“’Fraid so.”
“Fine, I’ll think about it. It won’t be easy.”
“If it was easy, it wouldn’t be fun.”
“Uh huh. Well I’m going back to scaring myself shitless with the news okay?”
“Sure, thanks Pen. Have a good night.”
“You too.”
Tim hung up the phone and turned on the local news. Sure enough, a protest was in full swing down East Main Street, a mile or so away from his house and heading his way. He watched the images of rapper Howie Do and his girlfriend, Canadian YouTube star, Melissa Jones, and watched the video of the shooting, his hand over his mouth in shock. He knew immediately he had to get involved. It might piss off Lionel Granger and his ilk, but Tim didn’t give a shit.
He picked up his phone and called the governor, the state’s Attorney General and Virginia’s Senate majority leader. None of them answered – it was getting late that was true, but still, it was annoying. Protestors flooding into Richmond’s streets and the top brass weren’t answering their phones? Perhaps they weren’t answering to him. He tried calling Richmond’s police chief, but as expected, his phone went immediately to voicemail and the mailbox was full. That was no surprise. The guy had his hands full tonight.
Tim stood and went to his front door. Opening it up, he could hear distant sounds of chanting and shouting coming from the direction of East Main Street. He grabbed his jacket, his keys and his phone and headed out to join the protest.
The knock on the door woke Melissa. Bleary-eyed, she stared at the clock. It was 8:00 a.m. The knocking came again, so she dragged herself from the bed.
“Just a minute!” she called.
She wrapped a hotel robe around her and winced at the pain in her arm. The pills had long since worn off and her bruises were agony. She shuffled over to the door and opened it to find a porter with two suitcases.
“Good morning, Madam, I believe these belong to you?”
It was her luggage. It could only have been here thanks to Saint Jasmine.
“Thank you,” she said. She picked up her purse and scrabbled for a generous tip as the porter brought her suitcases into the room.
She closed the door behind him after he left. She stared at them, hardly daring to believe they were real. What a relief! She hadn’t looked forward to returning to the police station this morning to get them.
Images and memories crashed into her mind like baseball bats striking her. She dropped to her knees. The cell. The interview room. The officers. The demonstration. The traffic stop. The gunfire. Her boyfriend, his body twisting with the impact of the bullets.
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t think of anything else.
Howie was dead. He wasn’t coming back. He wasn’t going to knock on her hotel door and surprise her. She would never again feel his body against her skin. She would never hold his hand or kiss his mouth. She would never talk to him, laugh with him, be with him.
He was gone.
Murdered by those fucks!
Anger replaced the suffocation of loss. Hot, burning anger that gripped her stomach and clenched her teeth. She seethed, tears forming a puddle at her feet, fists pounding the floor. She screamed, raged at the injustice. She yelled at God for taking him from her. She roared at the universe for being so cruel.
She had never felt so helpless.
She lay on the floor sobbing for some time. Even when there were no tears left, she couldn’t bring herself to move. Her breathing was ragged and her dry sobs came in heaves.
Eventually, all that was left was numbness.
She dragged herself to her feet and went to the washroom. She showered and dressed in clean clothes, then picked up her phone to find dozens of new texts waiting for her. She flicked through them dispassionately, sentiment after sentiment having no effect on the deadness of her soul.
One caught her eye and she stopped. She stared at it for a minute, trying to process what it said. It was from Howie’s brother, Wilson.
Meet me at Tremelos at 9 a.m.
Well that was kind of forward. What if she didn’t want to? What if she just wanted to get the hell out of this fucked up country and go home right now? What if seeing her dead boyfriend’s brother was just too painful a concept for her to cope with? What if the noisy protestors outside had kept her awake half the night and she wanted to crawl back under the covers and go back to sleep?
She could answer all of these questions positively, but she knew full well that Howie would want her to go see his brother. He had spoken of Wilson often, even in the short time she’d known him. It was clear that Howie loved his brother and would do anything for him. Wilson must be hurting just as much as she was, and it was totally fair for him to want answers from the woman who was there when Howie died.
She decided, for Howie, she would go.
The streets were quiet that morning. The rush to get to work was over, and there was a host of city workers clearing up the debris after last night’s protest. No storefronts were damaged, but litter was everywhere and there were numerous broken signs abandoned in the gutter.
Justice For Howie!
Put Hagley Away!
And of course, Black Lives Matter!
She’d heard of the movement, of course. Toronto had its own chapter, though police violence against black people in Canada was generally rarer than in the States. Still there were disproportionate numbers of traffic stops, minor drug convictions and stop and searches in Toronto, or carding as it was known. Melissa loved Canada, loved the opportunities presented to her and the social safety net of healthcare and welfare, but the country was not without its racial divide and its ugly underbelly of bigotry.
She entered the café expecting to have to look around for Wilson, but she spotted him straight away. He was so like Howie, yet different in some ways. His nose was a little narrower, his forehead a little broader, his chin a little rounder, yet he was so obviously Howie’s brother that Melissa found herself moving towards him with her hand outstretched before he’d even noticed her approaching.
He put down his coffee and shook her hand, smiling with sad eyes. He invited her to sit. Neither needed to introduce themselves.
“How you holding up?” Wilson asked, his voice filled with compassion and empathy.
Melissa sighed. “I’m doing okay. It hasn’t hit me fully yet, you know?”
“Yeah I know. I got the same thing. I woke up this morning thinking, I should call Howie today. Not spoken to him in a week and that’s a long time for us. Guess you kept him busy.”
The words weren’t accusatory or tinged with jealousy. There was a glint of amusement in his eye that reminded Melissa so starkly of Howie that for a moment she struggled to breathe.
“You all right?”
“Yeah, yeah I’m okay. You look a lot like him.”
Wilson patted the table awkwardly. “Oh yeah, I didn’t think of that. Sorry. Must be hard for you.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s not your fault you look like your brother.”
“Shit no it ain’t!” he said in mock protest.
Melissa smiled slightly, then let it fade. “I keep thinking I’ll get a text from him any moment, you know? I think he’ll call soon, and