The Shooting of Rabbit Wells: A White Cop, a Young Man of Color, and an American Tragedy; With a New Introduction by the Author by William Loizeaux

Author:William Loizeaux [Loizeaux, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: True Crime, Murder, General
ISBN: 9781628726183
Google: SSL8DQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Published: 2015-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

Months later, early on that cold January morning, after Rabbit had graduated, gone to California, and returned for the holidays to visit, Harrison was getting ready for his weekly indoor tennis outing with some colleagues—perhaps some of the same colleagues to whom he had introduced Rabbit as his son. He was in his tennis gear with a sweatsuit on top. He had finished his breakfast, and he was probably enjoying a rare moment of peace and that vague sense of virtue that comes when you are awake and your coffee is strong, in a house where everyone else still sleeps. Outside the kitchen window, the sun was barely up, the ground humped and frosted. It was cold, windy—he’d have to warm up the car, keep the choke on for a while. He was about to leave when he heard a knock on the front door. It was one of Rabbit’s friends, a young woman Harrison doesn’t remember now, perhaps one of those friends to whom he had been introduced as Rabbit’s father. But the friend had a strange, wild look in her face. She seemed winded, her eyes red and wet.

Had the Bells heard?

No. What?

That Rabbit had been shot by a cop in Olcott Square. That he was dead.

I imagine Harrison, standing tall and lean in his baggy sweats, with his Wilson Jack Kramer in one hand and in the crook of his arm a pressurized can with three perfect yellow balls. Just yesterday evening Rabbit had knocked on this door, and, striding in, had surprised them all. He was back in town from California, making the rounds. He was looking good, riding high—he had landed a job with the tuna fleet in San Diego. They had all embraced and talked for a while. How long would he be in town? Not long. Where was he staying? With a friend. Could he come for dinner? Not tonight, but soon. Then he had taken a shower and gotten “dressed to the nines,” as Harrison recalls. It was almost like he was still living there, his towel hung on the bathroom knob. He had said he was going over to Bernardsville that night with some old friends to celebrate his recent birthday.

Still standing in his sweats in the doorway that next morning, Harrison again said, “What?”

I hear Rabbit’s friend slowly repeating her words, and then more slowly: “It’s true. It’s true.”

At this, Harrison simply didn’t know what to do, but soon he found himself in the T-bird. Some time before, he had dropped and broken a bottle of vermouth on the floor, and now the car smelled sweet but sickly. In his hands, he felt the smooth, cold steering wheel, with those rounded bumps on the back. He pulled out of the garage, out of the driveway, and onto Walnut Circle. He went halfway around, keeping himself between the curbs, to where Wildwood Drive leads into Cherry Lane. Where was he going? To Bernardsville? Yes. And what was he going to do?

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