Chad Was Here

Due to two certain days in my infamous history that I cannot forget, 36 years later I did it. I Googled his name: "Chad Wolfe Thompson", and nothing - not one single word came up about him. No news headlines, no past reports, no obituary; not one iota, as if he never even existed. When I mention him to the friends I hung out with as a teenager, my family, and neighbors from long ago, they do not remember him at all. Oh, he was here! He smiled, he played, and he existed, and yet no one remembers. But now maybe someone will.

I do not recall the exact date, but the first day I cannot forget took place in Spring of 1985 when he disappeared from the Langfield housing projects, in Buffalo, NY, where a bunch of us lived. From time-to-time, I would see him playing in the distance or encounter him when me and my friends would take walks through the complex or go to the store. Two days before his disappearance, a few of the younger children that gathered at the school bus stop each weekday morning, had reported that a strange, unknown man with a ski mask and black makeup around his eyes, had been watching them from his vehicle; yet nobody did anything about it. Apparently this man had shown up a few days in a row until Chad disappeared. 

I was 15 at the time and Chad was 11. He was a skinny, little, White boy, approximately four feet tall. He was very small for his age, but he had a big smile, and a bowl haircut made up of golden blonde hair that framed his entire hairline. Me and my friends were jealous of how easily his hair flowed whenever he moved around. He ran faster than any of the other kids he played with, and his hair would just bounce as if he were performing in a shampoo commercial; and for some odd reason, whenever he ran, (as my grandmother would say) "a nickel must’ve fallen into his tickle box" because he would laugh profusely, as if he were being amused the entire time.

Chad was very friendly, and just like every other little boy, he was always playing around. He was adorable, but somewhat ill-mannered. He would not say please, but he would always say ‘thank you’. He was polite, and if you asked him a question, he was all too excited to talk your ear off while getting to the answer. His clothes were either too small or too big for him, but it never seemed to bother him. If he came outside wearing a t-shirt, it was usually dirty. If he wore a shirt with buttons instead of a t-shirt, it too was dirty, and always seemed to be buttoned wrong. My friends and I would often chuckle about that.

One day, I offered to fix it for him, but he insisted on doing it himself; and he did. He unbuttoned his entire shirt and displayed the most erect posture as he started placing each button in its proper hole until he had it all corrected. When he finished, we clapped and he smiled, placed his right arm across his stomach, his left one across his back, bent forward and bowed before he took off running to catch up with his buddies. 

I remember watching the local news broadcast with my grandmother the evening he disappeared. I gasped and held my breath when the face shot of him leaning his head to the side with a big smile on his face appeared on the television screen, and the reporter asked, “Has anyone seen Chad Wolfe Thompson?” What I remember even more is them removing the picture because they allowed his closest relative to speak live on camera. Her words devastated me: “Chad will come home as soon as he’s done doing what he likes to do. He’s probably somewhere trying to get money from somebody, because he really likes money. I bet he ran away and is somewhere prostituting. He does it all the time...”

She went on and on, and the more she spoke, the more my heart broke for Chad. Through the years, I had often wondered why this woman had said such things about that child; not just any child, but one directly under her care, custody, and control. I kept thinking that perhaps she was just prideful and embarrassed because it made her look bad that he had come up missing, when she was the adult responsible for his well-being. Perhaps she was angry that he had allowed himself to be lured by someone or conned in some way; the way parents get upset when their child hurts him/herself. I did not know what to think or how to process what she may have been thinking and feeling because I had never walked in her shoes. I was just a teenager who had never been responsible for another life, not even my own. But I had seen this boy many times throughout the apartment complex, and never saw him asking anyone for money; never saw him doing anything short of playing with other children, and grinning while doing so. He seemed like a very happy little person. 

The second day I will never forget took place years later when I sat down to watch the local news one day, and listened attentively as the reporter announced, “Police have found the remains of Chad Thompson, who had been missing for the past 11 years. Thompson would have been 22 years old...” My heart, not my ears, literally tuned out the remainder of the news that day. I immediately thought about the words his family member had spoken on the day of his disappearance. I wondered if she was still alive, and if so, how she felt when the police told her about his remains. Was she sorry for the terrible things she said? Had she cried? I sure did. Did she even care? I did. I would have rather it been a movie than actual, real life news.

Speaking of movies, the first time I saw the movie entitled, “The Lovely Bones,” about a 12 year old girl who watched her family and her murderer handle her death, as she transitioned over to a heaven where other victims of the same crime resided, I directly thought of Chad. As I watched the movie, tears filled my eyes and I wondered if he went to a special heaven where other little boys with bouncy hair laugh while they run, talk a lot when answering questions, and button their shirts wrong.

I use to wonder if he had watched from the spirit world as his relative made those negative remarks about him on television, instead of holding a candlelight vigil and forming a search party for him. I use to picture him frightened, smiling at his murderer; hoping he was playing and would let him go back to his childhood. I use to think of him every time I would see anything pertaining to missing children.

After watching the movie a couple times, I released my sad thoughts and memories of Chad to the Universe; but only the sad ones. Instead, I have pictures in my heart and in my head of Chad having a great time in his heaven. In my mental and emotional films, he is always smiling, and he has forgiven his relative and his murderer. Chad has forgiven all of us: the ones who never bothered to find out why his clothes were too little and too big; the ones who watched the news and never questioned the lady who gave the negative report; and the ones who never went looking for him.

I choose to believe that Chad was taken from his short childhood here on earth, to a much better one with new friends he can relate to; with new reasons to smile. I imagine that his hair still bounces when he runs, and his clothes fit all the time, and are cleaner than ever before. I bet he has learned to say both 'please and thank you' in all things. I am convinced that Chad will never be lured or hurt again, and in his honor, I write this story in hopes that it will reach someone who may remember, if only for a minute, an hour or a day, that Chad Wolfe Thompson was definitely here.