Chapter 6
True Crime Audio Presents: The Case of the Unsolved Hate Crime
(Opening Credits and intro music)
Bailey Anderson, Host: And now, dear listeners, it’s time for me to come clean.
You see, I have a vested interest in the murder of Reginald Baker, unlike any interest I’ve had in other cases I’ve covered on this show.
Reginald Baker’s death, for me, was personal.
And heartbreaking.
Bailey Anderson is the name I use for this podcast. The use of a pseudonym was never meant to be deceptive, but simply as a way to separate my private life from my public one.
But now, I see no reason not to reveal my truth, since it is very much a part of this season of Meat Locker.
I’m Reginald Baker’s brother, Karl. Reggie was my baby brother, eleven years my junior. And with this episode, I want to tell you a little more about him, from my perspective as a brother and grieving loved one.
Reggie was always my baby.
We grew up poor in the foothills of the Appalachians, in the little town of Newell, West Virginia, on the Ohio River. Its biggest claim to fame is the fact that it’s home to Homer Laughlin, manufacturer of the famed Fiesta Ware.
But I digress…
Reggie and I grew up more like mother and child than brother and brother.
My mom worked in the color room at Homer Laughlin, dipping plates and other pottery in various glazes before they went to the kiln.
It was hard, on-your-feet labor, and she often came home too exhausted to do much more for her two kids than whip up a batch of tuna fish salad for us and collapse on the couch.
Our dad died of a heart attack when he was forty-three. I was twelve and little Reggie was still in Pampers.
Guess who picked up the slack raising him? Yours truly. But I’m not complaining. He was a godsend. He was the savior I didn’t know I needed in my teenage years. I was the underweight, acne-ridden, bookish kid no one at school deigned to talk to. I wasn’t teased. I wasn’t bullied. I wasn’t anything.
I was invisible.
That is, until I came home to Reggie. Oh, that kid was a lifeline for this lonely boy. He was a powerhouse of manic energy and I kept up with him, reading him stories, inventing games, taking him for hikes in the nearby wooded hills. We’d disappear for hours.
When he was of school age, I supervised him getting his homework done.
I saw to it that he made friends and wasn’t like his older brother.
I chewed him out if he got a B on his report card, made him ice cream sundaes if he brought home all A’s.
I watched him play Little League and, in the fall, Pop Warner Football.
It broke my heart when he graduated high school. I had a lot of trouble hiding my tears at his graduation. I was both swept up in pride and grief as I watched him walk across the stage to claim his diploma.
Graduation represented a turning point. Big changes, not all welcome, waited just around the corner.
I like to think that, partly because of my influence, he did so well.
Reggie was class valedictorian and a remarkable cross-country runner.
He had his pick of scholarships based both on need and on his prowess.
He picked DePaul University in Chicago because, he told me, it was in a big city and he longed for big city life.
It wasn’t until he got settled in Chicago that I realized why he craved that big city life so much—he was gay.
I never saw it coming, but you can bet, after a tiny period of adjustment, I was the most devout cheerleader for him and the gay community that’s ever been seen. No PFLAG dad was ever more supportive.
And yet, like a mama bird watching her baby fly the nest, I was sad because once he came out, he spread his wings, leaving me further and further behind.
Yes, he loved me with all his heart, but when you hide yourself from the world for the first part of your life, the liberation given by coming out is heady.
Reggie took advantage. I heard from him less and less and tried not to begrudge him his freedom, his new life. I began taking English and journalism classes at the Kent State branch campus across the river from us.
When I say I heard less and less from him, it wasn’t a complaint. It was simply reality. The same reality most parents face when their children leave the nest, especially when those children are in their late teens and early twenties.
When Reggie and I did reconnect, it was blissful—on both sides. Holidays were always filled with joy, hugs, and laughter.
Mom and I made it out to Chicago at least once a year to visit him on campus.
Reggie never cared that we looked like we came from a trailer in the Appalachians.
He introduced us to all of his friends, the sons and daughters of doctors, lawyers and, as the song goes, business executives. He knew how much we gave to him.
He was proud of us, despite our humble background.
Yet he never realized how much, how very much, his light, his joy, his zest for life, meant to us.
He took us around to Boystown and the bars on Halsted Street. Those were happy times—we always felt welcome, whether we were in what Reggie called a bear bar, or a twink bar, or even a scary leather bar.
Reggie seemed to know everyone!
Yes, he was a portrait entitled Life of the Party.
All too soon, that party came crashing down around him, as he let his grades slip a little, then a lot, as he became more and more involved with the scene.
His drinking and use of cocaine changed him, turning him into someone I didn’t know.
He became a selfish, hedonistic, and yes, I’ll say it, whore.
He seemed to care about nothing except getting high and getting laid. A monster had gotten him in its grip. Or at least that’s how I liked to think of it—because, that way, he wasn’t responsible.
His calls to me petered out and then stopped. He rarely returned a call or an email. I worried, probably more than my mother did.
“He’s just young and sewing those wild oats. He’ll be just fine; you’ll see.”
I wish I shared her optimism, but I couldn’t stop the relentless movie in my head of overdoses, car crashes, and muggings.
He had to drop out of DePaul his junior year. It was a case of drop out or be kicked out. My heart was broken. Despair and disappointment.
He stayed in Chicago, though, drifting from man to man, from couch to couch. I barely spoke to him for over a year.
And perhaps his death would have been even sooner if he hadn’t met up with the man I would once think of as his savior—Joshua Kade.
*
When the intercom sounded from downstairs, I jolted, startled.
I clicked off the podcast, set my phone down, and pressed the button to admit Josh.
Or at least I hoped it was Josh. He was due to arrive at five to help me make dinner for a couple we’d met over the weekend at Big Chicks, our favorite bar because of its relaxed, non-cruisy vibe and the incredible artwork that graced its walls.
Since it was nearing when he was supposed to arrive, I was confident Josh waited downstairs.
I darted on to my balcony and looked down at the street.
The leaves lining it were ablaze with color and there was a dewy feel to the air.
The sky was leaden gray. I leaned over and waved, and then came back inside.
I listened for footsteps up the staircase and opened the door when he was on the landing.
“Hey there,” I smiled and opened the door wider, stepping back to let him in.
He looked so handsome in his simple white button-down, faded jeans, and scuffed cowboy boots.
I felt a rush of heat rise to my cheeks.
His dark hair was still a little damp from the shower.
He smelled of soap and aftershave. Is the heat from lust or from guilt at what you were just listening to?
I was dying to know how Josh would figure in this episode.
I was dying to hear the rest, how Josh was, ironically, the savior of the man who was later murdered.
A second twinge of guilt rose up as I remembered I’d promised Josh I wouldn’t listen to the podcast. I thought it was a bit of an odd request, overkill, but I complied—at least in words.
Of course, I’d never mentioned I’d met with Bailey Anderson, aka Karl.
And I wasn’t about to tell him about our three or four meetings since our initial one at the Billy Goat.
It wasn’t because I had something to hide—all we did was meet up for breakfast or lunch, or a walk by the river, and talk.
We didn’t even discuss much about the case, simply about our lives and work.
If Josh came up, it was only because Karl wondered how things were going.
I suspect he would have liked hearing things weren’t going well, for a multitude of reasons, but I never gave into the temptation to share our problems as a couple.
It was bad enough I was ‘seeing’ this guy behind Josh’s back, I didn’t need to compound the betrayal by using him as a sounding board for relationship problems. I’m not sure our relationship would have continued if he discovered my innocent, but very loaded, relationship with Karl Baker.
I was glad Karl was true to his word about keeping our conversations to himself—so far.
Josh handed me a couple bottles of wine, a pinot grigio and a cabernet. “I wasn’t sure what to get.” He grinned sheepishly, meeting my gaze as he headed for the living room. “I forgot what you said you were making.”
“Roast chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, a big salad.” I’d never been much of a cook, but my roast chicken game was strong. I made it every time I had someone new over for dinner. “So the white will be nice. I have some chardonnay in the fridge, too, so we’re good.”
“What time are they coming again?” Josh plopped down on my couch.
“Seven, so no rush. We have time to relax a bit.”