'd used in the sink.

“Tell you what?” I asked, although I could guess from his tone what he meant. There was only one thing I'd been keeping from him.

Dad turned off the faucet and dried his hands. “I have to see on Facebook that my son has a girlfriend?” Dad asked. “That's why you were hiding it every time I asked? 'Cause she's a black girl?” He tossed the dishrag to the corner of the sink and crossed his arms.

“No,” I said. “I wasn't hiding anything. There's nothing to hide.” What did he see on Facebook? I wondered if Naomi had changed her Facebook status, if it changed something on my profile. I wasn't even Facebook friends with my dad. I didn't even know he had an account until all this mess started.

“How long has this been going on?” Dad asked. How long officially, how long since I've been talking to her, or how long since I first saw her?

“Not too long,” I said, putting the salad together. I couldn't read Dad, but he wasn't happy. “A week, maybe.”

“No, this has been going on more than a week,” Dad said. “You never thought to tell me? Walter, I asked you straight up if anything was going on. Repeatedly. I'm not blind. Coming home late, out all the time, that dippy smile on your face. I knew there was a girl. You lied to me.”

“Whatever, it wasn't a lie,” I said, which was kind of true. “I was figuring it out.”

“And in all this figuring out, it didn't dawn on you to look at what's going on with us right now?” Dad asked. He got the spatula and passed me to the stove. “It's kinda bad timing, don't you think? Do I have to say why? All the girls at school and you picked the one that's gonna be news. Not smart, Walter, not smart.”

“Timing?” I asked. I felt guilty a second ago, but now I was getting pissed off. “I met an incredible person, and it took me seventeen years to find her, Dad. The timing is fine. I wouldn't wait a day longer. I thought you'd be happy for me.”

“It's different now. You know why,” Dad said, tossing the potatoes into the pan with the steak. “Don't play dumb. If you wanted a nice father-son chat we could have had one weeks ago. Walter, you know I'm not going to ask you to stop seeing this girl, but try, just try, to think of what you're doing here, in terms of how it affects everyone and not just yourself.”

“You mean how it affects you,” I said. “And it doesn't affect you at all. Who I date has nothing to do with your lawsuit or job or some burglar at my school. It's not like I'm dating that kid's sister or anything. No one's going to care!”

“Oh no?” Dad asked. “Go check on your little Facebook picture, then. Welcome to the real world. It ain't pretty.”

*   *   *

Dinner was quiet. When I got to my room afterward, I went right to Facebook. Naomi hadn't changed a thing on her profile and nothing had changed on mine, but I had become Facebook famous. On the Police and Community in East Bridge page, there was a picture of me and Naomi. From the movie theater the other night, kissing. It was captioned
OFFICER WILCOX'S SON, WALTER, DATING A BLACK GIRL. DAMAGE CONTROL?

The same thing Beardsley had suggested at lunch. Naomi was always so stressed about people looking at us. How would she take someone snapping pictures of us and posting them on the Internet? She might never want to see me again. Let alone her parents were going to see this on Facebook.

There were already twenty-four comments on the picture. I got through a handful of them before I had to stop. I was convinced there was nothing good for me online.

Colin
McNeil:
I'm all for diversity, not racist, but we lose what makes us beautiful when we mix. Just being honest.

Crystal Hale
: It's 2014, get over your outdated views.

Fred Mason
: Gay is sick, color is fine.

Janet Perez
: Gold digger? They're teenagers, that kid has no gold to dig.

John Hart
: Well, she's in the news now.

Lauren Bailey
: Sick of seeing strong black women lessen themselves. Really tired of it.