“Not anymore.”
Our eyes locked and I could feel the warmth spreading throughout my veins. My eyes dropped to his bobbing Adam’s apple and my mouth watered.
He moved closer, bringing our faces within an inch of one another’s. “Tenga cuidado, sweetheart.” A warning.
If I was a lighter color, I’m sure I would’ve been blushing. I always found it endearing when Joshua spoke his mixture of Spanish and English or “Spanglish” as it was more commonly referred to.
“I’m always careful, Mr. Townsend,” I retorted.
“There’s my girl.”
I lifted my brows, wondering what that was supposed to mean, but was interrupted by the loud conversation taking place by my coworkers.
“What do you think, Reyes?”
Reluctantly, I broke away from Joshua’s gaze to glance across the table. I placed a comforting hand on Joshua’s thigh upon hearing his grunt of disapproval. He hadn’t liked our interruption either.
“Think about what, Dr. Carlson?” I asked, leaning in.
“This whole police brutality mess. That incident that was caught on film last week in Williamsport Park.”
My body stiffened. I hadn’t been expecting that and I’d gone out of my way a number of times over the previous few days to avoid conversations on the topic. The prior week a group of teenage boys had been hanging out in Williamsport Park and an altercation of a uniformed officer striking one of the young boys, who was Latino, in the face had been captured. The video made me physically sick to watch so I avoided it at all costs.
“Uh, well—”
“I mean, you know how these young kids are today. Punks, always talking back to the police, disrespecting authority figures. I think that’s the real epidemic.”
“Seriously?” I asked, angling my head to stare at my colleague. Dr. Carlson was a man of color, who’d grown up in a not so great area of Williamsport himself. I, for one, would’ve thought this made him a little more sympathetic to the plight of those young boys, but apparently not.
“Absolutely. I’m sure if they would’ve just given the officer their names and told him what they were doing in the park, the issue wouldn’t have risen to the level that it did.”
I was speechless. I wanted to respond but couldn’t string together the words I wanted to say. My brain became fraught with indignation. My heart rate began skyrocketing. I opened my mouth to speak but I knew nothing coherent would come out, so I clammed up.
“And why did the officer specifically ask those teenagers what they were doing in the park?”
I turned to Joshua, who was sitting up, leaning into the table, his eyes intent on Dr. Carlson.
“They weren’t the only teens in the park that day. It was the middle of the day on a summer afternoon. There were teens, nannies, young children, and more in the park, but that officer chose to stop the group of teens that were mostly non-white. From my understanding there weren’t any reports of them doing anything out of the ordinary.”
“Please, you know how loud groups of teenagers can be.”
“Right,anygroup of teens.”
“Well, we don’t know all of the facts. The video was less than a minute and does not give a full picture of what happened before or after recording started. I just think we need to give officers more credit …”
Dr. Carlson continued, Joshua and a few other colleagues interjecting with their comments, but I couldn’t listen any longer. I’d heard so many attitudes regarding the same issue over the last few years. At first, I found it surprising how many people, of all races, were quick to defend the police, but then it just became borderline sickening. I recognized that my own personal experience clouded my judgement. It was hard maintaining the same level of respect for police officers after what happened to me. Unfortunately, my mind began to flashback to that horrible night two years ago. It’d started with me being in a place much like the bar I was in at that moment.
My head began to spin and even taking a long sip of my seltzer water didn’t help the spinning or the way it began to feel like the walls were closing in on me.
“I just want to know what happened to the police being the good guys.” I heard in the midst of my near panic attack. That was the final straw.
I stood up on shaky legs, and looking at no one in particular, I said, “I-I need to go to the restroom. I’ll be back.”
“Kay,” Josh’s voice rang out but I didn’t answer. I didn’t want anyone, especially him, to see me in this vulnerable state. I didn’t even want to see myself like this. That was evident when I arrived in the bathroom, locking the door, and wrapped my fingers around the porcelain sink, lowering my head to avoid looking at myself in the mirror. I sealed my eyes shut and began counting backwards from one hundred.
Thankfully, that did the trick. Once I got to the mid-eighties, my breathing began to stabilize. I felt my body temperature returning to normal, but I continued to avoid looking in the mirror. Grabbing a few paper towels, I patted off the sweat around my forehead and neck. I took another minute to gather myself and fluff my hair a little. I peeked up into the mirror and for a second I caught a glimpse of the girl I used to be. The girl I’d been before leaving Williamsport.
Taking a step back from the mirror, I tossed the wadded up paper towels in the trash. I didn’t need to think about that girl I’d left behind. She was young, foolish, and naïve. I grabbed for the door, swinging it open, and jumped when Joshua’s tall figure stood inches from me, eyeing me with concern.
