25 Hour Watch

It was an ordinary Saturday morning for 10 yr. old Tony Cordova- a day full of endless potential, matched only by the exuberance and impatience of the young boy waiting for it to begin. Dad was still sleeping in the motel bedroom so Tony tried to be as quiet as possible while he got himself some Captain Crunch and turned on the cartoons. The room was dark except for the glow of “The Banana Splits” on the TV.  It was getting close to 10:00 and Tony was getting anxious…he really wanted to go swimming.

Then he heard it.

Something was happening in the parking lot.  It wasn’t the best area in town so this wasn’t anything unusual, but there was something different this time.  Curiosity got the best of him as he went to the window and barely raised a blind…just enough to peep outside and see what was up.

Voices were getting louder now – it was a man and a woman at the far end of the lot, yelling at each other and causing a scene. The man grabbed her and started shaking her, then threw a punch at her. Tony’s big, brown eyes were wide open, almost bulging out of his sockets, as he continued watching, barely breathing, cereal turning to mush. She had been knocked to the ground now and was screaming. She pulled a gun out of her purse and with every ounce of might in her, she shot him,once and then again, right in the gut.  Tony’s jaw dropped in silence…was this really happening?  It was quiet now, the woman looking around, surveying the scene.  She spotted a garbage can on the sidewalk and quickly went to it, placed the gun inside and went back to the fallen man.  She started crying and screaming again, “SOMEBODY SHOT MY BABY!!!…SOMEBODY SHOT MY BABY!!!” as the man  crawled away slowly, almost slithering.

The boy’s heart was racing so fast, he felt it pounding in his throat as he tried to swallow.  He made his way to where his father still slept, woke him up and told him what he had just seen.  “What?!” his father said groggily as he made his way to the window himself, to verify  the story spewing from Tony’s mouth.  People were beginning to gather outside now, like ants flocking to a melting, red popsicle dropped on the sidewalk, getting sticky with the heat.  He quickly closed the opening in the blinds and looked his son squarely in the eyes.  “You didn’t see anything. Do you understand? You didn’t see anything.”

Tony and his dad went outside, closed the door to their room behind them and made themselves comfortable on the stoop, alongside all the other residents.  One came and sat with his dad – they chatted casually as the sirens got closer.

“Did you see anything?” the neighbor asked.

“Nope, we didn’t. I slept through the whole thing,” said his dad.

Tony felt as if he was going to burst. Completely out of control of his own being now, he leaned toward the man and whispered slowly, ”I SAW EVERYTHING!”  to which his father quickly responded, “My boy didn’t see ANYTHING!”

The cops and ambulance had arrived, taking control of the chaos, making their rounds, questioning the sidewalk-sitters, getting no witnesses whatsoever. No one saw because no one wanted their own secrets behind all those closed doors exposed…much better to let the cops figure it out on their own.  The boy watched quietly as the police searched for a weapon, whispering to himself, “it’s in the garbage…it’s in the garbage can…you’re so close…”

In the midst of all this, the motel owner’s son, Ravi, who was about Tony’s age, came running up to him.

“Do you want to see the room?!”

Tony looked at his dad with excited, hopeful puppy dog eyes and was told,  ”Go ahead,” as he was shooed onward, a slight smile on his dad’s face.  The boys ran unabashedly to the room.

The door had been left wide open.  Two steps up, through the door,  a stripe-like trail of blood  led to the unmade bed where it soaked in puddles on the sheets, then over the bed into the bathroom.  the room was very unkempt.  The body had been removed, but nothing had been taped off by authorities yet so the boys waltzed through the room without concern for contaminating the crime scene.  They stared in disbelief at the massive amount of blood on the bed, where the man had obviously dragged himself, before he died.  Suddenly an officer appeared in the room.

“You boys are gonna have to get outta here now!”

Tony returned to his room, where his dad helped him clean the blood off his shoes.  His earlier thoughts of going for a swim now seemed like a distant memory, even though he probably would still go later that afternoon, when everything calmed down.

Tony never said a word…but he never  forgot.