Ignoring you.
I pressed a hand against my chest as if that would help slow the jackhammering of my heart, then slid it up to press against my screaming shoulder. Even through the jacket and shirt I could feel the old scar tissue beginning to swell, and suddenly I had it, the one thing I could latch onto, the one thing that might keep me in one piece until I’d found Carson and could start making sense out of all of this.
The promise of seeing Beth again.
Because if it hadn’t been for this old wound, I never would have met her…
NINE
Two months before my tenth birthday my aunt Amy, who was then eighteen, invited me to go along with her to visit one of her friends who was away at college. Aunt Amy usually took me out at least once every two weeks-a movie and pizza, then shopping at the seemingly endless supply of record stores in Columbus (usually near or on the Ohio State University campus). Even then, people twice my age were aware that when it came to contemporary music-be it rock, folk, progressive (“prog,” to those of us in the know), even crossover jazz like John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, this little geek from Cedar Hill was The Kid to Ask. Whenever Amy was going to have a party and wanted the music to be perfect, she’d come to me to help her record tapes. The deejays at Stereo Rock 92 had nothing on me when it came to instant recall of who played in what band and on what label and when.
The excursion that day promised to be a good one; the new Steppenwolf album was just out and I’d been saving my allowance to buy it. No place in Cedar Hill carried it yet, but I knew I’d find it at the first record store I walked into in Columbus. Amy told me that she needed me to settle a bet with some of her friends about the last couple of Grand Funk Railroad albums, and if I’d come along with her and “put those know-it-alls in their place,” she’d buy the Steppenwolf album for me. (Amy made it a point to never tell me ahead of time what the “bet” was specifically about, because she knew I enjoyed being put on the spot when it came to rock trivia. I’d been the ace up her sleeve on at least five occasions, and not once had I failed her or been stumped by any of her friends. I liked that. I liked being good at something and briefly admired for it: “Hey, this kid’s good. Really good. Now get rid of him and let’s party.”)
The drive from Cedar Hill took forever, it seemed (two hours in a car in kid-time is an eternity, remember?), but eventually we arrived at our destination. I knew something was wrong as soon as we started driving down a side road that led to the dorms.
“Shit,” said Amy, banging a fist against the steering wheel. “They’ve got it blocked off.”
We turned around and tried three other side roads but all of them were closed. Finally, Amy drove around one of the roadblocks and ended up on a really nice road lined with hills and trees. It would have been pretty if it weren’t for the smoke coming over the trees and all the shouting in the distance.
Just as we were coming around a bend in the road Amy hit the brakes. Several yards ahead sat an ominous looking truck that I recognized as having something to do with the Army.
Amy’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, Lord…”
I rolled down my window to see if I could get a better view of what was going on. I could hear a lot of people shouting somewhere on the other side of the hill. I could also hear something that sounded like the voice of a robot trying to be heard over the shouting. (I later found out it was a bullhorn being used by campus security.)
A soldier walked around the side of the truck and pointed at our car. Amy grabbed my hand and said, “Stay here,” then climbed out to meet the soldier. I sat there looking at the smoke coming over the trees. I wasn’t so much nervous as I was impatient to know what was going on, so like every curious, annoying nine-year-old you’ve ever met, I looked to make sure Amy and the soldier weren’t watching me (they were arguing, rather loudly), opened the door of the car, and made my way toward the hill. I was almost to the top when I heard the robot voice shout something I couldn’t understand, and then something made the loudest crack! I’d ever heard and the crowd screamed.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, my Aunt Amy had driven us to Kent State University. It was May 4, 1970, and we’d arrived just a few minutes before the National Guard opened fire on students gathered to protest the war in Vietnam. They were supposed to fire over the protestors’ heads, but some did not. All of this I discovered in the days and weeks to come; at the moment all Hell broke loose and invited Purgatory to join the party, I was flat on my face at the top of that hill. I looked up and saw a structure a few yards away and, figuring it would be safe, crawled toward it.
There is a very famous photograph from the Kent State shootings. In it, a young female student is halfkneeling, half-squatting by the body of a student lying facedown on the sidewalk. Her arms are parted at her sides like a celebrant blessing the hosts at Mass; her long straight hair is caught in the wind and flowing to the right. She is in the middle of releasing a scream of anguish that to this day I still hear in my dreams.
In the background, past the people running by in panic, past the lush hillside, through the wisps of dissipating tear gas, up in the corner, you will see a small gazebo. If you are a person who has the technology to do so, and if you can get your hands on a copy of that photograph, then use your computer’s photo editing software to enlarge that corner section of the picture. Concentrate on the lower left-hand side of the gazebo, enlarge that a little, and you will see what looks like a small fuzzy animal trying to burrow its way through the gazebo’s latticework and hide underneath.
That is the top of my head.
A few seconds after that photograph was taken, I scrambled to my feet and ran back down to the car as fast as I’ve ever run in my life. When I got there, the National Guardsman who’d been arguing with my aunt was surrounded by half a dozen angry and panicked students. Two of them grabbed the guardsman while another attempted to yank his rifle from his grip. The gun was jerked up, down, and to the side. One. Two. Three.
On two Amy whipped her head around and saw me standing by the car. She started to shout something at me and then three arrived and something exploded. I couldn’t see what because I was magically on my back staring up at the clouds and wondering why I couldn’t feel my left side.
Here’s a piece of information you might want to file away under Things You Never Want to Find Out for Yourself: If fired in close enough proximity to a target-even an accidental one like an annoyingly curious nine-year-old boy who should have stayed in the stupid car-rubber bullets can cause almost as much damage as the real thing.
The bullet passed cleanly through my left shoulder, missing bone but making a permanent impression on what tissue it met along the way.
I remember everyone crowding around me. I remember the way Amy grabbed me and kissed me and got my blood all over her nice blouse. I remember the strength of the guardsman’s arms as he pushed everyone aside and lifted me up like he was some kind of superhero and ran toward the truck. Then I decided I was tired and closed my eyes.
I was treated at the local hospital, then transferred by ambulance to Cedar Hill Memorial the next morning. I remember none of this because I was unconscious for nearly twenty hours after it happened.
What I do remember is waking up in my hospital room to find Amy there with my mom, a nurse, and a couple of reporters. Amy was so glad to see me awake she broke down crying and tried to hug me, but the nurse said that wasn’t a good idea, so my aunt simply kissed my cheek and held my hand while my mom glared at her, and then at me. She didn’t have to speak; I knew what was going through her mind: Do you have any idea how angry your father is about all of this? Do you know how embarrassing this has been to us?