Crossing (17 page)

Y
ears ago, when I was nine, my parents permitted me to go trick-or-treating without supervision. Certain prohibitions were placed on me, of course. Never was I to go into anyone’s home; never was I to sample any of the food or candy given to me, especially not apples; never was I to leave the immediate neighborhood; and never was I to separate from Naomi.

It was all very technical, and soon forgotten. Naomi and I—both costumed in Casper the Friendly Ghost outfits (bought at Wal-Mart, two for the price of one)—ranged the streets, sucked on candy, ripped open chewing gum packs, stepped into strangers’ homes. It was never our conscious intent to break the rules, but once out in the streets, the parade of costumes, the beckoning lights, and the giggling masses of children swept us away as in a stream. Only the last instruction was never broken. We never strayed more than an arm’s length from each other the whole night.

At some point we joined a group of other children. We didn’t know who they were; we all wore masks, spoke in the feigned, caricatured voices of our costumes. Nor did it seem important for us to know. We moved as one from house to house. Even at my young age, I sensed a rhythm, a cadence to all we did. Walk up to the door. Ring the doorbell. The door opens: a blustery woman, all made up with bright mascara and moussed hair, feigns surprise and glee at the sight of us. “Trick or Treat!” we shout in unison. The hands dipping into the bag, friendly admonishments to be careful, closing of the door, then moving on to the next house, to be repeated all over again, house after house.

I remember it so clearly. The hollow, bellowing sound of my voice from behind the mask, the warm condensation collecting there. The two pinpricks on the mask through which I viewed the world, so blessedly small and obscuring. I remember the way they all looked at me as they asked who I was. Every time they asked, I’d intone the voice of Casper the Friendly Ghost, revealing nothing more.
I’m Casper the Friendly Ghost!
I’d see the response in their laughter, so free and unabashed. They never guessed it was a Chinese boy in a white costume.

As I moved about the neighborhood that night, I suddenly knew what it was to be white. I saw smiles and looks never before directed at me. Oh, there had been smiles and there had been friendly looks before, but never so unforced or natural. I understood then what it meant to be of likeness in America, of sameness, to be free from stilted inflections, pondering stares, strained openness. It was the unabashed simplicity of it all, the unbridled acceptance in their blue and green eyes, in their words, which struck me most.

That night, exhausted but exhilarated in my own bed, I hid Casper’s mask. After my parents tucked me in and closed the door, I took out the mask from beneath the blankets. It was crumpled by then, but no matter. Even in the dark, its whiteness glowed, its smile shone. I put it on, relishing the splendid anonymity it gave me. And like that, I fell asleep. I dreamed that the mask melded into my face, became immovable, became my face. It was a wonderful dream. To live behind a white mask.

B
ackstage, I retreated to my changing room. Miss Jenkins, after hugging me, told me I had about ten minutes before my next number. “You’re a revelation,” she gushed before closing the door. I turned off the light, needing to gather myself. Even from behind the closed door, I could hear the applause, still thunderous. Sitting down, I rubbed my temples with my thumbs. My heart was thumping, pounding.

And that’s when I noticed something peculiar far off: the blinking red and blue dots. From outside the window. Heading towards school, a line of police cars, urgency pulsating in each swivel of red-blue-red-blue lights.

For a minute I stared at them, my curiosity piqued.

There was a loud knock on my door, startling me.

“Yes?” I asked.

“You OK in there?”

“Fine.”

“You’ve got about five more minutes.”

“OK.” Footsteps receded; I turned back to the window. The distant swirl of red and blue lights, gathering speed, spiraling towards school. And then I heard it. From just outside my door, in the hallway where jackets and backpacks were lined up against the walls. A cell phone started to ring, a muffled melody. Then another. And another. Within a minute, at least a dozen cell phones must have gone off. Something was happening. My fingernails dug deep crescent indentations into my palms.

I opened the door cautiously. No one out there. But cell phones were ringing off the hook with an overlapping frenzy. They cast glowing blurs where they shone through the pockets of bags and coats. I walked over to a bag and took a phone out of the side pocket. It vibrated in my hand like a shivering rat. I waited for it to stop moving. Then I flipped it open and pushed the button for voice mail.

“Listen, Susan, it’s Dad. Call me as soon as you get this. It’s important. Don’t go anywhere, just call me right back.”

I put the phone back and fished out another one. “Harry, word just broke out, you need to call me immediately. Stay with Dad at school, don’t stray off alone. They think they know who did it, some kid at school. I don’t have—nobody knows for sure, details just came out and are fuzzy. Just find Dad, OK, and stay with him. I’m calling your school now…”

The next phone didn’t have a voice message. But the text message screamed at me:

OMG ITS THE CHINESE KID! STAY AWAY FROM HIM…THE GIRL TOLD THE COPS HE DID IT!

I flipped closed the cell phone. It snapped shut like a steel-jaw trap and clattered to the floor.

Time slowed. Then sped forward, then spun around. I started to sway, and I grabbed the wall for balance. The cell phones: they rang with increasing urgency, their lights flashing brighter, electronic beeps now entering the cacophony. And the hallway was suddenly claustrophobic and condemning, as if its thousand million atoms became eyeballs that stared at me with wide-eyed accusation. Then I heard the sound of the audience’s laughter from the auditorium gushing down the hallway, shrill and unnerving. As if the walls had become see-through and they were all observing me from their seats, giddy with laughter. At my fear, at my panic.

I walked back into my changing room. I closed the door and sat down. Better in here, away from the phones.

I had nothing to fear. This is what I told myself. Nothing whatsoever. Even if Jan had come to and told the police some lie. A false accusation. That I had attacked her, that I had killed her father. All I had to do was tell the truth. Surely the police would see through her lies.

I stared out at the approaching police cars. The cops had to be coming here only out of mere formality. Not because they believed her. But just for show. To look competent and meticulous in front of all the media. That had to be it. They’d talk to me after the show ended, then shake my hand, tell me, “Great job, Kris, you brought the house down; you’re a real hero,” and leave. Just a formality. I closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe. Glanced out the window again.

More police cars suddenly, pouring down the road. With alarming speed. And then, even through the closed window, I began to hear the faint blare of sirens.

This was not a formality.

This was an arrest.

I picked up my music sheets and forced my eyes to look at them.
Just concentrate on the next song,
I told myself.
In a few minutes I’ll be on stage, and all this will be a silly memory
. But when I looked down, instead of seeing musical notes, I saw, floating between the notes and bars, the image of a gravity knife.
The
gravity knife. The knife Jan had secretly put in my bag as a gift, the one later seized from me and sealed in an evidence bag. The knife that was likely stained with Dorsey’s and Hasbourd’s and Logan’s blood.

And I saw an image of Jan as well, propped up on a hospital bed, spewing lies about me to a receptive audience of detectives and reporters and doctors and nurses. All of them, their heads bobbing up and down, scribbling notes, running out with their cell phones flipped open, fingers punching out text messages.

The crunching sound of tires on gravel outside. My eyes snapped away from the music sheets. The police cars had arrived. So fast. They were chomping at the bit to arrest me. To be able to lead me out, the sicko China boy, on national TV. It was going to be a media Cirque du Soleil with the networks already here filming the show. And the police wouldn’t wait for the show to be over. They were coming for me now.

I shook my head fiercely at this. Determined, I stood up, my hand reaching for the hat I would wear for the next number. I rammed it onto my head. Then, after a moment, I righted it. Breathed in, slowly, deeply. I stared at myself in the mirror.
It’s OK
, I told myself,
everything is OK
. I went through the first two lines of the next song in my head. For a moment, it seemed possible. To collect myself, to walk out onto the stage, to go on with the performance.

But then I opened the door and fled.

Through the backstage, left towards the janitor’s room, then through the back door into the rear parking lot. Not a soul out there, just the cold night and a parking lot full of cars gleaming like the onyx surface of a pond.

I bent down beside a bike rack and found an unlocked bike. Muffled orchestra music seeped out of the auditorium. I stared back at the door. Any moment now. It would bang open. Blue uniforms would push me down into the icy ground, pin my arms painfully behind me.

I cut across the soccer fields to avoid the main roads, my feet piston-like on the pedals. My arms bounced on the handlebars, the uneven field jostling me. The wind sliced through me, tearing my chest into ribbons, filing away at my exposed knuckles. When I reached the woods, I looked back. The auditorium, with light spilling out onto the dark fields, sat like a dropped Chinese lantern.

Ten minutes later, my breath pluming out in front of me in ragged clouds, I broke into a clearing. The road before me was empty. Route 19. Ghosts of snow blew across its length. I pushed on, ignoring the tears that froze in diagonal lines across my cheekbones. Wind slashed through my skin pores, scraping me.

“Please be home, Naomi,” I whispered to myself. “Please be home.”

She was in the living room, on the phone, her back to me. I watched from outside the window, making sure her boyfriend wasn’t with her. She was tense, the earpiece jammed flush against her ear. I watched as she hung up the phone and turned around. Her face was ashen with shock and disbelief.

I walked up the empty driveway—her parents were still working at the mall—and rang the front doorbell. She opened it quickly and let me in without hesitation.

“Oh, my God, Xing, what’s going on?” she stammered.

I closed the door behind me. “Listen—”

“I’ve been hearing crazy stuff.”

“Please, Naomi, please you have to—”

“I was just on the phone with Jason. He told me not to let you in if you came—”

“—just listen to me—”

“—he said everyone’s calling everyone about it. That you just took off in the middle of the show—”

“—I need you to hear me out. Naomi!
Naomi!
”

That last word came out almost as a scream. It stunned both of us into silence.

“Listen, Naomi,” I said, “that’s why I rushed over here. I wanted you to hear from me first. Before it all broke out.”

Quieter now, but her voice still edged with fright, she said, “Jason told me Jan Blair came to at the hospital. And that she claims you tried to kill her after you killed her father. All sorts of crazy nonsense out there.” She started to pace, her hands cupping her temples. “I can’t process all this. You’re supposed to be performing at school right now. What are you doing
here
?”

I stared blankly at her, trying to find words, some kind of explanation. My chest was rising and falling, still trying to catch my breath.

“It’s a mistake, Naomi. It’s all just a misunderstanding!”

“I know that! Of course it’s a misunderstanding.”

“There’s an explanation for all of this.”

“Of course there is. And you
should
be explaining it. But to the police. Not here, not to me. Now you have the whole world thinking you’re guilty. Don’t you get it? By running away, you just come off as guilty. Why did you run?”

“Like I’ve been trying to tell you, I needed you to hear it from me.” I ran my hand through my hair in frustration.

“They were bearing down on me at school. They were going to put cuffs on me, whisk me away, who knows what after that. I’d never have this moment, just you and me, to explain—”

“You’re an idiot, Xing, for coming here. The police were probably going to school to protect you. They knew that false rumors were coming out, and they were just there to ensure your safety.” She threw her arms in the air. “How stupid could you be? What possessed you to leave and come here?”

“I needed to tell you I have nothing to do with the killings.”

She slapped her thigh in exasperation. “Are you out of your mind?” Frowns of frustration creased her forehead. “Did you really believe I’d think
you
were responsible? Like I would think
you
killed those boys? I’m the last person in the world who needs to be convinced.”

We faced each other, confusion-anger-panic churning in the air.

I walked to the window and took a quick glance outside. No one. Yet. “Do you remember that time when we were walking back from school? You were joking about how I was your number one suspect?”

“I was
kidding
, Xing. You can’t be serious—”

“I know you were. But it still shows you how easily I fit the profile. I slip into it so perfectly, if you want me to.” I sighed angrily. “And they do want me to.”

“Look, I’ll go down to the precinct with you. I’ll do the talking if you want. That this is all just one huge misunderstanding.”

“You still don’t get it, do you? I’m everything the police could possibly want in a suspect: mysterious, strange, a loner. Discovered only after diligent police work dug up hard-to-find evidence.”

“Evidence? What evidence?”

“All circumstantial. Just the worst luck in the world,” I said. “Really bad timing, wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time kind of thing. But the evidence is beginning to stack up against me by the minute. Stuff you don’t even know about yet.”

“What are you talking about? Look, you were almost a victim, for crying out loud.” Her eyes pleaded with mine as she spoke. “You can just stop all this paranoid talk. They have the killer. He’s dead. He’s a cold corpse on the floor with a knife in his neck. You caught him. You put him away. You’re a hero, Xing, a—”

“What they have,” I interrupted, shaking my head, “is the dead body of a frail munchkin, the kind of person who’d bruise after a mosquito bite. A shrinking violet who looks like the furthest thing from
serial killer
. And then they have me,” I said, jabbing a finger at my chest. “Look at me.
Look at me!
” I shouted, jolting her. “Don’t I just look the part? Inscrutable, an outcast, foreign, the closest thing to
serial killer
. Because they
will
take the word of even a Jan Blair over mine.”

“No, they won’t—”

“They have my boot prints!” I shouted. “All over Jan Blair’s home, her yard—”

“That’s because you were there today! The police know that already—”

“No, just listen to me. I was also there a few days ago.”

“What?” She suddenly paused, as if remembering something. “What were you doing there?”

I shook my head, ignoring her. “And motive, too. Perfect motives for at least two of the victims…”

“You’re rambling now. Just calm down. Stop thinking the whole world’s out to get you.”

“You see, Anthony was the one person between me and the lead role. And the Logan kid? Everyone knows we got into a fight. And Winston Barnes? Got me there! But the police are persistent. They’ll come up with a motive. Let me try to guess. Maybe it was jealousy. Over how you and Winston were getting along, how he might have replaced me as your study partner.” I gritted my teeth. “And then there’s the knife—”

Naomi stepped closer to me and placed her hand on my arm. “Xing, stop it!” she said urgently. “You’re paranoid; it’s not the way you think it is. Nobody hates you the way you think they do. They’ll believe you—”

“No, they won’t!” I barked at her, and the force of my voice whipped her hand away. “You don’t live in my world. You don’t know what it’s like to walk in my skin, do you?” I was seething now. “They
will
make me into a killer if they want to! Because they’ve always made me into whatever they want me to be. That’s the way it’s always been, this school to me, this town to me!”

She took a step back from me, her eyes widening. “How did you get to be like this, Xing? That you see an enemy in every shadow? That you distrust everyone, that you think the worst of them all?”