As the Wicked Watch(48)
“I don’t have a lot to say, because honestly, I’m talked out. But I want y’all to hear me out,” she said, managing strength to emphasize: “And that goes for the po-lice, too.
“Our girls aren’t safe. I don’t mean to scare you just because I’m going through hell. And this is hell! But a lot of you know it’s true. They don’t have to go outside their communities for harm to find them; they’re getting hurt right here in our community, in front of our eyes, some of them. And we look away. We judge them. We don’t protect them. We say, that’s somebody else’s problem. But that’s a lie. Their protection is your problem. And I don’t know how I know it, other than to say that God put it on my heart. But somebody knows who did this. This ain’t the time to be saying, ‘I ain’t no snitch.’ You hear me? If you know something, tell it! Tell the police! If you’re afraid to go to the police, tell somebody who ain’t afraid.”
Pamela’s voice cracked.
“There’s a killer among us and he’s got to be stopped!” Tears streamed down her face; Masey’s dad dropped his head and put his hand over his eyes.
The block was as quiet as a cemetery as Pamela gained the strength to power through. “If you know something, tell us. You don’t even have to identify yourself. But tell us. Tell us,” she pleaded as she regained strength in her voice. “Tell us! Tell us!”
The rest of the family and the community leaders in lockstep also started to shout, “Tell us! Tell us! Tell us!” Some people clapped on each word; some stabbed their fists in the air. I noticed that a couple of police officers standing in the back near the train tracks were also chanting. Surprising. That would make great footage, but unfortunately George was facing the opposite direction on camera row, with his lens pointed toward the stage. That little detail, however, had to make its way into my broadcast, even if it meant redoing the teaser I recorded earlier.
Pamela held up her hand, and it took a few seconds to quiet them down again.
“I pray to God that you mean it,” she said, her face stern and her lips drawn tight. Louise stepped up to embrace Pamela and Anthony, who handed her the microphone.
“Bless you, Chicago,” she said. “I’m Louise Robinson with the South Side Community Council. I want to thank members of the council, Bishop Toney, Reverend Clement Harper, and state representative and pastor Charles Bowman for surrounding this family.
“I’m so glad that I was able to answer the call when the family asked for my help. I said, ‘You just tell me what I need to do. You name it. You’ve got it.’ So I called all the people standing shoulder to shoulder with me and the family tonight. That’s what we have to do, Chicago. Stand together! Fight back! And for God’s sake, speak up!”
I’d almost forgotten about Louise. Since no one had mentioned her and given her credit for her involvement in tonight’s vigil, her narcissism rearing up, she did it herself.
It always amazes me when people use other people’s pain to promote themselves—even more so when well-meaning people do it, which I believed Louise was. She couldn’t help herself.
“We know, though, that sometimes, even when we do speak up, the people who can solve the problem with a simple phone call fail to act. For years, I warned the city that this poor excuse of a playground was going to attract crime.”
She wanted people to revere her for trying to prevent something like this from happening, conflating the Park District’s neglect with the discovery of a dead body, with no evidence to support her claims. She wanted people to think of her as saving the day, although the playground itself was now a non-issue.
As Louise continued to beat her own drum, I noticed that Pam and Anthony had slipped away across the vacant field next to the McMillan house and disappeared into the darkness. There would be no introduction tonight between April Murphy and Pamela. Pam had had enough, and who could blame her?
“We’ve got to do something, Chicago,” Louise went on, addressing the crowd as if the entire city was there. “We have to fight. We have to hold the police accountable. We have to hold city hall accountable. And by God, we have to hold ourselves accountable. That’s right, I said we have to hold ourselves accountable!”
Some people around me nodded and expressed agreement as Louise leaned into her cadence. A showman, or show woman, as it were. If she hadn’t been into community activism, she could have been a great entertainer. Though I must admit that Louise struck the right tone in this moment: an elder stateswoman admonishing her people to hold themselves to a higher standard.
“If you see something, say something. If you know something, tell the police, but don’t stop there. Tell the leaders in your communities, too. Because we don’t know what the police are going to do with that information. Are they gonna follow up? Or are they going to mischaracterize our children and our families the way they did with this child?
“There’s nothing typical about this tragedy. There’s a monster among us,” said Louise, again evoking the monster reference, which I’m starting to think was her fallback analogy. I didn’t mind, though. This time I agreed with her.
9
Ravenous, with the weight of the day still heavy on my shoulders, I started to come down from the workday high and called in takeout from my favorite sushi spot in Streeterville, a touristy neighborhood just east of downtown by the lake. A dragon roll with eel sauce, spicy tuna-avocado maki with roe, and smoked salmon and yellowtail nigiri with extra ginger, paired with a large tokkuri of warm sake at home would feel like a reward for surviving this relentless day. When I was a rookie reporter working the graveyard shift at the Dallas station, driving a used four-cylinder Honda and barely able to afford a one-bedroom apartment, I couldn’t have imagined enjoying such decadence—unless someone else was picking up the tab. A fast-food drive-through was more like it for me in those days.