Growing Like a Tree

CH-7

My eyes popped when Chase pulled the pistol out of his bag with gloved hands the morning of our first end of year exam. We were both twelve years old, about to leave seventh grade if we got passing grades. Getting good grades wasn’t a problem for either of us. The plan was that we would skip school that day because none of our teachers would be taking attendance and make an excuse so they would let us take the exams we had missed later on. So far everything had gone according to plan, and we were out in a park a few blocks from school stooping next to this historical statue of some prominent figure in the town’s past, looking at the instrument of our success. His eyes were glowing as he pointed it upwards and fingered the trigger. My heart immediately started pounding and my mouth went dry. Was he actually serious about killing him? Until that moment none of our plans had been real to me.

                Chase glanced around quickly as he shoved the gun back into his backpack.

                He looked straight into my eyes and held my gaze as he said, “Failure means death. If this plan fails, never confess. Pretend you never knew anything. Forget about me.”

                He had said these words before and made me repeat them and swear on our oath as brothers that I would be true to them, but until then they had seemed like a cool mantra, not an actual, serious-as-death oath to keep my knowledge of the plan secret!

                “This could go badly for you and your family too – if he finds out you were involved,” he continued. “I’m not sure what he might do to someone else, so if anyone asks you, I was the one who planned all of it. You didn’t know a thing.” He wiped his mouth with one hand and went on, “My life is over anyway if this plan fails.”

                He glanced around one more time then leaned forward a little. His eyes were on fire. I was shaking inside. “Are you ready?” he asked. I could only nod. “Then here’s to freedom!” and he put out a fist for me to bump. I curled my knuckles and bumped his fist lightly. He grinned – this tense, hungry, wolfish grin, and we both stood at the same time.

                My thoughts were racing. I had promised to follow him into prison, into death if needs be with my lips sealed and my heart firm in the promises we had made to each other. We had sworn never to betray each other, no matter how much we were tortured. We used to make jokes about killing whoever stood in our way, finishing off our enemies…. It all had seemed like a grand adventure to me, but now he had a gun, and it was a real one. He also had a plan to kill someone that now seemed impossibly, terrifyingly real.

                A part of me was secretly relieved when we stood up and saw two police officers the moment we turned around. We were both in our school uniforms because we hadn’t got time to change out of them yet. The crux of the plan was to be executed that night anyway. We had taken the day off to plan and prepare for the execution. I was partially relieved, but both of us were on guard as the officers approached us. Chase was thorough. We had rehearsed what to do if we got caught or if we were approached by anyone while the gun was in our possession. Still, I was nervous, and from the way he clutched the strap of his backpack I could tell he was nervous too.

                “Good morning boys!” one of the officers said. “Got lost on your way to school?”

                Our plan was to play it cool, act nervous and guilty so that our larger crime would be less likely to come to light. I didn’t have much acting to do. I think I glanced at Chase a little too often before answering the officer as he shot me warning look.

                “Uh… um….” I didn’t have to pretend to stutter.

                “We’re not lost!” Chase said boldly defiant. That was the plan. He would be the bad boy, the truant, because he had nerves of steel. He was used to facing off against authority figures. We had practiced this. “We’re on our way.”

                “Oh yeah?” officer number two said. “And would you mind telling us what you were stopping by here for? Seems you two have something of interest in that bag there.”

                Panic hit me like a wave and crashed down over my head. Had they seen it? Did they know? Was I really going to jail? I swallowed hard and couldn’t stop looking from Chase to the officer and back again. Chase’s eyes warned me to stay cool. A part of me wanted to stay calm, like Chase, but I couldn’t remember the rest of the plan. What were we supposed to do next? Was I supposed to say something to throw them off our scent? All I could think of was that we were only kids and had no license to carry a firearm. We were definitely going to jail!

                “We got nothin’!” Chase snapped, playing his bad boy role to the fullest.

                “Are you sure about that? You seem a bit jumpy for two kids on their way to school with nothing of interest in that backpack,” the officer pressed.

                Chase gave me a look that was clearly telling me to get my act together. “We-we’re just late!” I choked out. “We have a test today. We were checking our notes!” The lie was perfect, and I was panicked enough to seem like Chase had instructed me to act – a panicked kid not wanting to be falsely accused of anything wrong. I felt a surge of pride in myself in that moment. I had come through when it mattered. The tiny bubble of euphoria rising in my chest popped when the officer spoke next.

                “Well, let’s see these notes of yours then and we’ll send you on your way,” he said.

                Just like a loose-knit fabric our plan unraveled when the officer reached forward to take hold of Chase’s backpack. I saw the scene play out in slow motion.

The cop reached for the backpack and Chase stepped back, his composure cracking, his eyes now just as panicked as mine. I reached out, trying to stall the first cop while his partner stepped towards me. Before I knew it time sped up and Chase was bolting away with the officer hot on his heels, while I was caught by the other cop, looking on with my mouth hanging open, feeling my life crumble beneath my feet.

                I wanted to practice law when I got older. That was another thing Chase and I had in common. We both wanted to study law – him because it was practically bred into his family, and me because it was my dream to prosecute and take down bad guys. With a criminal record, that dream would be destroyed. I watched Chase run, get caught, saw him wrestle with the officer for the bag and mentally kissed my dreams goodbye. The officer that had run after Chase had to physically restrain him, cuffing him before he could get him to stop wrestling the backpack away from him.

Chase swore and flung expletives in varieties and combinations I never would have thought possible. He strained against the cuffs like a rabid dog, and at one point charged the cop who had his bag when he made moves to open it. The other cop threatened me not to move, putting me to sit down with my back against the base of the statue while he went to go wrestle Chase into some form of submission. All I could think about was the loss of my dreams and what my parents’ reaction would be to my being arrested. Chase was frenzied. Why did he still fight? We were already caught. There was no escaping for us now.

I remember there being a stillness in the moment the officer pulled the gun from the bag, like a shockwave pulsing from the gun and dimming sound and movement in the vicinity for a second. The cops’ expressions got serious then, and they looked at both of us with questions in their eyes. I hung my head not daring to say anything, and Chase took up his swearing again. The officer dug through the bag, fishing up a can of spray paint, a flask of alcohol, a pack of cigarettes and the forged suicide note. They told us they needed to take us down to the station to ask us a few more questions and to get in touch with our parents and the school. I went meekly with my heart in my throat, feeling like I was about to wet myself. Chase raged like a caged beast. He had tears in his eyes. I wasn’t sure what would come next.