Come As You Are Read online

I found it ironic that after a heated argument with my brother about how he had felt abandoned when I moved out ended with him running off as the police caught us vandalizing the very bridge he had drunkenly fallen off of only days before.

  As I sat in the back of a police car, I wondered how far he would make it before being caught, or if he would even be caught at all. On one hand, he knew the town pretty well, but on the other, so did the police.

  Would he flee again? Would we be able to find him this time?

  “Officers, I can explain,” I pleaded from the backseat, through the metal cage-like separation that kept me, the dangerous criminal, away from the cops. “This is all a big misunderstanding.”

  I saw one of my arresting officers smirking in the mirror as the other began to speak. “Let me guess,” he stated matter-of-factly. “You wanted to show how loyal of a fan you were to Kurt Cobain, so you came all the way out to his old stomping ground in order to leave your own mark on ‘his’  bridge? You’re not from around here, are you kid?”

  The other turned around in his seat to face me, still wearing the smirk I had seen before. “Please tell me you didn’t think that was an original idea.”

  “I know that’s what it looked like,” I began, panic audible in my voice. “But, I swear there’s more to the story than that.”

  The one who was driving scoffed at my attempt at an explanation. He seemed like the kind of guy who was more interested in giving me trouble than enforcing the law. Truth be told, he probably didn’t care at all about the vandalism done to the bridge, but he probably got a lot of joy out of arresting the people who did the crime.

  “Look, we’ve heard every story there is to tell. Hodge and I have been patrolling that area for over a year and we pick up kids tagging that bridge at least three times a week,” he said with a laugh. “You’re a little older than most of the teenagers we nab, but a vandal is a vandal.”

  I sat back in my seat, knowing explaining my situation wouldn’t help me. The police were right; a vandal was a vandal, and a vandal was me. The reasons behind mine and August’s spray paint catastrophe were irrelevant. All that mattered was that we had been caught, or at least I had. And because August was still a minor, I knew that if he were to be caught, his punishment would be less extreme than my own. I had no idea what the Washington laws were against petty vandalism, but the fact I was over eighteen couldn’t possibly help my case.

  “What about my brother?” I asked.

  The police car came to a stop light, and the one who had been referred to as Hodge looked at me. “Who? What are you talking about?” His voice was genuinely confused, and he narrowed his eyes at me in anger.

  The thought instantly crossed my mind that maybe they hadn’t seen August under the bridge with me. It had been dark, and he had ran off before I could even tell which direction he’d gone in. Maybe, if we were lucky, he would make it back to the motel and not find himself under arrest this night. The last thing Mom needed was for both her sons to be in police custody at the same time.

  I didn’t answer his question.

  “Look, if there’s another one of you out there, tagging or even carrying the spray paint around, we’ll find him and bring him in,” the driver said. “We take vandalism very seriously here in Aberdeen, as I’m sure you understand.”

  We rode the rest of the way to the police station in silence-- a trip that took less than five minutes, as it was located just down the street from the bridge-- me focusing on the passing houses and businesses outside the window. Every pedestrian we passed I feared was August and found myself closing my eyes in apprehension as the police eyed them suspiciously. They were on the lookout as much as I was. In all, we only passed three people walking on the deserted streets, but each one I knew was August, though none of them actually was.

  A few minutes later, we pulled into the police station, parked under a large awning, and Officer Hodge escorted me from the car, into the building. I hadn’t been handcuffed, as both of them knew I was about as dangerous as any of the other graffiti-prone vandals they often brought in.

  The interior of the police station was mostly deserted, aside from a receptionist who sat at a desk. She looked half-asleep as she skimmed the novel in front of her, the Other by Tom Tryon. Noticing we had entered the room, she quickly sat it on the desk in front of her and nodded to the officers. To me, she looked exactly like anyone named Doreen should, slightly overweight and wearing thick-rimmed glasses.

  “Hello, Doreen,” the officer who was not Hodge said to her as we walked past.

  “Good evening, Officer Troy.”

  Officer Troy and I walked towards the back of the building, into what I could only assume was the town’s representation of an interrogation room. Office Hodge did not join us though, but instead pulled out a set of keys and entered an office across the hall.

  “Am I under arrest?” I asked curiously. This had all seemed very informal. I couldn’t even remember fully if they had read me my Miranda Rights before asking me to get into the police cruiser. And then it dawned on me that they hadn’t even forced me into the car; they’d asked me to get into the back seat, and I had complied.

  Officer Troy smirked and shrugged his shoulders. “That really just depends, kid. Vandalism is Washington State can bring you to about three hundred dollars in fines, along with a suspended driver’s license and community service time. Tell us what was going on down there. What was going through your mind? Why’d you do it?”

  I looked around the room, noticing just how plainly decorated it was. There was nothing on the walls and only one light hung from the ceiling, casting a fluorescent glow throughout the small space. Officer Troy was seated at a desk while I occupied a chair across from him. I found it odd my chair was closer to the door than he was.

  I thought about my story momentarily and decided to tell as much of the truth as possible without giving away that August had actually been with me under the bridge. He’d had his own run-in with the police recently, and I didn’t want that fact to aid in the decision of whether or not to press charges against either of us.

  “I did it for my brother,” I stated carefully. “He’s always been a Kurt Cobain fan, and I thought it would be a fitting tribute to my little brother’s philosophy of life.”

  Officer Troy nodded, writing down a note on a pad of paper from the desk. I couldn’t read his face, but he still seemed cold and unsympathetic. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  I hesitated for just a moment, but decided it was useless trying to hide this information from him. “Connor Sennett,” I said, almost ashamed.

  Troy’s eyebrow raised momentarily, and he stood from the desk, walking towards the door. “Excuse me a moment,” he said. I was confused, as his voice sounded almost pleasant. “Wait here for me.” He then walked through the door and into Hodge’s office across the hall. I couldn’t make out what either of them were saying, but the two of them soon began sifting through paperwork on Hodge’s desk, taking a second every now and then to glance up at me. After finding the paper they had been looking for, both officer’s entered the room I was in.

  “You’re brother, August Sennett’s his name?” Hodge asked, holding up what I could only guess to be the police report that had been filed after August’s accident.

  I answered with a simple and weary “yes.”

  Hodge’s and Troy’s eyes met each other, and Hodge nodded, setting the paperwork onto the desk and patting me on the shoulder. “Who did you come to Aberdeen with, Mr. Sennett?” His words we calm, nice, and maybe even a little bit caring. I was more than a little baffled.

  “My mother,” I stated. “I came with my mother. We needed to pick up my brother and—“

  “I know, I know,” Officer Hodge said very placidly. “Look, I’m going to get a phone for you, and I want you to call your mom to come pick you up. I’m sure she’s worried about you, and I know you’ll need to be heading back to California first thing in the morning.”
/>   I had no idea what was going on. Minutes before, Officer Troy had been threatening me with fines, community service, and a suspended driver’s license. Now, it was as if I’d done nothing wrong. I was being asked to call a ride and leave with a clean record.

  Against my better judgment, I asked a question: “What’s this all about?”

  Hodge took the liberty of answering. “Look, vandalism is a problem in this town, but the two of us figure that you’ve been through enough and that you’re probably eager to get home. We can make an exception just this one time, considering the circumstances.”

  Moments later, a cordless phone was in my hand, and I found myself nervously calling my mother’s cell phone. I knew she would be outraged at my arrest –or whatever it was- but I knew she would be angrier that I had essentially lost August. That was, if he hadn’t already returned to the motel. I wanted to believe he would, but at the same time, a part of me dreaded the idea he would take the opportunity to run off yet again. And then what?

  When she answered the phone, sounding as hollow and tired as ever, I briefly explained that I had been picked up by the police and that she needed to come get me. While I spoke very cautiously with her, I decided it best to leave out any mention of August, but also made sure to tell her there would be no charges pressed against me. Surprisingly, she calmly told me she was on her way and hung up the phone without any questions or protest.

  She arrived less than thirty minutes later, though it felt like hours, as I waited in a chair across from the receptionist’s desk, watching Doreen read her novel. Mom was dressed in the same clothes she had been wearing earlier, though I half expected her to be in her pajamas. As she walked into the building, I could see the hearse parked in the lot behind her.

  “Mom…” I began, but she only shook her head, tears forming in her eyes again. “I’m sorry.”

  She looked over my shoulder towards Doreen and asked in a shaky voice, “Is he free to go?”

  Doreen simply nodded, looking to my mother sympathetically.

  Officers Hodge and Troy stopped us as they made their way into the room from their offices. “Mrs. Sennett!” Troy called to my mother as we stopped just outside the front doors. Mom turned to face the policemen, taking my hand in her own, a gesture I definitely had not been expecting.

  “Ma’am,” Hodge began. “I just wanted to tell you personally how sorry I am for your loss.”

  Though I was tired and more than ready to be back at the motel to sleep for however little time we had before we were to hit the road again, the words hit me hard, and I realized I had no idea what Officer Hodge was talking about. What had my mother lost?

  Mom’s hand tightened around mine as she nodded to the cop and choked out an emotional, “Thank you, officer,” through her ever-growing sobs.

  As confused as I was, the thought dawned on me that we still needed to find August. He was not in the hearse, waiting for us like I had expected, which meant he likely had not made it back to the motel. This fact made me even more concerned he could have taken the opportunity to hide from us so as to not be forced to return to Anderson in the morning. Chances were likely that we now had a missing teenager on our hands… again.

  As the two of us walked towards the hearse, Mom turned to me, tears still streaming down her face. I could tell that she was nearing (or had already reached) a breaking point. I didn’t know how much more she could take. “Tell me why,” she said blatantly, shaking her head.

  “Mom, I’ll explain everything to you later, but right now we have to find August,” I protested, putting my hands on her shoulders, trying to comfort her in what minimal way I could. I knew she wanted answers, but the fact that August was missing again had to take precedence over my own lapse in judgment, at least for the time being.

  “What?” she asked, seemingly out of breath. Her face showed what I could only comprehend as a horrified mix of confusion and disgust with me.

  “August; he was with me under the bridge, but he took off when the police showed up. We really need to find him! What if he tries to run away again?” I pleaded with her, begging for her to understand me, though her eyes narrowed and she began to cry more.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” she cried, taking a step back, out of my reach.

  “Please, listen to me,” I begged. “I thought I could talk to him and convince him to try to fix things with you. Neither of you have spoken to each other since we got here, and that’s not okay! The two of you need to talk this out, whatever caused the fight between you!”

  The world slowed to a stop around us as my mother’s face filled with horror. She covered her mouth with her hand and let out a small, animalistic sob that had to have been heard inside the police station. She pulled her hand away long enough to speak, but her face was still covered in disbelief.

  “Connor, August is dead.”

  Chapter 8