My Name Is River Blue (7 page)

"River,
these are for you," said Miss Martin, nodding at the water and protein bar.
"I thought you might need a snack. How are you doing?"

"I've been
cold, thirsty, and hungry for hours."
I tore the wrapper from the
protein bar before I attacked it.

I was already
big for my age, and I had the natural appetite of a boy in the beginnings of a
growth spurt. As a state kid, I knew better than to play with food, so I ate
anytime I had the chance. I glanced at Miss Martin's watch and saw that it was
already three o'clock, which meant that I had been at the police station for over
four hours and had not eaten anything since breakfast seven hours ago. What was
taking so long to fix Trevor?

"River, I'm
Detective Walls, and I'm going to be working with Miss Martin today to help
you." He grinned with teeth that were stained like a dirty toilet bowl,
and his breath reeked of cigarettes and coffee. Spider veins raced through his
bulbous nose, reminding me of the homeless drunks who lived under the viaduct
in the old part of town. I suspected that the man had no interest in my welfare
and that he was an accomplished liar.

"How's
Trevor? Did he get stitches?" I spoke while I chewed, and I didn't care if
it was impolite to talk while I ate. I was starving, and Mrs. Paulson wasn't
there to correct my poor manners or my grammar.

Detective Walls
glanced at Miss Martin, whose smile faded into quivering lips before she
answered. "River, Trevor was hurt badly. It was very serious. Didn't you
know that? I'm sorry, but Trevor died at the hospital three hours ago."

I stopped
chewing and studied the faces of the adults. I knew that Trevor was hurt when
he fell from the tree house because he wasn't moving and worse, after he hit
the ground, he didn't cry. He made a sound like a short grunt, then nothing
more. Trevor was only five years old, but it still didn't seem such a long fall
to me, and it never occurred to me that he might die. I wondered how badly Mike
felt, and how angry his mom and dad were at him for pushing his little brother
out of the tree house.

Senator and Mrs.
Paulson had punished Mike a few times for being mean to Trevor, but if they
turned their backs, Mike would still give his little brother a hard time. I
felt sorry for Trevor, and I would usually play with him to make up for how his
older brother treated him. The younger boy had begun to act as if I were his
real brother, and it made Mike angry when Trevor said that he liked me best.

When he was
acting bossy, Mike would tell me that I could only play with him and not Trevor,
and Mike always had to have his way. I was just a state kid, and what I wanted
didn't matter to him. There were times when Mike was nice to me, and there were
other times when he liked to remind me that his house was not my real home. Still,
for the most part, we got along pretty well because I usually tried to do what
Mike wanted and because he knew not to push me too far.

I was sad about
Trevor's death, but by that age, I rarely showed my emotions as I did when I
was younger. I had begun to change when I left the Abernathy's' home where I
had given my whole heart to a family just to lose them. I grew even more reserved
after Mr. Carver gained my trust only to betray me in the worst of ways. I
gradually stopped assigning much emotional value to any relationship. By the
time I went to live with the Paulsons, I had a difficult time expressing myself
in a way that most people would find normal.

"Are they
mad at Mike?" I asked. Mike could be a pain in the butt, but I knew that
he didn't intend to cause his little brother serious harm. As was normal for
Mike, he just didn't think before he did something selfish and stupid.

Miss Martin
acted surprised by the question. "Why would they be mad at Mike?"

"Cause
Trevor died," I said. Why didn't she get that?

"River, I
need you to tell me what happened today at the tree house," said Detective
Walls. "I need you to tell me how Trevor got hurt. Take your time and be
sure to tell me only the truth. Understand?"

"I think
so." I took another bite from the protein bar, and worked some caramel off
the roof of my mouth so I could speak. I saw Detective Walls and Miss Martin
look at each other as if my eating bothered them, but I didn't care. I wasn't
giving up the protein bar unless one of them made me.

"Wait,
before you start," ordered the detective. I saw that Detective Walls had a
tape recorder, not a radio as I first thought. I listened as the man said the
date, time, and who was in the room. I remember thinking it was cool to be
recorded and wondered if he would play it back for me. "Okay, River, tell
me what happened this morning at the tree house in the Paulsons' back
yard."

***

I told the story
of how Mike and I grew hot and sweaty after playing football in the back yard,
and we decided to take a break in the tree house where there was usually a cool
breeze passing through. We climbed up the ladder that was nailed to the tree
trunk, and both of us were sitting inside the house when we heard five-year-old
Trevor calling us from the bottom of the tree. The little boy asked if he could
come up with us, and Mike told him to go away. Trevor was determined to join us
and climbed the fifteen feet to the entrance. As he tried to throw a leg onto
the floor of the tree house, Mike yelled at him and used his foot to shove his
little brother. The smaller boy lost his balance and fell backwards off the
ladder.

I heard Trevor's
scream that ended with a grunt when he hit the ground. When Mike realized that
his little brother had fallen all the way to the bottom of the tree, his face
turned white, and he quickly crawled down a few rungs of the ladder, before
dropping the rest of the way to the ground. It was the fastest that I had ever
seen him come down from the tree house.

Mike took a
quick look at Trevor and yelled loudly for his mom, who had heard Trevor's
scream and was already running out of the house. I stayed in the tree house and
observed the scene below me because there had been times in the past when
people had yelled at me for getting in the way. Even Senator Paulson had told
me to stay out of family business that didn't concern me.

Mrs. Paulson,
dressed only in her bathrobe, rushed to Trevor, screamed his name, and began
wailing. She cradled his head and stroked his hair while she spoke to him as if
the unconscious boy could hear her. Neighbors began to come out of their
houses, and I heard the woman next door tell Mrs. Paulson that she had called
911.

At first, Mike
stood quaking quietly by his mother's side, but he soon began yelling and
wildly waving his arms. He pointed up at the tree house, and I couldn't
understand his words, but I saw Mrs. Paulson briefly stare at me before turning
back to Trevor. When he kneeled on the ground beside his mother and brother,
Mike's body shook with his sobs.

I was still unsure
of what I should do, but I climbed down from the tree and stood out of the way
while we waited for help to arrive. I reasoned that Mrs. Paulson would tell me
if she needed me to do something, but no one spoke to me. Mrs. Paulson continued
to cry while she held Trevor's head in her lap. I noticed bloodstains on her
robe and the grass.

Soon, I heard
the screaming siren of an ambulance that stopped in front of the house just
before a police car arrived. Mrs. Paulson spoke to the police for a moment
while the EMTs were getting Trevor ready for transport to the hospital, but she
never said a word to me before she and Mike simply left with the ambulance.

One of the police
officers spoke on his radio while another one stood with me. A few minutes
later, another police car arrived with two men in suits. They walked towards
the tree house while the police officers from the first car told me to come
with them. They didn't give me a reason, but I assumed that the Paulsons asked
the police to take care of me until they returned from the hospital.

***

After completing
my story for the detective, I thought I had given a good account and I looked
to him and Miss Martin for approval. Their faces told me that I must have left
out something or said something wrong, but as hard as I searched my memory, I
couldn't come up with anything else to tell them.

"River, I
want to help you," said Detective Walls. "I can't do that unless you
are one hundred per cent honest with me. People make mistakes and eleven-year-old
boys make
lots
of mistakes. Don't be afraid to admit that you made a
mistake or else we can't help you fix it."

I saw Miss
Martin stare at Detective Walls as if he had grown a horn in the center of his
forehead. The man kept saying that I had to tell him about a mistake I made,
and I couldn't think of a mistake.

"I ain't sure
what you mean," I said. "What do you want me to say?"

The detective
shook his head. "No, River. It's not about what I
want
you to say. I
want you to tell the truth. Tell us what you did wrong at the tree house. Something
you're sorry for doing. Then we can all get out of here and make everything
right."

I suddenly
thought I had it. "Okay, when I got down from the tree house, I shoulda told
Mrs. Paulson that I was sorry?"

The detective
showed his yellow smile and gave a smug nod to Miss Martin. "Okay, now
we're getting somewhere. What were you sorry for?"

"I shoulda
said I was sorry that Trevor fell?"

"Don't you
mean that you were sorry for
making
Trevor fall?" The man nodded
his head up and down as he spoke.

"No. I
didn't make him fall. Mike did. I done told you that. Remember?"

Detective Walls
dropped his smile. His face grew stern. "River, you know that's not true. Before
I can help you, you have to admit your mistake like a good boy who is sorry for
what he did. We know what really happened. You pushed Trevor Paulson out of
that tree house. We can't fix things and forgive you if you keep lying about it
and blaming it on Mike."

I looked at Miss
Martin, who dropped her gaze to the tabletop. I realized why the police took me
away, and I certainly understood what "mistake" the detective
expected me to admit. Most normal kids would have been shocked and scared to
have a cop wrongly accuse them, but the only thing that surprised me was how
long it took me to catch on to what the cops were doing. I could hardly believe
that I was stupid enough to think Mike would tell the truth instead of blaming
Trevor's fall on me. I should have seen it coming.

I had learned
early in life that I was an easy target for a regular kid to use as a fall guy.
Adults, including cops, usually took the word of a white kid with parents and a
home over the word of a kid like me. It didn't surprise me that Mike had lied
to his mother who then told the police that I was responsible for Trevor's
death. It was not the first time that someone had falsely accused me of
something, and it wasn't even the first time that Mike had done it. It had just
never been anything so serious.

It took me only
seconds to assess my situation. In my mind, I could hear Sean as he taught me
one of many lessons on surviving in the system. I knew that my chances of
convincing anyone of the truth were slim, and that no one cared enough for me
to fight on my behalf. Still, no matter what the liars promised, I was not
going to make it easy for them. I was not going to volunteer to be their victim.
I didn't know what they planned to do to me, but I intended to make it as
difficult as possible for them, and I didn't mind pissing them off while I was
at it. I was not the same cooperative kid that I was when the detective and
Miss Martin first sat down with me. I was angry and barely controlling it.

"Well,
River. What's it going to be?" Detective Walls asked.

"Everything
I said is true. You say you want to help me, but you're only trying to trick me
into saying what you want. Miss Martin, you knew what he was doing. How come
you just believed what he said and didn't ask me? You're supposed to be here
for me cause I don't got parents. He tried to scare me into telling a lie, and
you still didn't say nothing. I'm done. I want a lawyer like I shoulda got in
the first place."

The detective maintained
his composure. "River, you're making things harder than they have to
be."

"You mean
I'm making things harder for
you.
I want a lawyer," I said flatly. "The
first thing I'm telling him is that you asked me stuff before anyone told me my
rights. You guys kept me here for hours in a freezing room with nothing to eat
or drink. I needed to go so bad I almost pissed myself. Right before you guys
walk in the door, it's like magic the way the AC turned off after it blew cold
air down on me for hours. Then you come in trying to trick me into taking the
blame for what Mike done."

"I checked
the report before I came in here," said Walls. "Officer Ripley and
Officer Woods read you your rights when you came in the station, and they
checked on you every thirty minutes. You never asked for anything except to use
the restroom. Miss Martin has been here as your guardian during
questioning."

"Liars. Nobody
read me no rights. One cop told me to come with him while Mrs. Paulson went to
the hospital. Two other cops said what they was doing was procedures for any
kid staying in here a while. Then they took my stuff and sat me in this cold
room. I asked them if I was arrested, and they said not to worry cause it was just
procedures. Officer Poole took me to the restroom right before I had an
accident. I asked him for something to drink and told him I was cold. He told
me to wait and just left me in here."