Murky Waters

The question, like the smell of rats and gas, hangs in the air like a pall. What happened? And why would four boys who were afraid of water and couldn’t swim bike a mile from their homes to spend their Columbus Day holiday at such a dangerous and disgusting place? In the bowels of the dead there is a compulsion to ask such questions aloud, in a tone that contains an edge of insult. Indeed, one of the few beliefs the police and the families share is that answers lie in the place-that the old refinery is itself a character, animate and laced with clues.

THAT DAY, OCTOBER 10th, Willie Mae Hamer was on her way back inside-later, she couldn’t remember why she’d stepped out-when she turned to look. It was around 3. Sean was there on the sidewalk, operating on the gears of his BMX dirt bike with a wrench. It was always important to him to keep his wheels in perfect operating condition. He was a cautious child who wouldn’t risk a flat tire or a stripped gear away from home. Willie Mae watched the way her boy worked quickly and cleanly-never soiling his fingers with grease, occasionally letting out with that gock! gock! laugh of his. "My boy," she says, "was good with his hands."

 Dontel’s grandfather Robert Johnson Sr. probably saw them last, around 3: 3 0. He gave his grandson some change and watched him ride north on Lindenwood Street, scrambling to catch up with the others. Nearly an hour had passed since the day’s high temperature of 63. When Dontel wasn’t home by dinnertime, Robert began to wonder. By 7:30, when the temperature had dropped to 50, he began to worry.
The worry had begun in the Ruffin home as well "Kenny had severe asthma," Chanel Ruffin says of her younger brother. "He was always in and out of the house for that spray. So, I started thinking, It’s been a while." Next door, Kenny’s aunt, Pearlie Herring, who hadn’t yet conferred with her sister Joyce-Kenny’s mother-had begun to fret. "I’d brought him a video he’d wanted, Surviving the Game, with Ice-T? That boy called me three times that day, yelling, ‘Don’t forget that tape, Pearlie!’ It just seemed wrong that when I got back from work, he wasn’t there waiting for that tape."

The minute Pearlie and her sister got off the phone-"My boy isn’t there? He ain’t here!" -they began riding. They drove to 40th and Spruce, to the movie theater at 69th and Market, to the neighborhood’s hangout corners. " the other kids told them. "We ain’t seen them Dontel was with them? Damn-that boy always back in time for dinner!"

"Nine o’clock," says Willie Mae. "I come home from Bible study. I figure Sean’s over to my sister’s. Then she calls me. Is Sean there? I say, ‘Is Sean there!?‘ Then I hear them other boys is gone, and I jumped back in that car. In different cars, Pearlie, Willie Mae, Robert and a number of others canvassed the city. They knew how far those could wander on those bikes. They drove to North Philly, to Darby, to to Cobbs Creek. They got the word out to everyone they knew: Four boys, vanished.