My dad called to tell me that this kid I went to school with is dead. Let’s call him D.
D. was and is the reason I have little sympathy for the “small town” way of life. Because that dude never, ever had a chance. And now he’s dead.
On the surface, if I told you about D., you wouldn’t like him. The truth is, I didn’t like him. He gave me the creeps like you wouldn’t believe and my parents were always pushing me to be nice to him and he always wanted to stand too close or lean in too far and he was weird as hell. After we moved, he was accused of molesting one of his sister’s friends and everyone I talked to kind of assumed he did it, though I never heard if anything came of it legally.
But I keep thinking about how, from the time I moved there until the time I left, everyone in that whole damn town–not just the kids at school, but the teachers and the other adults who should have stepped in to stop it–hounded that kid mercilessly. I mean, back then, you always joked abou who the kid was who was going to come back to the reuinion with a gun to settle some scores, and we all joked that it would be him. Because we all knew he would have been justified in it.
From the time he was a little kid, they just ran that poor fucker down. He was beat up and spit at and taunted and pantsed and hit and laughed at and I can remember in grade school kids calling him “Chester the Molester” even though I doubt we even knew what a “molester” was, just that it was bad and creepy. His Boy Scout leader was a really slimy fucker, too. He taught our Sunday School class in junior high and after about three weeks, one of the moms or another would come in to “help” just to make sure that he wasn’t doing anything weird.
No one told him he had to stop being a Sunday School teacher though, or a Boy Scout leader, for that matter, even though it seemed to be an open secret that he had some predilliction towards kids. He, of course, took D. under his wing. I don’t know if anything happened, obviously. But my point is that everyone thought that dude was a total freak who probably molested kids and no one stepped in to protect D.
And I bring up the molestation thing, too, because D. really had such a shitty life, with a ton of evil pointed at him, that it is entirely plausible that someone decided to spread the rumor that he was molesting that girl, just for kicks. I mean, they already accused him of everything else they could think of just to see what kind of trouble it would get him in.
But dude was probably pretty fucked up by that point, too, so who knows?
What bothers me most about D., the thing that haunts me about him is not the kids who made his life such a terrible hell. I mean, sure, that sucks. And not just the adults that piled on him. That is, of course, terrible. But I still think of how many adults there were who knew from the time he was very little that everything was going wrong in that kid’s life and who could have at any moment stepped in to help him themselves, but who didn’t.
I don’t know.
Shit, it’s depressing.
I found his obituary online and I noticed they’d closed the comments. It made me wonder if folks in that town couldn’t even let the dude die in peace.
Anyway, I have to call my dad and tell him it was an accident. We both assumed he’d killed himself.
Filed under: Things I Hate
I always tell myself that a life like his was was led for a reason, and that reason was for the rest of us to rise up and stand in front of as much trouble for him as possible. I rather like the notion (easiest explanation can be found in Neil Donald Walsh books) that your friend agreed to live this life and allow us an opportunity to shine, maybe some did, it seems your account shows many if not most did not. It seems quite plausible to me that God wanted to experience, first hand, his creations, and the best way to do so was to manifest herself here as “one of us, and all of us.” Whats that song? Just a stranger on the bus
I have to say, I’m proud that my kids seem to have a huge capacity for empathy, and find cruelty repulsive enough to risk potential backlash for saying so at their school.
Mack, I gotta say that the idea of a divinity who lets people suffer so that others have the chance to do some good is repulsive to me. As someone who grew up in a violent household, and found out later that the violence was sort of common knowledge while only two people ever even lifted a finger to offer me cover or warn me when something was coming at me, I am appalled.
I’m all too familiar with the behavior in small towns like what you’ve described above. I’ve always been astounded that no one in my hometown committed suicide from the treatment people dole out on one another. And it’s not just kids — it’s the parents who teach their children to scoff at anyone who colors outside the lines of life.
And while there are wonderful people that do exist back home, I’m glad I got out. There’s almost a a passive aggressive undercurrent of meanness in even the kind words people say…
nm, I have beans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reading this made me sad. Sad for that kid and sad for the adults who wouldn’t be adults and help him out. I hope that if I ever knew/suspected something was wrong I would step up.
It also made me a little scared as my husband and I are seriously contemplating moving back to my small, small town. The one where I was bullied from primary(5/6 year olds) to grade 10. The one where some of my former bullies still live. The one where my child will have to go to the same schools I did. Makes me wonder if our reasons for going should outweigh my reasons for not wanting to go back.
NM, in a bit of a hurry, but let me offer this as an explanation. There isn’t any “letting suffering happen” as such. The agreements were struck long before there was any earthly interaction, and there wasn’t any preordained behavior ordered down from “on high.” Mr. Walsh, in his various books, likens it to a play, where, afterward, we all compare notes on how we enjoyed our roles, then, we all agree to switch roles for the next “play.”
It drives Scripture dependent people crazy, i know. But either something rings true with yo, or it doesn’t. The explanation offered above just seems palatable to me, and just as likely as anything the Bible offers.
As usual, your mileage may vary.
This breaks my heart.
In the small town I came from, there was a boy like D. Without the Chester the Molester jokes, but still just merciless treatment. Just merciless.
While we were at a church outing that lasted for a few days, one of his parents passed away suddenly. And he was teased by two other children about that. The adults lamely tried to do something about it but it all seemed very half hearted.
Several years after that, I heard an adult making fun of him in the same way as the children always had. There’s more to that story, but it might not be mine to tell so I’ll leave it at that.
I want it to seem strange that we should know of such similar stories, but it doesn’t suprise me. Not at all.
Beth, very cool on the beans! Mack, not so cool; sorry. It’s not about scripture, it’s about souls.
Mack, earnest New Age types often inform the disabled that they must have called their conditions into their lives for some reason…or that they aren’t opening themselves to healing energies. Christians have been known to smugly tell the chronically ill that if they’d just touch the hem of the garment of Christ, their physical sufferings would be borne away.
And you know what? It’s cruel bunk to suggest that there’s some sort of pre-existing agency at work whereby people choose to be beaten around, have Down’s Syndrome, experience homelessness — hey, other people aren’t victimizing me, because I agreed back in some celestial pre-existence to be sexually molested as a kid! I am to blame for my medically irreversible condition because if I would only believe harder, I could be healed! That kind of compassion would get imfunnytoo to crutch you hard in the nuts.
Evil exists and people are cruel to one another and should be held accountable (and indeed, you don’t back up from holding people accountable for their jackassery). I’m not seeing how your “eternal melodrama” theory of suffering isn’t equally cruel.
Bridgett, any crueler than a God who just randomly assigns some to carry a horrible burden?
I’m just telling y’all one possible explanation that resonates with me
its hard, but once you get past the need to judge, it makes sense. I realize it won’t work for everyone.
If that’s the case,then why should we want to beg for the love of such a cruel, uncaring God?
I read your blog, Mack. I know (and you know) that you judge. You judge, and then you act accordingly. If there was some sort of cosmic agreement that some would be fucked and others fine and then in the next life, we’ll all switch hats, what sense does your political activism make? To your way of thinking, won’t it all just come out in the wash?
I do not think God “allowed” this horrible thing to happen. The people of that small town did.
I do believe that God causes all things to work together for good in the bigger picture, though. Somehow, good will come of this boy’s life…perhaps that because of his story, there will be a child who will not be subjected to bullying and abuse because others have been made aware of it’s prevalence in that town. One can only hope.
Bridgett, I also know that if I smoke, I’ll magnify my chances to get sick. Yet, I have a Winston in my mouth as I type this.
I just said this seems rational and fair to ME. Y’all do what you like.
I’ll also say this. My political activism is what I will point to at the “wrap party.” Of course i judge…I also covet and swim before an hour has passed….wtf are you talking about?
When I am gone, I might have the opportunity to explain why i did what I did. i may see the effects of my actions, some I’ll label as “good”, some i will wish I could take back.
I do not intend to be ‘judged” by any third party.
i grew up in a small town where there were similar kids, and there are people in my extended family who also fit into the category of “people who needed a lot of help and no one did”. everyone romanticizes small towns as these places where you can leave your keys in your car and your neighbors bring you cookies, but in my experience it’s more like a place where people talk a lot about eachother and get very into eachother’s business but due to some weird unwritten rule, that getting into eachother’s business stops and turns into “minding your own business” when help is really needed. it’s a weird libertarian mindset where i grew up. maybe in some small towns it’s all PTAs and BBQs, but not in any one i ever lived in.
As you say, it doesn’t have to make sense to me. Good enough.
I’ve jumped in late, but it’s all random. I believe in a creator, but he/she doesn’t decide who gets terrible parents anymore than who inhales a virus. Those are the random parts of life that determine our “fates.”
I grew up in a single-parent home in the seventies with what turned out to be a manic-depressive mother that took much of her frustration out on me. Other parents in our small town knew it and I thought at the time ignored me and didn’t help. Other kids could be a bit cruel because I was never dressed well and didn’t always know how to act, but I was a mean hillbilly kid so they took lumps for doing it. Not a good thing for me obviously.
Now, looking back on it, many parents invited me to dinner, knowing there wasn’t much to eat at my house. Others made sure I went to church were there were potlucks and I’m sure to try and save me. They gave me hand me downs.
There were still the cruel dads who made fun of me during little league when I didn’t know what to do at first, but damned if they didn’t cheer me and help me out when I turned out to be athletic.
I made it out of that life because I was determined to do so, but it was through the help of many people, that I wasn’t appreciative enough of at the time, that I grew up to make something of myself.
I think the cruelist thing I saw in a few adults was the survival into the modern age of Calvinist thinking that throws mean kids like myself onto the reprobate pile and assumes they are good for nothings. But compassion is out there as well.
I try now to help out kids who are in trouble. I teach at a community college and abanodoned a six-figure a year corporate job to do so. I endow a scholarship at the reform school I spent three years in back in Texas, sent there more because my mom didn’t take care of me than I was so bad. It took me years into my adult life to realize that I shouldn’t be ashamed of those 3 years but proud that I overcame them.
I guess my whole points is that God doesn’t make people like my mother suffer such a horrible illness that they hurt the people they love, it’s just brain chemistry and upbringing. Nor does he decide some kids are poor and sturggle to eat, or are born in Darfur rather than Brentwood, he just watches the show.
Many of his followers judge and ignore the pain around them, but many others intervene and help the least of these.
I’m just not sure that I see holding people accountable for their actions as equivalent to judging them. I can do the first but ultimately the second is out of my hands. I am sure, though, that telling people who are living through real suffering, of whatever kind, that they have chosen to suffer in the interests of some sort of game, is not helpful. If the message helps you, that’s great; offering it as advice to someone who needs assistance right then is, as Bridgett pointed out, not the assistance that’s needed.
Certainly not. It would be at the least inappropriate.