I was 11 when my best friend—Alex—came out as gay. Now, he’s dead.

3 years ago, Alex asked me, “Hey, can I tell you something?” Then he said it. The words that would eventually kill him. “I think… I might be gay.” He went on to tell his family, other friends, and eventually, the whole world. One Saturday morning, I looked at his blog, not expecting anything. But, I saw something rare: a new post. I clicked on it, and saw that he had posted who he was to the whole world.

At school, we started to get side comments from other people. Snickers could be heard in the hallways, and most of them were directed at Alex.

“Hey, little fag,” I heard one day, as I was walking to first period with Alex.

I tried to back away, but Alex grabbed me to keep me by him as he responded, “Hello, little annoyance! What’s going on?”

The person glared, trying to find a response, but ended up backing down. Alex had that power to take down anyone—and it was a necessary one for him to have. But one day, it wasn’t enough.

It all happened on June 5th. So close to the end of the school year that no one paid any attention to the learning we’re supposed to be doing. The ringing of the bell was a welcome relief, and all of the students fled from the school. Soon, it was just an empty carcass of a building.

Alex and I were taking our usual path home together, along McAlister Street. I skipped along, running ahead of Alex and then coming back towards him. We were posting flyers for the LGBTQ rights rally in a few days, taking a path towards our houses. We both lived relatively close to each other, enough so that we wouldn’t diverge paths until the last few blocks. As was normal for our town, there were a few police cars driving around. We just try to avoid them—they usually meant trouble.

But this time, one of those cars pulled up to us. Slowly, an officer hauled himself out of it. He yelled in Alex’s face, spit flying from his mouth, “Hey, do you have permission to advertise that faggot gathering here?”

“I don’t need any,” Alex responded, reaching into his jacket to grab a roll of tape to put up more flyers. I stepped in front of Alex, to stand up for him in case anything went wrong.

But when the officer saw what he was doing, he thought he was doing something incredibly different. Suddenly, everything seemed to slow down. The officer shoved me, and I landed hard on the sidewalk. He took out his gun, finger hovering over the trigger. Suddenly, something seemed to switch in his eyes. He slammed his finger down on the trigger. Once. Then twice. And then, a third and final time. Right into Alex’s head. Crying, I ran as fast as I could. I ran like I had never run before. All my body wanted to do was get away. Away from that terrible place. Away from that terrible officer. Away from my newly dead friend.

I found myself in front of my house. Remembering who I was, I grabbed my phone. Dialed 911. Hurtled my way through the conversation. All I wanted to do was help Alex.

“Please. We need an ambulance. My friend was shot. 122, McAlister Street. Please go!”

Flustered, the phone operator hung up. The gravity of the situation hitting me, I sat down on the steps of my house.

“Joseph?” My mom called, peering at me on the steps. “What’s wrong?”

I ran into her arms, crying. “Alex… Alex was… he’s dead.”

“Oh, sweetie.” My mom whispered. “What happened?”

“A police officer. A gun.”

“We’ll figure it out—what to do, I mean.”

“I sure hope so,” I said as I ran inside.

Just then, I heard the sounds of the ambulance I had called ringing through the air. They had arrived too late. Alex was already, completely, dead.

Over the next few days, Alex was all I could think about. My parents tried to get me to go to school, but they couldn’t. I refused to leave bed. But one day, I realized something: I had to seek justice for Alex. I had to get my revenge on the man that killed him. And so, on that day, I finally got up to make him get what he deserved.

Soon enough, my parents managed to arrange something amazing—a meeting. A while ago, my mom was at a protest for racial equality. While she was there, she ended up meeting the person who put it all together—Sydney Longford. As it turned out, Sydney had organized lots of protests. They struck up a friendship, and have been friends ever since. When my mom told her about Alex, she instantly wanted to help me.

Arriving at her office, we stepped out of the car. When we got inside, a receptionist greeted us. She instructed us to go to the second door to the left. Loping down the hallway, I followed my parents.

“Hello?” I tentatively asked, sticking my head into the room.

“Oh, you’re here!” A voice exclaimed, as the chair she was in spun around. “Thought you'd never come!”

“Well, here I am. So, how are we going to do it? Help Alex, I mean.”

“I don’t quite know. I hope we’ll be able to do so, though.”

“Yeah, I do, too.”

Throughout the conversation, we developed a plan for what we should do.

Broadcast who I was to the world. My story. Who Alex was. Who Alex was to me.
Get people on our side. Hope they would help us.
Teach him a lesson.

Three steps, three shots.

The first step was easy enough. News networks were already all over town, trying to get the story. They were already banging at my door for interviews, and to get one, all I had to say was yes. I did interviews for all kinds of stations and ended up seeing many of them on the TV. But not only did I end up being interviewed, the officer who shot Alex did, too.

That night, our family was huddled around the TV, watching one of the interviews with the officer.

“Hello, and welcome to Hanton City News. Tonight, we have with us a special guest. Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Officer Steven Bullain!

Reporter: Hello, Officer Bullain. How does it feel to be with us tonight?

Steven Bullain: It’s an honor to be here.

Reporter: So, you have been charged with the supposed shooting of Alex Luchenko. Did you, in fact, do it?

Steven stuttered a bit, before answering.

Steven Bullain: It all happened so quickly, I don’t really know. I thought he looked like this criminal we had been after for a while. He seemed to be pushing back against me a bit, which made me even more suspicious. In the moment, I just got so scared, and I shot him.

Reporter: Were you aware that he was gay? Many people have been claiming that this was a hate crime.

Steven Bullain: N—no, I wasn’t at the time. Later, when I learned who he was, I figured it out.”

The interview would have gone on from there, but I slammed to remote to stop it. “That asshole! He knew who he was shooting,” I yelled. “He knew that he shot my friend. But why—why would he do it?” My anger soon leaving me, I began to cry. “If only Alex was still here. He’d know what to do. I wish he was here with us! Why… why can’t he be?” My parents gathered around me, and we spent that moment together. Wishing he was here. Here with us.

A few days later, something huge was about to happen: the first protest. Even though almost everyone knew about the shooting at this point, no one was acting. People were angry, and we needed to unite them. Sydney had managed to get us an official march route and the police had blocked out the streets and everything. We hung up flyers, hoping people would come. Now, all we had to do was wait.

We arrived at about noon, the march set to start an hour later. Already, there were a few scattered people around, holding signs by their sides. We gathered the protesters together, as more people started to flock to the group. By the time of the march, we had hundreds of people with us.

“Attention!” yelled Sydney, “You all know we are here because of a horrible event: the shooting of Alex Luchenko. But, we can let that event unite us. Together, we march!”

Soon, the crowd was yelling—a deafening roar, washing over anything that stood in its path. And leading it, was me. We strode through the streets. Fists shaking. Legs driving forward. We were screaming. For Alex. For our community. For the nation. For the hope of better days. For the hope that we could defeat the Officer Bullain.

The streets flashed by. Chester, Park, Dyone. Until we got to one of them. McAlister Street—the one where Alex was murdered. As soon as we got there, the chants soon grew quiet. In the background, there were still a few people chanting, confused by why we had stopped. I dropped to my knees. I started crying. Slowly, the crowd followed, kneeling as I did. Passersby stared at us. A giant collection of all types of people—young and old, small and large, male and female—on their knees. All mourning.

As it turned out, the third step of our plan was completing itself. How? Through court. The trial happened several months later, and I had been called as a witness. I was panicking, trying to figure out what to say. I knew I was going to be asked simple questions, but I still felt like I had to say something bigger. Make a larger statement that would make people rise from their seats and scream for Officer Bullain to be brought to justice. But, I couldn’t think of anything to say. I lay awake in bed thinking about it, but nothing came up. I needed someone to help. The first person I thought of was Sydney.

“Hello, this is Sydney Longford speaking. What do you need?” A voice from the other end of the phone said, drowsily.

“Sydney!” I yelled, “The court trial is tomorrow and I have no idea what to say. Help!”

“Hey, Joseph. Don’t worry. It’s gonna be okay. Just say what you feel you should say,” she responded, slightly surprised from my outburst.

“But what do I feel like I should say?”

“That’s up to you. Don’t worry—and get some rest. It’s late enough already.”

“I just feel like this is my one chance to really punish Officer Bullain.”

“I know. Honestly, I’ve been a bit stressed about it, as well. I just hope that the trial goes well.”

“Yeah, me too. Goodnight, Sydney.”

“Goodnight, Joseph,” she said, and hung up.

After a sleepless night, it was finally morning, I pulled myself out of bed. I went to get a small breakfast, as I didn’t feel up to eating much. As I was pouring my cereal, my mother came into the room with me. Her face was drawn out, bags under her eyes. She seemed to be feeling as good as I was. Alex’s death seemed to be taking a huge toll on all of us.

“How are you feeling?” She asked.

“Not the best. You?”

“Probably as well as you are.”

“I talked with Sydney last night,” I said, “She said the trial would go fine. I’m not so sure.”

“All you can do is tell the truth, Sweetie.”

Soon, my father was up with us. We got ready to go to the trial, and packed ourselves into our car. The drive was long, and throughout it, no one could think of anything to say. We got to the courthouse, and walked inside. No one was there except for Sydney and the judge. In the next hour, more people started to file in. But still, the officer wasn’t there.

“Where is he?” I yelled, “The trial is starting in five minutes!”

Soon, a slight commotion started. I heard people grumbling about the very same thing I was wondering about: Where could he be? As people decided that he wasn’t coming, the courthouse became more and more agitated. Just as the din became unbearable, the judge called for attention.

“It seems Officer Steven Bullain has fled the town. Currently, officials are looking for him. The trial shall be rescheduled to a later date.”

“What?!” I screamed to my parents, “This shouldn’t be happening. This isn’t happening!”

Slowly, my whole family went back into the car, shoulders hunched, eyes down.

To this day, Officer Bullian has never been caught. I often wonder where he ran off to, whether China or Mars. And even now, I lie awake—wondering why he did it.