Jodi Picoult - Small Great Things

My name is Turk Bauer, I type. And I am going to tell you the story of my son.

After I hit the post button, I watch the story of my son’s short, brave life hover on the computer screen. I want to believe that if he had to die, it was for a cause. It was for our cause.

I do not drink that night, and I do not fall back asleep. Instead, I watch the numerical counter at the top of the header, which marks each page view.

1 reader.

6 readers.

37 readers.

409 readers.

By the time the sun comes up, more than thirteen thousand people know Davis’s name.

I make coffee, and scroll through the comments section as I drink my first cup.

I’m so sorry for your loss.

Your boy was a race warrior.

Goddamned blue gum shouldn’t have been allowed to work in a White hospital anyhow.

I’ve made a donation in your son’s name to the American Freedom Party.

But one of them stops me cold:

Romans 12:19, it read. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

–

THE THURSDAY AFTER Brit dodged my ax, I had dinner with her and her father. We were well into dessert before Brit looked up, as if she’d just remembered something she needed to tell us. “I hit a nigger with my car today,” she announced.

Francis reared back in his seat. “Well, what was he doing in front of your car?”

“I have no idea. Walking, I guess. But he dented the front fender.”

“I can take a look at it,” I said. “I’ve done some bodywork.”

A smile played around Brit’s mouth. “I bet you have.”

I turned thirty shades of red while Brit told her dad that she’d convinced me to take her to see a movie after dinner, some chick flick. Francis clapped me on the back. “Better you than me, son,” he said, and then we were in my car, about to make a night of it.

Brit was like a live wire, buzzing in the passenger seat. She couldn’t stop talking; she couldn’t stop asking questions: Where were we going? Who would we target? Had I been there before?

The way I figured it, either tonight went well and that earned me Brit’s undying respect, or tonight went poorly and her father broke my neck for putting her in danger.

I took her to an abandoned parking lot near a hot dog stand that was pretty popular with faggots, who sometimes met here to hook up in the bushes behind. (Seriously, though, could there be any greater cliché than gay guys meeting at a wiener stand? They deserved to be beaten up for that alone.) I had thought about messing up some coons, but they were basically animals and could be pretty strong in a fight, whereas even Brit could pound a pansy.

“Are the other guys meeting us here?” she asked.

“There are no other guys,” I admitted. “I used to have a crew, but after one of them turned on me, I realized I like working alone. That’s how the rumor started about the bikers. The only reason I took down a whole gang by myself is because I can’t trust anyone else.”

“I get it,” Brit said. “It sucks to be abandoned by the people who are supposed to support you.”

I glanced at her. “Somehow I think you’ve lived a pretty privileged life.”

“Yeah, except for the part where my mother up and left me behind when I was a baby, like I was just…trash.”

I knew Francis didn’t have a wife, but I didn’t know what had happened. “Man, that sucks. I’m sorry.”

To my surprise, Brit wasn’t upset. She was furious. “ I’m not.” Her eyes burned like coals in a fire. “Daddy said she ran off with a nigger.”

Just then, two men walked up to the hot dog stand to order. They got their dogs, and walked over to a half-broken picnic table.

“You ready?” I asked Brit.

“I was born ready.”

I hid my smile; was I ever that brave? We got out of my car and sauntered across the street, as if we were going to grab a bite, too. But instead, I stopped at the picnic table and smiled pleasantly. “Hey. Either of you limp wrists got a cigarette?”

They exchanged a glance. I love that glance. It’s the same one you see on an animal when it realizes it’s been cornered. “Let’s just go,” the blond one said to the short, skinny dude.

“See, that doesn’t work for me,” I said, stepping closer. “Because I’ll still know you’re out there.” I grabbed Blondie by the throat and punched his lights out.

He went down like a stone. I turned to watch Brit, who had jumped on the skinny guy’s back and was riding him like a nightmare. Her fingernails raked across his cheek, and as he stumbled to the ground she started kicking him in the kidneys, then straddled him, lifted his head, and smashed it back down on the pavement.

I had fought beside women before. There’s a common misconception that skinchicks are subservient, barefoot, and pregnant most of the time. But if you’re going to be a skinhead girl, you have to be a tough bitch. Brit might not have gotten her hands dirty before, but she was a natural.

When she was pounding on a slack, unconscious body, I hauled her upright. “Come on,” I urged, and together we ran to the car.

We drove to a hill that offered a great view of planes taking off and landing at Tweed airport. The runway lights winked at us as we sat on the hood of the car, Brit swimming in adrenaline. “God,” she yelled, tipping her throat to the night sky. “That was unfuckingbelievable. It felt like…like…”

She couldn’t find the word, but I could. I knew what it was like to have so much bottled up inside that you had to explode. I knew what it was like to cause pain, for a few seconds, instead of feeling it. The source of Brit’s restlessness might be different from mine, but she had been reined in all the same, and she’d just found the breach in the fence. “It feels like freedom,” I said.

“Yes,” she breathed, staring at me. “Do you ever feel like you don’t belong in your own skin? Like you were meant to be someone else?”

All the time, I thought. But instead of saying that, I leaned over and kissed her.

She spun so that she was sitting on me, facing me. She kissed me harder, biting my lip, devouring. Her hands were under the tail of my shirt, fumbling with the buttons of my jeans. “Hey,” I said, trying to grab her wrists. “There’s no rush.”

“Yes there is,” she whispered into my neck.

She was on fire, and if you get too close to a fire, you go up in flames, too. So I let her slip beneath my zipper, I helped her hike up her skirt and rip off her panties. Brit lowered herself onto me, and I moved inside her like the start of something.

–

ON THE MORNING of the arraignment, I get dressed while Brit is still sleeping in the pajamas she’s worn for the past four days. I eat a bowl of cereal and I prepare myself for war.

At the courthouse are about twenty friends I didn’t know I had.

They are loyal followers of LONEWOLF, frequent posters on my site, men and women who read about Davis and wanted to do more than just type their sympathy. Like me, they don’t look the way most people would expect a skinhead to look. No one is bald, except me. They’re all wearing ordinary clothing. Some have tiny sun-wheel pins on their collars. Many wear a baby-blue ribbon for Davis. Some pat my shoulder or call me by name. Others just nod, the tiniest inclination of their heads, to let me know they are here for me as I pass down the aisle.

Just then a nigger comes up to me. I nearly shove her away when she starts talking-a knee-jerk reaction-and then I realize I know her voice, and that she’s the prosecutor.