I write a fictitious story about a real world tragedy. A headline is the inspiration: 4 OF 5 TEENS TAKE PLEA DEAL IN ROCK-THROWING CASE, published two days before my creative writing exercise. The real world tragedy bears the hallmarks of my greatest fascinations, both my prosaic love for murder and mayhem, and my more sophisticated (by degree) interest in the poor choices of adolescence and this widely accepted phenomenon’s intersection with the arbitrariness of fate.
The article I first encounter during one of my many marauding excavations of the obscure and esoteric interstices of the internet, a hunt for the bizarre. In my own unique brand of cognitive dissonance, I write off these wasted hours clicking, reading, and watching as well spent R&D. I should be billed for these hours. Yet like the man who self-inflicts venomous snakebites to build immunity or the mysterious bog bodies of Denmark, there is no stake to claim in the discovery of the rock-throwing teens with the exception of this misguided writer’s piqued curiosity, and the occasional fiction that follows.
Perusing the article I find it written for a native readership better versed in the developments of the case predating the plea deal. And so I work backwards, scanning related articles on the local blogs and news outlets of Ohio where the tragedy unfolded: FIVE TEENS CHARGED WITH MURDER, FATHER OF ROCK-THROWING CASE LEAVES BEHIND 6-YEAR OLD DAUGHTER. At some juncture I’ve read enough to satiate my imagination; anything more will only stand to clog the mechanics of my ephemeral inspiration. If I don’t write now, my fleeting intrigue in the rock-throwing Ohioan teens will wane until I sink into a more familiar stasis of boredom and self-doubt.
My girlfriend is out of town, I feel no yearning for social interaction or companionship, and the effects of my late afternoon coffee still linger. And now this, this article, this strike of gold, eureka! But I am not the brutish, doomed gold digger; I am the wildcatter or the conquistador that came before, the brazen intellectual driven by passion, ego, and curiosity toward something greater and unfathomable, perhaps a discovery that will outlive my corporal form. As I write, I seem to understand somewhere inside of me that this story will not be that everlasting discovery, but I venture forth, driven by cliché proverbs on the need to appreciate the present. It’s the journey, not the destination, what is the sound of one hand clapping, etc.
Six thousand four hundred and thirty-two words later, I call it ‘Four Teens’. I kill off one of the teens, as five seems an unruly number. It is true; I am more interested in the teenagers, their adolescent machismo, and the doomed fate that comes of it, than the particulars of the real world tragedy. This is why I cut my researching short after all. And further, it is I, or my literarily reconstructed adolescent self, who is the close third raconteur of my tale: the runt of the bunch, intellectually superior to be certain, but no amount of obvious reasoning will persuade the other three teens from throwing rocks from the freeway overpass at the passing cars below. And further, in the fog of adolescence, I (my narrator) am driven to join in. It is not my (my narrator’s) idea! Yet I find myself throwing rocks nonetheless, at first because to not do so would be deemed cowardly, and then later because it is indeed a grand pastime.
Yet who is there that I must deceive? The fictitious story sucks the lifeblood of reality for an unseemly gain, the details only barely distorted for my plundering purpose. I lose sight of what is true and what is invented. In my aforementioned research I see a picture of the now dead man of the real world tragedy. His loved ones are quoted in the blogs and online news outlets. He, the dead, was a great man, a hard worker, a loving father, son, and brother, he leaves behind a heartbroken family, everyone loved him, and he was on his way to church when the rock smashed through his windshield to boot.
This, too, strikes me, as I take in his dumbly smiling visage, his bulbous gourd of a head reddened by an Ohioan sun or perhaps the rare trip to Disney World. The now dead stares back with all the charm of a Facebook profile picture of a man I would never want to interact with for longer than a minute. Was this really the image the dead man’s loved ones wished to hand over to the press? I find it difficult to believe that he was as grand a man in life as his loved ones now profess in death. For argument’s sake, I turn the question on myself. What would my loved ones say of me if I were to die, a rock careening through my windshield, my life cut short by the unexpected yet obvious consequence of some sick prank? Hopefully something equally grandiose! I extend the question to my loved ones, and I am sure something similar would be said of them, yet I know of myself and them that it would be a conflated truth. We are plagued by cruel minds, cruel to both ourselves and every individual we encounter on a daily basis, even those we love most, and then we die, and we are spoken of as heroes. Can we all be the second coming reincarnate, or the like? Surely some of us must be unappealing, tolerable at best.
And so this line of reasoning leads me to paint the man, the dead, in my fictitious story about a real world tragedy, with my preconceived notions of the brute I see in the photograph. I find it to be an interesting creative flare, and what I find to be an interesting creative flare is all that matters at this juncture. In ‘Four Teens’ the close third shifts perspectives, and I inhabit the brute’s own consciousness for a time in the moments preceding his fiery death, a man concerned with little more than primal urges, a man as worthy or undeserving of life as the next. It is an amusing exercise to be sure.
~
I tell you all of this because two months later I am published on a relatively obscure fiction blog, and a month after that, I receive an email, which I reproduce now without the permission of the sender:
Mr. Schwartz,
You might think my son’s death makes a good subject for a story but I think it’s downright evil. I am still mourning now and I’m doing my best to watch my temper as I write this. But you should know Jake was a genuine good person. He’s left behind a beautiful daughter who won’t have a father. He served our country and he volunteered for Team Rubicon. What have you ever done but write mean stories that get put on websites no one reads? You should be ashamed of yourself. My son’s death is not your plaything.
Sincerely,
A Grieving Mother
Elena Higgs
The woman is as provincially straightforward as I imagined. There is a stark simplicity to her prose that I find inspiring. I will never achieve this fortitude of mind or language. Ms. Higgs understands the world as she sees it. There are no mysteries, only cold truths. She is mourning. She attempts to rein in her temper and strikes a Spartan eloquence in the process. I should be ashamed of myself!
And indeed, I am. What is this feeling? For now, I can call it shame. Sydra, my girlfriend, reads my fictitious story. I make her privy to the entire episode. I lay out this latest development to see how she will react, and she laughs.
“What’s funny?” I ask.
“This woman is crazy,” is all she offers. “How does she even know it’s her son you’re writing about?”
“It is her son I’m writing about,” I remind her. Sydra shrugs, unaffected. How can she be so callous?
And how might I right this wrong? Then, for a fleeting moment, I wonder instinctually how I might write this wrong. But there is no time for such an endeavor now. I have no control of my emotions, and my clarity of mind has been devastated by recent events. How did Ms. Higgs ever find my story? What person of Ms. Higgs’ social circle read my story, and relayed its existence to her? As I had unearthed this Midwestern real world tragedy, another had unearthed my fictitious yarn spun from my coastal bubble. And is there a story in it all? Shame and curiosity lead me to write her back:
Dear Ms. Higgs,
I am sincerely sorry for whatever pain my story might have caused you. I meant no harm by it. It was merely a creative exercise, but I now see how my actions might have caused you pain. I am sure your son was a remarkable man. I hope his remarkable spirit continues to inspire you and your family.
Sincerely,
Daniel Schwartz
Remarkable spirit? How could I speak so boldly of a man I never met, a man I lampooned in my creative undertakings? This paradox is my penance. Whatever penance I might pay for the pain I’ve caused Ms. Elena Higgs, it is surely exacerbated by her silence. Days go by, and I do not receive another email. No, my email did not beckon a response, but this absence of closure causes me some discomfort.
“What’s wrong?” Sydra asks me, as I mope about, begging her to notice.
“Elena Higgs never emailed me back,” I say.
“Who’s Elena Higgs?”
“The mother of the dead man,” I say.
“You wrote her?”
“Yes. I apologized.”
“Why would you do that?”
I can feel Sydra’s thoughts. If she did care about my predicament, it would only be to the extent that it annoys her that I would let such a triviality plague me. In this, my girlfriend is more like Ms. Higgs than myself, seeing the world as it is and not as what it might be.
~
Unwilling to let the thing fade into the obscurities of mind and memory, I try to find a way to speak with Elena Higgs. Yes, if I could get her on the phone, my soul might find its solace, or better yet, there might be a far richer story in this than I could have ever fathomed. Traditional methods prove ineffectual in finding Ms. Higgs’ phone number, and I go as far as Googling private detectives in the greater Cincinnati area. Before taking this measure, I pay an unremarkable sum for one of those online services you see advertised occasionally which claim to provide background and contact information for any citizen of your choosing. I’ve always thought them some sort of peculiar scam; one always makes it to the final page where it seems the desired information will be revealed, and then the online service comes begging for recompense. Today I leap into the abyss. Today I pay my dues to the service, and in turn, I find the service true to its word. I am given Elena Higgs’ address and phone number, the names of her extended family, her last three addresses going back several decades, two of her last employers, and her sparkling clean criminal record. Of course, I only need the phone number.
“Hello?” a man answers.
“Is Elena there?” I ask, a bit nervous, not predicting this scenario, or any other for that matter.
“Hello?” a woman answers a moment later.
“Is this Elena?” I say.
“Yes. Who’s this?” Her voice is that of her email: soft yet bold, immediately worthy of trust.
“This is Daniel Schwartz,” I say in my own voice, shaky and uncertain of my own volition. “The writer,” I add for clarity. I let that sink in, for both of us.
“What do you want?” she asks after another prolonged silence.
“Just to say how sorry I am.”
“Sorry?” she asks.
“About my story. And your son.”
“Yes, I got your email,” she tells me.
“I figured,” I say. “But I just needed to know with certainty that you heard me say it.”
“How did you get my number?” Elena asks dubiously, suddenly acknowledging the peculiarity of the moment.
“The internet,” I say. There is silence.
“It took courage for you to call,” says Elena, finally. Her words, though she might not intend the effect, warm my heart.
“Not courage,” I say. “I was merely moved by your note. I just felt like I had to call.”
“Guilt can kill,” says Elena. Her simple words, stark, prophetic yet obscure, jolt my whole being, again. It is uncertain if this is some curse of the Midwestern witch — guilt can kill, guilt can kill! — or perhaps it is a well-known proverb in her parts. Maybe this is simply the bold beauty with which one speaks when one’s thoughts are not laid to waste by the overcomplicating mind.
“Yes,” I begin. “I am ashamed. I do not know if apologizing will make you feel any better. Maybe it’s just so I can feel better about myself,” I concede. “I don’t know.”
A sigh rasps against the receiver, soothing, and then: “I appreciate you calling, Mr. Schwartz.” It is an olive branch, and I grab hold, tightly. I tell her I’ve already asked the fiction blog to take down my fictitious story, which is a lie. Ms. Higgs tells me it really isn’t necessary, but I tell her the request has already been made.
We end our conversation on a pleasant note. I immediately walk to my office where I sign onto my email and ask the editor of the online fiction journal if she would kindly take down my story, ‘Four Teens’. She obliges in a few days time, and I feel a lifting of spirits. It seems no matter what I do or say, I am hardwired to strive towards a perception of integrity. When you say you’ll do something, you do it, I imagine Ms. Higgs might say. We are the same people, Americans, human beings of flesh and blood, and a mind with its festering thoughts. Guilt can kill. So can a rock thrown from an overpass by five doomed teenagers, both in fictitious stories and real world tragedies alike. I am not sure what one has to do with the other. I digress.
~
My college friend Luke Moretti is a burgeoning documentarian with one film under his belt that has done well in the “festival circuit,” as he says. ‘Killer Bees’, it is called, a terrible title, but it premiers at SXSW, and has a modest theatrical rollout at art house cinemas catering to the affluent, inquisitive liberal. ‘Killer Bees’ is about collapsing bee populations, and the mysterious phenomenon’s effect on farming communities. Luke and his film get lucky when a man is murdered during production; a farmer shoots a beehive stealer in the night, as beehives have become exorbitantly costly in the wake of the collapsing colonies, creating an entire black market. Luke’s documentary ‘Killer Bees’ pivots its focus at this juncture, and becomes something of a murder mystery with all of the characters he’s been documenting embroiled in this bizarre series of events.
Luke and I haven’t seen each other in some time, perhaps a few months, which is longer than the typical elapsed time between our ceremonial catching up over beers. I extend the invitation, but I am only deceiving myself if I do not concede I have another motive festering: an idea. Something has sparked my creative spirit, and sometimes that spark is impossible to ignore.
I slide into the booth at the Koreatown bar where we always meet. Luke is always varying degrees of chipper, but he strikes me as particularly emboldened with the success of ‘Killer Bees’ propelling him towards whatever stroke of genius might come next. There is room for a sequel in it, he tells me, as the farmer’s self-defense defense which ends in a hung jury at the conclusion of the documentary is now going back to trial. But there is not much precedent for a documentary sequel, and the distributor has little interest in financing the endeavor. ‘Killer Bees’ will have to live on as an open-ended piece of nonfiction art, as the events of the real world take their fated, unpredictable course. And so for now, Luke is in between projects, waiting for the next thing, and perhaps this is exactly where I want him.
As I pitch the story of the Ohioan teens who threw rocks from an overpass and killed a man in the process, Luke asks me questions about this and that. I’ve already printed the story, FIVE TEENS CHARGED WITH MURDER, and it sits folded inside my pocket. I slide it to Luke, and he reads it in silence, using his cellphone’s flashlight to illuminate the article. I sip my beer and look off at the other customers before returning my attention to Luke. Surely he must be nearing the end.
“I don’t know a lot about documentaries,” I say. “But I thought there might be something in it.”
“I love it,” says Luke.
“You do?” I ask.
“I mean, you never know with these things. There could be a great story in it, and when you try and chase it down, no one’s willing to talk, or the opposite can happen — you think there’s a great story in it, everyone is more than willing to be interviewed, but it turns out it’s a snooze fest. I don’t know what this is yet, but I do love the potential.”
“I think there could be something there,” I interject, as if a second opinion might diminish the odds of this one playing out as a dud.
“It’s like In Cold Blood with kids in the modern age,” says Luke. “Could be epic. It could cut right to the heart of the American Experience. I’d do it Herzog style and insert myself, prying and asking questions. I guess Capote did something similar. That’s the way you’d have to do it.”
Luke has a fire in his eyes, and as he tells me his vision for a documentary on the rock-throwing teens, I feel the warmth of the flame. The beer affecting our brains, our shared past, and our shared craving to tell stories intoxicates us with a case of folie à deux, as we marvel at the possibility of this creative undertaking. And Luke, who has always annoyed me and inspired me in equal measure, is so impassioned now and continues to express what he loves about the story, all of those disparate elements that struck me as well, but that I could never fully express. In this, Luke possesses the spirit of the artist with the mind of Sydra and Ms. Higgs, giving clarity to the ineffable with blunt precision. This is probably why he annoys and inspires.
“You have to be a character in the story,” says Luke, jarring me from our intoxicated musings.
“Character in the story?” I say. “I thought we were making a documentary.”
“We are,” says Luke. “I mean, you have to be involved. Tell your side. The first ten minutes of the film are explaining the bizarre circumstances of how this entire thing came to be. I can see it. Of course, we can film that later, at the end. Movie magic.”
“But there are no sides. It’s just an exploration.”
“Oh, there’s always a side,” Luke states prophetically. I am no longer sure of what we are even speaking any longer. Are we still talking about the rock-throwing Ohioan teens, the documentary we intend to make about them? Or something grander? We’ve gone too deep, chasing a whim, drunk with ethanol and curiosity and creative inspiration.
~
A day or two passes, and the idea of the documentary that could be a modern day In Cold Blood might have succumbed to the decay of inaction, but Luke calls me to poke and prod. Sober and having read further on the case, Luke thinks it could be an interesting subject for his next documentary and wants to use me as the narrative lens for some of the themes we discussed over beers in Koreatown: guilt, shame, fate, life, death, adolescence. They are the same themes that originally sparked me and led to my original exploration in my original fictitious story inspired by this real world tragedy.
I remind Luke of the existence of my short story, ‘Four Teens’, and ask if he’d like to read it. It might prove an interesting launch pad for the documentary.
“That’s alright,” says Luke. For a moment, I am briefly annoyed. Luke seems to sense my annoyance over the cellphone waves, and tacks on: “That’ll be a part of the film, but not really.”
A part of the film, but not really? How can it be a part of the film, but not really? My story is the film. There would be no film if I had not written my story. I brought Luke this story, and now he’s going to go gallivanting across the Midwest to cut to the heart of the American Experience, and he doesn’t think my origin story has anything to do with it? All of these themes he is interested in exploring, they are all the same as those that I originally set out to explore. But now he doesn’t think my fictitious story worthy of his time! Luke has always had a knack for intuiting when I am annoyed, and an even cleverer notion of how to ignore my annoyance altogether. And so he continues to pontificate:
“Who are these teenagers? Where are they now, now that they’ve cut their plea deals? How do they reckon with the guilt and the shame? What is next for them? We’ll track ‘em all down. We’ll get their sides of the story. We’ll talk to the lawyers, the parents, the community. You’ll talk to Elena Higgs, of course.”
Once more I am jarred from the intoxication of possibility by the thought of real world repercussions. Talk to Elena Higgs? I have already made my peace with Elena Higgs. I found redemption, and now Luke wants me to return. I understand what the sober addict must feel upon their first day reinserting the needle.
“What if Elena doesn’t want to talk to me?” I sidestep. “Especially with a camera in her face.”
“Someone will talk,” says Luke. “If Elena doesn’t want to, that’ll be interesting, too.”
I sigh.
“Is your heart not in this?” Luke asks. “I thought you liked this story. You brought it to me.”
“No, no,” I say defensively. “My heart’s in it.”
“If your heart’s not in it, I must say I really do love it and want to explore it. Would you let me explore it without you?”
“No, I’m coming,” I say defiantly.
“Good!” Luke exclaims. I cannot tell if he is using reverse psychology to impregnate me further, or if he’d rather run with the thing without my dampening presence. “I’ve already got a title for it,” says Luke. “American Rock Throwers.”
I wince. It’s worse than ‘Killer Bees’. “What about ‘Five Teens,’” I suggest.
“Oh, I like that!” says Luke. “So simple. Cuts right to it, huh?”
And once more, I am not entirely sure what the hell we are talking about. What exactly are we setting out to do? It seems to me we are now discussing the possibility of boarding a flight from Los Angeles to Cincinnati with some camera equipment, renting a car, driving to Dayton, Ohio, and then asking around about rock-throwing teenagers and the man they killed.
~
This is exactly what we do. Our plan is to develop what Luke terms a “proof of concept” — not a fully-fledged documentary, but some substantive materials to cut something together to demonstrate the scope of the story and its viability in the marketplace. Luke believes if we cut something decent, the distributor of ‘Killer Bees’ will front him a chunk of capital that will sustain the full production.
Sydra is surprisingly supportive, perhaps because she trusts Luke, but I am somewhat ashamed that I have so few pressing engagements that I can board a plane to Ohio on a whim to undertake this quixotic adventure. It is a different shame than the kind that can kill, as Ms. Higgs would say. It might not kill, but it will drive me to gaze longingly out the window of a cruising-altitude airliner at the patchwork farmland below and wonder what the fuck I am doing with my life. Maybe it’s all the same; maybe I will kill after all. If it is the American Experience we intend to capture, then I must exist outside of it, somewhere beyond its realm, though precisely where is impossible to fully fathom.
Dayton, Ohio proves as drab a hellhole as I envisioned. At the airport we rent a Subaru. I drive because I don’t trust Luke after the initial ten-minute stretch he spends glancing between his cellphone and the road. The remainder of the trip Luke spends talking at me about mutual friends’ happenings while texting rapid-fire, thumbs moving at unparalleled speed, a balancing act I find baffling.
And then in the drab hotel with its two twin beds, I am ready to rest my laurels on a day of travel, but Luke sets up the camera and field recorder and points them at me. He tells me to tell him everything I know about the rock-throwing Ohioan teens. He gazes at me from behind the camera and questions me with a sincerity devoid of all the egomanic tendencies he displayed on the car ride here. I can see how Luke has fashioned himself into a burgeoning documentarian, how this rich, college educated handsome young man convinced a bunch of farmers to pour their hearts out on collapsing bee populations and the grander, metaphysical hardships of the 21st century agrarian existence.
“That was good,” says Luke, collapsing the camera gear after I tell him everything I know of the real world tragedy, and how it has strangely reverberated into my own life. “Tomorrow we’ll see Elena,” he says.
We enjoy a simple complimentary breakfast in the downstairs lobby, speculating at what any other guest could possibly be doing here. We travel back to the second floor where we intend to gather the camera equipment, when Luke receives a call on his cellphone. He answers, and I eavesdrop.
“You can look me up,” Luke says into the phone. “I’m a documentary maker… They don’t have to speak to me, of course. I’m just trying to shed light on the story… Well because I think they’ve been inappropriately victimized… Look, ultimately it comes down to whether they want to talk or not and share their side of the story. I can’t force them, and maybe it’s too hard for them to talk about, but maybe it could offer them a chance to share their side of things, and maybe even apologize… No, I don’t care if they apologize or not… Well, I care about capturing whatever it is they want to share. Just that. That is where my responsibility begins and ends as a filmmaker.”
“Who was that?” I ask, as Luke ends the call.
“The lawyer of one of the kids,” he says matter-of-factly. I now learn that Luke has already reached out to the parents and lawyers of each one of the teenagers to see if they will agree to an interview. He’s heard back from four of the five teenager’s respective spokespeople. The fifth, the one who did not take the plea deal, has been convicted of murder and is awaiting sentencing; hence he is not currently available for an interview. And the other four? They, too, are understandably hesitant, but Luke explains to me that he’s been playing something of a devious game, a game he picked up filming ‘Killer Bees’, pitting the kids against each other with artificial stories that one is willing to speak, and will you be willing to tell your side of the story, too?
“Couldn’t that blow up in your face?” I ask.
“Of course,” he laughs, as we slide into the rental car.
“And what then?”
“What then? Then we’ve wasted our time and we go home.”
I now sense Luke is a bit flippant about this entire endeavor, despite his professions of cutting to the heart of the American Experience, of capturing a modern day In Cold Blood through a Herzogian lens. I, like the teens, am being duped. Perhaps Luke can see the annoyed look on my face.
“That’s the way it is,” says Luke, his gaze drifting out the window at the viewless territory through which we drive. “Got to have several irons in the fire, because you never know which one is going to spark.”
I try to trace the metaphor, as we drive in silence. ‘Five Teens’ is apparently one of several irons in the proverbial fire. What are the others? Does Luke pack up his camera gear and buy a plane ticket at every acquaintance’s mention of some strange story brewing in some far-flung corner of the world? Does he manipulate every acquaintance into becoming the narrator, inserting his or herself into the story, and then forcing him or her to confront a deep-seated shame?
Perhaps it is disingenuous to look at my past experience with Ms. Elena Higgs as possessing some deep-seated shame, as it is I who brought this present situation upon me, yet I certainly now feel very hesitant to knock on that front door as the Subaru arrives before the quaint home of the Higgs family. This must be the American Experience, flying across the country to some Midwestern town I would never visit otherwise, and knocking on the door of a woman who has lost her son in a tragic accident, and prodding to know more about her reflections on the tragedy.
Luke’s cellphone rings once more, as the car creeps to a halt. “Lawyers,” he says, glancing at the number, and lets the call go to voicemail. Luke looks over at me. He must see my hesitancy to undergo what comes next, as I can feel the flushing of my own skin.
“You ready?” he asks, unwilling to therapize me at this moment.
“So what do you want me to do?” I ask.
“We talked about this.”
“Did we?”
Luke sighs, annoyed. “You said you wanted to come and do this. You insisted.”
He is challenging me, like a coach in some depraved sport, or perhaps still simply annoyed that I should weigh down the potentiality of his proof of concept.
“I do, I do,” I say, convincing myself and him. “But what do I say?”
“You apologize, and you say you just want to talk about the event,” says Luke. He’s now armed his camera, and looks to throw me out of the hatch of the cockpit if I don’t start moving my feet.
But I’ve already apologized once, no, twice! There was the email in which I remarked on her son’s remarkable spirit, and then the strange phone call, and now this. Yet still my feet usher me toward the front door of the small home. This must be the Heart of Darkness of the American Experience, legs carrying me swiftly, my heart thudding dumbly. I’ve already apologized. Why apologize again? The walls of reality begin to undulate with the phantasmal nausea of a psychedelic trip, as they might for the soldier in fight or flight.
There is an American Flag, a nicely groomed lawn, two decaying chairs placed on the narrow porch. I knock, and a woman answers after some shuffling within. She must be Elena Higgs.
“Ms. Higgs?” I ask tremulously.
“Yes?”
She is a small, mannish woman with a BMI that must hover just shy of obesity, a short androgynous haircut, kind narrow eyes, and small gaps between each tooth.
“I’m Daniel Schwartz. The writer.” Her narrow kind eyes narrow further with suspicion.
“Daniel Schwartz?”
“I wrote the story. About the teenagers.” I follow her gaze to Luke, standing behind me, filming.
“What is he doing with that camera?” she asks. “What is this?” What have I done, I wonder. But words come to me with surprising discretion:
“We’re making a documentary about the incident. Of course, we want to hear your side of the story.”
“My side of the story?” Elena asks. Luke sets his camera down, and interjects:
“Luke Moretti,” he says with a charming smile, extending a hand. I watch Elena shake hesitantly. “I’m a documentarian, and I’m interested in doing a piece that shows the truth of the fallout of this tragedy. We want to know the truth of what happened, and how it has affected you and your family. I believe it is a story that needs to be told.”
“Why?” she asks, mystified.
“Because maybe, if we can show how this whole thing has affected the survivors and loved ones, maybe we can shed light on the power of forgiveness and stop this from happening again,” says Luke.
“Why would it ever happen again?” asks Elena.
“God willing, it won’t, but I want the youth of America to see the way it’s affected you and your family so they can see the human cost.”
Elena Higgs’ narrow eyes begin to fill with tears.
“I don’t think so,” she says. “I don’t think I can do that.”
“You’re so brave, Ms. Higgs. Do you mind if I just ask if you’ve found the courage to forgive the kids who did this?”
Elena hesitates, looking out beyond us with curious malaise. She summons her courage, and replies: “That is between me and the Lord.”
“What do you think about the fact that they won’t serve jail time with their plea deals?” Luke prods.
“I want you to leave,” hisses Ms. Higgs.
Luke nods, or rather bows with exaggerated politeness. He withdraws a card, his card, and hands it to Ms. Higgs. She takes it.
“If you change your mind,” says Luke. He begins to walk away from the house, and I take my cue to follow. Before I leave, I look up at Elena Higgs once more and see that the tears have now left her eyes, cascading down her cheeks, but she is no longer remorseful or bewildered. She seems to understand things perfectly. She is irate.
“That went perfectly,” Luke says confidently, as we drive back to the hotel. I have already expressed my frustration with the encounter, including but not limited to the grieving mother’s last look of rage through streaming tears. Luke says something about making first contact, and how it is a slow, gradual process of building rapport, mixing metaphors of extraterrestrial encounters and unconventional warfare. Perhaps these are apropos credos for the documentarian, I do not know.
“When I first tried to get in bed with Mr. Peters,” begins Luke, introducing an entirely new metaphorical plane, “that was the farmer who killed the guy who tried to steal his beehive, you should have seen him. He was livid! He threatened to kill me! That was nothing. She’ll break. She’ll tell us her side of the story.”
What story? And what sides? Surely I am on the side of the Higgs family, and not the rock-throwing teens. Like Kurtz, I have become lost in the labyrinth of our assignment, of what precisely we are trying to achieve. Before I can continue to delineate my frustration with the encounter, Luke plays the voicemail he received from the “lawyer” on speakerphone, as if to silence my bitching:
Hi, this message is for Luke Moretti. This is Rachel Leven again. So I’ve spoken with the Martins, and it’s sounding like they are going to be interested in sitting down and talking with you, that is, Tanner Martin is willing to talk with you, but the parents have requested that they be present for the entirety of the interview, and would like to withhold the right to end the interview for any reason of their choosing. So, if that sounds good to you, just let me know, and I can have my office start to draft something up. Okay. This is Rachel Leven again. My number is…
Luke ends the message. “Classic lawyer shenanigans,” he smiles. “First she tells me it’s entirely inappropriate and out of the question, then she asks if there is any money, and I say no, and then she calls back and says they’ll do it for ten thousand dollars after I just told them I wasn’t going to pay anything, and now they’re calling and saying they want to do it regardless. Classic.”
I know Tanner Martin. I’ve seen his photo plenty of times on the aforementioned online periodicals on the teenage rock-throwing case. Tanner is one of those five teens, one of the four who took the plea deal. I know it was our intent to reach out to the kids, of course, but I did not realize we were this far into the process. Luke’s been having ongoing conversations with their lawyers, apparently. I am annoyed that these conversations have been happening without my knowing, but I grow excited at the prospect of meeting one of the rock-throwers face-to-face. I have been enveloped by this strange Ohioan tale for too long, reading and writing and contemplating, and I now feel a jolt of thrill at the thought of interviewing one of these punk kids. Perhaps I once sympathized with the devils and cared to narrate and dramatize their innocent comings and goings in the lead up to their fated folly, but I presently yearn to lay eyes on them with the obscene baseness of the throng gathering ‘round the gallows, throwing elbows to get a better view.
~
Luke and Tanner Martin’s counsel agree to host our strange rendezvous in the Martin family’s living room. En route to the badlands of their Ohioan suburbia, Luke is once more exasperated by my very presence. He’s told me he’d like me to stay put at the hotel like a lapdog, while he conducts the Tanner Martin interview. Apparently he is dissatisfied with my performance at the Higgs residence. But I will not have it. A ferocity swells in my bosom, and I think to tell him he would not be here if it were not for my keen eye, my discerning sense of story, my hours spent plundering the internet for inflammatory source material. This is me cashing in now on those unbilled hours, skyrocketing into the black. I will see the look in that troubled teen’s eyes.
“This isn’t about pride,” Luke tells me, as if he can hear my thoughts. “It’s about making the best documentary possible.”
“I know that,” I agree.
At first blush, the Martin home reeks of the generalized Human Experience, oddly devoid of personality, pregnant with universality in its collection of humdrum tchotchkes set against an inoffensive aesthetic. Then, after inconsequential introductions and formalities, a pitiful being materializes from the next room. He is Tanner Martin, dressed in a blue polo tucked into corduroy pants, hair combed unnaturally to the side. The boy-man has trouble making eye contact, staring off into the beige carpet. Surely he’d rather be somewhere else. Perhaps smoking marijuana from an apple. I believe I see concealer delicately brushed to cover up pubescent boils and blemishes. Ah, to be young again!
Tanner Martin shakes both my and Luke’s hands weakly with downcast eyes. Luke goes about setting up his equipment, and I instinctually invite Tanner to take a seat in his own living room. The boy falls into the cushions of the blue-grey couch, and I sit across from him, forcing a smile.
“How are you?” I say.
“Fine.”
“Okay, we are up and running,” says Luke, camera gear set. “Dan, can you just move a bit to the left?”
I slide over to clear the frame, and Luke racks focus on his DSLR. Though I do not know much about lenses, I do not feel like I’m blocking the frame; I feel like I am being asked to stay back and follow Luke’s lead.
“So,” says Luke, looking from Tanner to the adults surrounding us: Mr. and Mrs. Martin, grave and somber, and Lauren Level, or whatever the attorney’s name was, stoic and unflinching. “I’m just going to start asking questions.” And then, looking back at Tanner: “That okay with you, Tanner?”
“Yeah,” says Tanner, nodding subtly.
“If you ever feel like it’s too much, or you don’t understand something, or whatever, you just say something, okay?”
“Okay,” says Tanner.
“What do you do for fun?” asks Luke.
“Fun?” Tanner seems mystified. “Skateboard. Video games.”
“What video games do you like?”
“Fortnite,” says Tanner. “And Call of Duty.” Mr. and Mrs. Martin both tense, as if the answer were a window into the soul of a depraved murderer.
“Cool. I like those games, too,” says Luke. It seems a childish tactic to cozy up to the kid in this fashion, but Tanner shifts and eases into the couch, repositioning himself into a more comfortable position at Luke’s answer. Is this the only sleight of hand needed to establish rapport with this enemy?
“So how long have you known the other kids?” I ask, asserting my involvement by getting to the crux of the matter.
“What other kids?” asks Tanner.
“The ones in the case,” I say.
“Oh,” says Tanner.
“We just want to know what happened that day. How it happened,” I say, refusing to meet eyes with Luke.
“We were just hanging out,” says Tanner.
“What do you guys do when you hang out?” asks Luke.
“Nothing, really.”
“Skate?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“Play video games?” asks Luke.
“Yeah.”
“Whose idea was it to throw rocks from the overpass?” I ask.
“It wasn’t mine,” Tanner says defiantly. His leg begins to bob up and down, his frame tensing.
“I believe you,” says Luke. “We just want to hear how the day played out from your perspective.”
“I only threw one rock. And only because they made me.” Tanner’s voice breaks with a pubescent crackle of the throat.
“I don’t like this,” says Mrs. Martin. “He’s already had to tell this story a hundred times.” Mr. Martin hangs back, ashamed.
“Tell them what they called you when you said you wouldn’t throw any rocks,” says Mrs. Martin.
“Please,” says the lawyer to Mrs. Martin, as if to assert control.
“They called me a little bitch,” says Tanner, his eyes growing wet. Once more we have driven a human being to tears in our documentarian efforts. I glance over at Luke for some type of consolation or sympathy. He is fixated on Tanner with feverish intensity, hell-bent on something, exactly what I do not know.
“They called you names because you said you wouldn’t throw any rocks?” asks Luke.
Tanner nods. “They called me a little bitch,” he says again. His whole body seems to quiver.
“And how did that make you feel?” Luke asks. Tanner looks up at him bewildered, as if the question were a koan that just instilled some fleeting epiphany.
“It made me feel like a little bitch,” Tanner says.
“Tanner,” Mrs. Martin says, horrified by her son’s obliquely direct choice of words.
“I mean it made me feel bad. I only threw one rock. It was just a small rock.”
“Whose rock killed Simon Higgs?” Luke asks.
“It wasn’t mine!” says Tanner. “It wasn’t mine,” he repeats, and cries. I see Tanner Martin now for who he is. He is the narrator of my fictitious story, ‘Four Teens’, the reflection of myself. He is as meek and unthreatening as my narrator, a soft, sensitive soul trying to make sense of a cruel world. Entangled in the web of cruel happenstance, a simple mistake, a brief lapse of judgment: this is what has brought him here to this intersection of time and place. As for myself, I have no good answer.
As the boy-man shows his vestigial boyishness, sobbing, perhaps one might say panicking at the thought of the cruel happenstance that has haunted him since the death of Mr. Higgs, Mrs. Martin voices her heartfelt desire for us to get out of her house. The lawyer comes to Mrs. Martin’s defense, as Mr. Martin leaves the room unceremoniously with a sigh. We are told we must leave, and a moment later Tanner is whisked away into the deeper interstices of the drab Martin home.
~
Back at our dreary home base, I feel the urge to write something. I would like to write a story that would stand apart from any real world tragedy or analogous inspiration, or really anything but rock-throwing teenagers. Can it not come organically from the untethered imagination, spurred from collective life experience? Or must I always tap some ghastly vein? No, this longwinded vociferation cannot be disguised as a reflection on the origin of inspiration. I won’t allow it. This entire whatever you’d like to call it is too perverse, too banal. There is no analogy on the craft of storytelling unless I invent one. I no longer wish to deceive you or myself, and simply wish to tell the truth: this is a shit show.
Luke lies back on his bed, scrolling and clicking around on his cellphone with obsessive intention. He hasn’t spoken to me much since the interview, and I cannot fully sense if he is pleased with the outcome, or annoyed by my presence. I am too afraid to ask. I have an urge to call my girlfriend, but not with Luke here. He cannot bear witness to the therapizing role I inflict upon her. I sneak a glance at the screen of Luke’s cellphone, but catch nothing. He suddenly rises from his bed.
“I’m going to meet someone,” he announces, walking into the bathroom.
“Meet someone?”
“Yeah,” he says from behind the wall that separates the bathroom from the room proper.
“For the story?”
“No,” says Luke. “No need to get all pissy. It has nothing to do with the story.”
“Then who the hell could you be meeting with in Dayton, Ohio?” I ask.
Luke reenters, brushing his teeth, and with mouth frothy, he says: “Booty call.”
“A girl?” I ask. Luke returns to the bathroom to spit and wash his mouth. And then replies:
“I matched with her at the airport. We’ve been messaging.”
“Okay,” I say. “Have fun, I guess.”
“You guess?” asks Luke with a laugh. I am unsure of what’s funny.
“Have fun,” I say, without the guessing.
“You too, boss,” says Luke and exits. Boss? I suppose that’s sardonic. I call Sydra the moment the door closes behind him.
“How’s the documentary?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Weird.”
“Weird?”
“Yeah.”
“Weird, how?”
“Just asking people the tough questions,” I sigh.
“Well, what’d you expect?” says Sydra, though she does not know that asking the tough questions has less to do with the strangeness I am presently feeling.
“I think I’ll just come home,” I say.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I don’t know. I guess I should give it another day or two.”
“That’d probably be smart,” says Sydra. I suddenly wonder if she’s being unfaithful. “Where’s Luke?” she asks.
“Out doing interviews,” I say for simplicity’s sake.
“Shouldn’t you be there, too?” she asks, obviating the lie. I sigh again.
“I guess so.”
“Dan,” says Sydra with a sigh that translates roughly to ‘get your shit together’. I stare out at the dreary landscape of American backwater. I put Sydra on speakerphone so that I can use my cellphone to search for the nearest liquor store. I am resolved to walk there, point three miles around the corner, and buy a bottle of something.
“You still there?” I ask.
“Yeah,” breathes Sydra into the line.
“What’re you doing?”
“Just clicking around on my computer.”
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll let you go.”
I am walking through the unremarkable lobby towards the automatic glass doors, when I am intercepted by a man in a police uniform. I soon discover that he is not just a man in a police uniform: he is a policeman. He and his partner would like to speak with me. I have no objection. I am a bit alarmed, always something of a catastrophizer, most likely a byproduct of the innumerable tragedies for which I scour the internet. Did Luke kill his Tinder date? The police response seems too soon. I join the officers outside, where their patrol vehicle sits parked in the red. The strange breed of Dayton, Ohio tourists residing in my hotel sneak sidelong glances at the officers and me, an interesting reversal of the puzzled looks I must have been giving them over the last forty-eight hours.
“We heard you and another guy are making a movie about the Higgs family?” the policeman asks me.
“Sort of,” I admit.
“Where’s your partner? We should probably be speaking with him, too.”
“He’s on a date.” The officer looks at me strangely.
“The two of you are from California?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, well, we’ll tell it to you, and you can tell your partner, then. But make sure he gets the message.”
“What is it?”
“You knocked on Elena Higgs’ door yesterday, right?”
“Yes,” I admit.
“Started asking questions? Made her upset?”
I hesitate, and then nod.
“Rod, that’s Elena’s son-in-law, well, he’s actually more like a son. He’s been with Elena’s daughter forever. He’s looking for you,” says the officer.
“Looking for me?”
“Yeah, he’s mad you made Elena Higgs upset. I know the Higgs family well, you know. And I must say I can’t blame him for being mad.”
“Alright, so what do you want me to do?”
“What do I want you to do?” says the officer with a smile, nodding to his partner. “What I want you to do is leave. Short of that, be careful.”
“I don’t understand,” I say, growing annoyed by this chump cop parlance. “Am I in danger?”
“Rod hasn’t done anything illegal, but we know Rod doesn’t like this thing one bit,” says the officer.
“You should let that family be,” remarks the officer’s partner, speaking for the first time.
“So you’re warning me. You’re warning me that this Rod guy is upset, and he might off me, or something? If I don’t get out’a town? Is that what you’re doing here?”
“Pretty much,” says the first officer.
Once more I feel confused, as I thank the officers and they leave me at the hotel. Once more the walls seem to undulate, swaying in a portentous, psychedelic breeze. If I am to understand correctly, Dayton police have just issued me a warning: one Rod, son-in-law of Elena Higgs, has not yet done anything illegal, but rumblings indicate that he has wicked intentions. He intends to do my partner and me harm, and it might be wise for my partner and me to retreat behind the walls of our western castle. I have never become embroiled in a vendetta, and though I do not know Rod or his true potential to act on a threat, I do not wish to die for the purpose of this proof of concept. Surely it does not mean that much to me. If the wandering mind was to give me pause in my purpose, then surely a threat against my life should spur me away from it. I think briefly of Luke on his date. I imagine him rendezvousing with the local girl, and becoming caught in the crosshairs of Rod and his gourd-headed cronies. The imps spot Luke across the bar and say, “Say, isn’t that that documentarian whose been pestering our dear Elena?” “Yeah, that’s him.” “The one who did that movie about the collapsing bee colonies!” They knock back their tequila shots and saunter over, bashing his brain in with a barstool, right before his wide-eyed date. Or perhaps she is not horrified at all, but rather a knowing participant in a surprise attack, relaying coordinates to the mob. How silly. I laugh.
~
The sun hangs low, and I am packing my bags in preparation for my departure. I have not notified Sydra, and Luke is still out on the town. I am searching for the cheapest next-available flight when I hear his key card slide into the door. He enters, whistling and drunk. He pauses at the sight of my packed suitcase.
“Going somewhere?” he asks.
As per my instruction from the men in uniform, I tell Luke everything I know. I am surprised that I am even surprised to find him alight with intrigue. He cuts me off and tells me to say no more. First, he must get his camera ready. He must record this, and he needs to change the battery of the DSLR. I am too bewildered to protest, and have hardly got my bearings by the time the equipment is armed at aimed at me.
“Tell it again,” Luke smiles behind the camera, drunk.
“The police said we should leave,” I say, unamused.
“Why’s that?”
“Because there’s a guy who’s upset about how we treated Elena Higgs.”
“What guy?”
“His name is Rod. That’s all I know.”
Luke sighs with annoyance and powers down the camera.
“Look,” he begins. “When we’re in the field, I can’t coach on delivery. We make due with what we’ve got and see how it cuts together. But right now, I need you to just tell me everything with some enthusiasm. Or fear. Or however it comes naturally to you. But I can’t have you muttering under your breath in a monotone. You’ll bore the audience to death.”
“I really do think we should go,” I say.
“Are you serious?” Luke laughs. “Why?”
“Because we’ve tampered enough, and now we’ve got people threatening us. It’s not worth it.”
“It’s just bullshit threats,” says Luke. “You should have heard the things people said to me when I was shooting ‘Killer Bees’. One in a thousand threats are actually acted on, from my experience.”
“One in a thousand,” I say sarcastically.
“And if this guy does do something, then power to us! We got a movie on our hands!”
“Fuck this,” I say. “I’m going home.”
I am not sure how eloquently I articulate my burning sentiments, but I try to tell Luke that we are not justice fighters. We are simply stirring up trouble for our own amusement. There is no documentary. There is no story here. It’s all meaningless. A man died, five kids’ lives were ruined for a stupid mistake, and it has nothing to do with the American Experience. My voice cracks like Tanner Martin’s, and I get choked up in a way I haven’t felt since giving a presentation in high school.
“That was great,” says Luke. I look up at him and realize he has been recording my entire soliloquy. He plays it back and watches it in the viewfinder. I hear my own voice, bumbling with senseless passion.
“Turn off the fucking camera,” I hear myself say.
“I am telling you, this is going to play so well as a mid movie, all-goes-to-hell moment when we cut this doc.”
“There is no mid movie because there is no movie!” I shout. Luke recoils, and then smiles.
“Of course there’s a movie,” says Luke.
“What’s the fucking movie then, Luke? Tell me. What’s the fucking theme?”
“It’s human interest,” he says.
“Human interest for human interest’s sake isn’t interesting,” I say. “What are we trying to say about the human condition?”
I must be screaming because Luke looks at me like a curio in a house of horrors. I grab my suitcase.
“You came all the way out here to explore this story, and you’re just going to pack up and go because of some bullshit threat?”
I think to say that that is only part of a much grander set of motivations and emotions. But I simply nod.
“Whatever,” says Luke, falling back onto the bed, camera in hand, scrubbing through footage. “I’m finishing this story.”
“That’s fine,” I say. “Good luck with your human interest piece.”
~
The sun sets, as I stand outside of the drab hellhole of a hotel in Dayton, Ohio, suitcase beside me, awaiting my Uber to the Cincinnati airport. My mind is as a dud nuke landing in the desert, unmovable yet devoid of vitality. Perhaps this is the most inner peace I can ever ask for, heading home after a doomed-to-fail mission. A blue Camry pulls to the curb. I ask the driver to pop his trunk, and he obliges. I pack my suitcase into the trunk and then slide into the backseat.
“Daniel Schwartz?” the driver asks, glancing at me in his rearview mirror.
“Yes, that’s me,” I say.
“Airport?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Going home?” he asks, as he pulls out of the hotel.
“Yeah,” I say. I wonder briefly how he knows I am going home and not leaving.
“Here for the dog show?” he asks.
“Dog show?”
“There was a dog show at the convention center down the street,” the driver says, shedding light on the mystery of the abundance of guests at the hotel.
“No,” I say. “Just visiting.”
“With that documentary crew?” the driver asks. I catch a glance of the gourd-headed man in his rearview. He smiles, eyebrows raised. “I thought your name sounded familiar!”
“How did you hear about it?” I ask.
“People talk,” he says. People talk, and guilt can kill, apparently. Everything is coming together, just as I make my exit.
I press my head against the window of the blue Camry, scrolling through Instagram and the News App as we journey towards the airport. Some time has passed when I look out the window again. In the first hours of night, I can barely make out the surrounding country, a barren dark green landscape of scattered homes and seemingly fallow cropland. I look to the driver’s speedometer and see that we are going seventy. I pull up my Maps App, and route to the airport. It seems we are traveling in a perpendicular direction to our destination.
“How much longer?” I ask the driver.
“Oh, we’re almost there,” he says.
A moment passes before I ask: “Are we going to the airport?”
“Clever boy,” he chortles. “No. No, we’re not.”
Another moment passes before I ask another question: “Where are we going?”
“We’re almost there,” he says. I think to call the police, and see I have no signal. I think to unlock my door and exit the moving vehicle and acknowledge that would mean certain death. The car decelerates.
“We’re here,” says the driver, as he pulls off onto a barren road. “Simon was a good friend of mine,” he says.
“Are you Rod?” I ask.
“No,” the driver chortles. “I’m not Rod. I’m Pete. There’s Rod,” he says, signaling ahead. There is a barn in the near distance, some hanging lights illuminating the forms of several humans. The Camry creeps to a halt before it.
The men who await me drag me out of the car. I fall to the cold earth and let out a cry. They are surrounding me, hurling insults, speaking plainly but their language sounds foreign and unintelligible. They are here to teach me a lesson, I gather, gazing up at their bulbous gourd heads, laughing and smiling dumbly. I am moving across the earth, dragged by my now torn collar, carried away toward the barn like a bale of Ohioan hay. Perhaps I will write about this someday, if it sparks my creative spirit.
#
Moo, Baa, La La La! by Sandra Boynton
Llama Llama Zippity-Zoom by Anna Dewdney
