Sergeant Mike Treu’s dash-cam video starts rolling right about eight o’clock that night. It is a typical late July evening in southwest Michigan, where the rustbelt forces an interface of sorts between the pastoral and the industrial. It’s hot out, but not too hot, and the length of the day has leavened the sun down near the hazy horizon. The few clouds that are in the sky, set out in a swath of diminishing Morse code, find the time to produce a few none-too-serious droplets of rain, which are visible on the windshield of Sergeant Treu’s Ford Crown Victoria.
The call comes in. A child is down, non-responsive, on South Park Street. That’s a few miles from the station, which is located at Howard and
Oakland in Kalamazoo, just down the road from the shiny new Homer Stryker
School of Medicine, a private enterprise that is located on the campus of
Western Michigan University. It is the place where just about every county in
the region sends its bodies when the events surrounding anyone’s death is deemed
suspicious by investigators for the de facto coroner. It receives compensation
to the tune of $2,500 for each unfortunate soul that winds up on their cold
slabs.
What is most striking about the dash-cam video is the
powerful sound of the Police Interceptor engine in Sergeant Treu’s cruiser; he
has the throttle mashed all the way down, and it is clear that the Crown Vic
cannot go any faster than it is going. He slows only to make the right turn
onto South Westnedge Avenue. Several other police cars are visible in the
frame, also going (literally) as fast as they can. When it came to my nephew
Charlie, Kalamazoo’s Finest did not dally.
Treu barrels over Westnedge Hill at top speed. He
impatiently works his way through the intersection at Whites Road and then roars
the rest of the way up to the 3800 block. Park Street is the first street East
of Westnedge, at the corner of Parker Avenue. His very long night has just
begun.
Officer John Stolsonburg came from East of Westnedge. He flew
down Kilgore Road, coming in from the south onto Park Street. He mutters, “I’ve
fucking been to this house before.”
***
It is a typically slow Sunday night at Papa Pete’s, a
longtime mainstay in downtown Kalamazoo, on the corner of Cedar and Burdick,
just down from the venerable State Theater. Sometimes there’s a pool league in
there on Sundays, in which case the pizza kitchen would be busy, because pool
players sure do like to eat pizza during their tournaments. But not this night,
July 26th, 2015. For me, the guy making or not making those pizzas,
it was a perfectly normal night. The ring of the telephone didn’t sound any
different than it should have.
“Papa Pete’s,” I say. (What else needs to be said?) The very
familiar voice, in the very familiar Kiwi accent, asks me if I can leave work
right then, at that very moment. It’s me Mum. “Maybe,” I say. “What’s up?”
“Can you?” She asks again.
“If there’s a good reason,” I say. “Don’t be the Oracle at
Delphi. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Can you come home now?” She asks again.
“What for?”
She draws a breath, and says the last thing I would have
ever expected anyone to say. “Okay. Charlie’s dead. They’ve been trying to
revive him, but they didn’t, and they’ve just now stopped. You need to come
home and take care of your household.”
For some reason, this makes me angry. “Goddammit, what’s
really going on? That’s sick. What do you want?”
She pauses before saying, “I can send a police car there to
get you if you don’t think you can drive yourself. You need to come home now.”
So I say I will be there soon, and I hang up, and I go tell the bartender what
all that was about, and that I have to leave, and that I’m sorry I can’t even
get the floors done before I take off.
And she says just go. Just go.
***
Charlie was my sister’s beloved son. He was 12. Built like most of us
Hellers – none too tall, a little thicker than necessary. As I would write in
describing him to the coroner much later, he was ebullient, effusive, had a
zest for life, and had many loving people around him. He reminded me very much
of myself when I was his age.
My sister, Theresa, had Charlie kind of late in life. He was effectively an only child, but not her only child. She gave up a daughter in her teenage years, with whom she had reconnected by the time Charlie was born, but still… as so many women like to say these days, her son was her world.
My sister, Theresa, had Charlie kind of late in life. He was effectively an only child, but not her only child. She gave up a daughter in her teenage years, with whom she had reconnected by the time Charlie was born, but still… as so many women like to say these days, her son was her world.
She and I and my parents all agreed to go in on a house together in
Kalamazoo, despite all evidence that the housing bubble was at its most
swollen, so that Charlie would have a stable home – not to mention the fact
that he would be eligible for the Kalamazoo Promise: Those who graduate with a
sufficient GPA from Kalamazoo Public Schools will get a free ride (more or less) to
any college in Michigan. It is the only thing in decades that has given this town any hope for the future - an initiative that may or may not have been supported by the uber-wealthy Stryker Family (the donors to the Promise remain anonymous).
Charlie was set on attending Western Michigan University,
and why not? His mom graduated there with a Master’s Degree. My father is a
Professor Emeritus at the school as well. My brother graduated from Western…
WMU Bronco blood flows in our family’s veins. When I came home to Kalamazoo
after living in Phoenix for 15 years, I moved in with Theresa and Charlie. It made sense, as I
had been sending up a third of the mortgage every month since 2007.
In the course of living there over the years, my sister’s
son became very much like my son. I have no kids, and found
that helping to raise Charlie was both a learning and a teaching experience for me.
Now I'm about to learn - as with most things, the hard way - that life is a precious and fleeting
thing. I have no choice but to ponder that for the few miles it took me to get back home.
I approach from the south, as Officer Stolsonburg had. I park my car in the bask and strobe of the red and blue patrol car lights – so many. I duck under the yellow tape extending from the end of my driveway across the street and tell the first cop who looks at me that I'm Paul Heller, and that I live there.
I approach from the south, as Officer Stolsonburg had. I park my car in the bask and strobe of the red and blue patrol car lights – so many. I duck under the yellow tape extending from the end of my driveway across the street and tell the first cop who looks at me that I'm Paul Heller, and that I live there.
The officer's name is Ryan Shank. He is about my age, with a
clean-shaven head, and he is wearing the saddest look I’ve ever seen on a cop’s
face. “I’m sorry to tell you, sir, that your nephew Dennis Wolf has died. We tried very hard to
revive him, but we were not successful.”
Dennis Wolf is Charlie. Everyone called him that (his middle name), even his father, after whom he was named.
Dennis Wolf is Charlie. Everyone called him that (his middle name), even his father, after whom he was named.
I nod, swallow, look over at my Mom’s stricken face, and say,
“So I’m not gonna wake up?” I look at my right forearm, as if pinching it might
somehow help, even though I know better.
“No, sir,” Officer Shank says. “I’m afraid you’re not.”
“All right,” I say. “Where’s my sister?”
He motions over toward Charlie’s wooden play fort, where I
see my sister Theresa, destroyed in every sense of the word, sitting on the end of the little yellow plastic slide. My
father, fresh off hip replacement surgery, is with her, gently rubbing her back
because, what else can he do? The yard is swarming with police and emergency
personnel. The sun is setting. Charlie is behind a black placard that has been
placed between him and his family. A police photographer is fiddling with his camera nearby.
“Okay,” I say. And I head toward the rabbit hole down which
we are all about to go.
pH 4.17.16
pH 4.17.16
***
