Painting With Fire (9 page)

Chapter 15: Kevin’s Side of the Story

Kevin had felt uneasy with the gun in his ratty backpack. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the damn thing had a mind of its own, like it wanted to be seen. Looking back on that day, he couldn’t think of much he’d have done differently. He needed to bring it for protection. There was no way he could’ve gone to school without it.

It had been surprisingly easy to get around the metal detectors with it in the bag. He had gotten around them a dozen times before. He hated waiting in line behind ten other kids having their bags searched, when they had done nothing to deserve it. He hated that the machines were the most high-tech piece of equipment in the damn school. It was such an insult, like no one believed in them enough to spend the money on textbooks or computers from the same century. In his case maybe they were right, he thought. Maybe he wasn’t worth it.

The concrete walls were painted in dirty ‘70s hues of vomit orange and green. He had waited for the hall monitor to get distracted signing some visitor in, walked to the right and pushed through the unlocked heavy gym doors.

Some kids were playing basketball before class. Their tennis shoes squeaked against the waxed yellow floor. He had walked past them, hoping no one would slide across the white lines and bump him.

That morning, the gangbangers had been waiting for him in a car outside the front of the school. One of them was a wiry, thin guy in his 20s with blood-shot red eyes and ashy, pale skin with red splotches. Justin, a tall, lanky senior in his English class who always reeked of pot, was sitting in the back of the car. His black hair hung in greasy, unwashed streaks.

The man spoke with a low-gravelly voice through the open passenger-side window. Two girls walked by, but were too busy chatting and laughing together to hear.

“Keep your fucking mouth shut,” the pale man said. “You’re not a stupid kid. You’ll do the right thing. And if you do talk to the cops, we’ll just kill your mom. We know where you live.”

“I don’t want to be in the middle of this shit,” Kevin said as he leaned down to the car window and eyed them. The man’s hand rested on the seat and twitched. “I’m not going to say anything.”

Kevin turned and walked away, across the street, wondering if shots would ring out behind him, wondering if they’d get out of the car and beat him in front of the school. He couldn’t look back.

He should have felt safer with the gun in his bag, but
it felt heavy and unnerving. He worried about it somehow going off, even though it was nestled in its cracked leather carrying case. Kevin didn’t really want to pull it out. He didn’t want to try to shoot anyone. He had never even tried to shoot a gun.

He walked across the street and passed the yellow school buses
with their rumbling engines. The smell of diesel exhaust hung heavy in the air.

Maybe he would have felt less uneasy if his father had had a chance to show him how to fire it. But the man never had the time to show him how to put the safety on, how to handle it. He was too young before his father died. Kevin had had to look all that up online with the model number and the help of a couple
of Youtube clips, but it wasn’t reassuring.

It seemed like his mother had forgotten the gun existed, up high on the closet shelf in her bedroom, out of sight.

His hands had shook as he fumbled with the weapon in her room, but he thought he’d feel stronger with it nearby, knowing he could pull it out if he had to. He was trying to be responsible about it.

He walked across the open cafeteria, past the tables and plastic benches and saw the school police officer hitting the buttons on the vending machine.

He had stared at the officer’s gun, hanging off his hip in a black holster. He was a round man stuffed into a black corset, a bullet-proof vest. Kevin started to walk toward him. He wanted to talk, maybe it was the only way, but there was Justin, watching him from across the room with his eyes in narrow slits.

Kevin’s stomach felt like it was filled with acid. His breath came out in tight, little spurts. It seemed like they were just waiting to catch him alone, like that was the only reason he was not dead yet. It was just a matter of time before they’d follow him home on his way back from school. They had been hassling him for months.

He had sighed and kept walking to class.
He jumped at the sound of a locker slamming behind him.

In
the classroom, he dropped the heavy bag to the floor and tried to listen as the gray-haired geometry teacher explained how to calculate the circumference of a circle. Kevin was usually good at geometry and he liked Mr. Olsen, but it didn’t make sense when he kept tuning out every other word.

Kevin flinched when Mr. Olsen hurled a piece of chalk at the blackboard. White fragments flew in different directions. The teacher gave Kevin his most theatrically gruff expression. “Are you listening, Kevin?” he said.

“Yeah, of course,” he had said. He swallowed and leaned forward in his desk, putting his arms around it. It was like he was lost at sea and holding onto a piece of wooden wreckage. He wrapped one arm around his notebook and hunched down over the lined paper, scribbling song lyrics and bowing down his head.

“Angel don’t want me to sing,” he wrote. “Angel don’t want me to sing.”

A moment before the bell rang, he stuffed the notebook into his bag and Mark, the preppy kid sitting next to him, saw the gun in the leather case. Kevin swallowed. It was like the gun wanted to be seen.

“Listen, I can explain,” he said. Mark shuffled off and tried to avoid eye contact.

“It’s for protection, Mark.” Kevin said. “I swear. Someone’s after me.”

“Ok,” Mark said and walked briskly down the hallway.

Fuck, Kevin thought. Within five minutes, the fat cop had him pinned down with his face against the shiny, gray hallway floor, twisting his wrists behind his back. The floor tasted of drool, dirty shoes and bleach as his mouth crushed against it.

Justin watched as they pulled Kevin out the door and for a moment, the two of them locked eyes.

“You have the right to remain silent…” the cop spouted.

“I’m not gonna say nothing!” Kevin yelled. “I’m not gonna
say nothing!”

Kevin squished his eyes closed and silently prayed they’d believe him.

As the cop pulled him to his feet and dragged him out the door, he looked over his shoulder to glimpse Justin pulling out his cell phone and punching in a text.

Kevin decided he wasn’t going to talk. He wasn’t lying when he said he wouldn’t say anything. He’d go to jail if he had to. It would be a relief.

How disappointing it was when they let him go home with his mother, pending possible criminal charges.

Chapter 16: Wanted for Murder

A month after the expulsion hearing, the police finally seemed to be looking for Kevin, but Janice wasn’t happy about it. He was wanted for questioning about the murder.

Tom and Claudia were sitting on the couch watching the TV news when h
is photo flashed across the screen. It was a yearbook photo but somehow it looked like a classic mug shot complete with bad hair and bewildered blood-shot eyes. Janice’s car had been found parked downtown. It was towed from a loading zone near the bus and train stations. Police suspected he had fled the state.

“Police are not calling him a suspect in the case, at this time,” the TV newswoman said, with weird inflections in her voice. It certainly didn’t sound like she believed it.

“Bullshit he’s not a suspect,” Tom said, turning off the TV. “That’s why he’s on the run.”

“How do you know?” Claudia said. “He’s a kid, Tom. Maybe he’s in trouble somewhere.”

“He’s 17, sweetheart. That’s close enough to act like a man.”

“Sweetheart? Since when did you start calling me sweetheart?
You’re starting to sound like Stan.”

“Like a chauvinistic
, old cop?”

“He’s not that much older than you,” Claudia said
, crossing her arms.

“Whatever,” Tom said, smiling. “I just like to get a rise out of you, sometimes. Makes life more interesting, picking on your roommate.”

“On that thought, have you painted anything today?” she asked, changing the subject. She noticed Tom had ridges of blue and green underneath dirty nails and faint remnants of paint lining his knuckles.

“Yes,” he said. “But I’m not showing it to you. It’s not finished.”

“I’m going to go with Janice to help put up more fliers,” she said.

“You’re probably just wasting your time,” Tom said. “He’s fine. He’s probably out there with his friends, having a grand old time.”

“I hope so,” she said. “I really do.”

When Claudia showed up to help Janice, she had two large bags of fliers and Alice by her side. The three of them walked all around the neighborhood putting up fliers with Kevin’s photo on them and stuffed fliers in mailboxes. He looked much happier in these photos. He was jamming out with his guitar and had a smile on his face. The fliers had all t
he usual data. Name: Kevin Miller. Height: 5’11. Weight: 270. Age: 17. Last seen date: 5/09. Jesus, Claudia thought, she hadn’t realized he was 270 pounds.

Janice was quiet as she stapled the sheets to the wooden poles down the street and ducked inside businesses to tape fliers on the insides of windows.

Alice handed Janice a piece of tape. “There’s something I have to tell you,” she said.

The three of them stopped and took a break, sitting on the curb and passing the same water bottle back and forth. Claudia tried not to let the plastic touch her lips and spilled a bit down her chin and shirt.

“Janice, it’s really hard for me to tell you this but I think you should know,” Alice said. “Maybe it will help you come to grips with the situation, I don’t know. If I were in your place, I’d want to know.”

“Know what?” Janice said.

“Well, two things. One is that your son is a suspect in that murder.” Alice tucked a lock of blond hair behind her ear and nervously bit her nails.

“No he isn’t.” Janice’s mouth formed a grim, straight line.

“Yes, he is.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I’ve talked with the police about what’s going on,” she said. “He kind of confided in me. I told the police what he said. I had to. I wouldn’t call it a confession, but he kind of hinted that he had done something he regretted.”

“What do you mean, confession?” Janice threw up her hands and then placed them on her hips.
“That’s news to me.”

“I was talking to him about God,” Alice said softly. She placed her hand gently on Janice’s shoulder. “We started having some conversations before he disappeared. You saw us together. He said he had done somethi
ng terribly wrong and he regretted it. He never told me exactly what it was, but he didn’t need to.”

Janice stood up and shook Alice’s arm off of hers. “Get away from me. You lying bitch. My son’s innocent. My son would never
… My son would never ever do that. I begged him to tell me what was bothering him. I begged him and he wouldn’t and you think he’d tell you?”

Janice started crying and pushing the tears away with her hands.

“He said he was a sinner,” Alice mumbled softly. “I think he just wanted some peace. He said he couldn’t bear to tell you. At least, he’s accepted Christ into his heart. I know it’s hard and I’m worried about him too, but maybe you can at least find a little comfort in that he’s trying to get on the right path now. I’m just trying to do the right thing. Should I have kept that information from the police?”

Janice walked down the block, swinging her arms wildly behind her.

Alice didn’t get up, but sat slumped forward a bit, from her perch on the curb. She bent her head and heaved a deep breath. “I just pray God will take care of that kid, you know.” She wiped her eyes. “He’s just so young. You just can’t win.”

Then she lifted her blue eyes to the heavens and let her lips curl around the water bottle in one last swig.

“It’s so sad,” Alice said, twisting the bottle in her hands. “Look at how out of control Janice is right now. I feel bad, but I couldn’t not tell her.”

“Maybe it will help Janice understand what’s going on,” Claudia said with a sigh. “She needs to accept it. She thinks that boy is an angel and the fact is he’s not.”

Alice picked up one of the fliers with Kevin’s picture and stared at it for a moment. She folded it neatly in half and slid it into her designer purse.

“Maybe I should scan it and put it on Facebook,” she mumbled. “M
aybe that would help us find the kid.”

Chapter 17: Running

Kevin had been on the Greyhound bus for only four hours before the eight-year-old girl started throwing up next to him. The vomit hit the aisle with a series of splats and guttural sounds. He checked his pant legs but didn’t see any chunks, just an orange spot or two on the top of his right sock.

“You ok?” he asked, looking up.

The girl nodded, wiped her mouth and went over to sit on her mom’s lap.

“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” she whispered.

It was the first time he was headed to his grandfather’s house voluntarily. It was always so damn cold there at Christmas, he hated visiting and his mom never got along with her family. Even as a five-year-old, he could feel the unease in the pit of his stomach when he tried to sleep in the old house with its creepy, vine-covered wallpaper. He’d drink a glass of water, thinking he was thirsty, but the feeling wouldn’t go away.

But there was always one place he felt safe, by the fireplace watching the flames feast on wrapping paper. He loved the warmth on his back as he reached for the next present in front of him.

Would it be better there without his mom? His grandfather loved to break all the rules when he was a kid. He always let Kevin do whatever he wanted, stay up late, sit around in pajamas all day, skip the toothbrush, drink pop until the cans piled up and play cards for hours. He’d miss his videogames, but at least no one would know where he was. He didn’t think his grandfather even knew his mom’s number anymore. The two had fought bitterly over his grandmother’s death.

He sighed thinking about his mom and shifted in his seat.

“Why did you take the gun to school?” his mom had said. “I love you. You need to tell me what’s going on. What happened? I need to understand so I can help you.”

“Mom, you won’t understand,” he told her hours before he left. “I ain’t a snitch. I ain’t talking to the police. Do you know what they’d do to me? They’d kill me.”

“You can make a right choice or a wrong choice,” his mom had yelled.

“I ain’t a snitch,” he yelled.

“You’re a coward,” she yelled back. “What would your father think of you?”

He thought of the rage in her eyes, how her chin had trembled and her lips had curled back as she said it.

Kevin gulped the hurt down just thinking about it.

He tried not to think about the funeral, the American flag draped over the coffin, the box of glinting medals and the flowers spilling across the floor. His father served his country, not his family. Kevin knew it was wrong of him to think that thought, but he couldn’t help it when he was listening to all the patriotic bullshit from the podium. Where was the man when he needed him? The m
an chose to give his life away instead of giving it to them.

They were halfway there. Kevin stared at the rolling green hills, the bloated black and white cows with muddy bellies.
He could smell the shit.

“Mom, it’s better if you don’t know,” he
had told her.

Was he wrong to leave her behind? What protection could he really provide her without a gun anyway? His mom would be ok. They had no reason to bother her with him gone.

But he still felt that feeling in the bottom of his stomach. He was thirsty. That was it. He needed water. He pulled the plastic bottle out from the seat back in front of him. It was half-squashed, but there was still a bit in the bottom. He unscrewed the cap with his thick fingers and sucked back the last drops until the plastic bottle started to collapse onto itself. The feeling was still there.

He squashed the bottle and dropped it on the ground where it rolled back and forth against his feet. It was better than putting it in the pocket in front of him considering his shins were already jammed up against the seat back. He was even bigger than his father. The man would’ve kicked his ass for losing his gun.

He could’ve talked, he thought.

Maybe he should go back. Maybe
he should talk to the police. Kevin could sit down with his mom and tell them everything. Frankly, he didn’t care about school anymore. He didn’t care about anything but living. Kevin didn’t want to be like his father. He didn’t want to give his life away.

He stared at the faded fabric on the
seat back in front of him with its ugly orange and purple geometric pattern. Kevin tried not to think of anything anymore. He put his headphones in his ears but didn’t turn the music on. He didn’t feel like it. He just listened to the squeak of brakes, that groan buses make as they accelerate from a stop. They were pulling into the stop-and-go rush hour traffic of the city. He stared at the small, sharp skyline of St. Paul and felt a growing sense of uneasiness as the bus exited onto slow residential streets.

He walked down the dirty steps and out into the swinging glass doors of the bus station. He pulled his bag close to him and sat in an orange, bucket seat. Everyone else was being hugged and escorted out by friends or family.

A cop with a muzzled German shepherd walked by him. Wet streaks ran across the concrete floor and he thought he smelled the faint scent of someone else’s urine on his damp seat. He switched to the next one over.

What now, he thought. What do I do now?

Kevin had left his cell phone at home, afraid they’d somehow track him with it.

He
reached into his bag and untied the sock full of coins he brought with him. He felt foolish but every bit counted on the run and the sock had 48 dollars and 17 cents in it. He could also use it as a weapon if he had to and hit someone with the sack of metal. He inserted one of the quarters into an old pay phone. It felt foreign to hold the hollow plastic receiver up to his ear, like a reminder of a different world. He turned the metal knob and his quarter disappeared into the museum piece. Then a dime disappeared but nothing happened.

He didn’t want to spend all his money on a cab, so he decided to w
alk. It was only a few miles. Kevin kept adjusting the strap on his duffel bag every few blocks. It just kept sinking further and further into his shoulder.

The extra weight on his legs and arms rubbed against the sweaty fabric of his clothes, but he didn’t care. This city felt green and lush and clean. The air tasted different. Walking was like a kind of meditation. It calmed the panic and worry that had grown in his mind on the long bus ride. Even the pain growing in his shoulder, where the bag strap cut in, felt welcome. It was a physical distraction from the worry.

He worried that he’d forget which block the house was on. He worried that he’d knock and no one would answer.

Kevin recognized the house right away. It was an old ranch-style home from the 1950s, with faded siding on the triangle above the doorway, and a diamond shaped window on the front door. The grass jutted out in tall tufts between tangles of creeping Charlie and its small purplish flowers.

Kevin only spent a moment on the doorstep before the door swung open. He hadn’t even knocked or run the bell.

The man wa
s smaller than he remembered. His grandfather seemed to have shrunk. Through the lines, he recognized his mother’s light brown eyes peering at him.

“Nice to see you, Kev,” he said. “How the hell you doin’ these days?”

“Ok, how about you?”

“Fine, just fine,” he said, but Kevin could tell he was lying by the fact he didn’t look him in the eye.

“Come inside. You must be thirsty.”

He sat down at his kitchen table and continued drinking a Miller Lite, while Kevin poured himself some water into a slightly brown glass. There were a dozen cans scattered around the kitchen and a row of prescription pill bottles laid out in front of his grandfather on the table.

Some of the bottles were clearly marked with warnings in big type – do not consume alcohol while taking this medication.

“Why you drinking that?” Kevin asked, pointing to the can.
             

“Oh, I figure the light version is better for my health, you know,” his grandfather said dryly, patting his
large stomach. “Gotta watch the beer belly. You want one?”

“No, thanks,” Kevin said, sitting back and sipping his water.
He noticed the recycle bin in the corner of the kitchen was bursting with a tower of squashed beer cans.

His mother would have said something. His grandmother would have said something, too. But Kevin knew better.

His grandmother had been dead for years, but her knickknacks were still growing thick, furry dust coats on a shelf on the wall. The memory of how she died still drove a wedge between his mother and his grandfather. His grandmother hated hospitals and his grandfather had followed her wishes up to the end and refused to hospitalize her. His mother had called him a drunk and swore she would never talk to him again and he had swore the same back at her and yelled that people had a right to choose how they want to die. They hadn’t spoken since.

“What
do you do all day, Grandpa?” Kevin asked.

“Watch TV, drink beer,” the old man said. “Play solitaire. I like ‘Wheel of Fortune.’ Miss ‘Price is Right.’ It’s just not the same without Bob Barker.

“I hate it when people die. It seems like all my friends are kicking the bucket.”

“You know what you need, dude?”
Kevin leaned back in his chair so the front legs lifted of the ground.

“What?”

“The Nintendo Wii,” Kevin said, smiling. “Old people love it.”

His grandfather gave him a playful slap on the arm for the comment.
“The Nintendo wee wee?” he said. “What’s that?”

“The Wii. It’s a videogame, dude. What, you live in a cave?”

“Does this look like Afghanistan? How about you?” his grandfather said opening his arms wide with his palms up. “Where are you living?”

“I was going to ask you about that,” Kevin said nervously.

“Ah huh, I knew it,” his grandfather said, slapping the kitchen table in front of him. “Show up here a week after my birthday and you want something from me. You want to live here, huh, things not going so hot with your mom?

“I always said you and your mom should live here. I could’ve helped out with takin’ care of you while your dad was out in Iraq and then after
your grandma... But she didn’t listen.”

“So I can stay
here, then?”

“Sure, kid.”
His grandfather took a swig of his beer.

“Thanks, man! Happy birthday,” Kevin said. “Sorry I missed it.”

“I missed yours, too,” his grandfather said, frowning. “It was in May, wasn’t it?”

“January, actually.”

“Hmm. Maybe we should get ourselves some presents. I haven’t seen you in what, four years, so I owe interest, right? Let’s go get this wee wee thing you talked about.”

He winked and grabbed his keys off the rack with surprising speed for a man his age, especially after
an unknown number of Miller Lites.

“Grandpa, can I drive? I just got my license and I could use the practice.” Kevin lied. He hadn’t had a chance to take the exam yet, but it seemed the lesser of two evils.

When they got back and Kevin was fiddling with the cables behind the ancient TV set, his grandfather turned the thing onto the news, put on his glasses and squinted.

Kevin didn’t usually pay much attention to the news, but he found himself staring down at the screen from a funny angle while he worked and unwrapped the pieces of the videogame system, ripping plastic bags and Styrofoam.

The newscaster with his hair perfectly coifed and hair-sprayed into a wave, sat grim-faced talking in a serious tone about a gang-related shooting.              

“Police believe the teen was not gang affiliated and was shot dead in a case of mistaken identity,” he read with his eyes glued dramatically into the camera.

“Goddamn terrorists!” his grandfather shouted, shaking his cane at the TV.

The newscaster had taken a long dramatic pause so he was uninterrupted. “Two suspects have been charged with first-degree murder and felony drug possession. Sources say they were carrying large amounts of meth.”

Kevin shuddered looking at the dead kid’s picture. He was only 15
and he looked an awful lot like him.

“Police have also released a sketch of a third suspect who fled the scene.” His grandfather stared at it, sitting forward in his seat.

Then Kevin plugged in the last of the cables and the picture went black. It was time to play.