die catfish, die. - 8. newspapers

Hold on, this will hurt more than anything has before
What it was, what it was, what it was.

I've brought this on us, more than anyone could ignore
What I've done, what I've done, what I've done.

_{WILLIAM FITZSIMMONS & PRISCILLA AHN - I DON'T FEEL IT ANYMORE (2008)}

* * * * *

Eli slumped back into the couch and brought his inhaler to his mouth; he took two puffs and held them in. He let out a little cough and leaned forward on his knees, looking through the rails of the loft and out the front window, where his bicycle leaned against the brick. He had long lost the key to his lock, and there was nothing to stop a would-be thief from ganking it.

He eyeballed the cup of coffee on the table before him, the steam billowing over the side. He had loaded it with cream and sugar, and only after two sips, regretted not spending the few extra dollars on something slightly more palatable. On the table, several newspapers were placed out for him. Eli knew someone had left them for him, as several pages had Post-it filing flags sticking out between the pages.

At the top of the stack, the headline on the newspaper read: POLICE PROBE SUICIDE AS POSSIBLE ACT OF CYBER-BULLYING. Another read: HIGH SCHOOL SUICIDE VICTIM BULLIED ONLINE FOR BEING GAY. AUTHORITIES SEEKING POSSIBLE MANSLAUGHTER CHARGES. He shuffled through the stack, another headline jumping to his attention:

DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE REACHES DEAD END IN CYBER-BULLY PROBE. INVESTIGATORS LOST TRAIL AT ANONYMOUS WEB, SMARTPHONE APPS: POLICE CHIEF.

One of the chairs across from him let out a nasty screech as Doc Hague pulled it back away from the coffee table; Eli glanced up and watched him. Doc shimmied into the seat, balancing his coffee in one hand. “Hello, Elijah,” he said as he settled in.

Eli sighed.

Doc Hague glanced up. “What’s wrong?”

“You said he was getting reckless.” He tossed a section of newspaper toward Doc Hague. “Looks like they hit a dead end.”

He sipped his coffee and leaned forward. “Not entirely. Did you read the articles?”

“I didn’t get that far.” Eli furrowed his brow. “Why?”

Doc Hague nodded toward the paper. “One of those tabs, there. I highlighted a few things you might find interesting.”

Eli picked the newspaper up from the table and unfolded it. “The paragraph about Facebook?”

The doctor nodded.

“A Facebook account was seized by investigators when it was found that the victim had received private messages from a cyber-bully who encouraged the victim to kill himself,” Eli read aloud. “While investigators were unable to identify the origin of the account, they found that the suspect had sent messages to seven other teens from the seized account, with as many as four of those linked to other suicides in the state that hadn’t been previously connected to cyber-bullying.

“Authorities aren’t releasing many details, pending further investigation, but Sargent Mickelson of the Inglewood Police Department said that those responsible used several tools which allowed them to stay anonymous while spoofing fake phone numbers and online accounts. Investigations are further complicated as they are spread across several legal jurisdictions.”

Eli blinked several times and folded the paper into his lap. “How do you know this is the same guy?”

“Did you bring the phone with you?”

Eli hesitated, but fished the phone out of his pocket and held it up.

Doc Hague nodded forward. “Look at Bobberson’s profile. I’m willing to bet you it isn’t there anymore.”

Slowly, Eli entered the password and opened the Facebook app. He was greeted with a message that read: This account has been locked due to a violation to our terms of service. If you think you received this message in error, please contact our account support department.

He glanced up at Doc Hague. “Jacob's account has been turned off.”

The doctor held up his hand. “See? That likely means they’ve connected the dots and found that your Jacob was a victim of the person who drove this other poor kid to suicide.”

“It says it’s locked for a terms of service violation.”

“Probably the only way they could lock it without focusing a media spotlight on it.”

Eli sighed and slipped the phone back into his pocket. “So what does that mean? Where does this leave us? Not really much anyone can do if they can’t figure out who sent the messages.”

Doc shifted in his seat. “Tell me, did you go to his funeral?”

Eli bit his cheek and turned away, his angry eyes fixing on a junction box screwed to the wall. “It was family only. They had a small wake for his friends.”

“Did you go to that?”

He snapped his head around. “Why the fuck do you wanna know?”

“I was going to ask if there was anyone there who seemed out of place. Maybe someone asking about details of the investigation to figure out what other people knew.”

Eli shook his head in disbelief. “Who the hell are you?” After a moment under Hague’s watchful scrutiny, he slumped farther into the couch. “I didn’t go.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” he snapped. “I was having a hard enough time dealing with all this shit. I was transparent to everyone and everything before Jacob came along, and if I had gone, I would have just been some warm meat bag that nobody knew. I don’t think I could stand being in the same room as his family, and seeing his life reduced to a slideshow.”

“How are you dealing with this? Have you been able to find any kind of closure?”

Eli slapped his hand down on the arm of the couch and pointed his finger. “No. You are not the doctor I see about this. You don’t get to ask those questions.”

“I’m sorry. I wanted to make sure you were being taken care of. There are a lot of incapable doctors out there practicing psychology, and I use the term doctors loosely.”

Eli stared at him, hoping the irony of the statement hadn’t been lost on the doctor. “My therapist is more than capable. Look, I don’t know what the hell you want from me, man, but I’m sick of this. Every time I have to deal with you, it’s like it’s happening all over again.”

“I understand your pain, but—”

“You do? Please, tell me about my pain. Tell me what I’m feeling right now.”

“Rage. Frustration. Pain. Loss. Confusion.” Hague took a small, noisy slurp from his coffee cup. “I don’t mean to distress you. Really, I don’t. But the fact of the matter is, there’s a catfish on the loose that nobody can find, and he’s getting some sort of sick pleasure out of driving people to kill themselves.”

Eli lifted a hand. “I don’t know. What if it’s you?”

“I assure you that it’s not me.” Doc Hague hooked his finger around the handle of his cup and lifted it. His pinky, which was contorted uncomfortably downward, tremored slightly.

“Then what do you get out of this?”

“I want to see those responsible caught. I told you that I’ve had patients who’ve had things like this happen to them.” He shifted in his chair and pulled his gaze away from Eli, moving his attention to a smart-watch on his wrist.

Eli thought for a moment. “I don’t think you’re telling the truth.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “What makes you say that?”

He shrugged. “A feeling. Why are you really doing this?”

Doc Hague spent a few moments in reflection. He shook and then cocked his head to the side, the reflection in his horn-rimmed glasses hiding his eyes behind slivers of white. “I’m profiling them.”

“Profiling them?”

“This sort of bullying is relatively new. I’m studying this, all these cases. I’m putting in hours of research, doing interviews, and hoping they get caught. I want to interview them and build a psychological profile of a catfish.” He lifted a shoulder. “Hopefully it’ll be of some help to law enforcement in the future.”

Eli nodded. “Nice to know I’m being used for information.”

“No, not used for information. If I can help bring Bobberson to justice, I will.”

Eli leaned forward. “Okay, Doctor. Squid pro quo.”

Hague knit his brow, then snorted. “Quid pro quo.”

Eli buried his face in his hands. “Jesus Christ.”

The doctor raised his coffee cup slightly in a toast. “Silence of the Lambs was a good flick, but I don’t think you could easily put on a dress and pull off Agent Starling. Quod enim, then. What do you want to know?”

“What did you and Jacob talk about?”

“I offered to take him on a date. Of course, I didn’t realize then that he was underage, but he lied and told me he was a student at Metropolitan. He said he was studying to get his core classes out of the way before he decided on aeronautical or mechanical engineering. Before I tried to set up the date, he vanished from the app.”

Hague lifted a shoulder. “We never talked about anything sexual, and he never brought anything like that up. I considered him to be a gentleman at first blush.”

“Did he know that you’re an old man?”

“The subject of my age never came up. Based solely on his profile, had his profile been truthful, he would have been the sort of guy I went for. I’m sure you’ve seen the sorts of guys that are on E-STAG. Profiles like Jacob’s are few and far between. They’re refreshing.”

“What if he was telling the truth and wasn’t into older guys?”

“Then it wouldn’t have been meant to be. Quid pro quo. Did you find any other messages on the phone?”

Eli shook his head. “Jacob did a good job of deleting everything.”

Suddenly, the air was pierced by a beeping noise. Doc Hague set his coffee on the table and leaned to the side, plucking a pager off of his belt. He examined it for a moment.

“You have a pager?”

“Believe it or not, many medical professionals still use pagers. I need to get to the office. Why don’t you take those newspapers with you?” He glanced up as he slipped his pager back onto his belt. “I guess that’s our time.”

* * * * *

Eli stopped at the bottom of the street and looked toward his house; his mother had just pulled into the garage. She lifted the rear gate on the Lexus and took a few bags of groceries inside.

After adjusting his backpack straps, he started up the hill with the bike on the easiest gear. Toward the house, he glided across the cul-de-sac and let the slant of the driveway slow him down. His mother stepped down into the garage and stopped when she saw him. She flipped her hair out of her face, her cheeks a little rosier than usual, and planted a hand on her hip.

Eli hopped off the bike as it rolled across the garage. He took a few jogging steps and came to a stop just behind the car, leaning the bike against the wall.

“I seem to remember something about you being grounded,” she said calmly.

Eli glanced back at her. “I know, I’m sorry.”

“Care to tell me what this is all about?” She held a hand out toward the bike.

“I had to meet someone from school,” he lied. “You were working on your deposition pretty late, and I didn’t want to bother you.”

She squinted at him.

“What? I know how you hate being bothered when you’re working on big cases.”

She shifted her weight.

Eli sputtered. “And I got the laundry room organized, the weeds done, and cleaned the kitchen.”

“And I ground you for three weeks,” she said. “You assume that because I said you might get ungrounded earlier if you do some chores, that you could, I don’t know, just take off without asking?”

“Group English assignment, Mom. I said I didn’t want to bother you. I left you a note on the fridge.”

She nodded. “Well, deposition or not, we need to work on telling me about your plans in advance. And by we, I mean you. You should have told me about this earlier.”

Eli pulled his inhaler out of his pocket and took a hit. “I’m sorry,” he said, capping it. “My partners aren’t all that responsible. I thought I was going to be doing the whole thing myself. I figured if they did call they’d either come over or you’d be home so I could ask.”

She sighed deeply. “Are your lungs okay?”

He nodded. “I was taking it easy.” Eli was glad she didn’t ask about the assignment. He’d done it himself on Friday while he was in homeroom, but he didn’t want to root through his bag to show her the finished product while he had a bag full of the Doc’s tagged newspapers. Eli didn’t normally read print newspapers, and he surely would have been cross-examined about them.

“Okay. Go finish your homework and go find something to do. I’m working all afternoon.”

“Like what?”

“Like something away from the house.” She grinned. “I’ll let it slide this time, but I need my concentration, so go play in the street or something until I text you for dinner.” She ruffled his hair. “And if the cops stop and ask why you’re playing in the street, be sure to mention how exemplary your mother is.”

* * * * *

Eli’s mind buzzed as he slowly traversed the hallway, everyone around him going about their lives, blissfully unaware of the little bundle of chaos that was Eli. He watched a group of cheerleaders walk by; this year their skirts were a few inches longer than they had been in previous years. It didn’t deter the jocks one bit.

He watched some scene kids clutter in a corner. He saw a group of theater and band geeks gather around several of the benches in the main hall, their instrument cases at their feet. Even the nerds traveled in a pack of their own. With a little resentment, and as he always had, Eli pondered his place among the others.

He watched, and he wondered.

A group was gathered ahead of him, and over the din of the hallway, he heard raised voices. When Eli came to the back of the group, he glanced around and hopped up onto a bench, so he could see what was going on at the center.

Adrion Jones was having a shouting match with a boy Eli scarcely recognized. Adrion’s twin sister, Adelae, was across the hall from Eli and hugged to the back of the group with her own friends; Adrion and Adelae could not have been more different in terms of their personalities. Adelae was one of the very few who knew Eli by name, but she never really went out of her way to talk to people outside of her clique. She had flawless sienna-colored skin, a natural afro, striking green eyes, and a smile that lit up a room. Had Eli been straight, he might have gone for a girl like Adelae.

The boy squaring off against Adrion had a sweatshirt with a tau math symbol on it. He must have been channeling the dude from Twenty One Pilots, because he wore baggy shorts over tight, black pants, tall socks to his knees, and a knit beanie cap.

“No, no, what’s your real name?” Adrion yelled, jamming a finger into his chest.

“Don’t touch me.” He swatted her hand away. “What’s wrong with Tau?” he asked.

“You calling yourself Tau is appropriation. That name belongs to my people.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s cultural appropriation.”

“How is the name Tau cultural appropriation?” He held his hands up.

“It’s African. When you use it, it’s an insult to my people.”

“Because I’m white?”

“Because you’re white.”

He nodded. “Okay. What does the name mean, then?”

“It was my uncle’s name.”

“No, what does it mean?” he asked in an unusually calm tone for someone being backed into a corner.

“That doesn’t matter. My ancestors—”

“It means lion, in Tswana and Sotho.”

Adrion scowled.

“You don’t think I know what the name means? It has meaning to my ancestors, too. I’m a first-generation American. My mother is Finnish, and my father is Greek. Tau is short for Tauno, which is a Finnish name meaning peaceful and modest.”

She held her hand in front of her face. “Then you need to be going by that, instead.”

“Did you know that Tau is the nineteenth letter of the Greek Alphabet?”

“So?”

“My father was the youngest of seven brothers and sisters. I’m the nineteenth grandchild in our family. My grandfather was there when I was born, and he called me Little Tau because I was his nineteenth, and that’s what he always used to call me before he died. My father loves the nickname because he’s an engineer. It has legitimate meaning to my entire family.”

She crossed her arms and bit her bottom lip.

He sighed. “Look, I know the name means something to you and your ancestors, but the meaning of my name has nothing to do with the Tswana meaning of the name.”

Adelae cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted at her sister. “Give it up, girl. You lost this one.”

Adrion shot her sister a dirty glare.

“Your uncle is Lion,” Tau continued. “I’m Nineteen.” He smiled at her. “Your uncle had a pretty cool name.”

She sighed and launched forward, pushing through the crowd.

Eli jumped off the bench and padded over to Adelae, holding onto his backpack straps.

She turned her shoulder slightly toward him, and smiled a little. “Hello, Elijah.”

Eli blinked at her, feeling himself turning a little red around the gills. “Hey, Adelae.” He nodded toward the dispersing crowd. “What happened?”

Adelae rolled her eyes. “Just my sister putting on a show. She’s been talking shit about him since the first day of class.” She shrugged. “I guess she was finally able to corner him. Now maybe she’ll shut up about it and find something else to be pissed off about.”

“You sound annoyed.”

“Life’s too short to be that kind of angry at everything. Don’t get me wrong, I love my sister and I’ll stand up for her and everything, but sometimes I need a break from it.”

* * * * *

Eli sat down at his desk and rested his head against the wall behind him. His gaze traveled the room while he waited for things to get started; Stockton sat at her desk, quietly writing in her gradebook. His eyes briefly stopped on Adelae, who was talking to her friends across the room.

Chase shuffled into the room with his head drooped low. One hand hung onto his backpack strap, the other was shoved into his front pocket. He glanced around the room and locked eyes with Eli, his expression blank.

Eli watched Chase as he slowly sat down in his chair, the process of removing his backpack seeming like a chore. Chase sighed deeply as he also rested his head against the wall.

Eli swiveled his head around and studied the side of his friend’s face. “What’s wrong?”

Chase lightly shook his head, but said nothing.

A small, purple bruise under Chase’s sleeve caught Eli’s attention. Delicately, Eli lifted the cloth. Chase recoiled and covered his hand over his arm.

Eli nodded him on with his eyes, delicately taking Chase’s sleeve between his fingers and hoisting it several inches. The bruise covered most of his upper arm. It was dark red and deeply purple, and fresh.

Chase locked eyes with Eli. “Can’t skateboard to save my life,” he mumbled, yanking his sleeve down.

“Who? Why?” Eli asked, fully knowing it hadn’t been a skateboard accident.

“Don’t,” Chase whispered.

“What’s it going to take for you to tell me?”

Chase shifted in his seat and stared at the door, shaking his head.

“Will you tell me later?”

Then, Joey walked into the room, ambling toward the empty seat on the other side of Chase.

“I can’t,” Chase replied, shrinking into himself just the smallest bit.