In Memoriam, Infant Christian Burson
Download PDF File - The Newspaper Articles
I don’t know why this has suddenly come back to the forefront of my mind, after so many years. I mean, I never forgot, but it was neatly tucked away in the back of my head. Filed in that drawer labelled “Things I’d Rather Not Think About”, folder labelled “Ugly Actions of Human Beings”, subsection “Parents and Their Children”.
I met Bobbie and Robert when I was 16 or 17 years old. Looking back at the articles, it is weird to me to note that Bobbie was only 18 when this happened - I always thought she was older than me. Anyway, Bobbie and Robert were a young indigent couple who spent a great deal of time living in cheap motel rooms, squats, and on other people’s couches. At first we only knew each other in passing - just people running around, sharing a common geography and the circumstance of living as “gutter rats”. It wasn’t long, though, before coincidence placed us as some of the dozen or so roommates sharing a tiny, scroungy one-bedroom apartment with no lock on the door. Interesting days, for sure.
I guess I should come forth and say that Bobbie and Robert and I came to have a very amiable relation. They’d come in around midnight when I was working at the local supermarket, just to say hello and grab a few donuts from the bakery. They made it a point to stop by with what little money they had, and sit and visit for a spell, when I worked at the overpriced artsy-fartsy coffeehouse. They introduced me to the local people involved in their lives, including the wife from whom Robert was not yet divorced. They always shared their cigarettes, their booze, their food, their space. I remember a lot of evenings spent shooting the bull at the Five Points fountain, or crowded around the Dark Stalkers game at the now-defunct Dante’s Pizzeria. So I would be remiss if I didn’t say that Bobbie and Robert had redeeming qualities after a nature.
But here’s the thing… to look at either of them, you never would have guessed they were as young as they really were. As so many of the Birmingham indigent population did at the time, Bobbie and Robert both had been drawn into a lust for the crack-stem. Now, before getting your panties in a wad about how evil crackheads are, let’s make one thing clear: there are a lot of truly fine human beings who, in whatever manner, were exposed to crack and quickly found themselves sucked into an endlessly descending hell. I’ve known plenty whom I wouldn’t trust with my money, but I would trust them with my life.
I’m digressing…
Bobbie was pregnant with Christian at the same time I was pregnant with my first child. More specifically, she had just recently learned she was pregnant when I was near the end of my pregnancy. I remember one afternoon walking across the street from the restaurant where I hostessed at the time, and running into them on the sidewalk. It was the first time I had seen either of them in a long while, because I had been living out of state for the better part of the year. I remember thinking how much it looked like they had cleaned up, how much healthier they both appeared… they both had finally put some weight on. Bobbie had the usual cigarette nested between her fingers, but otherwise I swear she looked like she’d been staying off the stem. They commented on how good it was to see me again, how huge my pregnant belly was, how they were expecting a new addition themselves…
I think I said something about how after both our children were born, we should get them together to play sometime, and then made my way back to work. That will never happen now.
I remember the first newspaper article… it was the holidays. Since I had somehow wrangled a free subscription to the Birmingham News, I was casually going through it in our living room when the article caught my eye. I remember the world kind of turning sideways, thinking no it couldn’t be the same Robbie and Bobbie I knew… they would never do something like that. But there it was, in black and white newsprint. It took me less than an hour to get independent confirmation from down on the street that, yes, it was indeed the same Robbie and Bobbie.
I can’t begin to express how sad, how frustrated, how angry I’ve been for the past day since the subject of Christian began haunting my mind again. I think more so now than before, because the only proof Christian ever existed at all was the Birmingham News archived articles which I had to buy with a credit card. Nothing. Google his name, and see how many relevant results you get. He did not even live long enough to have a social security number assigned to him, and isn’t in the Social Security Death Index. There will likely never be a genealogy file with his name in it, either. Christian will only be remembered by his family and the people who knew him… and even some of them will forget after a while.
Read the articles and you start seeing exactly how horrible life must have been for Christian during the seven weeks he was on this earth. Oh, the beginning gives the overview of the injuries at the time of his death. But it’s the last one that starts explaining that they didn’t all just happen. He had FOUR BROKEN RIBS that were KNITTING when he died. Broken ribs. Already partially healed. On a seven week old boy.
You tell me what kind of hell he went through.
For all the good things I can remember about Robert and Bobbie, this will always, ALWAYS override them. I can not find any semblance of affection for them in my heart these days. Because here’s the thing… the grandparents claimed they thought Bobbie was simply an ignorant young mother. I know better. I knew Bobbie. She knew better. She knew that you don’t handle children, especially babies, in that manner. And she did it. And she let Robert and their roommate do much worse.
Bobbie, if you’re out there and you get a chance to read this…
I could not find any information on the end outcome of things. Nothing about whether Robert was finally found guilty of capital murder. But I want you to think about something really hard. Think about the fact that Christian was your first born, your baby boy, the most precious gift you could have ever received in the middle of the fucked up, rotten life you were leading at the time. And you mistreated him. You let others mistreat him. He wasn’t just banged around a little… he was tortured and broken and left to die on life support. You let it happen, did nothing to stop it, and then tried to lie about it. And you weren’t even respectful enough to be sober at Christian’s funeral - that’s why you were drunk when they questioned you.
And then there’s me… for some inexplicable reason, I feel in some way partially guilty for Christian’s death. There’s times when I think that maybe there would have been something I could have done if I had made it a point to get together with them after his birth. If I had invited Bobbie to child-rearing class with me. If I had counselled her to break up with Robert for the last time.
Had he been born to normal parents, loving parents, caring parents… Christian would be almost seven years old now. He would be a healthy, happy little boy, likely in first or second grade. At the time I am writing this, Christian would probably have been either at a neighbourhood friend’s house, playing Nintendo… or sitting down in his own home to a dinner plate laden with Kraft Dinner. He’d have a good life to enjoy, and a future to anticipate… although six year olds don’t look at the world that way. Most important of all, Christian Burson would be alive.
Rest In Peace, Christian. And may there be others who could keep your memory alive.
