6.4.05

He was calm by the time I found him, standing in front of the door to our building as though I hadn't spent the last hour frantically searching the city for him. He was calm by this time and just wanted to show me the little blue toy car he had bought. We started walking across the street together but I could feel the eyes of the neighbors hot on the back of my neck, their smugness, eagerly anticipating the public discipline I was expected to dole out as restitution for his tantrum. I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction, those fuckers who believe in a social system where strangers have the right to berate other people's children for perceived insolence.

Still, I was angry, fueled by the prolonged panic of not being able to find him, of losing him permanently, my only ally. He was talking to me timidly, eyes cast down; I could see that he hoped I wouldn't bring up his earlier tantrum, what happens when he gets cornered in his brain and wires short-circuit. But I couldn't control myself. I told him that someday he would go to prison, that someday he would meet a cop who would be happy to shoot a six-foot 220 lb. Asian kid who was acting irrationally, dangerously, screaming and waving his fists at passing strangers. He tried to have a civil conversation, sidestepping the bait but I persisted, relentlessly painting a standoff that escalates into violent inevitability, until it scares him the way it scares me and he explodes. He's screaming at me, that he's never going to go to prison because he won't let them. I can see the scene unfolding in my mind, some trigger happy patrolman looking for stress relief, pulling the plug on a cornered animal exuding potential violence who won't stop screaming in the middle of the street. It seems too possible of a reality to shake out of my head. I tell him I'm his only friend and he had better listen to me, that there are consequences and he has to learn to control himself. (Or else? I can't stop thinking about it. Him laying in a black pool of blood that won't stop spreading...because they don't understand, they don't understand that God speaks through him. And I know I've just been cruel). He tells me he hates them, he hates me. So I punch him. And leave.

When I get home I get his mom on the phone. I tell her she has to come home now, there's been trouble. I make my voice cold so she knows that I blame her, that I want it to tear up her insides too, that I blame her for not being there. She hangs up; I look out the window. I see he has reached the street corner, stepping tentatively, looking at both possibilities of directions to cross. 36 more seconds before one light turns red and another turns green. Reckless scooters zip by, dangerously close. He contemplates, uncertain, frightened. I am not there for him.

I hold my breath until he's made it safely across the street. Inside, I keep telling myself, robots don't cry.