Chapter 5 Charged

I lied to my parents about having to do group work. I come straight home without stopping at the store today. When my parents arrive after closing, they’re both in a crappy mood. There is no “hi honey, how was your day at school?” the way I imagine white parents would ask.

“There is $608 worth of charges on your cell phone account,” my mom informs me.

I feel like I’ve been hit by truck. It didn’t occur to me that whoever found my phone could be running up charges.

“When you didn’t respond to our calls again today, we knew you must have lost your phone, so I called the phone company to suspend your plan,” explains my mom.

So much for the lie I was going to tell.

“Emerson, you didn’t rack up all these charges, did you?” I shake my head, still in shock. $608. “Whoever has your phone must have used it to call long distance — somewhere quite far away,” my mother says.

I sink into a chair. I mumble, “It’s probably data. There’s only 200 megs on the plan. You burn that much just by turning the phone on.”

The lecture begins.

I can feel my stomach travel up in my chest. The volume of their voices hasn’t started to rise yet — they’re just warming up. What gets me is that they repeat the same things over and over again. I think I’m tuning them out, but somehow I hear every single word. Stupid — sacrifices — foolishness — irresponsible — when they were young — and so on — and so on.

There’s a knock on the front door. We never get unexpected visitors. I’m grateful for the distraction, even though it’s only likely to last for a minute or two. It can only be someone looking for donations or someone wanting to talk about buying a plan for natural gas or something like that. I get up to answer the door, because it’s also my job to chase these people away. My parents only donate money to charity once a year — $20, around Chinese New Year, to orphans in mainland China.

When I get up, though, I see through the window that a police car is parked in the driveway. There is no sound from the sirens, but the lights are flashing. I open the door to two uniformed officers. The tall one on the left says, “We’re looking for Emerson Yeung.”

I tell the cops that I’m Emerson, and my mom comes and stands behind me. She asks me in Chinese why they’re here.

The shorter of the two officers is a white woman with her hair tucked neatly under her cap. She introduces herself as Constable Fisher, and her partner as Constable Williams. She asks if they can come in. I open the door fully and lead them to the kitchen. They sit themselves down at the table. Neither of them take off their shoes. My parents don’t ask them to, either. I guess the police have special status with my parents. I’ve never seen them let someone in the house with their shoes on. I’m thinking the cops are probably not allowed to take their shoes off, but my parents wouldn’t know that. The police officers do remove their caps.

“We’re here because of the recent posts on your Facebook page, Emerson,” says Constable Williams. He’s tall, black and looks like he’s in his late 20s. His uniform shirt is short-sleeved and his biceps are huge.

Was it something someone else had posted to my wall? Was one of my friends in trouble and they were here to get me to confirm something? I hate being put on the spot. I like to prepare responses ahead of time.

“I haven’t been on Facebook in a couple days. I lost my phone yesterday, so I haven’t even seen any alerts in over twenty-four hours,” I say.

“You lost your phone yesterday?” Constable Fisher asks.

“But you can still access Facebook from any computer,” Constable Williams adds.

“Sure, I know that, but I only ever go on from my phone.”

“What is this about? Did my son do something wrong?” my mother interjects with a calm and even tone. I know she is getting anxious about what the problem might be. She’s also worrying about how my dad is getting angrier in the corner of the room, frustrated at not being able to join the conversation.

“Was your phone lost or stolen?” Constable Fisher asks.

“I don’t know. I guess it could have been stolen,” I reply.

“Did you report it?”

“No, I thought I’d just lost it. I was kind of hoping I’d find it today.”

“What is this about?” my mother asks again, her Chinese accent even stronger than usual.

Constable Fisher pulls out some sheets of paper from a file folder. She spins the first one so it’s right-side up from where I’m sitting. It’s a screenshot of a photo. It shows a gun pointed at Mr. Selvadurai’s face. He’s my vice principal. Under the picture is the caption, “quit or die u Muslim terrorist.”

The next image Constable Fisher shows me is of another gun pointed at a photograph of Ms. McAdam, one of teachers at my school. It’s been taken from last year’s yearbook. This one has the caption, “Go to hell with the sand monkeys!” Ms. McAdam spends a lot of time helping students after school, especially students who are new to Canada. In the last couple of years, we’ve had lots of kids start at MCI who have literally just arrived in the country.

Both posts appear to have been put up by me.

“Are you aware, Emerson, that these constitute actual threats?” Constable Williams asks.

I feel my heart drop into my stomach. “I didn’t do this.” My voice is quieter than I intended. I feel so stupid. I leave myself logged into my account all the time. Anyone who had a hold of my phone could post anything and people would think it was me.

“This is your Facebook account,” Constable Williams says. It’s not a question. It’s obvious that it’s my account. My face is very clearly in the profile-picture spot. “Have you been having any troubles at school?”

“No.” I shake my head.

“You’ll be much better off telling us the truth, Emerson, and not hiding anything,” Constable Fisher says.

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say. I’ve only ever been to Mr. Selvadurai’s office once — for skipping class. He gave me a warning and let me go. If anything, I was grateful to him for not telling my parents.

“You do know both of these folks?” Constable Williams asks, pointing to the two pages.

“Mr. S is my VP and Ms. McAdam teaches English.”

“And how are you doing in English this year?”

I hesitate for a second. “Okay.” There’s a big assignment due next week that I haven’t started yet.

“Are you having any issues with your teacher?”

I shake my head.

“What about the other students in your school?”

“I get along fine with everybody.” This was true.

“Do you have any issues with Middle Eastern kids?”

“No.” I’ve heard some other students complain that the newcomers were getting a lot of attention from the teachers, and that they were getting special treatment. It’s never bothered me, though. “I don’t have a problem with anyone.” Except maybe my parents, but that’s another story.

Mom asks me in Chinese, “What is going on?”

I thought it was pretty obvious. I explain as briefly as I can.

Constable Fisher turns to my mom and asks her, “Are you aware of any trouble Emerson is having at school?”

“No.” Mom is emphatic. “He is a very good student.”

Dad says to me in Chinese, “What do they want?” I try to explain again but he cuts me off. “What idiotic thing have you done that makes the police come here?”

“I didn’t do anything,” I try to tell him.

Mom turns to Dad and says, “Be still.” This means, please, that is not helpful right now.

He replies, “Tell them that this is ridiculous.”

Constable Williams turns to Dad and asks, “Has Emerson ever engaged in violent behaviour?”

Dad looks blankly at him and turns to me. Mom quickly answers, “No. Never.”

“And what about Emerson’s friends? Do his associations concern you at all?”

I start with a translation. She talks over me, looking right into the officer’s eyes. “Emerson has only good friends. He is a good boy.” The last time Mom or Dad met any of my friends was back in middle school. I guess those are the ones she’s referring to. I haven’t seen them in years.

Constable Williams asks, “Do you mind if we look around the house?”

I feel insulted by this. I ask, “Don’t you need a search warrant for that?”

“Not if your parents give us permission.”

I turn to Mom and tell her in Chinese that she doesn’t have to let them. She smacks me on the shoulder, and Dad tells me to be still.

They look around our entire house, spending extra time in my room going through all my drawers and my backpack. They ask me if they could take my laptop with them to have a forensics specialist examine it. Before I can answer, Mom tells them, “Yes, if it will help.”

“But I need that for school. When will I get it back?”

“Can’t promise. Likely in a week? As long as it doesn’t become evidence,” Constable Fisher answers. I’m biting my lip now. I want to argue with them but it would only set my parents off.

I guess the police could see I was pissed. “It’s to your benefit to cooperate, Emerson. This is a very serious matter. These threats are a criminal offense.” Constable Williams stares into my eyes.

As they finally leave, I feel the knot in my stomach get tighter. Having the police accuse me of a crime was bad. But the truth is I’m more afraid of my father.