As the Wicked Watch(12)
“She literally has to go to the suburbs to get to school in the morning,” said Pam as she nervously took a sip of coffee. “It takes her almost two hours to get to school.”
Pam laid out the entire route for me: Masey leaves the house around 6:15, walks two blocks to catch the No. 75 bus at Damen Avenue, and rides nine or ten stops to the corner of Chicago Avenue and Kedzie. There she picks up the No. 94 bus to Berwyn, a west suburb that shares a border with Chicago and its better-known suburban neighbor Cicero. From there, she has to wait on the No. 49 Pace bus, sometimes as long as twenty minutes, then ride another forty minutes, deboard at Western and Van Buren, and walk another seven or eight minutes to the Carol Crest Academy on the city’s Near West Side.
“The program’s worth it,” Pam told me. “Getting her out of Hilton High School was, too.”
“That’s odd that she has to go through Berwyn,” I said.
“I know right,” Pam agreed. “But believe it or not, that ends up being the shortest, most reliable route.”
Masey enrolled in Carol Crest Academy her sophomore year to take part in a gifted program for students who excel in math and science. She had received an invitation from Carol Crest’s principal, who promised that she could “count on” her and her staff to make the transition as seamless as possible.
“She wasn’t challenged at her old school, but God stepped in,” Pam said. “It was like hitting the lottery.”
The more I learned about Masey James, the more I saw myself in her. Young, gifted, and Black. Hungry for knowledge and motivated by change. Always in her mother’s closet, borrowing her things. A girlie girl with model height and an athletic build. I wasn’t surprised she was being bullied by a girl who was probably just jealous of Masey for having all those smarts and beauty to boot. I was bullied from sixth grade all the way through my sophomore year in high school. It wore me out, and ended only after my cousin Stephanie started picking me up from school in my aunt Esther’s old Lincoln Town Car we used to call “The Love Boat.” Steph must have reached six feet by the time she finished high school, and she was straight up and down like a ruler. Uncle Dooley, who had nicknames for all us kids, called her Skinny Pickle. Stephanie’s hair was the color of sand and lighter than her caramel-colored complexion, thanks to her Creole genes and Texas’s scorching hot sun. Her age and her height gave her a presence that my nemeses couldn’t help but respect. Most people who knew Stephanie respected her. All, that is, except one.
After the press briefing, the news crews started to pack up and scatter. But a half dozen or so squad cars remained parked at various angles at the intersection. My guess was, they were intended to protect potential witnesses from media on the prowl.
“What are you doing later?” Scott said. “Drinks on me tonight at the Goat?”
The Goat was slang for the Billy Goat Tavern & Grill, a local bar made famous in skits on Saturday Night Live during the Belushi era and still popular with tourists and local newshounds.
“Can I take a rain check, Scott? I’m really not up for it,” I said. “It’s been a long day, and right now all I want is food and a pair of flip-flops.”
I know Scott. He wanted to be close in case police announced the victim’s identity.
“I appreciate the offer, though. I do,” I said.
I really did. Scott had comforted me at least twice before when a story was too much for me to handle. But it wasn’t the sort of thing I wanted to plan for.
The last time was when we arrived first to the scene of a strong-arm burglary. It was just before Christmas. An African American man who owned a cellular phone franchise on 79th Street had been shot to death. His wife arrived on the scene wearing a mink coat over her nightgown. She’d barely put her Cadillac in park before she leapt out the car and ran toward the white sheet that covered her husband’s body. Behind her wails, barely audible, I could hear “Un-Break My Heart” playing on the car stereo. Back inside the news truck, I broke down and Scott held me in his arms. I could still hear her screams.
I was grateful for the silence in my car on the drive home. The days were getting shorter, so the sky had grown dim by the time I pulled my convertible Oldsmobile into the garage beneath my building.
It was rush hour. My fellow tenants poured into the complex at this time of day. As badly as my feet hurt, I took the back stairs from the garage two flights up to avoid conversation on the elevator. Inside my apartment, the serenity of the familiar thunk-click of the door was interrupted by the rancid smell of the garbage I’d forgotten to take out this morning.
I opened the windows and lit the apple-cinnamon-scented candles planted around the living room. I busied myself cleaning out the refrigerator, throwing out old takeout boxes and liquified vegetables I had bought with the best of intentions. About five minutes later, the perfectly chilled bottle of pinot grigio on the refrigerator door beckoned.
I sealed up the garbage bag, set it by the door, and ransacked the cabinet for my favorite wineglass, the last survivor of a set of four red wine goblets Lisette gave me as a housewarming gift. The death of each glass was more dramatic than the one before it. The first got chipped somehow and almost cut my lip. The bottom of another barely clipped the dining table and broke at the stem. And the third perished in soapy water when Mom unwittingly tossed a hot skillet into the sink. I rarely drank white wine, but when I did, I preferred to sip it from a red wineglass; it felt better in my hand. It was one of my little quirks.