NOW I AM being pushed toward the front of the car. “Don’t move! Don’t even breathe,” I am told. Don’t breathe? How do you not breathe? Will the police shoot me because I don’t know how to stop breathing? I don’t even know why I’m thinking this. But then I’m thinking about Darren. Where is Darren?
I look around for him and see instead a female officer approaching me with her gun out. It is aimed at me. A gun is aimed at my head! And now I can’t breathe!
And there’s Darren. He’s on the ground. On the sidewalk! At least three policemen are on top of him, his burgundy blazer barely visible. The policemen who are not holding him down have their guns drawn. Aimed at Darren.
They are all bellowing different things. “Stop resisting! Don’t move!”
Darren couldn’t possibly move even one finger. They have him pinned down. I think he’s handcuffed! Handcuffed?
He’s answering; his voice is muffled. “I did not do anything, sir.”
“Where were you ten minutes ago?”
“At Graeter’s. Buying ice cream,” comes his muffled reply.
“When did you go into the bank?”
“Bank? What bank?”
“You were seen running from the Key Bank!”
“And leaving in a red car!”
“Please let me stand up,” Darren says. I can hear tears in his voice. “Please. Sir.”
“Where is the money?”
“What?”
I feel like my ears are hearing another language or something. And some lady is still pointing her gun at me! I want to say he just bought me an ice cream—but they told me not to breathe and that means no talking and why is she pointing that gun and I want her to put it down and Darren is standing again and he’s bleeding . . . Darren is bleeding, and his arms are pulled behind his back because he actually is in handcuffs. He is crying.
I finally hear something I understand.
“I have a receipt for the ice cream,” Darren says slowly. “Look in my jacket pocket.” If Darren is allowed to talk, then maybe I can breathe. So I do.
An officer approaches him like he’s a serial killer or something and slowly reaches into the pocket of Darren’s sport coat, which is now ripped at one shoulder.
Burgundy is the color of blood pops into my head.
The policeman pulls out a wrinkled slip of paper. He shakes it in Darren’s face.
“This doesn’t prove you didn’t rob that bank!” the officer yells.
“Rob a bank?” Darren says, gaping. “I never even went into the bank!”
“Your car was seen leaving the scene!”
“It . . . it was the only parking space available near the ice-cream store!” Darren replies. He’s suddenly starting to sound angry, even though I know he’s trying to stay calm.
The woman with the gun still has it aimed at me. Darren notices. “That’s my little sister. I was taking her to a piano recital! She’s eleven! Are you nuts?”
No one answers, but the officer lowers her gun. She does not, however, put it in her holster.
“We saw a man running,” I whisper, my voice so shaky I don’t recognize it as my own.
“What man?” the lady officer demands. She raises her gun a little tick.
“He had on a dark-colored shirt. He ran behind that restaurant,” I tell them. I can only move my head. I’m too scared to lift my arm to point.
“I saw him too!” Darren exclaims. “He bumped into me, made me drop my ice cream.”
“What did he look like?” another officer asks.
“Reddish-blond hair. Skinny. Pimply face. Brown T-shirt.”
The policemen take notes. They talk to one another. They talk into their shoulders, where their walkie-talkies are located. One of them jogs back to the bank.
Time has stopped.
I stand there, needing to scratch my nose. I am afraid to move. The itch intensifies.
They let us stand there. Darren, surrounded by men in blue who speak around him but not to him. No one says a word to me. We wait. And wait. I want my mom. I want my dad.
The guns are still in the policemen’s hands. Real guns. Black and shiny and terrifyingly close.
The officer who headed to the bank now jogs back. “The bank employees say the robber was a thin white man. Another witness said he thought the man got into a red car.”
“Well, I’m not a skinny white man,” Darren says slowly, reasonably. “I’m as brown as that ice cream he made me drop. You can see it, on the ground, over there.” He nods in the direction we came from. “And we simply parked in front of the bank because there were no other spaces,” he explains again. “My license and registration are in the glove compartment.”
Another officer saunters over. “The bank confirms the robber did not look like this suspect,” he says.
So why did they do this to us? Why? I’m screaming in my head.
And finally, after what seems like fifty hours, they remove Darren’s handcuffs. He rubs his wrists. They must really hurt. Then they tell him not to move. He stops rubbing.
At least the situation seems to be calming down. People in the crowd are losing interest and walking away. Will they let us go now? Then a thought flashes through my brain. The concert! Oh no! The concert! I’m going to be late! Mom and Dad are gonna be so worried that I’m not there yet! I’ve got to call them! So I reach into my pocket for my phone.
The lady officer yells, “Gun! Gun!”
Every point of light I’ve ever known explodes at that moment.
Honey-gold sun.
Turquoise sky.
Flaming-red pain.
I collapse to the ground. The last things I remember hearing are Darren’s hoarse scream and a male voice shouting, “Shots fired! Shots fired! Send emergency medical crews ASAP.”