Losing My Religion

Cam squirmed nervously in his chair, his leg bouncing up and down as the adrenaline pumped through him. Across the table was Ms. Fredrickson, the head of student housing sitting next to Adam, The Resident Assistant of Cam’s dormitory. Cam had just finished telling the story he had written in his complaint. The head of student housing looked at Adam and asked “Adam, were you there that evening, as Cam states in his complaint?” There was no answer. “Adam?” 

“Yes, Mam, I was there.” Adam said not making eye contact with either of the other people in the room.

She asked a follow-up question, “Is Cam’s account accurate?” The room was silent as the young RA looked down at the table.

Adam looked up slowly and made eye contact with Cam “I’m sorry, Cam.” Then he went silent.

The head of housing prompted him again, “Adam?”

“Yes. I was there, Mam.” He said in shame. “And I didn’t do anything to stop it. Cam’s story is accurate.”

“You know it’s your job to help your residents feel safe, why didn’t you intervein?” She asked. Adam was silent. “Adam?” she said sternly expecting an answer and getting annoyed with Adam’s hesitation.

“Barry is my friend; it was an awkward situation, so I looked the other way.” Adam said, “I handled it wrong. It was my fault.” Then he looked at Cam.

“I’m sorry, Cam” is all Adam could really say.

With Cam’s story now corroborated, Ms. Fredrickson decided to launch an investigation into the incident. Cam was dismissed from the meeting and Adam was detained for further discussion. Ms. Fredrickson intended to meet with the others who were in the room that night and promised to get back to Cam with next steps. She thanked him for bringing the incident to her attention while at the same time scolding him a bit for waiting so long to report it.

The school had a strict no-tolerance policy on bullying and there would be consequences. If they deemed Cam’s story to be true based on the results of the investigation, At the very least, Adam would likely be relieved of his post as RA, and the others evicted from the dorms. They could all also face possible expulsion. Cam left the housing office feeling vindicated. He immediately called his dad to tell him everything. Danny was proud of his son for finally standing up for himself, and Cam was happy that he was finally moving on from his personal nightmare. His next call was to his best friend, Seth. The two pals talked for over an hour, Seth was proud of him too.

Friday afternoon came and Cam was done with his classes for the week. It had been a good week; he had taken back his life. He had a smile on his face as he headed back to his new place to get ready to go out with his friend Sarah for the night to celebrate. Suddenly, everything went black. He never saw it coming.

# # #

“Shut that thing up” Eric groaned from his bunk. It wasn’t even 6:30 on a Saturday morning and the ringtone on Seth’s phone was loud and obnoxious, especially so damn early on a Saturday morning.

Still mostly asleep, Seth reached for his nightstand, felt around for the loud device, and answered it without even checking to see who it was. His gravelly voice eked out a “hello.” The voice on the other end spoke, and suddenly Seth was wide awake. “Say that again, Brad, I’m still asleep, I don’t understand.” He listened intently. His eyes now open wide. Eric swung his feet over the side of his raised bunk and looked down at his roommate, he could see the pain on his face as he watched him listen to the caller. “I… I… I gotta wrap my head around this.” He said into the phone “Thanks. I will. Love you too.” He hung up the phone with a dazed look in his eyes.

“What’s up?” Eric asked him with wide eyes.

“My friend Cam’s in the hospital, he was mugged” was all Seth said.

Seth’s Story

As the warm water washed over me, I tried to wrap my head around what Brad told me on the phone. None of this made any fucking sense. I had just talked to the guy less than twelve hours ago, now he was lying unconscious in a hospital bed from a random attack. I was very calm, but very confused. The reality hadn’t hit me yet. ‘What the fuck happened?’ I thought to myself. I got out of the shower, dried off, wrapped the towel around my waist and went back to my room. I put in my EarPods as I dressed myself and called Brad back, it was only about 4AM there, but I couldn’t wait. I had a lot of questions. Brad answered, I obviously woke him up.

“Hey, buddy. I figured you’d call back. How are you doing?” Brad said as he coughed the sleep away.

“Shitty. I have so many questions, Brad.”

“I can’t guarantee I have answers but ask away” Brad said.

“So, someone attacked him while he was walking home from school? Did they rob him?” I asked, not really understanding any of this.

“That’s what Anne told us. The police are investigating, there are a lot of surveillance cameras in the area and they’re hoping the videos cam shed some light on it. His wallet, phone, and backpack with his computer were all still with him, so it doesn’t look like they robbed him” Brad paused, took a deep breath, and continued “they beat him pretty badly, Seth. They used a baseball bat.” Tears were forming in my eyes and there was a huge lump in my throat. Poor Cam. He’s one if the sweetest guys in the entire world, he didn’t deserve this. “Anne, Danny, and Dane are at the airport catching a redeye flight, they called us right before they left and asked us to watch the dogs. That’s how we know.”

“Do you know which hospital?” I asked. Brad said he had the info and would text it to me so I could call and check on my friend. We talked for a few more minutes, then I let him go back to sleep. He promised to call me if he heard anything else. I couldn’t stop thinking about how hard this must be on Cam’s family. I texted Dane, all I could think to say was ‘I’m sorry’ he texted back ‘me too. At the airport. I’ll call you when we get there.’Dane reminded me of Eli… tough on the outside but sensitive on the inside, and he loved the hell out of his little brother.

Zach walked in as I put my phone down. I had filled him in on what I knew before I jumped in the shower earlier, although I’m not sure how coherent my tearful ramblings were. He handed me a cup of coffee, then embraced me. “You okay?”

“I’m numb. I’m in fucking shock, Zach. I mean what the hell?” I didn’t know what to think, or what to say. “I called Brad back, but I didn’t learn much more. They didn’t rob him; they just beat him. He said he’s pretty bad. He took several blows from a baseball bat. His family’s at the airport getting on a flight now.” I said doing my best to maintain my composure.

“Do you know which hospital?” He asked. I picked up my phone to check my texts, there was one from Brad with the info as promised.

“Yup” I said as I showed him my phone. He took out his phone and copied the info into his GPS.

“It’s barely a two-hour drive, Let’s go” He said shaking a set of car keys. “I saw one of my teammates in the cafeteria when I went to get coffee, he loaned me his car. We’re going to Chicago.” I shot him a smile… well… not a smile, but not a frown, kind of a desperate, zombie-like, thank you look, I guess. I had no idea what I was gonna do, but Zach took over and was going to get me to my best friend.

“I can’t go, I gotta work this afternoon” I said as I tried to be rational.

“Eric said he’ll take your shift” Zach said just as Eric walked in the room with a towel around him. “We’re going Eric” Zach said to him, confirming their plan.

“Cool. I got you covered at work” Eric said. Then he looked at me with a sullen face “I’ll pray for Cam.” That gave me some comfort at the moment. It wasn’t a meaningless ‘thoughts and prayers’ kind of thing, it was a genuine act of concern, and he was doing what he knew to do. It felt good knowing others were thinking of my friend.

Just then Gina burst in with a Ziplock bag full of change “this should get you through the tolls in Illinois” she said handing the bag to Zach.

Teddy was walked in behind her and handed me a bag of breakfast sandwiches “For the road” is all he said.

I just looked at all my friends with no real expression on my face, apparently Zach rallied them all when I was in the shower, and they decided they were going to get me to my friend. My village away from my village was taking care of me. Goddammit, what the hell did I do to deserve all the incredible people in my life?

Zach packed us an overnight bag just in case. We went down to the parking structure and jumped into the old Honda that a perfect stranger had lent to Zach to help me out. The car was old but purred like a kitten, Zach drove out of the garage and headed toward I-94 stopping for gas before we hit the on ramp. It was pretty much a straight shot south to Chicago. We didn’t say much as we drove down the cold midwestern highway, I was grateful it wasn’t snowing.

About forty-five minutes into our trip Zach finally spoke. “Do you think his roommate did it?” What the fuck did he just say? I hadn’t given any thought to the idea that this was a targeted attack. I just assumed it was random, Chicago was a big city… stuff like that happened in big cities, right?

I was caught totally off guard “Really? Do... do... d..” my words weren’t coming to me easily as I tried to grasp this concept. I was totally perplexed. My mind was reeling with the grim possibility of Zach’s suggestion. “Do you think he would really do something like that? Do you really think they targeted Cam?!”

Zach realized he had opened a can of worms that was putting me into a tailspin, he tried to back-pedal “well… it was just a thought.” He said.

“Be honest with me, Zach. Do you think he did it?”

“It’s a possibility, Seth. His phone and wallet were still on him, even his computer… so they weren’t after his money or anything. What other motive was there? Cam’s not the kind of guy to provoke a random stranger, It doesn’t make any sense.”

I just don’t think that deviously, I tend to see the best in people. But Zach was right. It made perfect sense, but it never even crossed my mind. Oh my god, did someone hurt him on purpose? THOSE MOTHER FUCKERS! No. no, no, no… we were just jumping to ridiculous conclusions. We had no proof, no evidence, hell we didn’t really know anything at that point. It was total speculation, based on nothing… But damn, it’s all I could think about now.

I was silent for the remainder of the trip as my mind conjured up all kinds of horrible scenarios. We pulled up to the huge hospital and did our best to navigate the massive structure. After about fifteen minutes of roaming corridors and asking for directions we finally came to the ICU where Cam was. They wouldn’t let us in the room, but we could see him through the glass. He didn’t look good, but he didn’t look as bad as the images my head had come up with on the way there. He had a couple of bandages covering the lacerations on his face, and a big bump on his head. He had a lot of internal injuries and a lot of internal bleeding, but he was currently stabilized. It was so painful seeing him like that. They let us pull up chairs near the glass room so we could watch him, we both fell asleep.

After about an hour someone shook me awake “Seth, honey. What are you doing here?” I opened my eyes, and there was Anne, Cam’s mom, standing there with Dane and Danny.

“Hi Anne” I said as I yawned, stretched, and stood to hug her. “Sorry. I couldn’t stay away” I whispered in her ear. She put her lips against my cheek and held them there as she stroked my hair. I looked into the glass room and Cam was gone.

“Have you seen him yet?” she asked still holding me, her voice sounded desperate, like she was hoping I’d give her some kind of miracle answer like ‘yeah, he’s fine he was dancing in the hallway last time I saw him.’ But all she got was “only through the window. Where is he now?”

“They took him for a CAT scan, we haven’t seen him yet. How bad does he look?” She said as she pulled back from our hug, held my face in her hands and looked me in the eye.

I smiled weakly and said, “better than I imagined, but it’s not pretty.” She did her best not to cry. Danny gently pushed Anne out of the way and wrapped me in a bear hug. He asked the same question and I gave him the same answer. I looked over his shoulder as we hugged and saw Zach and Dane walking out of the ICU together. “They’re going to find coffee” Anne said when she saw me watching them leave.

For the next hour we sat there waiting. We did our damnedest to avoid the elephant in the room. We were there for Cam, but no one wanted to say it out loud. Finally, Dane spoke. “Seth, have you ever met his roommate?”

“No, I’ve heard the stories, but I’ve never been down here before” I answered truthfully.

“HE did this. I fucking know it” Dane said with a vengeful anger in his eyes.

“Dane, you don’t know crap!” his father barked back. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions and convict someone we don’t even know before we talk to the police and get the facts, we’ll just drive ourselves nuts.” Danny had already talked to the police department on the phone; they had an investigation going and were coming by the hospital to meet with him later in the morning. He wanted answers.

They wheeled Cam back into the room, he was still asleep and looked like shit. They had him pretty drugged up Danny and Anne followed him into the room, they shut the door and talked to the doctor. They were in there a while.

“C’mon Zach, let’s go get coffee” Dane said, and the two of them left.

I looked through the window of the ICU, saw Cam lying there beaten and helpless as his father stood there with his arm around his mother, both doing their damnedest to hide the pain as the doctor filled them in on the grim details. I decided to go down to the hospital chapel and pray.

The little room was dimly lit with candles, and completely empty. I took a seat up front. My prayers started silently in my head as I asked god to help my friend heal and give his family strength. I moved from silent prayers to speaking out loud, questioning god about why he let this happen to such a sweet, wonderful guy. My line of questioning to god moved onto blaming him, ‘why did you DO this to him?’ Soon I found myself cursing loudly at god, filling the little chapel with my angry voice. ‘what the fuck is wrong with you?! Why can’t you give this guy a break and just let him be happy?!’ I was in that chapel for a good half hour, and I was loud! At one point someone opened the door, saw me ranting, then turned and left. Leaving me alone to take my anger out on god. My journey with religion and god had been a rocky one, and this felt like the end. Any god that could do this to Cam was not a god I needed a relationship with. I walked out of the chapel and decided I was done with god. Period.

By the time I got back to the ICU a crowd of doctors and nurses were gathered around Cam’s bed. Dane and Zach were nowhere to be found. Cam had woken up, he was dazed and confused, but he was awake. Danny saw me through the window and waved me in. I went to stand my friend’s bedside, he saw me and smiled. His hand moved ever so slightly; he was trying to reach for me. I grabbed his hand, then leaned down to hug him, doing my best to avoid the tubes. The nurses were busy taking some things out of him, they asked us to leave the room for a few minutes. In the hallway Anne and Danny filled me in. We stood in a huddle with Danny in the middle, he had one arm around around his wife, and the other around me. Cam had some damaged organs and a lot of internal bleeding. He had some external injuries, including a couple of cracked ribs, a messed-up knee, a broken collar bone, several bruises, and lacerations, etc. The Dr believed that he took a blow to the neck, a few to his gut, and then a couple of random hits for good measure. Surprisingly, the physical prognosis was good, he should heel well. However, I was afraid the emotional damage might never heal. The good news was that there was no brain damage, the bump on his head and cuts on his face were likely due to him falling on the ground, not being hit in the head. I took all this information in as best I could, it was overwhelming. Just as Danny asked where Dane and Zach were, they entered the room. Almost as if on cue.

It was noon when the detective arrived to talk to Cam’s parents. Since Cam was their only source of information, other than the surveillance cameras, they didn’t know too much about Cam personally. They had found a copy of the complaint he filed with housing in his backpack. They were extremely interested in Cam’s conflict with his roommate and his buddies. EXTREMELY interested. They spoke briefly with Cam, but he couldn’t tell them too much in his current state. The detectives left the hospital and headed to the dorms to talk to the RA, Cam’s roommate, and the others who were named in the complaint.

Me, Zach, and Dane got to spend a few minutes with Cam while his parents went to get something to eat. I stroked his hair and quietly asked him how he was. He smiled and tried to speak; his voice was rough. Dane got impatient with our small talk, leaned in, and said “Cam, who the fuck did this to you?” Was it your asshole roommate?”

Cam’s eyes popped open wide. He was focused on the pain and hadn’t given much thought to the how or whys of his beating. “No” he said in a gravly voice. “I didn’t see anything; it was just random.”

“Bull shit” Dane said under his breath. He was convinced that this wasn’t random, that his brother was targeted, he knew it in his heart, and he wasn’t going to let it go. We talked a bit longer before Danny and Anne came back. They wanted some time alone with Cam, so the rest of us went to lunch.

At lunch I asked the two guys where they disappeared to. They looked at each other and then ate their lunch. “Where were you guys?” I asked again. After a few minutes of silence, avoiding the question, and a lot of annoying persistence on my part, Dane spoke up.

“We went to see his roommate. I know he did this to him” Dane said. I just looked at the two of them for an explanation.

“Dane, the guy may be an asshole, but he was clueless. He didn’t even know Cam got attacked.” Zach said defending the guy’s innocence. Dane wasn’t hearing it. He had made up his mind and Barry was the culprit as far as he was concerned. “He didn’t do this” Zach said confidently.

“He had something to do with it, he didn’t even give a fuck that Cam was in the hospital, that’s why I slugged him.”

“You what?!” I said in a loud whisper as I leaned across the table. “What the fuck were you thinking? Your parents already have one son in the hospital, they don’t need their other son in jail!”

“I didn’t hit him hard” Dane said, “besides, he had it coming for the way he treated Cam.” It was hard to disagree with him, that fucker deserved that and more. That was the end of our conversation.

I spent the rest of the day at Cam’s side. He was sore, and still a pretty drugged up, but I started to see my friend shine through his pain. I thought to myself ‘he’s gonna be okay.’ Then I aimed my thoughts at god ‘no thanks to you.’

To be continued…