There is a sudden commotion behind me, loud angry voices, then two gunshots crack through the air. People start screaming. About fifty yards away, a black teenager sprints across the park, leaps over a bench, darts between some saplings and into the woods, running as if his life is in danger. Evidently it is. Not far behind him is another young black male, angrier and with the gun. He fires it again, and people hit the ground. All around me, folks who were enjoying the day are now ducking, crawling, clutching children, and scurrying for their lives. It’s a scene from television, something we’ve all witnessed before, and it takes a few seconds to realize that this is not fiction. That’s a real gun!
I think about Starcher, but he’s on the other side of the pond in the restroom, a good distance from the gunfire. As I duck and look wildly around, a man scampering away bumps into me, grunts “Sorry,” and keeps moving.
When both the prey and the hunter are lost in the woods, I wait, afraid to move. Then, two more gunshots in the distance. If the second guy found the first guy, at least we didn’t have to watch it. We pause, wait, then start to move again. My heart is racing as I stand and gawk at the thick trees along with everyone else. When it appears as though the danger has passed, I take a deep breath. People stare at each other, relieved but still stunned. Did we really just see what we just saw? Two policemen on bicycles fly around the corner and disappear into the woods. In the distance a siren can be heard.
I look at my mother, who’s on the phone as if she missed it all. I look at the men’s restroom; Starcher is still inside. I start walking that way, pausing to place the remote control on the bench beside my mother. Several men and boys have come and gone from the restroom.
“What was that?” she asks.
“Life in the big city,” I say as I walk away.
Starcher is not in the restroom. I hurry outside and begin looking around. I grab my mother, tell her he’s disappeared, and tell her to check out the ladies’ restroom. For several long minutes the two of us scour the area, our fear mounting with each second. He’s not the kind of kid who would wander off. No, Starcher would take a pee and head straight back to the pond to continue his boat racing. My heart is pounding and I’m sweating.
The two bicycle cops emerge from the woods, without a suspect, and head our way. I stop them, tell them my son is missing, and they immediately get on the radio. In my panic, I stop others and ask them to help.
Two more bicycle cops arrive. The area around the Landing is now a panic zone; everyone knows a kid is missing. The police are trying to lock down the entire park, to keep anyone from leaving, but there are a dozen points of entry and exit. Patrol cars arrive. The urgent wail of sirens only adds to the alarm. I see a man in a red sweater. I think I saw him enter the men’s restroom. He says yes, he was there, and he saw a kid at the urinal. Everything seemed fine. No, he did not see the kid leave. I jog up and down the sidewalks that weave through the park, asking everyone along the way if they’ve seen an eight-year-old boy who seemed lost. He was wearing jeans and a brown sweatshirt. No one has seen him.
As the seconds tick by, I try to calm myself. He has just wandered off. He has not been abducted. It doesn’t work; I am in full panic.
This is the awful story you read about but think it can never happen to you.
After half an hour my mother is ready to collapse. A medic sits beside her on a park bench and tends to her. The police ask me to stay with her too, but I cannot sit still. There are cops everywhere. God bless them.
A young man in a dark suit introduces himself as Lynn Colfax. He is the detective in the Missing Children Division, City Police. What kind of sick society needs an entire section of its police department dedicated to missing children?
He and I walk through the final moments. I stand exactly where I was standing when Starcher left for the restroom, less than a hundred feet away. I kept my eyes on him until he went inside, then I was jolted by the sound of gunfire. Step by step, thought by thought, we go through it all.
The men’s restroom has only one door and no windows. It is inconceivable to me, and to Detective Colfax, that someone could grab an eight-year-old boy and physically remove him from the premises without being seen. But, at that moment, most of the people hanging around the Landing were either crouching behind benches or shrubs or flat on the ground as the bullets were fired. Other witnesses verify this. We estimate the diversion lasted fifteen, maybe twenty seconds. Plenty of time, I guess.
After an hour, I finally admit that Starcher has not simply wandered away. He has been taken.
