Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash
“Bet you can’t clear the flowers,” Brian shouted from the bottom of Dead Man’s Hill.
On top of the hill, his best friend, Jeremy, spun his bicycle’s black handlebars. The fat, orange sunset stretched his shadow across the Wilsons’ yard. Crowing like a rooster, he popped a wheelie and raced down the hill faster than a falcon diving to catch a bat. He skidded to a dead stop at the bottom of the cul-de-sac. Hurling himself off his bike, he summersaulted through the air and over the daises planted next to Brian’s mailbox. Jumping to his feet, he wiped the grass stains off his jeans and pounded his chest like he was King Kong.
“You believe I did that? They said it couldn’t be done, but a true GOAT has risen,” he joked.
Jeremy was a beast for his age, and he knew it. He was twice Brian’s height, and his dark skin, bulging muscles, and white smile made him every girl’s crush. At twelve, Brian was too naïve to notice the looks Jeremy’s size and skin color drew when they hung out at the 7-Eleven or wandered around the mall near Brian’s white, wealthy neighborhood. All that mattered to Brian was that a cool kid like Jeremy hung out with a fat, short loser like him.
Since tomorrow was Jeremy’s thirteenth birthday, his parents agreed to let him sleepover at Brian’s house. Summer heat and hormones had inspired the boys to spend most of the afternoon trying to one-up each other with stupid dares. They knew they had hours before Brian’s mom came home from work and made them behave like proper gentlemen.
Chugging the last of the six-pack of Gatorade Brian had sat by the curb, Jeremy picked up a basketball and started dribbling it between Brian’s legs. Brian swiped at it, but Jeremy was too fast.
“Want to go play Gears of War? I just got it for the new Xbox,” Brian suggested.
Spinning in the air, Jeremy tried to sink a crazy lay-up; the ball ricocheted off the rim and bounced across the street, getting stuck under Mr. Kolber’s Mercedes.
“That’s shot.”
Jeremy raced after the ball, still talking to Brian as he laid on his stomach and punched it out from under the car.
“You are not surprised I’m not going anywhere until you match that madness you just made me do.”
Brian shook his head so hard it looked like he was having a seizure.
“You want me to bike down Dead Man’s Hill? You’re out of your mind; first, I’d die, second, my mom would kill me as soon as she found my corpse.”
“Stop using your mom as an excuse: Diane has never yelled at anyone in her life.”
Jogging to the front porch, Jeremy grabbed Brian’s phone, entered the passcode, and paused the Drake playlist they’d been listening to on Brian’s portable speaker.
“What are you doing?” Brian asked. “Tired of Drake?”
“That is quite impossible, but I have thought of a better dare than Dead Man’s Hill. You still have the texts from when Kayla was your Bio Lab partner?”
Brian suddenly felt like he’d swallowed a bolder whole. Kayla Davis was the hottest girl in school and the love of Brian’s life.
“Dude, not cool! Do not text her!”
Jeremy laughed, flashing his best Hollywood smile.
“Relax, you’re the one that’s going to text her,” he said, tossing Brian the phone. “This is a crazy time; I’ve meant to tell you that Alyssa spilled the beans that Kayla likes you.”
Brian didn’t dare believe it; why would Kayla like a nobody like him? He hadn’t made any of the school teams, and Jeremy was the only one from the “A” lunch table that hung out with him.
“But Alyssa hates me.”
“And she’s an idiot,” Jeremy agreed, “but she had no reason to lie to me. Trust me; I’m looking out for you on this one.”
Brian didn’t know what to say. He kept trying to argue his way out of it, but Jeremy was insistent. Picturing himself holding hands with Kayla on the first day of eighth grade, he typed and retyped a message until he and Jeremy agreed on a final draft.
“Hey Kayla, is your summer going good? Jeremy and I are shooting hoops at my place. He keeps telling me to tell you he says hi, so I thought I’d text you. This is sort of out of nowhere, but do you like anybody right now?”
After getting Jeremy’s final blessing, Brian casually hit the send button like the whole thing was no big deal. Jeremy shook his shoulders.
“I can’t believe you did it!”
“What? You told me to do it!” Brian screamed as panic swelled inside him.
His phone buzzed with a message from Kayla.
“Holy shit, you read it, or I’m going to be sick,” he said, closing his eyes and handing the phone to Jeremy.
Jeremy cleared his throat and did his best impersonation of Kayla’s high-pitched voice.
“Hey Brian, Alyssa and I were actually at the Subway by your house if you and Jeremy want to grab food with us,” he read. “Bro, she even put that winking emoji at the end; we have to get over there right now.”
“But she didn’t answer my question,” Brian protested.
“It doesn’t matter: a winking emoji means she wants you.”
Brian hesitated; he knew he should be excited, but he wasn’t allowed to bike to Subway because he had to cross the highway to get there. The thought sounded so lame in his head he didn’t dare say it out loud. Jeremy had already basically called him a Mama’s boy, and they still had at least a couple of hours before his mom got home. If they hurried, his parents would never know they left the neighborhood.
“Alright, tell Kayla we’re on our way; I know a shortcut through the woods that should get us there in no time,” he told Jeremy.
Fifteen minutes later, Jeremy and Brian had both showered and drenched themselves in enough Axe body spray to fill a hot air balloon. Cutting across Mr. Kolber’s yard, they took a dirt path through the woods behind Sunrise Park. Winded, Brian tried to keep up with Jeremy’s frantic pace, but it was like trying to keep up with Lance Armstrong after he took a shot of human growth hormone. Rehearsing what he would say to Kayla, he half-listened to Jeremy ramble on about Lebron getting bust by the Spurs in the Finals, his plan to ask Amanda Baylor to go to Six Flags with him, about how Mrs. Schneider gave him a bogus “C” in Algebra.
The path continued to shrink until the sharp branches of tangled bushes and trees blocked Brian’s bike and cut gashes across his arms and legs. The sun had set much faster than he’d anticipated, and it was getting hard to see. Stomach growling, Jeremy pushed ahead without hesitation.
“Jeremy, do you think we should go back before my mom gets worried?” Brian shouted, but Jeremy was too far ahead to hear him.
He checked his phone; it was almost nine. A new message from Kayla flashed across his screen.
“So sorry! Alyssa’s mom just picked us up :(“
“Damn, Jeremy! Yo, Jeremy, slow down! Let’s forget it: the girls aren’t even there anymore.”
But Jeremy had spotted the faint glow of streetlights from the strip mall’s parking lot across the highway. Brian heard a car honk in the distance.
“Come on; I’m starving,” he called.
Knowing he couldn’t go back without him, Brian painfully pushed his way out of the thicket and next to Jeremy on the side of Route 80. They could only see the headlights of the cars roaring past, blowing cold air against their bare legs like the ghosts passing in the night.
Jeremy howled at the rising moon.
“I’m about to get so much bacon on my BLT,” he shouted, pedaling across traffic before Brian could stop him.
“Jeremy, be careful!” Brian cried.
They cut across the highway like they were Frogger in the arcade game they sometimes played at the bowling alley. A white, forty-something woman who’d been texting slammed on her brakes as they pedaled in front of her. Cursing them out, the woman watched Jeremy flip her off as he parked his bike in front of the Subway. Wondering what lies he could tell his mom when they got back to explain why they were home so late and covered in dirt, Brian followed Jeremy inside and ordered.
For years to come, the rest of the night only came back to Brian in pieces. He remembered being nervous about being out so late, but Jeremy had told him not to worry. He remembered laughing so hard at one of Jeremy’s jokes he snorted Dr. Pepper out his nose. He’d later wonder if he’d heard the woman on the highway threaten to call the police, or if he only thought he had because he studied the police report like it was a bible. The last thing he remembered, without any doubt, was giving Jeremy his extra cookie as they walked outside. Then, he was momentarily blinded by the flash of red and blue lights.
***
Jeremy Collins died on July 7th, 2014. Officer Erik Mitchell shot him six times in the back after he fled what the papers would call a potential crime scene. Facing backlash, Officer Mitchell reminded the public he was new to the force and had been scared in a “strange area.” He reported “being scared for his life” when he saw Jeremy reaching into his short’s waistband. Brian had never heard someone call Jeremy scary before that night. After, it seemed all people could talk about was the rumor that Jeremy had a history of violence. One paper reported Jeremy had been suspended for fighting Tyler Ray last year, but they didn’t mention that Tyler had thrown the first punch.
At first, some of the adults were as angry as Brian. Hundreds of people marched and protested around town, and hundreds more came to Jeremy’s wake. Brian was given every type of therapy and coping mechanism his parents, school, and doctors could imagine. His parents’ friends sent them more condolence packages than Mrs. Collins ever received. None of that mattered to Brian; the walls built around his life had come tumbling down, and once he saw the black heart of the world, he couldn’t escape it.
Others pretending to care didn’t last very long. At one protest, a cop pushed someone against the window of a hair salon. One of the protestors got so mad they tried to throw a rock at the cop and accidentally broke the salon’s window. Mr. Kolber didn’t like people disturbing local businesses, so he got together with Officer Mitchell’s family, the mayor, and a bunch of cops to call for peace.
Six months later, Officer Mitchell was taken off administrative leave and put back on active duty. He was never criminally charged. A year after that, Jeremy’s parents moved across the country because they kept getting death threats.
Brian never did date Kayla. Kids avoided him in high school like he was the one that shot Jeremy, and he was happy for the quiet. By the time he was eighteen and ready to flee his sick, soulless hometown, no one but him ever spoke or thought much about Jeremy Collins. He was accepted into the University of Pennsylvania; his parents threw a huge graduation party, where strangers showered him with gifts and praise about his bright future.
But Brian other plans.
Two days before he was scheduled to leave for school, he woke from a nightmare and decided to drive to Officer Mitchell’s house. He was astonished how quickly he found the address from a quick Google search on his phone. How confident Officer Mitchell must have been in his safety to post his address on Facebook; Brian thought a man with thirteen excessive force complaints filed against him might have been a bit more cautious.
He parked a block away from Mitchell’s place and waited. By chance, he saw Officer Mitchell drive by on his way home from a late shift at work. He recognized the same crooked nose, bulging jaw, and blonde crew cut that flashed in his head and made him tremble each time a car backfired, or he smelt bacon. Sweating like an innocent man on death row, Brian got out of the car and strolled to Officer Mitchell’s house. He didn’t bother to hide from the streetlamps, and he waved at an elderly woman walking her poodle. No one questioned a white kid taking a stroll at night. Brian wanted them to see his face—unlike Officer Mitchell, he wanted them all to know exactly what he was about to do. The only difference between him and Mitchell was a uniform, and no badge could shield Mitchell from his justice.
Squatting in Mrs. Mitchell’s hydrangeas, Brian watched Jeremy’s murderer hug his three daughters in front of a fireplace in a cozy living room with deer heads on the walls. The girls had stayed up late waiting for him.
“Hurry, hurry, sit down! We have a play to put on for you,” the youngest and prettiest daughter, Samantha, told her father.
She looked up at him with blue eyes as big as the Oklahoma sky; her blonde curls danced on top of her Frozen onesie. Jill turned off the television as her eldest sister, Mary, took a seat in front of a grand piano. Mary couldn’t have been older than twelve, but she beautifully played what Brian thought he recognized as one of Robert Schumann’s pieces. Sitting beside his wife, Mitchell laughed, cheered, and gasped in all the right places as the girls performed a play about a beaver who couldn’t build a dam. Finishing his beer, Mitchell helped his wife put the kids to bed, turned off the lights, and slept soundly.
As still as the garden gnomes around him, Brian waited. Adrenaline erased his fatigue and cleared his mind. He waited all night and watched Officer Mitchell come out with the morning sun. Mitchell pulled his robe against his chest and balanced a fresh mug of coffee in his hand as he reached down to grab the Sunday paper. Brian stepped around the corner and greeted Mitchell with a nine mm pistol pointed between his eyes. Mitchell recognized him at once and tried to scream.
***
Brian was charged with capital murder of a police officer and sentenced to death by lethal injection. He never showed remorse and made only one statement, collected by the officer who found him sitting in a pool of blood on the Mitchells’ front doorstep.
“You keep your boots on their necks because we allow it.”
Matthew Downing is a graduate student in Chicago who has published pieces in The Bangalore Review, Chicago Sun-Times, Daily Herald, and Chicago Tribune.