As I sit here at my desk writing these words, I have become filled with a sense that my brother is here with me. The peace sign that used to hang in his room hangs on my wall. My desk is covered with his case file. There’s a picture of him in a small white frame beside me. I have never been one to believe in life after death or that people communicate with us after they die. I believe, though, that perhaps their energy remains in some form; something we can access in ways we can’t fully understand.
All I know is that right here, right now, after so many months of reading and writing about Jon, I feel his presence like never before. The alligator candy is no longer just a reminder of evil and loss, of guilt and pain, it’s a symbol of my connection to my brother and the gift he had gone to get for me. And a part of me hears him now in my head:
“David,” he says, “it’s not your fault. Don’t do this to yourself. David, I love you.”
And I know that this book is, perhaps more than anything, my way of telling him I love him too.
44
MY DAUGHTER learned to ride her bike on the same sidewalk where I last saw Jon. As she eagerly climbed up on her seat, I put my hands on her shoulders and began to push, breaking into a stride as she pedaled. Then came that inevitable moment: when her wheels went faster than I could run, and her shoulders left my palms, and she kept going, moving her feet, steering delightedly on her own as I watched her go, and then return.
In the years since, I’ve been able to find inspiration in the person who came to represent that freedom to me most of all: Jon. I can finally do something that I could never fully do before: imagine him alive. I know that while his death was so tragic, he was never more alive than his very last ride. He was a boy on a bike, alone and independent, racing through the woods with candy in his basket for him and me. The wind was in his face. He was pedaling fast. He was heading home. And he was free.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
SPECIAL THANKS TO Jofie Ferrari-Adler, Jonathan Karp, Alessandra Bastagli, David McCormick, Mary Ann Naples, and everyone at Simon & Schuster for making this book possible. Thank you to my friends and family for their love and support. I’m deeply grateful to all those who shared their memories with me for this book and helped my family through our most difficult time.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© GASPER TRINGALE
DAVID KUSHNER is the author of Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture; Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids: How a Gang of Geeks Beat the Odds and Stormed Las Vegas; Levittown: Two Families, One Tycoon, and the Fight for Civil Rights in America’s Legendary Suburb; Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto; The Bones of Marianna: A Reform School, a Terrible Secret, and a Hundred-Year Fight for Justice; Prepare to Meet Thy Doom: And More True Gaming Stories; and The World’s Most Dangerous Geek: And Other True Hacking Stories.
A Ferris professor of journalism at Princeton University, Kushner has written for publications including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, GQ, The New York Times Magazine, and Rolling Stone, where he is a contributing editor. The winner of the New York Press Club award for Best Feature Reporting, Kushner is featured in The Best American Crime Reporting, and The Columbia Journalism Review’s Best Business Writing anthologies. The Bones of Marianna was chosen by Amazon as a Best Digital Single of 2013.
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ALSO BY DAVID KUSHNER
The World’s Most Dangerous Geek: And Other True Hacking Stories
Prepare to Meet Thy Doom: And More True Gaming Stories
The Bones of Marianna: A Reform School, a Terrible Secret, and a Hundred-Year Fight for Justice
Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto
Levittown: Two Families, One Tycoon, and the Fight for Civil Rights in America’s Legendary Suburb
Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids: How a Gang of Geeks Beat the Odds and Stormed Las Vegas
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture
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Copyright © 2016 by David Kushner
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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition March 2016
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Jacket design by Alison Forner
Image © David Lidbetter/Gallery Stock
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kushner, David, 1968– author.
Alligator candy : a memoir / by David Kushner.
pages cm
1. Kushner, Jonathan Mark, 1962–1973. 2. Murder victims—Florida—Tampa—Biography. 3. Murder victims’ families—Florida—Tampa—Biography. 4. Children of anthropologists—Biography. 5. Kushner, David, 1968– I. Title.
HV6534.T36K87 2016
362.88—dc23
2015022792
ISBN 978-1-4516-8253-3
ISBN 978-1-4516-8263-2 (ebook)