Chapter II

II

Cops still swarmed over the grounds, making way for ambulances and medical per­son­nel, and packaging evidence for transport. They waved us through the side parking lot when Joe pointed out his car. One of the offi­cers stopped to discuss the mess. Some­one had tried to drive over the fence on 127th Street, and someone else tried to take out the fence pole on Ot­tawa. We made an excuse and continued on. Debris littered the parking lot and we stepped carefully. A side mirror had fallen here and a piece of molding there. A lot of shattered glass lay scattered about.

Joe’s new white Impala lurched to one side. The driver’s side door had caved in, and the back end on the passenger’s side sported a huge scratch. I started to say some­thing about the damage on my side, but then shook it off. He’d see it soon enough. 

He hopped in and started the car. The radio came to life as soon as he turned the key. “Shooting tonight at a football game in south suburban Portland. Unconfirmed reports of seven dead and dozens in­jured...” Joe turned the radio off, and played a CD instead.

We pulled up to the 127th Street exit, and he flipped on the left turn sig­nal. Traffic was heavy. A cop whistled and waved us forward. Joe pulled out and began his turn, but as he went into it, his headlights illumi­nated the commuter parking lot across from the school. Channels 2, 7 and 9 had sta­tioned news vans there. Their satellite dishes were up, and people with microphones and cables were broadcasting.

He stopped just over the double yellow lines in the street and opened the door. He stepped out to a chorus of honking horns. The officer ran up to us, ordering Joe back into the car. “What the hell is this?” Joe demanded, pointing at news vans.

“The media,” the officer explained. I could barely hear the man over the horns. I could see his torso. As he turned towards the Pullman Avenue bridge, which overlooks T.R’s stadium, I could see him raise his arm, no more. “They’re up there, too.” He came back at Joe, pointing at the Impala. “Come on, let’s go. You’re blocking traf­fic.”

Joe looked around one more time, and then he got in. He turned on me as he closed the door. “They’re all over. The student parking lot on the east,” he said using his thumb to point over his shoulder. He nodded at the parking lot across from T.R’s exit, to the closed gas station on the corner where another satellite van sat. The horns continued, but louder and longer. The officer, now standing in front of us, waved at us with both hands. Joe threw the car into drive as the cop reached for his radio.

On the southeast corner of 127th and Pullman, directly across from that gas station are T.R’s playing fields. An ambulance was parked across the corner. I saw flashes coming from behind the shrubs right there. When I squinted, I swear I could see dark images holding flashlights.

Joe pointed at the Pullman bridge. I saw more lights up there. People with still cameras and video cameras were watching the stadium. The reporter in me wanted to scream: they were going after the wrong story! I wanted to scream at Joe that we needed to get back to my place and get my camera.

But when I looked at Joe, other emotions welled up in me. We were waiting for the light to change, and he was saying something about the incredible audacity. I melted. What­ever was happening at that corner at that moment wasn’t half as important as the fact that we had just survived a tragedy. I swallowed back the stom­ach acids as they tried to escape again. I swiped at my upper lip. My hand smelled like sweat, vomit, garlic and sulfur. I was drained.

He drove off in the direction of his place. He didn’t ask, and I’m glad. I didn’t want to spend that night alone.

As soon as we entered his apartment, the phone rang and he answered it. “No,” he in­sisted. “No. And don’t show up here neither. I’ll have you ar­rested for trespassing.” Once he hung up, it rang again. This was going to happen all night and we both knew it. He unclipped the cord from the back of that phone and pulled the batteries from the cordless. Then we went to bed.

Pardon me as I try to reconstruct an instance as it had been described to me. I know these people so well. I mean I grew up with Tim Flaherity and his sister, Brenna McCafferty. She’s one of my best friends. I know her stances and affectations so well; and Tim, I can imagine him caring for his niece or another family member.

The police called Brenna at work and told her to pick up her daughter. She called Tim. She said she listened to the news on the way home, but details were still fuzzy. She hurried. The apartment she and Lisa shared was located adjacent to the CSX tracks, and she didn’t want to get caught by a train again.

When she opened the outer door to her building that night, she said the hallway smelled like burnt sugar and meat. The smell came from her apartment. Father Tim said Lisa was hungry at first. But when tomato soup boiled over in one pan, and hot dogs burnt in another, they decided they weren’t that hungry.

Brenna found her daughter and her brother sitting across from each other at her kitchen table. Tim had both of Lisa’s hands in one of his. “Take this to the Blessed Mother,” he said. “And ask her to take it off your hands, Lisa. She can do it. You know she can. She loves you as she loves her own son. The love only a mother can share with her child.”

Brenna, I can imagine her, hurrying towards Lisa. “What is it that has everyone up in arms? What hap­pened?” she demanded as she wrapped her arms about Lisa’s neck.

“Mom?” Lisa cried. “Bobby is dead. I know it.”

“Who did it? What happened?”

“Bobby. And Warren Devers, Nick Romero, Chuck Chandler. They’re dead, all of them.”

Brenna looked over her daughter’s head to Tim for an explanation. “They said,” Father Tim began, “That there would have to be ten victims. And five of them. Bobby and his friends besides.”

“I told him,” Lisa sobbed. “I told him Devers is scum. That they’d all get hurt be­cause of him.”

“Okay, Okay,” Brenna said, pulling away. “What you need is a good shower.” She drew up an arm, looking at the gunk that had rubbed off of Lisa’s shirt. “What is that?”

“Blood,” Lisa said. “Bobby’s.”

Brenna said she wanted to freak out. To lose control. To jump around and cry because her sleeve was covered with her nephew’s blood. She forced herself to calm down, and not panic. Lisa needed her. 

“Go with you. Do it now.” Lisa obeyed as her mother slowly crossed the kitchen. Brenna stepped to the sink and flipped on the tap. The brown goo that stained her shirt sleeve turned red and watery and rinsed down the drain. Her sleeve turned bright red. Brenna turned off the faucet and wrapped her arm in a cloth dish towel when she heard the shower come on in the other room. The dish towel turned red. She changed her shirt immediately.

When Brenna returned to the kitchen, a train whistled sounded, signaling its approach. It passed just outside her living room window, filling the entire window with nothing but train. And it was loud. So loud in fact, Tim and Brenna gave up on conversation. The floor vibrated, and so did her window and all of her furniture. Even the pictures hanging on the walls vibrated. Lisa had painted most of them and Brenna worried that the frames would be knocked apart with the constant vibrations. Most of her furniture met their end that way. She complained how she wouldn’t dare buy new furniture. She would live with garage sale specials until she could afford to move someplace quieter.

Rose Boyle let herself in. Brenna waved her to a seat across from Tim, and poured Rose a cup of coffee from the pot Tim had made earlier. Rose held onto it until the train had passed. A moment of quiet passed before Rose pushed the cup in Brenna’s direction. “You wouldn’t be having anything stronger, would you?“

“Rosy, you don’t need it,” Tim chided.

“You don’t need it. I can handle it.”

“Where were you?” Brenna demanded as she reclaimed the coffee cup. “I tried to call.”

“At work. At home. I went to the police. They said that I need to identify my son.” I could imagine how tears welled up in her eyes as she struggled to maintain herself. “I can’t do this again.”

“And where would Rob be this evening? Does he know?”

“I have no idea.”

Brenna took a bottle from beneath the sink and a glass from the cabinet over the stove. She poured her sister a splash of whiskey. “Tim?”

“Thank you, no.”

 When Lisa returned from the shower, she said wished everyone a good night. First, she kissed her mother, and then her Uncle. She said later that she didn’t know how to kiss her Aunt good night.

With Lisa out of the way, Rose dug in her purse. “I found this,” she said, setting a plastic bound book on the table.

Tim took it, and Brenna watched over his shoulder. “What would it be?” he asked.

“Megan’s diary. It’s terrible. I mean, I know what’s in there. I always did.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t protect them. Either one of them.”

Tim thumbed through it. Lisa had told him earlier about discussions she had with her cousins, and how desperately she wanted to help them.

“I’ll be back,” Tim said, hurrying away. He returned about a half an hour later. “I sug­gest that you turn this over to the police as soon as possible,” he said, handing the book back to Rose.

“What did you do?”

“Copies,” he said. “I made copies.” Later he said that it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The clouds closed in on the earth and sounds intensified. Trains raced through the night, whistles blew, and wheels clacked against tracks. Even closed windows and curtains didn’t quiet those noises.

Beside me, Joe groaned and moved about. I wasn’t sure if he slept or not. I watched the L.E.D. display of the clock on the nightstand next to me for the better part of an hour, and paid an emotional toll for every minute that passed. Joe, at last rolled into my back. He took my hand. “You awake?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Did you know about Megan?”

“That she was hit by a truck, yeah. That’s it though.”

“Brenna didn’t say anything about suicide?”

“No. It’s so desperate.”

“At least once a year,” he commented. “A kid from Roosevelt or Austin commits sui­cide. Think about it.” I did. I wanted to get angry. Insist that a girl as pretty and as smart as Megan was, wouldn’t just end it.

I suddenly felt so cold. I had just witnessed a group of teenage boys toss their lives and others away like dirty tissue. Earlier, as we left the booth, I shook with fear. That terrible, gruesome night suddenly came back at me. I shook hard, and I cried. I couldn’t help it. And I couldn’t stop neither. I expected Joe to admonish me, and order me to stop. Instead he rolled me towards him and wrapped me up in both arms.

Father Tim left his sister’s apartment for the final time that evening, and rushed off to Robbinson Memorial Hospital where he acts as chaplain. I know he sat with Tony LoBi­anco’s parents and with Matt Orozco’s mother for at least an hour. When another child died that night, he stayed with that child’s family. When he finished comforting the grief stricken, he stopped in to see parishioners who were injured during the stampede.

He returned to St. Michael the Archangel in the early morning hours. Fa­ther Tim said it was pouring and he was drenched. In spite of that, he needed to pray. He visited the Shrine of the Blessed Virgin located just to the left of the main altar.

God has blessed him, Tim said, in many ways. He loves his sisters, his niece, his posi­tion at St. Michael the Archangel, and the opportunities he has working in the commu­nity. He adores God, and he gives his thanks for all those special gifts.

One of those gifts is his special relationship with the Blessed Mother. He says that when he approaches her, he feels that she whisks him away, into a place of solitude, where he knows her love, and the love of her Son. When he prays to her, he says that he feels as if she embraces him, comforting him, and wrapping him up in her love. He says that he turns to her when he needs help, and he credits her intervention in overcoming his need for alco­hol.

That Saturday, I rose early. I had tossed and turned most of the night, and now I needed a release from the massive build up of energy. I needed to walk it off. I wanted out. I wanted to move my legs and draw air into my lungs. I couldn’t. When I peeked out the front window, I saw news vans and people with cameras pointed at me. I felt trapped.

I turned to food, and something sweet to take comfort in. I found a couple of brown ba­nanas and a bag of chopped nuts. A little flour, sugar, eggs, milk, and a few other ingre­di­ents, I had the makings for banana nut bread. If nothing else, I could wear some of that energy off by baking.

I thought about turning on the phone again, and making a call or two. In­stead I used my cell phone. With batter in hand and phone jammed between my ear and my shoulder, I peeked at the circus still forming outside.

Although it continued to pour, Channels 9 and 7 news vans waited across the street. Brightly colored golf umbrellas shielded a crowd of onlookers from rain drops falling through a canopy of golden greenish colored leaves. Some­one nudged someone else, and pointed in my direction. As others turned to­wards me, I closed the drapes.

I checked my messages. My editor had called several times, demand­ing that I call immediately. Each call he made was more frantic than the one before. Several family members called, and so did Brenna. I called her first.

“Lisa isn’t here,” Brenna told me. “Took off before I got up.”

“Where did she go?”

“Church. Her and Tim. They’re so close. Something happens and she’ll be turning to him before she’ll be coming even to me.”

“What about Rose? Have you talked to her?” I asked.

Brenna sighed. “She’s here. Turned up last night. Rob is drinking.”

I called work next. It was considerably early for editor Tom Koehler. Like me, he’s a night owl. Still, when something happens, he’d spend twenty-four hours a day at his post if he had to. “You were there last night,” Tom said. “You told me you were going. Why didn’t you file a report after it happened?”

“You have any idea where I was at deadline last night?”

“No, tell me.”

“Pinned to the floor of the announcer’s booth.”

“Write it down. E-mail me. Before ten tonight.” That was my daily dead­line. The final layout was finished up by 11:30, and the first presses began to roll at midnight.

I had heated the oven and was busy pouring batter into a buttered bread pan when something banged in the bedroom. Joe ricocheted about the cor­ner and into the kitchen. “Annie?” He was pale and his eyes were huge. When he saw me, he sighed. He retreated to the bathroom. Then I heard the toi­let flush and water running. He returned a few minutes later. This time, he entered the kitchen and wrapped his arms about me from the rear. He smelled like toothpaste. I con­tinued to work as he held me loosely about the shoulders. He kissed my head.

“Tom wants a report on last night,” I said. “He just thinks I can sit down and type like this was some dumb factory tour, or a town hall meeting.”

“Never mind Tom.”

“I wish I could quit.”

“Do it.”

“Will you pay my rent?”

He leaned closer, burying his nose in my hair. His hands moved to my hips. “When you’re done with that,” he said, “Come back to bed.” There was warmth in his voice. Tenderness. I needed that. I opened the oven, set the pan inside and set the timer. Then I followed him.

Art Weber left Roosevelt shortly after talking to us, to be with his wife and son. Bill Ramos, who usually works until the wee hours of the morning, stayed on. He had officers standing guard about the stadium throughout the night. When morning came, he called on anyone he could find. When the rain stopped, Bill oversaw the process of scouring the fields and the stands.

The entire school campus sits on low land, and every time it rains, the fields flood. Officers had to fish through several inches of standing water, using their hands to push aside the mud. They used knives and screwdrivers to pry bullet casings from the concrete in the stands and the mud in the field, or even from the back of the an­nouncer’s booth. They picked up wet cameras from the field, and other pieces of evidence. And when they finished that, they crossed the fence along the western perimeter of the school property, and scoured the area along Pullman Avenue. 

Once that was done, Bill said they sealed off the stadium and playing fields, and the strip of land along the fences on Pullman. He and a detail kept watch at the Ottawa gate and at the stadium entrances. State troopers arrived early, and set up watch at the 127th Street entrance.

Bill said that he had planned to return to the station, but a lot of people came by to pay their respects and to say a prayer or two. The Portland police allowed them into the back parking lot where the Stadium gates are located, and no closer.

Father Tim is the Associate Pastor of St. Michael the Archangel. Where it is Father Patocky, the Pastor, job to worry about the leaky roof and running the parish, Father Tim spends his time at Robbinson Memorial, and with the teens of the Parish. He sponsors the Parish’s Youth Club. The kids have dances, go to sporting events, and perform community service projects like shoveling for the elderly or collecting canned food for a local pantry. They also meet to discuss problems. Accord­ing to Joe, every teenager deals with at least one life changing crisis daily. Anyway, these kids have turned to Father Tim when they needed to talk about almost anything. I can’t explain it, but he connects with teenagers and children in a way in which other adults don’t understand.

A Youth Club meeting was scheduled for that Saturday morning, but Lisa had fallen asleep in Tim‘s room and he was afraid to leave her alone. He planned instead to send away the kids that showed for the meeting. He changed his mind when he saw that a greater number of kids awaited him at the back entrance to the church.

“Father Tim,” one boy called out to him. “This is my friend. He isn’t Catholic, but do you mind if he joins us today?”

“Father Tim? Meet my friend.”

“Father Tim? This is my friend from Roosevelt. Can we talk about last night?”

He pulled the keys from his pocket, and chose the one he needed. “Sure,” he told them. “Downstairs. Now be careful. There’s so many of you, we don’t need any of you to be tripping over your own feet on the stairs.”

Tom Koehler called my cell phone again later in the day. “Spyres’ phone is off the hook. How come?”

“Hasn’t stopped ringing since last night,” I replied.

“Yeah, well the Portland cops are looking for him. There’s a couple of hundred kids at Roosevelt. Impromptu memorial. The cops are afraid they’ll riot or something. Want someone from the administration there, and can’t get anyone else.” 

Link to Chapter II *