Kaitlin Armbruster
Mr.Kozak, 3
Personal Narrative
08 October, 2012
Looking For Chris
I was sitting on the couch in my living room; I had just gotten off of work and was exhausted. I remembered I needed to get my camera back from Katie so I called her. She wasn’t the one, who answered the phone, but the person I talked to sounded stresses and I could hear her in the background. Something was off I could tell by the strain in her voice she was upset. I immediately texed her after I got off the phone. She called me less than a minute later. There was panic in her voice and it took me back a minute. I told her to slow down and tell me what happened. She hit me with hard news. “My brother is missing and they think he drowned”.
I sat upright on the couch so fast I scared my sister on the other side of the room. I tried to console her while I put my shoes and got a jacket on. I told her I would get up there as fast as I could and I WOULD be there. I realized I wouldn’t have a ride so, I called up everybody in my contacts I could think of that had a car. To my luck someone was able to take me. I had to go pretty far and only had a limited amount of gas money.
My friend pulled up and we left in a haste to the Pacific Palisades. I could see cop cars and ambulances everywhere. We pulled into the front and a cop stopped us from entering. My friend had to leave so I asked her to just drop me off and she could go home. The cop took my I.D. and phoned it in. They said I couldn’t go in unless I was family. The first thought that entered my mind was “Are you kidding me? I’ve known this kid since he was like six, and you’re not going to let me in to look for him? “I just said “Okay” and went to sit with some other close family friends who were also waiting to get in. It was cold and I was shaking and had goose bumps all over my arms and my legs. I had Katie’s mom talk to the chief of police, to have him call to the other officer and we were in.
We drove up a long winding road that seemed like it was never ending. We pulled up and a cop had us park all the way down the street. We still weren’t able to get out of the car. A very few long minutes passes and a cop came up to the car. He asked for me and I got out. I walked up the street with him, passing by a numerous amount of cop cars and ambulances. Nothing was going through my mind but hope. Hope that he was going to be safe and I was going to be able to beat him up for scaring his momma like that.
The anticipation grew and the cop brought me to a criminal investigation van and asked me to sit inside. I was so confused, but I did what I was asked. He came back about five minutes later and I was questioned. When we were done, I got out and walked up the hill to find Katie. There were hounds, horses, search party services, helicopters, ambulances, police, and boats, anything you could think of out there looking for him. On that road my mind was reeling. I found Katie and her family, and I could see the stress and grief all over their faces. This torn me a part. I gave everyone a hug and told them “I’m sure he’s safe, he’s gotta be.” Katie’s mom was in tears and was a big mess. I hugged her the longest. I refused to cry, I knew he was going to be okay. In my mind I kept saying he’s a boy scout he knows how to swim, He’ll be just fine and we’ll see him again and hear that goofy laugh he always had.
I stayed up there until about five in the morning, and then the police came up and told us that it would be best if everyone went home and got some sleep and came back in the morning. I didn’t want to leave but he was right everyone was exhausted and stresses and sleep was probably a good thing.
I got home and the first thing I saw was a blown up picture of Chris across the screen. It took me a minute to realize what had just happened. My mom was awake and was watching it. She asked me a million questions which I had no answer to. I wished I did. I just said “They haven’t found him yet but they will. They said the divers couldn’t find him, so that might be a good sign.” I didn’t sleep at all. My mind was jumbled with all different scenarios. The only thing I wasn’t thinking was he was gone. There was no way this kid who was just sleeping on my couch and hanging out with my little brother was gone. He couldn’t be. He was probably just lost and was wondering around in the woods because he was mad.
Later that day they had a search party for him that was going to be set up. Anyone and everyone who wanted to help were welcome to come. I had to work and my boss wouldn’t let me take off for someone who “wasn’t my family”. I was heated. I went to work and didn’t say one word.
The next day, my birthday, I woke up, bright and early, and called Katie. She told me “It’s your birthday you don’t want to spend it out at the river all day in the heat”. I just said, “Are you kidding me? Yeah I’m six-teen and I’ll be seven-teen next year. It’s not a big deal. I’m going to help find him no matter what day it is.” She told me she was on her way and I ran downstairs in a haste to get some comfortable clothes on since we would most likely be walking a lot. I had to stick with some slippers for shoes, because I had sprained my ankle a few days before and it was so swollen and in a wrap that it wouldn’t fit in any of my shoes. I would be walking with a limp. Great.
She came to my house around eleven and it takes about 30-45 minutes to get to the Palisades. When we got there, there were cars all lined up all the way down the road. Everyone was in lawn chairs and sitting on the side of the road. Some faces I recognized as family members of Chris’s and we sat on the side with them. It must have been almost a hundred degrees outside, because unless you were drinking water it was hard for you to breathe. We sat there waiting for and O.K. to go and looking. We must have been there for about four hours, when one of Katie’s mom’s friends called Katie. She said they found a boy crying on the side of the river bank at the Pacific Palisades entrance. Me and Katie jumped up so fast and ran over to the cop that was at the entrance. He talked to the girl on the phone, but when he got off he wouldn’t tell us anything. And then the news people, who had been trying to ask us questions since we got there, ran over and tried to get information from us. Me and Katie sure as hell weren’t telling them anything. Ever since they got there all they had done was mix up everyone’s words. We passed by them and got into Jessie’s car. He was another friend of the family and he was going to take us down to the Palisades entrance. I could tell something was wrong when all the cops and news people when the opposite way. It didn’t make sense. But we continued to go the other way we were told.
We got down to the entrance and all you could see was thing long trail of gravel road. It looked like we would have to walk. We got out and started to run down the road. Jessie was our navigator because he said he knew where the river was off this road. My ankle was throbbing and I was really starting to get annoyed by it. I ignored it and ran as fast as I could. We cut across this field which had pretty much dried up from the heat. Branches and sticks cut across my legs and it was really muddy where the shade was. When we came out the other side we were by a bunch of houses. It didn’t make sense how we came out by them. Apparently we didn’t know where we were going and we didn’t have service. None of us brought any water and I felt like I was going to pass out. I was wearing a black shirt and the heat loved it. I took it off and gave it to Katie cause she was on the verge of passing out and I told her to put it over her head. We walked for about twenty more minutes and then we came out on a main road right by the entrance. We had gone in a big circle. We figured it would be better just to go back and wait for someone to come back and tell us what was going on. Jessie ran down the road to get the car and me and Katie waited in the parking lot of an old abandoned gas station. He came back up the road and picked us up and we went back to ground zero.
When we got there everyone was up and hugging each other and everyone was crying. We were all confused. I looked at her Aunt Kat and she just shook her head. I stopped dead in my tracks. I looked at her in disbelief. Shock was all I could feel. I didn’t start crying, I just stood there. I walked over to a fence where Danielle, a friend of Katie and I, and just sat on the ground. And that was when I lost it. I cried until my eyes and my head hurt and we all just sat there. And that was when I realized the girl on the phone had told us to go the opposite way to keep us from seeing anything we were going to regret. In a way it was in a good thing.
Her Aunt said they had found him six miles upriver, and from the looks of him he had been there since Sunday night. I couldn’t stop crying. It was crazy. It was like the whole world had shifted and everything had changed. And not for the better. Ally, Katie’s sister, came over and gave me her baby. She was the one thing that got me to stop. Just looking at her and how innocent she was just killed me. She had no idea what was going on or that her uncle was gone. She giggled and it just made everyone’s spirits rise a little. She was what everyone needed. I held her for a long time and then I passed her to other people. She was a great medicine. They could all use her. I sat back down on the ground and I didn’t say anything. I just stared off not looking at anything. And then the news people came back and everyone turned their backs. It’s amazing how even after a tragedy all they want to do is be in your face. “Trying to get the scoop”. We all sat there for a while and then we decided it was time to go. He was no longer here so we shouldn’t be. We got our stuff and headed out to our cars. The whole time the news filmed everything. I was so pissed. I wanted to hit em’ in the face.
We got in our cars and we decided it would be best to all meet up at the Circle K down the street, and get a soda. It had been a long, hot day and no one really drank anything the whole time. Everybody hugged everybody. I don’t think there was one person that didn’t hug me. And the one thing that broke my heart was when Katie’s mom said “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but happy birthday”. Yeah happy birthday to me.