I can’t make you love me, of course. But I’m not having any successful rivals, let that be quite clear. And by God I mean it, if there’s anybody else I’ll kill him. Oh, you are so marvelous!—captain vasily solony
A little after five, FOX 13 reported the fight on their website, and then KUTV and KSL picked it up for the news at five-thirty. By six, “the violence at BYU” was all over the bloggernacle[1]: the Feminist Mormon Housewives debated whether it was a sign that women should not have children, the staff at the Juvenile Instructor decided that Brigham Young would have sanctioned the fight, JettBoy of the Straight and Narrow Blog declared the violence to be planted by Jewish Democrats to influence public opinion about the Mormons, the Original MoHomie diagnosed the incident as an explosion of the repressed homosexual tension at BYU, and someone on By Common Consent posted a recipe for Cougar Peace Pie, which used home-canned peaches and home-ground wheat.
I sat at my computer and watched the news stories stream for hours and hours until I had them memorized. “A tragic and perplexing prearranged confrontation turns violent and lands two BYU students in the hospital tonight,” Nadine Wimmer mentioned between a story about corruption in the
My phone rang many times: the screen displayed first Jared, then Janice, then Jared again, then a 422-number[2], over and over. I ignored it.
Near the end of FOX News at Nine, the television tabloid aired a featurette:
“Here at the most stone-cold sober university in the country, where drinking coffee and watching pornography can be grounds for expulsion,” Katy Carlyle intoned, shaking her red tresses from the A-lot next to Brick Oven, “violence exploded on a sunny Thursday. Blood is on the ground tonight as authorities try to unravel this baffling mystery: why would six privileged, religious young men—four of them returned LDS missionaries—suddenly begin a brawl that sent two of those young men to
She walked along in the dark, backlit by the sweeping arc of the Indoor Practice Facility. “When six BYU students met here near the athletic buildings around two this afternoon, they started to argue. This argument quickly turned nasty.” She crouched down to lead the camera to a bloodstain on the curb, “Here two of the young men—Cole Bruce Douglas and Trevan K Hawes—slammed another student—Christian James Miles Jr.—into the ground so hard that his scalp split.”
A little bit of vomit rushed into my mouth. I swallowed it again.
Katy Carlyle pointed to something just off screen which the camera operator was too lazy to capture, “This nearby bench was actually bent when Christian James Miles Jr. pushed another student into it. The altercation could only be forcibly broken up by
Video clips of happy, crew-cut Cougar fans cheering in the stadium and freshmen in Sunday dress hurrying to a devotional flitted by with her asinine narration. She wondered whether Chris was a wolf who’d wandered into this bubble of innocence in sheep’s clothing.
Next she interviewed a licensed social worker from
Katy Carlyle then quoted part of the official statement from the Academic Vice President’s office. The AVP knew nothing, but he was sure that if Christian James Miles Jr., a part-time student on academic probation, did have a psychotic break, then the other students had a right to defend the safety of others and of themselves.
“Like every squeaky clean thing that appears too good to be true, BYU has a dark side,” Katy Carlyle concluded. “Hate crime or not, Christian James Miles Jr. and Cole Bruce Douglas have severe injuries, and all six students face possible charges of assault. This quiet bastion of conformity is not so quiet . . . anymore.” I screamed at my computer. Graça ran to the bedroom to see whether I was all right.
Hands shaking, I managed to find Derek in my cell’s phonebook and press call.
He picked it up before the CallerTunes even began, “Bekah?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” I took a deep breath and exhaled through my nostrils. “You! You knew what was going on, didn’t you? I mean, why else would you . . . oh, you are . . . you are just spineless!” I burst out of my bedroom door for emphasis, not that Derek could see me.
“Bekah,” Derek soothed, “Chris asked us to take you somewhere this afternoon so you wouldn’t see anything or get hurt.”
Tears burned down my face like lava streams. “Well, you should have said no! I could have been there and—and I don’t know, kept things from getting violent! I’m not even sure if he’s okay! FOX News said he was practically dead!”
“He’s fine; he’s at the hospital.”
“Alone!”
“Of course not. Marianne’s with him.”
“But . . .”
Derek sighed. “Look, Bekah—this isn’t really your problem.”
“But Cole and I—”
“Trevor started it. They were all fighting over Marianne, Bekah, not you.”
I took a shaky breath between sobs. “But—”
“Do some homework, Bekah. Get some rest; you’ve been looking tired lately.”
“Go to hell,” I told him, snapping my cellphone shut. I instantly regretted it.
At my use of a pejorative, Charlie looked up from his laptop, eyes wide. I walked around and read over his shoulder: he was on the KSL website, of course. He closed his computer, “Bekah—”
“It’s not true,” I whispered.
“I know.” Charlie wheeled himself into the kitchen.
I moved through molasses to the couch in the living room and lay down. Graça put Bride and Prejudice in the TV/DVD player and turned down the volume. She sat with my head in her lap and spread our chenille throw blanket over me. I stared at the shifting colors on the television. At some point my mother and Rock came home exhausted. They waved hello and then left for their motel room. I tried not to imagine how four very large exathletes and a scrawny jerk could rip Chris apart if they ganged up on him. I tried not to imagine Chris’s head bursting open like a melon on the concrete.
As Aishwariya Rai and Martin Henderson rode off on an elephant into the sunset, Charlie reappeared with his laptop. “Bekah, I think you should see this,” he said as he handed me the computer.
It was another article from MyFox
UPDATE—On seeing our FOX News report on today's brawl at BYU, a seventeen-year-old girl from Springville has come forward to say that she recognizes Cole Bruce Douglas as the man who allegedly raped her at a house party this December. A DNA test from the rape kit will prove or disprove the allegation, but things are not looking well for this BYU student in the messiest scandal of the decade for the LDS university.
Charlie took back the laptop. “Maybe I shouldn’t have shown you that.”
I shook my head, “No—no, I’m glad you did.”
His brown eyes were dark with concern. “You’re shaking, Bekah.”
I laced my fingers together. “I’m fine.”
My exboyfriend beckoned to my cousin; he whispered something in her ear. She left the condo. He went back to the kitchen. Graça returned, and they consulted in the entryway. Charlie returned to me with a glass of water and a small orange pill. He offered both, and I swallowed one with the other.
“What is tis?” Graça asked. Apparently she was making a career of this speaking thing.
“It’s Dramamine,” Charlie answered. He turned to me, “I keep it in the glove compartment for my mother when we take long trips. She isn’t used to seeing me drive with my hands only.”
“Hmm,” I pondered.
“You should fall asleep pretty soon—and don’t try to stand up,” he commanded.
In a few minutes, I was so heavy that I knew I would sink through the floor if I tried to stand up—too much weight on too small of an area, or something . . .
* * * *
A white fog slowly burned away from my vision the next morning. My body was sticky with nervous sweat. Tingling, I peeled myself off the couch and stumbled into the shower. In my bedroom, I pulled on an old striped navy tank top, a flowered brown tunic, and off-black convertible capris/pants and stumbled down the stairs. Rock was back in the kitchen.
“Good morning,” I mumbled.
“We have reheated banana pancakes,” Rock offered. “I guess I’m not used to cooking for girls who eat like birds.”
Charlie stabbed a bite almost guiltily, “These are really good.”
The clock on the microwave read 10:53. My stomach went sour—I’d forgotten something really important. “Oh, no,” I breathed.
“What?” Rock and Charlie asked in unison, their eyes wide with concern.
“The play—” I rubbed my aching forehead. Every new hitch in my previously charmed life was starting to feel anticlimactic. Still I pictured Kent and Professor Allred and all the other people in the play waiting for me to show up at the theater, the audience fidgeting, and Professor Allred marking an E on my grade report.
“Bekita,” Charlie used his old pet name for me, “it was in the Daily Universe this morning—the play was canceled. You and Chris and Jeff missing was too much. The audience’s tickets were refunded.”
Rubbing off my eyelashes with my hands, I groaned.
Graça looked at Charlie, who nodded, and took my hand.
“Where are we going?” I asked as she pulled me to the front door.
“Outside,” Graça sang. She pulled open the door, and we stepped into the sunniest day of the year so far. One of the plastic lawn chairs from the abandoned stack in the sideyard had been cleaned off and covered with a large towel. Graça led me to the chair and commanded, “You sit here.”
I obeyed.
Rock followed us out with a glass of lemonade. My caretakers nodded to each other and left me to bask in the sunlight.
I was considering dozing off when Rock came out again with my cellphone. “Who is it?” I asked.
He shrugged, “The phone says, ‘Marianne.’” It stopped ringing. He laid the phone next to me on the towel and went back inside.
The phone rang again. I took a deep breath and answered.
Marianne’s singsong voice assaulted my ear: “Bekah! Oh, my gosh, I’m so glad I finally caught you!” She paused, and on hearing no response from me, started up again, “So Derek said that he talked to you for a bit last night. You know we just wanted to make sure you didn’t somehow find out about the—whatever—and get hurt, right? . . . Okay, I can hear you breathing, Bekah, so if this is the silent treatment just hear me out: I’m sorry.” Marianne sighed deeply. “Anyway you saw what a mess it was on the news, and let me tell you, Chris is quite a mess here. You wouldn’t want to be part of that.”
Finally I thought of something to scream at her: “Marianne! He’s your brother! Why on earth or in anywhere else would you sell him out like that?!”
She scoffed. “It’s complicated. Yes, I knew that Trevor planned to talk to Chris yesterday afternoon because Chris told me. Chris asked me to keep you and myself away just in case it got outta hand.”
I huffed.
“Listen,” Marianne proposed, “they’re about to discharge Chris, and I’ve gotta take him. Chris and I both want to explain all of this to you in person over lunch. Please say you’ll be at home and let us talk to you.”
It hurt to hear proud Marianne beg. “Of course I’ll let you guys talk to me,” I assured her, and we ended the conversation.