Kemp Powers - The Past Wasn't Done With Me

 

 

The first time that I passed out on the Chicago L train, I just knew that I was dying from mad cow disease. At least, that's what I told my doctor when I was trying to self-diagnose in his office, and he was pretty impressed by the depths of my neurosis, understand this is before WebMD when everyone could do it. But he assured me that despite the fact that I had been to Europe and eaten several steaks, that I wasn't suffering from mad cow. [audience laughter] I had anxiety, and he asked me if there was anything that had happened recently that had been causing stress. I had to think about the question for a little while. 

 

I said, “I haven't been adjusting well to my move to Chicago.” He nodded his head. He said, “You know, a transition like that into a new city can cause a lot of stress.” I said, “My father is dying of cancer, and I can't convince him to take better care of himself.” He nodded again. This is obviously a story he's heard a lot of times before. Then I said, “My daughter almost died last year from febrile seizures, and I'm pretty much terrified to be left alone with her.” Now, this raised his eyebrows. He wrote me a prescription for Xanax, and gave me the name of a therapist he wanted me to see right away to delve into this further. 

 

Now, I don't know what prompted me to say what I said. But as he handed me the prescription, I just blurted it out. I said, “Oh, one more thing. When I was 14 years old, I shot my best friend in the face accidentally, and I watched him die.” Henry was one of seven people to die that day in New York City, 1988. At 14, he wasn't even the youngest. A 12-year-old kid from Queens had that dubious distinction. But his was the death that I saw with my own eyes, the one that I was responsible for with my own hands and the one that I'm going to carry with me for the rest of my life. 

 

Now, home back then was a two-bedroom co-op in the Kensington section of Brooklyn, for those who know Brooklyn pretty well. It was a big source of pride for my mom who had raised my three older sisters and I almost single handedly since splitting from my dad when I was four years old. This was the first place that she owned after what seemed like annual ritual moving. Now, for those who don't know, New York was really violent and dangerous back then. Detroit, New Orleans, and Gary, Indiana rolled into one dangerous. 2,000 murders a year violent. But I never let the violence swirling around in the world outside ever impact me. I was actually an honor roll student all the way. When Henry and I met in the seventh grade, we got along immediately. 

 

The physical contrast couldn't have been more extreme. He was unusually more muscular and well-built for a 12-year-old, and I was just as oddly tall and lanky for a kid the same age. But that's pretty much where our differences ended. We both were into all the same things, we shared all of the same fears, we walked together every day after school to the Carroll Street subway station in South Brooklyn, and we both hated the older boys from John Jay High School nearby who'd show up every Halloween and rain rotten eggs, D-cell batteries and of course, water balloons filled with Nair on our heads, which gave you a nice surprise when you got home and tried to clean up. He was my first and best friend. 

 

Now, on the afternoon of April 14th, 1988, Henry and Chris, another friend of mine, came by my apartment, like they had many times before. They dropped their book bags and plopped down on my bed. My mother was a captain in the army reserves at this time. We had three guns in the house. The 38-caliber revolver was my favorite. Not just because it was the one we kept loaded. Also, it was just the most interesting. It looked like a gun from the movies, and it was one I always showed to my friends, even though my mom never knew about it, and this day was no different. 

 

I started off by emptying the gun, made sure all the bullets were out. Then I demonstrated my index finger spin, the cowboy move that I've been working on. Then, I took a single bullet. I pretended to insert it into the cylinder and pointed the gun at my friends. I can actually remember smiling as I pulled the trigger, ready to shout, “Gotcha,” when I made them jump. But instead of the dull click of a hammer followed by laughter, there was a muzzle flash, an explosion, and shock. Both of my friends, Chris and Henry had turned their backs to me, and I remember being overcome with confusion, how'd the fucking bullet get into the chamber? 

 

Chris turned and looked at me, and my heart started racing, and we both looked over at Henry. I guess we were waiting for him to turn around, say, “Oh shit,” and then tell me how much trouble I was going to get into when my mother got home. Now, whenever we're faced with something horrific, I think it's human instinct to want to run. And mentally, that's what I did. I just fled into my own psyche. I went back years to being with my father on Coney Island, on the pier, trying to catch a blue fish with my piece of shit rod and reel. And then, the next thing you know, I was back there in the hallway and it was full of people.

 

My mom was there now, sobbing. Paramedics were there. Of course, the cops were there, and Chris and I were there. When one of the paramedics came out of the apartment, I remember begging him, “Please tell me he's okay. Please tell me he's okay.” Even though I knew what he was going to say, I just wasn't prepared for the words, he just said, “He's gone.” That night in the police station, I had to recount in detail everything that had happened for the police. I didn't want, I wanted to crawl under that table and hide, but I did. Slowly, methodically, choking back tears, is when I looked down and realized that my sweatshirt was covered in blood. 

 

My dad was there. I almost never saw him at that time, but he was there with my mom with the same full on look on his face. The wake came about a week later, and I didn't think Henry's family would have any interest in me attending, but my mom insisted we go. So, when we got to the funeral home, there was a huge crowd gathered around the coffin, and I made my way over to Henry. He looked really nice. They had him in a really nice blue suit. But I remember the coffin making him look so small. I just stood there and stared at him while everyone else around me wailed. That's when I suddenly heard this woman's voice. She said, “I just want to see him.” I remember it made me jump, because I didn't know whether she was talking about Henry lying there in the coffin, or me, his killer standing over him, crying onto his jacket. I know every eye on the funeral home was on me, and all I could do was just close my eyes and wish that I was someplace else. 

 

Now, miraculously, Henry's family did not want to press charges. They embraced me and offered their forgiveness. When the Brooklyn DA hit me with a long list of charges ranging from manslaughter to assault with a deadly weapon, I think it was 17 charges total, they were the ones who stood up and said, “They didn't want to destroy two young lives instead of one.” They're the reason that instead of going to jail, I got one year of counseling. That was my sentence. I remember thanking them profusely outside of the courthouse that day for giving me a second chance when I didn't think I deserved one. 

 

Now, in the years that followed, I thought it was odd that no one, none of my friends, none of my family ever said a single word about Henry. Everyone went about their lives as though he had never existed. The entire incident was wiped from my record when I was 16, so it hadn't even existed in a legal sense. If I never mentioned it again, it would never come up. But I thought about it, the shooting in Henry, almost every fucking day. And oddly enough, it's what drove me for a number of years. Ask any friend of mine in college, I was the most anal-retentive dude they ever met. 

 

I wouldn't touch alcohol. I wouldn't smoke a cigarette. Don't get me wrong, I made up for it, years later. [audience laughter] But I just felt like I had to do him proud and I had to be perfect. And for a long period of time, I thought I was doing it. Successful career, I was a faithful husband, and a doting father on my daughter, who I watched grow from an infant into a toddler. But then, her sickness at 18 months pretty much derailed all of it. When we got to the hospital, my daughter's body was convulsing. All of a sudden, all of these emotions and feelings I hadn't felt since I was 14 came rushing back, the feeling of panic, the feeling of helplessness. And that's when it dawned on me. Maybe this Is it. Maybe this is going to be my sentence that I'm going to have to see what it's like to lose a child. 

 

Miraculously, she did survive. And the doctor, the medical staff assured me that some children just have a really low tolerance for fever, and it's something that she would probably grow out of, almost certainly grow out of. But the damage was done. When we got back home, everything was just completely different. I was just terrified to be left alone with her. I felt like this marked man. And that the second it was just me and her, something was going to go wrong. It didn't help that after she got sick, I suddenly started having this recurring dream about Henry. It was always the same dream. 

 

In the dream, I'd be asleep. I'd wake up, sit up in my bed, and he'd be sitting there on the edge of my bed, staring at me with the bullet hole still in his chin, about the size of a nickel. I'd start talking to him, I'd say, “Hey, how are you doing?” And his blank face would just show no expression. After a while, I'd start getting desperate and pleading with him. I'd start asking him if he knew how sorry I was. I'd ask him if he knew that it was an accident. I'd ask him if he knew how much I missed him. Then finally, he would open his mouth and try to respond. But just like on that day, the bullet stopped him from speaking, and he just gasped for air. I break down into tears, and I wake up crying in bed. And this dream repeated itself for years. Henry always there, staring at me the same, and me just getting older and older. 14, 18, 20, 21, 25, 30, and starting to gray. It took me passing out on the L that day to realize it, but I knew that I needed help. 

 

Now, Henry is dead, and I killed him. No one can absolve you of your sins if you don't believe it in your heart, and I honestly don't believe there's any amount of good I can do in my life that'll absolve me of his death. But my trying to live a life for two people, one of whom I can never bring back, was just a recipe for a disaster that was going to doom me and everyone who cared about me. It took this chain of events that started with me passing out in public and ended with me having that first tentative conversation with my mother about the day to realize it. It was an interesting conversation, if uncomfortable. 

 

I found out that my mom, of course, had been dealing with a lot of the same feelings of guilt, but more illuminating, she'd been battling anxiety since the day it happened. I think we found some small amount of comfort in learning that little thing about each other. My marriage died, but I lived on. My daughter's 13 years old now and healthy. I have an eight-year-old son and he's healthy as an ox. I hope both of my kids grow up to be wonderful people, the types of people who bring so much joy to everyone around them that their absence would be a tragedy, because that's the type of person that Henry was. He died 24 years ago and it's still fresh. But I'm no longer miserable. 

 

In fact, I'm well on my way to becoming the happiest person I know. And I think that fact would have made him happy. He also doesn't visit me in my dreams anymore. I can finally admit that I'm comfortable with never seeing his face ever again in my dreams or otherwise. Because at the end of the day, what will an old man like me have to say to his 14-year-old friend that hasn't been set already. Thank you.