Kick (4 page)

Chapter 04

All morning in school I felt eyes looking at me. Whenever I turned to look at someone who I felt was staring, we'd make eye contact for a brief second before they turned away quickly.

It reminded me of three years ago when my dad died and people looked at me like I was the one who had died. Except this time it was different. I didn't really mind the attention. I didn't think kids would mess around with me.

“Everybody's talking about it,” my friend Shawn said before taking a last bite out of his sandwich. We were sitting in the cafeteria at lunchtime.

“Everyone has been looking at me weird in the hallways, like I'm an alien or something,” I said.

“Well, not many kids get sent to jail around here.” One of his dreadlocks fell over his eye. He was opening a bag of potato chips. “So what happened?”

“I don't want to talk about it.” I felt bad not telling Shawn. We'd been friends ever since we were five years old and on the same peewee soccer team at the YMCA.

I put my pizza down. Since I'd been arrested, I'd lost my appetite.

“You going to get to play with us in the State Cup?” Shawn asked.

“I don't know. I haven't seen Coach Hill yet, but he's gonna be really mad. He's always talking about how soccer is all about character, and he's not going to like my character right now.”

I changed the subject. “You liking our chances this season, Shawn?”

“I do, but we need to work as a team more. I mean, the other day during practice, Ricky was just dribbling through kids, doing all this fancy footwork and laughing. But when it gets to November, that's not going to work against any good teams and nobody is gonna be laughing. Everyone is just trying to make themselves look good, but our team isn't. You know what I'm saying?”

I nodded, not really listening.

It was good that Christy and I had different lunch periods. I didn't want to see her. I'd deleted the text messages she'd sent me since my arrest. She said her dad didn't want us to talk anymore.

I was glad when it was finally ninth period, even though math class seemed to take forever. I was tired of polynomials and other stuff that would be useless in life. Math had the ability to slow time. The clock always slowed to a crawl in ninth period, the last period of the day.

Mr. Allen, my math teacher, was thin, old, and bony. I could almost see right through him, like he was transparent. He had a ring of white hair that went around the side of his head and eyes that were constantly watching you. I heard he was the veteran of some war—probably World War I.

Highland Middle School had been built back in 1922. It looked kind of like a castle on the outside, but new on the inside. It had heating but no air-conditioning, and teachers wouldn't turn on the fans because they would just blow your papers around.

“Kevin, will you kindly share your thoughts on this problem?” Mr. Allen asked.

Hearing my name, I panicked and turned to the kid next to me for help.

“We're on num—”

“There is still a minute left in the period, Mr. Johnson. If you cut short every period by a minute, do you know how many minutes you'd waste in an entire school year?” he said, spewing out saliva while he spoke. I turned away to avoid it, which only made Mr. Allen madder.

The bell rang, and I was saved from another one of his boring lectures about how in his day, things were so much tougher and how kids these days have no discipline.

I wasn't a troublemaker, but I wasn't a suck-up, either. Ms. Grosnickle and I had had a few “conferences,” as she liked to call them. She told my mom I had to watch my temper. I wondered if I was going to get called into her office because of the arrest. I hoped not.

I zigzagged around kids through the overcrowded hallways, bumping fists with my friends.

“What's up, Kev?” my friend Rich said as he slapped me five and walked by.

I don't know why some people ask what's up and then don't stick around for an answer.

Through the crowd, I thought I heard a voice call, “Kevin, wait up!” I wasn't sure, as the loud noises of the hallway made it difficult for conversation. I turned around. Calvin Anderson, my best friend, was behind me. He quickly gave me a playful dead arm.

“Hey,” I yelled.

“When did you get out? Heard some stuff happened.”

“Yeah, let's get out of here first.”

We walked down the stairs and toward the exit, talking about what had happened at school the day I was gone.

Some of the really popular kids were hanging around near the front door. I don't really get popularity, because most kids who are popular are mean, and the rest of the kids don't even like them.

We burst out of the door. The fresh air felt good against my face.

The two of us walked home after school every day.

“What happened, man? People are saying a whole bunch of stuff and I don't know what to believe. You want to tell me about it?”

I sighed and looked in the other direction.

“Or not,” Cal said as he looked at my expression.

“Listen, everyone's been looking at me weird and I just want to talk about something else, okay?” I said. “It's not that I don't want to tell you, I just don't want to tell you now.”

“I didn't think you'd steal a car, Kev,” Cal said. “What's gonna happen to you now?”

“I didn't really do anything terrible,” I said. “Let's leave it at that.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Cal hadn't pushed it, even though I knew he really cared about me. Good.

“You're coming to practice tonight, right?”

“Yep, I'm looking forward to it. Might help clear my mind and stuff,” I said.

“All right, I'll see you later,” he said.

Our team, the Highland Raiders, had practice four nights a week and a game or a tournament on the weekend. It got cold playing at night later in the season, and the sun was almost down when I got to practice.

Cal, Shawn, and Ty, who was our center midfielder, were already there, practicing free kicks on Nick, our goalie, while a few of the kids were joking around on the sideline getting their shin guards on. I knew they'd be talking about the first State Cup game, which was going to be held the next week. I hoped they wouldn't be talking about me.

Most of the kids on the Highland school team also played on the Highland club team that Coach Hill had formed. Our team chemistry wasn't spectacular, with friends hanging out with friends more than acting as teammates. Kids would side with their friends in the group if there was a disagreement.

Coach Hill pulled up in his car, and we helped him carry the equipment to the field. He wasn't an easy person to like, but he was a good coach. Physically he was tough on us, and mentally he was even tougher. He'd make us run through cones during the winter until we threw up, which I did more than once.

He was always telling us, “You're not supposed to like me. I'm your coach. Sure, I want you to do well. Yeah, I care about you, but I don't want to be friends with you. I have enough friends already.”

As I was helping him set things up on the field, Coach pulled me aside. “Look, Kevin, I don't know what you did, or why you did it, but I do know that I'm not going to tolerate that sort of behavior. You're on thin ice with me, so step lightly. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Coach.” That could have been worse, I thought. He didn't say I couldn't play.

Coach blew his whistle and had us gather around. He started talking about our preparation for the State Cup, and I zoned out.

“Kevin, eye contact is not an option. It's mandatory.” Coach gave me the eye and I thought he was going to get mad, but he didn't. Police sirens sounded in the distance, and a few kids instantly looked in my direction. That pissed me off.

“I think we can go pretty far this year as a team, but our midfield needs to get their act together. We can't just have good defense and forwards, 'cause the ball can't just magically go from one end to the other without going through the midfield.”

Coach Hill had played professionally but had suffered a career-ending injury. He didn't like to talk about it, though. I wondered if it was hard, watching us play, while he walked with a limp. I heard he had been in a car accident. Now he was heavy, mostly bald, and wore a small goatee that made him look more like a pro wrestler than a soccer player.

We split our team up and played an eight-against-eight game at practices. We always started practice with one drill that Coach Hill thought was key. It was a mix of conditioning and dribbling. This was the part of the practice where guys regularly puked.

“You know what?” Coach Hill said after we completed the drill and guys were huffing and puffing on the ground. “I think we need to do that drill again. I didn't like the enthusiasm,” he said, chuckling.

“From the beginning?” I groaned.

“No, first we're going to do the middle, then move to the beginning and then the end,” Coach said sarcastically.

“That's what I thought,” I mumbled.

“Of course from the beginning,” Coach Hill yelled. “And Kevin, you can do it twice more. Let's go!”

That was Coach Hill for you. I guess you had to learn not to take him personally, but it was hard.

Coach Hill felt that most drills were a waste of time. He said the only way we were going to get better was to play games. “How do you think the guys from Latin America got good? They played in the streets with their friends every chance they got. By playing a game, you get conditioning, skills, and awareness.”

Coach put me in at forward, and I knew he'd be keeping an eye on me. If I messed up at practice, he wouldn't start me in the tournament.

I remembered his words at our last practice, when I had come down the sideline and lost the ball.

“Kevin, it does no good if you can get to the goal but can't finish. You can dribble up to the goal all you want, but until that ball hits the back of the net, we're not going to win games.” I knew Coach was right.

Ricky Sorin was Coach Hill's favorite player, and he put him in at the other forward position on our side. Ricky was full of himself and had a lot of confidence. He walked around like he was better than everyone else, strolling in late to practice and making a big deal of texting on his cell phone as if everyone in the world was trying to reach him. He got away with things that I knew the other guys on the team would have been killed for. He was good but not that good.

Someone passed the ball to me and I wasn't paying attention. It went between my legs. “What was that, Kevin?” Coach Hill yelled. “Get your head in the game!” That was impossible.

Chapter 05

The assistant DA called and said that he had spoken to McNamara and that it looked like he was going to press charges. If all McNamara needed was to get his car fixed, I knew that would have been a simple way out if Kevin's mom had had the money to pay for it. I knew I could have probably raised the money from the guys at the precinct if it wasn't outrageous, but I also knew that McNamara might have thought he had hit it rich.

I called Kevin and asked him if he would meet me after school, and he said he would. I also asked Paul Gross, my partner, if he would look up McNamara to see if he had a criminal record. He wasn't in any of the main files, but ironically, he had a mention in the tickler file on a letter I had written close to four years ago. I reread it before I left for the school.

 

12
^TH
HIGHLAND COMMAND

EAST DISTRICT

 

To: Captain Jonathan Bramwell

From: Gerald Brown

D/O/R August 12, 2008

Re: Possible exploitation of workers

Status: Cessation of ongoing investigation

 

As per instructions we have terminated the investigation in the South Brunswick Park area. The investigation, involving four officers and myself, consisted mainly of interviewing, when possible, residents of the area, especially those who are recent to the community. Most of these are of Latino heritage with little or no English and might be illegal immigrants. The investigation was initiated on the suspicion that some of the new workers were being exploited by being employed at below minimum wages or were being forced to make kickback payments to an illegal agency.

The conclusions we came to are that while there is still a possibility of exploitation, it is very difficult to determine because of the closeness of the community and the fears of deportation. We did not investigate the immigration status of people in the community because that is not our jurisdiction. But the possibility of status violations did hamper our efforts for extensive interviews. It does appear that if there are abuses in South Brunswick, they are not extensive at this time. We can't, without more evidence, continue to devote manpower to this task but should keep an eye out for clues that would make a more thorough investigation pertinent. We should also create a tickler file of names of recently hired workers and the firms or individuals that employ them.

I would also like to point out the department's lack of Spanish-speaking officers. With the population of Latinos in Highland expected to rise, it may be good thinking to recruit among the Latino community.

 

The following people have been interviewed, some quite briefly, but their names should be recorded in the tickler file in case some other incident or complaint brings important information to the case.

 

Patrice Carabella

Petra Valeria Diaz

Charles Valente

Marta Molnar

Adamo family

Michael McNamara

Cristobalina Ibarra

Thomas Jones

A. Muchison

 

Respectfully submitted,

Gerald Brown

 

It was nothing important, and McNamara certainly didn't look as if he was into anything illegal. But he had mentioned that Kevin had been to his house, and I thought that maybe something had happened there that got McNamara pissed off.

When I arrived in front of the school, Kevin was wearing sweats and standing with a friend. The friend came over to the driver's seat window.

“You'd better cuff him,” the kid said, smiling. “He's pretty good with his hands.”

Kevin slid in beside me, and I waited until he fastened his seat belt before pulling away from the curb.

“I told my wife that I wanted to talk to you, and she invited us both for some milk and cookies,” I said.

“That's pretty old-fashioned,” he said.

I stopped the car and eased it over to the curb. “Look, Kevin, this case can go in a lot of—”

“I'm sorry.”

“
Don't
interrupt me!” I said.

“Yes, sir.”

“One of the things I've learned on this job is not to get myself involved with the people I arrest, their families, or even with the victims. The one reason—and get this straight—the only reason I'm dealing with you is that your father was something special. I wanted to ask you if anything had ever happened between you and McNamara to make him mad enough to cause you trouble down the line. But you're getting me mad every time you open your mouth.”

“I'm really sorry, sir,” he said. “I really am.”

“Now do you want those ‘old-fashioned' milk and cookies or not?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

Anger is not always a bad thing. When I was twenty, it helped get my adrenaline flowing and pulled me out of a few tight spots. At three years before retirement and five pills a day to keep my blood pressure down, anger was not a good thing.

I drove carefully home, parked the car in the driveway, and started for the house.

“So this is Kevin.” Carolyn smiled. “I've heard a lot about you, young man.”

We went in and I saw that Carolyn had put out cookies on the coffee table. She asked Kevin if he would prefer diet soda to milk.

“The milk is fine, thank you,” he said, glancing in my direction. “Ma'am.”

“Nice to have some manners in the house again,” Carolyn said.

She got the milk and we sat down on the leather couch we had bought the previous Christmas. Carolyn smiled again and then said something about looking at the roast in the oven.

“So—did you do anything to piss McNamara off?”

“No.”

“Did you and Christy have a fight that night?”

“No.”

“Why don't I believe you?”

“I think cops”—Kevin shrugged—“deal with a lot of people who tell lies.”

“And you always tell the truth, I guess?”

“Yeah, I— There was that one time when the gym roof leaked,” Kevin said. “He was pretty mad then.”

“When the gym roof leaked? Tell me about it.”

“Christy kind of gets by in school,” he said. “Early this year she was out a few days, and then she blew a test big-time. It was a Tuesday, and she got a call at school because of something and she left in a big hurry. She was pretty upset. They had to let her go, but the teacher wasn't happy. I saw that she had left her backpack. Between classes I called her and asked her if she wanted me to bring it by her house after school.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, that would have been after school and then after soccer practice. It was raining, and we were supposed to have practice in the gym.”

“But the roof leaked?”

“Right, so since gym was the last period that day, I finished gym and practice and went right over to her house. I got there a little before three. I was there for maybe two minutes when her father comes home and he hits the ceiling, yelling at Christy about why she has a guy over to the house in the middle of the day and asking her if she went to school, that kind of thing.”

“You said she was called home. Was there a problem?”

“I didn't think it was anything big,” Kevin said. “Her mother wasn't feeling good or something and wanted her to come home.”

“He say anything to you?”

“Just wanted to know who I thought I was hanging out in his house. The veins in his neck were all bulging and stuff. I thought he was going to take a swing at me. Then Dolores told him I was only thirteen and he kind of calmed down. He told me he didn't want me in his house when he wasn't there.”

“How did you feel about that?”

“I didn't care. He's got nothing going on in his house, anyway. Christy doesn't do anything. She has to make supper for him sometimes or go to the store.”

“What does the woman who works for them do?” I asked.

“She's like the mother sometimes,” Kevin said. “I practice my Spanish with her. My grandmother wants to talk to me in English all the time except when there are strangers in the house and she doesn't want to talk bad English.”

“Someone in the department interviewed McNamara when we were looking into illegal hiring practices. Some of the legal workers who didn't speak good English were being underpaid, too,” I said. “Nothing came of it.”

“You think Dolores is illegal?”

“Do you?”

“That's like a policeman's answer,” Kevin said. “You just turned that right around.”

“I don't have any reason to believe she's illegal,” I said. “McNamara looks pretty straight to me.”

“Maybe he just doesn't like anybody in the world. Some people are like that.”

“Fortunately, not many,” I said. “You been talking to the girl?”

“She said he doesn't want us speaking,” Kevin said. “I think that's like those shows you see on television where the judge says that nobody is supposed to talk about the case.”

“You like Christy?”

“No!”

“You had a fight?”

“No.”

“You were driving in the car with her that night, Kevin.” I spoke slowly for emphasis. “You just told me a story about how you brought her backpack to her house because she had left it in school. So what happened that you don't like her?”

“I mean, I like her, but I don't like her like I
like
her or anything like that,” he said.

“You're not in love. You're just friends.”

“Right.”

“Best friends.”

“Just friends,” he said. “We went to preschool together.”

“Who is your best friend?”

“Cal is now. My dad was. I'm not like him.” He looked away.

“You don't have to answer this, of course, but why aren't you like him?”

“I have the right to remain silent?”

“Yeah, you have the right to remain silent,” I said. “I didn't want to get into your personal business.”

“My dad was good at a lot of things. You said that you learned not to get involved with criminals or victims. He told me he always worried about anybody he arrested. He would even pray for them at mass.”

Kevin stopped talking, and I could see he was breathing more deeply, as if the emotions he was holding in were suddenly threatening to come to the surface. It came to me that this might be the source of his anger, the sarcasm, that they were all strategies to keep his emotions in check.

“You want another glass of milk?” I asked. “It's still old-fashioned, but I love it.”

“You know my dad was better than me at soccer, too,” he went on. “He said I'd be better one day and we would go into the backyard and play one-on-one. I always wanted to win, because he tried so hard to teach me that I knew he wanted me to win, to be as good as he was. I have a pair of the shoes he played in. One day if I ever get to play in a championship game . . . ”

“You'll wear his shoes?”

“Yeah.”

“You ever think of joining the force?”

“If I don't go to jail first,” he said.

Carolyn came back into the room with two more glasses of milk, and Kevin and I both turned them down. Kevin asked if there was anything else I wanted to ask him and I said no and we started for the car.

We didn't talk much on the way to his house. We hadn't talked that much in my house, but I felt as if I had seen the real Kevin for a change. There was a lot going on in that head, a lot of good things. I was hoping that if I could keep him out of trouble, they would keep on going on.

When I got home, I was tired to the bone and was glad of Carolyn's offer of hot lemon tea.

“Jerry, are you putting too much into this case with Kevin?” she asked. “You've always made it a point to keep your job away from your personal life, and now . . . ”

“Now, I'm all into it?”

“Something like that.”

“You know, when Judge Kelly first started talking about working with kids, I started thinking about all the kids I've arrested over the years. Sometimes it had to be done, but in a way I've always felt that by locking them up, I was betraying them somehow. I think we need to give the kids a chance to show who they can be if they get the right support. They want to do the right thing, and sometimes they just need somebody who's there to show them what that right thing is. They'll still make mistakes, but maybe not the biggest ones.”

“You're a good man, Jerry Brown,” she said.

“And handsome, too,” I said.

“I'll leave it at good,” she answered. “And don't put the teabag on the end table.”