— Deirdre Bunson
I love football. It’s been a part of my life ever since I was small. My parents have had season tickets for the Marauders for nearly forty years. I can count on one hand the number of Friday nights we’ve missed. Football is part of the social fabric of this town. It brings us together and gives us something to look forward to and talk about. I firmly believe that it has a positive and long-lasting benefit for the kids, and the adults as well.
I love the excitement and the crowd and the food. I love cheering for my students and the sons of my friends. If a former student comes back to visit, I’m more likely to see him or her at the game on Friday night than anywhere else. I will be delighted if someday my own son plays for the Marauders.
You cannot blame what happened here on football. You simply have to think of the thousands of schools in this country that have football teams, and where nothing like this has ever happened. What happened here goes much deeper.
—Beth Bender
I think Brendan got it worse than the other kids. Like you’d see a crowd of guys talking to some girls but intentionally blocking the hall, you know? Like asserting their power. Trying to impress the girls, or whatever. Some kids would see that and just, you know, try to find another way around or wait until the crowd broke up, even if it meant they’d be late. But Brendan couldn’t stand it. He knew what they were doing, and it just made him nuts. Some jocks are saying that Brendan went out of his way to start fights, but I don’t think it was that. I think he just felt really strongly that he had a right to go down the hall and that it was wrong for those guys to block it just to prove they owned the place.
— Dustin Williams
“How many kids ostracized, humiliated, and assaulted in American high schools, like the survivors of Columbine High, are left scarred for life? How many commit suicide every year? So long as some kids go out of their way to make high school hell for others, there are going to be kids who crack, and not all of the kids who crack are going to quietly off themselves.”
—a posting on the Internet
The chicken!&*# teachers know what’s going on. Today friggin’ Flach shoved me in the hall and called me a faggot right in front of Mr. Ellin. You know that jerk Ellin? He’s a new biology teacher. I think this is his first year. He’s one of those preppies in Gap chinos and a blue button-down shirt. Halfway between student and teacher.
So he tells me I shouldn’t take it personally. Can you friggin’ believe it? I get slammed and dissed, and I’m not supposed to take it personally? I mean, why didn’t he drag Flach’s butt down to [Principal] Curry’s office?
These stupid teachers, you know? Especially the new, young ones. They think they’re like you. Like you’ve got something in common. Like I’d ever want to be a friggin’ teacher.
So, you’ll love this. Ellin tells me it’s all genetics. The athletes are the dominant males, and they’re driven by their friggin’ genes to keep the rest of the pack in line. Like the next time one of them smashes my face into the friggin’ lockers, I’m supposed to forgive him because he’s not really doin’ it, it’s his friggin’ genes making him do it.
I mean, who gives a rat’s ass why they do it? What the hell difference does it make? You think some loser getting his butt whipped really gives a flying #$*% whether the guy who’s doing it personally hates his guts or is just being driven by some friggin’ chromosome? Gimme a break. When I take ’em out, I’m gonna make sure I nail this guy Ellin just because he tried to give it a reason. Like an excuse or something. Like he thinks maybe on some level that makes it understandable. If that’s understandable, so’s popping a cap in his ass with a friggin’ TEC-9.
—an E-mail from Brendan to Gary
The boys call each other a few names, and in no time, unless one of them backs down, they’re fighting. It’s different with girls. It’s all backbiting and nastiness. The popular girls wouldn’t dream of fighting. They might chip a nail. They fight with words and looks and searing little offhand comments designed to cut your heart out. Everyone wants to be young again, but each time I see these girls reduce someone to tears, it makes me think twice.
—Beth Bender
More than 50 percent of male youths say it would be easy to obtain a gun.
Maybe we stereotype them, but they stereotype us, too. To them we’re all big dumb jocks. They seem to forget that Dustin Williams’s GPA is way up there, and so are a couple of other guys’. And who says they don’t want to be stereotyped? If you walk around this school putting it down and dissing on sports and spirit, aren’t you kind of just asking to be stereotyped?
— Paul Burns, football player
You’re walking down the hall, minding your own business. You see this guy, and he just sneers at you and says, “Hey, faggot.” Thing is, to him it’s nothing. Two seconds later he’s probably forgotten he even said it. But it’s burned in your brain. It’s a permanent scar. A week later you’re still asking yourself, why’d he have to do that? Why’d he have to pick you? Does everyone think you’re a faggot? Maybe you are a faggot and you don’t even know it.
It’s like torture. You know “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me”? It’s a load of crap. A stick stops hurting after a few minutes. Names last a long time.
—Ryan Clancy
I was talking with Brendan in the hall, and Sam Flach came by and gave him just the slightest nudge. The sort of harmless thing that must happen a thousand times a day in a crowded school like ours. At first I thought Brendan overreacted. Making a fist, muttering under his breath. I stupidly said, “Oh, come on, Brendan, it wasn’t that bad, just a little push.” Brendan looked back at me with such hurt in his eyes. He said, “No, Ms. Bender, its not ‘just’ a little push, not when it happens every day.” Even then I didn’t take it that seriously. But now I think I understand. What if it really was constant, unrelenting torment? A little bit of salt doesn’t bother your skin. But that same small amount in an open wound can really, really sting.
— Beth Bender
“I went to three [high schools], and in none of [them] did I for a moment feel safe. High school was terrifying, and it was the casual cruelty of the popular kids that made it hell.”
—a posting on the Internet
It wasn’t just in the halls. It was everywhere. Once, in gym, we were out in the field a couple of days after a big rain. The grass had pretty much dried, but there were still a few puddles. Next thing I know, [Sam] Flach and [Paul] Burns push me down. Each one grabs a leg, and they drag me through a couple of muddy puddles. I’m drenched with grimy water and smeared with mud, and Bosco comes over, and I swear he’s having a really hard time not grinning. He tells Flach and Burns to let go and tells me to go clean up. And that was it. I mean, it was almost like he was giving those guys a license to do it again anytime they liked.
—Ryan Clancy
Everyone thinks about suicide when they’re a teenager. At least, almost everyone I know. It’s just, like, something really crappy happens and you’re in this horrible pain, and what’s the point? Gary loved that old Queen song, the one they sang in the car in Wayne’s World. You know, where the singer says he shot someone in the head and his life is ruined, but nothing really matters anyway. I mean, don’t take this the wrong way and think you’ve made some big discovery. He didn’t do what he did because of some stupid song.
—Allison Findley
Lots of kids’ll say they want to kill themselves at one point or another, but Gary would really go into detail about it. I remember he once got into this whole thing about hanging himself from the flagpole in front of the school. So you’d get to school the next morning, and instead of the flag, there’d be Gary. The thing of it was he couldn’t figure out how to do it. Like, how would he get up there? He thought maybe a really long extension ladder would do the trick. I figured it was just typical Gary stuff, but a couple of days later we were leaving school, and he actually took off his backpack and tried to
shimmy up the flagpole. Of course he couldn’t. But it really hit me: Two days later and he’s still thinking about it.
—Ryan Clancy
The presence of a gun in the home increases the risk of suicide fivefold.
I can’t begin to count how many times on a Saturday around noon I’d knock on Gary’s door and find him still in bed, wide awake, simply lying there with that thick quilt wrapped around him like a cocoon. I’d suggest that he go outside, find someone to do something with. He’d always say he would “in a moment.” But sometimes he wouldn’t get out of bed until three or four. I always felt as if there was something inside keeping him from being happy and active like other boys. A lead curtain of sadness that was too heavy for him to lift. I’m sure it had to do with the divorce. I can’t tell you how many times I’d see him like that, then go into my own room and just cry.
—Cynthia Searle
This one night I came home pretty late. It was definitely after midnight. Brendan was sitting in the dark on the curb in front of his house. Elbows on his knees, his head hung. Looking pretty bummed. So I went over and asked if everything was okay. He said no as if it was obvious things weren’t okay. I guess it was a dumb question, so I apologized. He patted the curb next to him. You know, have a seat.
“Most of the attackers in the recent cases had shown signs of clinical depression or other psychological problems. But schools, strapped for mental health counselors, are less likely to pick up on such behavior or to have the available help.”
—New York Times, 6/14/98
I sat down. You could smell the liquor on him, and I think I might have said something about drinking alone. He got into this rap about how we were both minorities, him being an outcast and me being African American. And didn’t I know that if it weren’t for football, I’d be in the same boat as him? I told him I thought there might be some truth to that, but that while there were definitely some bigots around, the majority of people we knew were smart enough to know better.
He asked if I knew that some of the worst bigots in school were on the team. I said I didn’t think that was the case. We talked a little more, and then I got up and said I had to get to bed. Practice the next day, you know? I asked if he was going in, and he shook his head and said he was going to stay out for a while more. He tried to be tough and cool, but right at that moment he looked mostly miserable and weak.
Since we’d been talking pretty intimately, I asked him why he was doing this to himself. You know, drinking alone and fighting and generally making himself an outsider. He just looked up at me. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought his eyes were glistening, like with tears. And then he said that if I weren’t on the team, I’d want to kill each and every one of them too. I said I was sorry but I didn’t see it that way.
— Dustin Williams
If you’re going to teach ninth-grade English, you have to be prepared for some off-the-wall stuff, especially from a kid like Brendan Lawlor. You see kids like him every year. You get the feeling they’re at war in their mind, fighting some constant battle inside themselves as well as with everyone around them. Brendan wrote poems that sounded like plots for nightmarish action movies. Poems about automatic-weapons fire, limbs being torn off, the smell of burning flesh, skulls crushed and brains splattered in the halls, bombs, people begging for mercy before having their throats slit, then blowing yourself away. You would almost assume it was satire, except that for a kid like Brendan it was deadly serious. There were times when you wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him. Come on, wake up! You’re young. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Buckle down, work hard, go on a date, go to college, and get on with it.
— Dick Flanagan, Brendan’s ninth-grade English teacher at Middletown High School
The number of kids killed by firearms has quadrupled in the past ten years. (People, 5/3/99)
Part of Brendan’s Suicide Note
Know what? Not everybody has to do what you A-holes want them to do. Maybe your kids did, but me and my friends chose not to. And you and your kids couldn’t deal with that. And so you had to do what stupid, ignorant people always do when they don’t understand—you had to attack and torment us.
And you teachers. I thought you taught us that America is supposed to be about freedom. Kids are supposed to be able to be different without the status quo police smashing us over the head and ridiculing us. But that’s all you teachers did to me and my friends. Just like everyone else, you tried to make us conform to your narrow-minded expectations of how we were supposed to dress and act.
Well, screw you. Screw all of you. I hope this letter is like a knife in your hearts. You ruined my life. All I’ve done is pay you back in kind.
More of Ninth Grade
Gary thought it was all a big joke anyway. He always said life was an accident. I mean, life on this planet. It wasn’t anything that was meant to be. Most of the time I didn’t bother to argue. But sometimes it made me sad. People tell me I’m really angry inside. It’s probably true. But at least now I think maybe it can get better. But to Gary it was always hopeless and meaningless.
I think his mom might have been religious. Anyway, I hear she’s been going to church a lot since what happened.
—Allison Findley
One day in class we were talking about morality, and Brendan said there was no God. He didn’t say that he didn’t believe in God. He just said there was no God. Like he had this special knowledge and that was just the way it was, take it or leave it. The whole class went quiet. Even Mr. Flanagan was kind of shocked. He said Brendan could feel that way if he wanted, but that was his opinion and not necessarily the truth. But Brendan, he just kept saying there was no God. Like it wasn’t enough to say what he believed. He had to try and force it down everyone else’s throat too. I really wanted to pound the crap out of him.
—Paul Burns
It’s stupid to point at one incident and say, “It’s all because of this.” It has to be something that builds gradually and eats at you for a long time until you go psycho. But having said that, I’ll tell you about one thing that happened in ninth grade that really changed Brendan. It was the time they did the swirly to him. They held him by the ankles and dunked his head in the toilet. It was all over school in no time. After Gary and I heard about it, we went looking for [Brendan], but he was gone.
—Ryan Clancy
Several people said immediately after the shooting that Michael Carneal was an atheist, or at least had associated with atheists.
Face it, there are two sets of rules: one for those who are in favor and one for those who aren’t. If Deirdre Bunson is talking in world history, it’s like, “Excuse me, Deirdre, now pay attention.” But if Allison Findley is talking, Ms. Arnold stops the class and stares at her. And then the rest of the kids stare at her. It’s a light slap on the wrist for Deirdre. It’s public humiliation for Allison.
—Allison Findley
[Brendan] called me the second night. I said, “Brendan, where have you been [for the past two days]?” He said he’d been ditching. He couldn’t face anyone at school. I asked why he didn’t tell his parents or the school, and he just laughed. He said if the guys who did [the swirly] found out [he’d told on them], it would only make it worse. He went to school the next day and got two weeks’ detention for unexplained absence. Is that fair?
— Emily Kirsch
Everybody’s looking for someone to blame. So, of course, since I’m on the [football] team and I had some scrapes with those guys, a lot of people want to blame me. Let me tell you something. I’m not going to deny that I mixed it up with them. I did it, and I’m not proud of it. Obviously, after what they did to me, I’m gonna regret it for as long as I live. But there’s just one thing. It wasn’t like I went looking for them. Those guys, especially Brendan, it was like he always wanted to start something. Like he went out of his way to ask for it.
— Sam Flach
Like all other animals, we are born with instincts
and a genetic blueprint of what we must do to survive. The big difference is that humans possess the potential for becoming civilized, thinking, reasoning creatures. Eventually we are supposed to learn to suppress our animal instincts in order to meld with the society around us.
In 1995 alone, 35,957 Americans were killed by firearms in homicides, suicides, and accidents. In comparison, during the three years of the Korean War, 33,651 Americans were killed. During nearly eight years of the war in Vietnam, 58,148 Americans were killed.
But at what point is the process of suppressing our animal instincts complete? Seven years of age? Fourteen? Twenty-one? In other words, do we expect too much of teenagers?
— F. Douglas Ellin, a biology teacher at Middletown High School
I suppose I’m as much at fault as anyone. But it’s not like football players are monsters. Kids have been getting into fights and picking on one another since forever. I don’t know why Brendan and Gary did what they decided to do, but to say it was all because some football players picked on them has to be a gross oversimplification.
Give a Boy a Gun Page 3