Blindly I stumbled to an empty pew. Knelt, and hid my face in my hands. My lips moved numbly reciting the familiar prayers—Hail Mary full of grace. Our Father Who art in heaven. My heart beat rapidly yet with a kind of exaltation as if I’d narrowly escaped a terrible danger. I was deeply ashamed but I was also relieved. For I had tried. I had tried, and I had been told to shut up, and could go away now absolved of my sins.

  This would be the final confession of my life.

  “Dear Christ What Did Violet Do Now”

  WAITING FOR YOU. YOU KNEW.

  Saying Hey. Where’re you goin’, kid.

  You were smiling. Grinning. Inane as a Hallowe’en pumpkin.

  Yet cautious enough to hold back. Something in your brother’s eyes like cracked marbles warned you.

  HIS FAVORITE VIDEO GAMES HAD NAMES LIKE PIT-FIGHTER, Cyberball, Primal Rage. His favorite movie franchise was Terminator and second favorite, Mad Max.

  He’d grown tall, and he’d grown muscled in the shoulders and torso. A thick neck, thick jaws. Shrewd stone-colored eyes beneath heavy brows. In a few years he would be taller and stockier than his older brother he’d long admired. He would be his father’s size with his father’s way of clenching and unclenching his fists when he was feeling thwarted.

  Unyielding as Jerome Sr. Unforgiving.

  Many days after the beating of Hadrian Johnson still the cut on Lionel’s cheek had not healed. With his broken and dirt-edged nails he picked, picked at it. Unconsciously he picked at it. Each day it bled anew. Each day he wiped his fingers on his shirt, what the hell. What the fuck did he care, he did not care. Not much. Those days, weeks. Waiting. Waiting for the God-damned police to return. Waiting to be cuffed. He’d claimed not to know how the hell the cut had come to be on his face. Who’d hit him, a wild swing of a fist, wild swing of a baseball bat grazing his skin, or walloping him so that he’d almost gone down, who the fuck had it been Lionel did not know but whoever it was he’d like to murder the bastard with his own hands and maybe someday, Christ knew maybe someday he would.

  Bruises on his chest, upper arms as well. Bruises of the color of oil spills. That night they kept asking him about he’d been totally wasted, couldn’t remember a fucking thing and that was a fucking fact.

  HE’D WANTED TO. YOU KNOW. KNEW AT THE TIME. SURE.

  Nudging you down the cellar stairs as a prank. Small of the back. You weighed maybe eighty-five pounds. Barely five feet tall. Cracking your head on the concrete floor. Snapping your neck in an instant the way (on TV) a hyena snaps the neck of its prey. Or, he’d have cornered you in the garage one afternoon when you returned home from school and no one else was in the house. He’d have put on Daddy’s old cracked leather gloves abandoned on a work bench in the garage. Slipping on the gloves that fitted his hands loosely but comfortably. Staring at you with interest as if tearing wings off a butterfly as he punched, punched, punched your face you had not have guessed was so tender, the first blow would draw blood.

  And your head, as you fell. The bone of the skull not so hard and so protective as you’d have wished to believe. Slid down the wall. Cobwebs in the concrete wall, and cobwebs in your hair. Eye sockets broken, hematomas in both your eyes. Lower jaw broken, slack. Broken teeth. Cartilage of your nose smashed. Rapid punch, punch. Rapid punch. Left jab, right cross.

  Keep your fucking mouth shut, now you won’t be able to open it.

  Manslaughter was the most they could charge. Not homicide. Chain of circumstances, accidents. None of it premeditated. Christ! Kids so young, they fuck up every day and could not have premeditated anything. Like trying to premeditate a shit. You could not.

  Anyway, they could not. Had not. Just came up behind the kid on the bicycle by chance and never saw his face. They would swear.

  SHOULD’VE SHOVED HER HARDER DOWN THE STEPS. SHOULD’VE broke her God-damn head. Fucking mistake, to show mercy.

  You’d imagined that Lionel no longer glanced in your direction. Was no longer aware of you. Distracted, brooding. Gnawing his lower lip, grimacing. Waiting for the phone to ring. He’d never been a boy to think much but now he’d become a creature eaten up by thinking, plotting. Like something was inside him, a living thing. And his eyes ringed with fatigue. You’d noticed him frowning in your direction but not at you. Peering behind you and not at your face. Over your shoulder.

  Looking to see if anyone was around. Watching, listening. If Mom was in the next room. If any of them would come to help you.

  When it happened it wasn’t the cellar steps, and it wasn’t in the garage. No leather gloves. And no warning.

  You’d gone outside to check bird feeders depleted of seed, abandoned and frozen at the rear of the house and recalled suddenly when it was (probably) too late, the birds had flown elsewhere. Foolishly you’d ventured outside at the rear of the house where the concrete steps hadn’t yet been salted, shoveled of snow.

  Indoors your brother Lionel had seemed to ignore you practically yawning in your presence to assure you, fuck he didn’t give a shit about you but there Lionel was, suddenly behind you. Close behind you, panting with what must have been (you would surmise afterward) excitement. Shove against your back as if by accident and you are slipping, falling on the icy steps—so fast it happens, you are taken totally by surprise.

  “Hey! Watch out!”—Lionel’s warning comes late, mocking. And a mock-groan of scolding solicitude—“Ohhh Vi’let—what’d you do?—hell.”

  The force of the blow against your head has knocked you unconscious. Two, three seconds obliterated—concussed. Waking stunned to find yourself on the icy ground. A pounding at your left temple where something, the sharp ice-edge of a step, has cut the skin thin as paper, releasing a stream of blood. Your left leg is twisted beneath you, the knee is bent impossibly beneath you. So much blood so quickly, you are astonished. Too surprised to worry that you might bleed to death.

  You will recall Lionel crouching over you hungrily even as Miriam comes on the run, from somewhere inside the house Miriam has heard you scream though you have not heard yourself scream, and in that instant Lionel is gone—(gone where? gone)—and Miriam stoops over you to lift you carefully, trying to comfort you, trying not to panic at the blood, explaining to you that you slipped on the ice, you hit your head and cut your forehead but you will be all right. And when Miriam manages to settle you onto one of the steps, to make some effort to staunch the flow of blood with tissues in the pocket of her jacket, and finally with the jacket itself, there comes your mother in the doorway unsteady on her feet and staring, scolding, “Oh, dear Christ what did Violet do now.”

  The Revelation

  VIOLET? IS SOMETHING WRONG?”—STOOPING, STARING AT ME with concerned eyes. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  For Ms. Micaela could not, dared not ask Did someone hurt you.

  She knew the rumor about my brothers. Everyone knew the rumor about my brothers. After the others had filed out of homeroom. After the first-period bell had rung clamorous and jeering and I remained in my seat dazed and weak and (seemingly) not sure where I was.

  I’d limped into the room well before the bell. Panting and determined not to make a spectacle of myself I’d positioned myself carefully at the desk assigned to me and half-fell into it for I could not (easily, without pain) bend my swollen left knee.

  Dry-mouthed, but not dry-eyed. And a dripping nose.

  My eyelids had swollen to twice their normal size and were reddened and itchy. If you peered at me you would see my bloodshot gaze peering back at you from out of the swollen eyes and you would (maybe) recognize me but you would (probably) glance quickly away.

  Dared not scratch my eyelids with my fingernails yet could not resist.

  Such itchiness is painful yet exquisite like touching yourself in the secret forbidden place. Like the itchiness of the mangled skin on my forehead that if it was touched, at once began to hurt. No, no!—don’t touch.

  No one could see the secret wound. Hidden beneath a Band-Aid.

  She’d given me aspirin, to help me sleep. Several low-dosage aspirin, for children.

  (But was I still a child, at twelve? I did not think so.)

  Miriam had wanted to drive me to the hospital last night to have the wound examined, stitched. To x-ray my skull. My knee.

  But Mom had been agitated, frightened. So much blood!

  Mom had seemed more upset by the blood, the fact of the blood, staining my clothes, my sister’s jacket, dripping onto the linoleum floor when Miriam led me staggering into the kitchen, than by the wound itself.

  Insisting upon treating the wound herself. Not wanting to make a fuss.

  Not wanting a hospital, emergency room. The attention of strangers.

  And so with shaky fingers treating the wound herself. Applying pressure to it, to staunch the bleeding. Rinsing with cold water. Applying iodine that stung like fire.

  Then, neatly covering the cut with a large square white Johnson & Johnson Band-Aid.

  Recalling how when the children were young such accidents happened all the time. Cut knees, cut elbows, falls from bicycles, swings, tripping on the sidewalk, banging heads. Kids!

  It was true, the small wound on my forehead above my left eye turned out not to be very deep. Head wounds bleed like crazy, that is a fact. Getting blood all over everything! Oh Violet. Isn’t it just like you.

  Sorry. Of course I was sorry for having bled onto people’s clothing including mine, and onto the floor which Mom kept spotless as best as she could. Sobbing, sniffling, apologizing.

  Telling myself I should be grateful that the cut hadn’t been deeper, my eye had not been gouged out by the icy edge of the step. And Mom assuring me how lucky I was, damned lucky no serious damage to my face or to my head, clumsy as I’d been, careless.

  Good that your father isn’t here, to see this. With all that’s going on in our lives . . .

  Relenting then, seeing how pale I was, and apologetic. Kissing my forehead even as she scolded me. As if she couldn’t help herself, she was my mom after all.

  IN SCHOOL I TRIED TO HIDE. GIRLS’ RESTROOM, FARTHEST STALL. Hoping to disguise my limp. (My left knee was swollen like something grotesque—like a tumorous grapefruit. Up and down my leg, nerves felt as if they were buzzing and short-circuiting.) Girls who were friends of mine, or who’d used to be friends of mine, were keeping their distance. Others, who knew the rumors about Jerome Jr. and Lionel, stared at me pityingly. Only Geraldine approached me to ask what was wrong, had I hurt my forehead, and my knee; and I told her it was nothing —“Nothing. Just fell down icy steps.” For that was true, in fact. I had fallen down icy steps and struck my head.

  Blinking away tears. Trying not to cry. It was so touching to me, that Geraldine cared.

  We were not friends now. No longer. Since my mother had scolded me, and said such shocking things to me about the families on Highgate Avenue, and her life before she’d met my father, I had withdrawn from Geraldine.

  She no longer invited me to have dinner with her, for I had declined invitations several times. And so abruptly I’d ceased being a guest in the beautiful white brick house on Highgate Street—this was my gift to my mother, who (I hoped) would understand the choice I’d made without needing to speak of it. But at school, in those days after Hadrian Johnson’s death, Geraldine approached me as you might approach an invalid, sympathetically but warily.

  “Did you see a doctor, Violet? What if your knee is broken?”

  “My knee isn’t broken. No.”

  I laughed, to suggest what a silly notion. It wasn’t the first time in my life that I had banged a knee.

  I could not tell Geraldine what I was thinking of, obsessively—my brothers, Hadrian Johnson, the baseball bat. I could not tell her how I’d come to be injured, and how frightened I was of my brother Lionel. Of what he might do to me, when he had the chance.

  Nor could I tell Ms. Micaela. I would not.

  Seeing how agitated I was, and not in any condition to hobble off to my first class, Ms. Micaela brought me instead to the school infirmary adjacent to the administrative offices. Took my hand, walked with me along the (fortunately) empty hallways as if I were a little kid and not twelve years old. Encouraged me to lean on her, if my knee was hurting. (It was.) Turning me over to the nurse whose name was Ms. Donovan with the explanation that I seemed to have a fever, and had had “some kind of accident at home.”

  Immediately Ms. Donovan peered at me, and exclaimed at my swollen eyes. A bacterial infection? How long had I had this?

  Ms. Donovan made me lie down on a cot in the infirmary, and put cold compresses on my eyelids; took my temperature and noted that my teeth were chattering. “Violet, you’re a sick girl. Your temperature is a hundred and one degrees, that’s a fever. Your mother oughtn’t to have let you out of the house this morning.”

  The nurse’s kindly words, like a curse, made me cry. My pride melted away, I had no strength to protect myself. Whatever I said, the alarmed nurse summoned the principal who asked me what was wrong, why was I crying, had something happened at home, and without knowing what I was doing somehow I was telling him about my brothers Jerome and Lionel and the baseball bat; I was telling him that Lionel had pushed me down icy steps the night before, I was afraid that he would kill me if I told anyone, and I was afraid that my father would be angry with me if he knew, I was afraid to go home . . .

  I’d begun crying hysterically. Ms. Micaela, who had lingered in the infirmary, sat beside me on the cot, and hugged me. Afraid to go home. Afraid to go home. These words, once uttered, could not be retracted.

  Police officers were summoned. One of them was a sympathetic woman my mother’s age who gripped my hand and encouraged me to speak, to tell all that I knew—“No one will hurt you. Never again. You will be safe from now on, Violet.”

  Of course, I believed her. When I recall the police officer’s words, and the way she gripped my hand, I feel a surge of relief, hope—Safe from now on, Violet.

  THAT WAS HOW IT BEGAN. AND ONCE IT BEGAN IT COULD NOT BE stopped.

  It would become a matter of public record: the unsolicited, uncoerced, purely voluntary information provided South Niagara police by the twelve-year-old sister of two suspects in the Hadrian Johnson beating death.

  In this way the remainder of my life was decided.

  The Bat

  THE BASEBALL BAT SUBSEQUENTLY IDENTIFIED AS THE MURDER weapon in the Hadrian Johnson case was discovered by a South Niagara police search team in underbrush less than three hundred yards from our house, on a high bank of the Niagara River where it had been hurriedly buried beneath a few inches of soil, rotted leaves, and litter.

  The team had not needed a warrant to unearth the bat, which my (unthinking) brothers had buried in municipal-owned property.

  The bat, its handle wrapped in frayed and faded black tape, had been washed, to a degree, and even scoured with something like a Brillo pad, but minuscule traces of bloodstains and partial fingerprints remained; most incriminating, wood splinters matching those in the bat had been embedded in Hadrian Johnson’s scalp.

  The bat belonged to Jerome Kerrigan Jr. whose partial prints would be discovered on it. And also on the bat, partial prints belonging to Lionel Kerrigan.

  The brothers must have agreed not to testify against each other. Not to incriminate each other. Which of them had actually swung the bat when Hadrian Johnson was struck down would not be known with certainty though Walt Lemire and Don Brinkhaus said that they thought that Jerr had kept possession of the bat during the attack—“It was his. He wouldn’t have let anybody else have it.”

  Each was quick to say that he hadn’t touched the bat—not for a second. And it had all happened “so fast”—just a few minutes, or seconds, before Jerr yelled at them to get back in his car, and drove them away.

  The bat was considered incontrovertible evidence. O’Hagan and the other lawyers advised their clients to cooperate with police, or to give the earnest impression of cooperating with the police; they advised them to plead guilty, not to homicide charges but to manslaughter. Tentative accounts of Hadrian Johnson as a drug dealer, Hadrian Johnson having provoked the attack, Hadrian Johnson having been attacked by other, black assailants which Jerome Kerrigan Jr. and the other boys had only happened to see while driving on Delahunt Road, were immediately dropped, and did not find their way into the local media.

  In this way plea bargains were negotiated with county prosecutors, first-degree manslaughter for Jerome Kerrigan Jr. and Lionel Kerrigan, second-degree manslaughter for Walt Lemire and Don Brinkhaus.

  Because he was just sixteen Walt was sentenced to five years at a Niagara County youth facility, to be released at the age of twenty-one. Don Brinkhaus was sentenced to seven to ten years at a medium security prison. Jerome, the oldest, received the most severe sentence—nine to fifteen years at Mid-State Correctional Facility at Marcy, New York.

  Lionel was sentenced to Mid-State Correctional as well. At seventeen, he’d had to plead guilty as an adult; his sentence was seven to thirteen years.

  Of course, all the sentences were immediately qualified—with the possibility of parole.

  At least there would be no trial. I was spared having to testify against my brothers in court and South Niagara was spared reliving a terrible crime. Spared having to hear the arguments of the defense that in some way the victim had brought his own death upon himself

  The black community in South Niagara protested that these were overly lenient sentences considering the brutality of the attack on Hadrian Johnson and the fact that Hadrian had done nothing to provoke the attack. Some members of the white community (including former South Niagara mayor Tommy Kerrigan interviewed on local TV) denounced the sentences as too harsh, evidence of “black racism” and “black bigotry” in South Niagara.