It Wasn't Me

by Dana Alison Levy

  Interesting.

  Ms. Lewiston stands again. “Okay, so enjoy.”

  We must all look a little skeptical, because she does that spectacular one-eyebrow raise. “And who knows? Maybe I’ll have more rewards.”

  With that she’s out the door.

  With a dramatic sigh, Molly shakes the photocopied sheets, rustling them as loudly as it’s possible to rustle paper, and starts to read.

  The story’s pretty interesting, I guess. It’s about this kid who’s what my mom would call a real piece of work…nasty and mean and a seriously violent bully. He beats people up, usually without a good reason, and then one time he beats up a kid so badly that the kid gets a major concussion and has to drop out of school because of panic attacks and stuff. But then we find out more, like that the bully kid was abused and had a really brutal home life. But that doesn’t make him any less of a nightmare. So basically the bully kid gets sent to a foster home, and the foster parents are into this restorative justice thing. And they ask the cops—because the concussion kid’s parents are pressing charges—if the other family and the police would be willing to participate in a restorative justice process. So then they all—the victim, his parents, the police, the kid who did it, his foster parents, and even the teacher and a bunch of kids at the school who witnessed it—get together and talk about it.

  The story’s only around ten pages long, but it takes place over a year, or maybe even longer. The first time they circle up, they do the same thing we do with the whole candle and talking stick, but the victim kid is so scared and nervous that he actually pees himself. It’s humiliating even reading this, and I get mad at Ms. Lewiston for making us do it. I mean, does she think that’s going to happen to me? It’s not like anyone beat me to a pulp.

  Anyway, it goes from there, and the various people talk about how it affected them. And I don’t know, the part that gets to me is when the teacher, of all people, breaks down crying so hard he can’t talk. Finally he says he was bullied as a kid, and has gotten into martial arts since then and has never felt threatened again, but that the day this kid got beaten up he was out of the room on a personal call, and he felt like it was all his fault, like he was as useless and weak as he’d ever been. He apologizes to the kid who got beat up, asking him to forgive him, and meanwhile the bully is watching, trying to understand all the ways his actions messed everyone up.

  I read faster, wanting to know how this ends, if there’s ever a way that everyone can forgive him. Amazingly, they do, though it takes a LOT of these circles before they finally get there. I’m talking most of a year. I’m exhausted just reading about it.

  And the LAST thing I want to do is act it out. I stare out the window and hope Ms. Lewiston gets a medically unique case of amnesia where she remembers her name and family and everything but forgets that she had a jaw-droppingly awful plan to make us pair up and do awkward emo improv games.

  Sadly, when she comes in a few minutes later, that hasn’t happened. She has us all stand up and close our eyes.

  “Okay, keep your eyes closed and think about a character from the story you want to take on. There’s the victim and the perpetrator, of course, but also think about the others. Were they bystanders who did nothing? Or upstanders who tried to take action? How would they be feeling? There’s no right or wrong answer, and if two partners want to be the same character, well, that’s okay too. You can act out how she or he might be feeling inside.”

  Her voice comes closer, and I squint out of my closed eyes. Across from me, I see Molly doing the same thing, but she scowls and squeezes her eyes tight when she sees me.

  “I’m going to take your hand and gently lead you over to your partner, joining you two together,” Lewiston continues.

  My shoulders tense up, and I brace myself. I swear, if I had known emo improv was part of the Justice Circle, I would not have agreed to do it.

  But she takes my hand, and I try not to jerk it away from her, and next thing I know I’m holding what can only be the size-XXL, sweaty, basketball-wielding hand of Erik, Total Suspect #1.

  Freaking PERFECT.

  I drop his hand like it’s covered in dog poop and open my eyes.

  Molly’s standing next to Jax, her face aflame with her How Can the World Be This Stupid look. In fairness, Jax doesn’t look a whole lot happier. He’s slouched over, his hat almost covering his eyes. On the other side of the room Alice and Andre stand next to each other. I notice after a second that Alice is clutching Andre’s sleeve, and her eyes are still closed. Andre looks a little pained.

  Ms. Lewiston, on the other hand, looks like this is part of the plan, which makes me question her sanity. “Now!” she says, her voice far too upbeat. “Let’s do this. But before we get into character, can we start by talking about the difference between restorative justice and punitive justice?” She looks around. “Who wants to begin?”

  Molly snorts. “Well, punitive means that whoever broke the rule gets punished. Like, in this case, only the person who actually ruined Theo’s photos would be in trouble.” She glares around, as though to say that punitive justice would be fine by her.

  “That’s true, Molly,” Ms. Lewiston says. “And what are some reasons that restorative justice is different?”

  Andre speaks up, gently shaking his arm until Alice lets go. “In restorative justice it’s all about what happened before, and what has to happen to make things right. It’s not all about the victim, or even the…you know, perpetrator. Like in the story, Derek’s the guy who did it, but he’s not really who the story’s about.”

  Ms. Lewiston nods. “Exactly. That’s exactly right. The story is about all the people affected by Derek’s actions. So feel free, in this exercise, to tap into whoever you want. Really think about what’s going on in that person’s mind.” She smiles. “Who wants to start?”

  Jax stares at her for a second, then bends down, kicks off his shoe, and pulls off a sock, placing it over his hand. “Yo, if it’s okay with you, I’m going to perform my character through this sock puppet.”

  Molly moves back a few steps. “Put. That. ON,” she says, crossing her arms across her chest.

  Jax just shakes his head and balances on one sneaker, his other bony bare foot dangling off the floor. “Nope. This is my…you know, instrument. Tell you what, I’ll be Jamal, the kid who got beat up.” He turns to Molly and makes the sock puppet talk. “Who you want to be?”

  Molly looks like she wants to be anyone in the world who isn’t in this room, but after a second she sighs and says that she’ll be Jamal’s friend, Alicia.

  “When you’re ready,” Ms. Lewiston says softly.

  There’s a pause. Then Jax begins.

  “AHHHHH­HHHHH­HHH!” he screams so loudly that Alice jumps a full foot into the air. “I BEEN BEATEN REALLY BAD!!! I’M NEARLY DEAD!!!!!!!!! HELLLLL­LLLLL­LLLP!!!” He waves his hand around, the white sock flapping wildly.

  I cover my ears.

  Ms. Lewiston raises her hands. She has to call his name a few times before he can hear her over his shouting.

  “Jax. JAX! Hey! Wow! That’s some great emotion, but let’s pick up where the individuals are in the Justice Circle. Okay? Not at the time of the incident.”

  Jax pauses mid-scream. “Oh. Okay. My bad.”

  Slowly I lower my hands.

  Ms. Lewiston looks a little rattled. “I tell you what, why don’t you take a minute to think about it, and we’ll have Andre and Alice give it a try, okay?”

  Alice claps her hands. “Oh, excellent. Andre, I’ll be Derek, the guy who did it, okay? What about you?”

  Andre shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe Mr. Sauk, the teacher.”

  “Great,” Ms. Lewiston says. “Take it away.”

  Andre looks deeply unsure, but he gives it a try. “Uh. Yo, Derek. I’m glad we have a chance to talk with you about what
went down. As your teacher, I feel really guilty, because I should have protected the other students. And I wish I hadn’t left the room, because—”

  Before Andre can say anything more, Alice is pacing away from him, her face twisted and wild.

  “My temper! My accursed temper will RUIN ME! And maybe that would be a good thing! Maybe the world would be better without me, but what of all the others who I’ve ruined in my path? How can there possibly be redemption? THEIR SPIRITS WILL HAUNT ME TO MY DEATH AND BEYOND!” She tears at her hair in apparent anguish.

  Andre’s mouth drops open.

  Alice continues. “There is so much horror in my past!” She drops to her knees. “Will I ever escape it? ANSWER ME, CRUEL FATES!”

  Silence.

  Then she stage-whispers to Andre, “Now you say something.”

  Andre coughs, then says, feebly, “Well, you know, Derek, I was…uh…I was bullied as a kid, so it was really hard for me to accept the fact that, as an adult, I wasn’t there to help Jamal. Like, I felt powerless again, even though you didn’t hurt me directly.”

  “LET ME ATTEMPT MY PENANCE!!” Alice shrieks, flailing onto her back. The fake nail goes flying.

  Andre steps back in alarm, and Ms. Lewiston waves her hands a few times to get their attention. She looks a little desperate, and I’d feel bad if it weren’t for the fact that (1) I kind of LOVE Alice’s Shakespearean version of Derek, and (2) I suspect it’s me and Erik up next.

  “Wow. Wow, Alice, that was some great intensity,” Ms. Lewiston says. “Can you tell us what you were thinking?”

  Alice sits up and beams. “Thank you! I guess I wanted to show how horrible Derek would feel, once he really understood the damage he had done. Like, in a way it’s a worse punishment than going to reform school or whatever.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Ms. Lewiston starts, but Alice interrupts.

  “And in the next scene, I was thinking that his getting forgiveness was like, I don’t know, like all his toxic poison was being drained out of him. Like he’s being purged. Here, I’ll show you!” She leaps to her feet.

  Ms. Lewiston puts up her hand. “I’m sure that would be amazing, Alice, but let’s let Erik and Theo have a turn, okay?”

  I shoot her a dirty look. I would so much rather watch Alice purge herself of toxic hate. Erik looms next to me like a polyester-upholstered tree. He puts an arm around my shoulders and I flinch away.

  “Who do you want to be?” he asks. “I was thinking I’d try Jamal.”

  I roll my eyes. What a subtle way to deflect suspicion. “Fine. I’ll be Derek.”

  Ms. Lewiston nods. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  We’re both silent, then both start talking at once. Erik turns red. “Sorry! Go ahead.”

  “No, you go.”

  “No, you.”

  More silence.

  This is possibly the most painful thing I have ever done, and that includes getting nine vaccinations at once when I was eleven.

  “FINE.” I stare at Erik. “Look, Jamal,” I say, sounding like someone nailing the audition for the stupidest actor in the world. “I can’t change anything that happened, so I don’t really know what you want from me. I screwed up. Badly. But now it’s over, so I don’t really know why I’m here. I mean, I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. But what else can I say?”

  Erik looks straight ahead, right past me. “I…I don’t want to talk to Derek. I get that we’re here to make things better, but I can’t look at him. It brings back all the scary feelings. I want to forgive him, but I don’t know how. Everything is so hard now. I cry at night—”

  “Okay, we’re done!” I’m halfway across the room. I don’t need to hear Erik’s sniveling version of the sad beat-up kid. Is that who he thinks I am? My stomach churns. I’m out. This is so freaking stupid.

  “I need to go to the bathroom. Sorry.” I make for the door, and the last thing I hear before it slams is Ms. Lewiston calling my name. But I don’t even slow down.

  * * *

  —

  In the bathroom I take a few deep breaths, then splash water on my face. I know I need to go back, and fast, before (1) Ms. Lewiston sends someone in to make sure my poor fragile self isn’t weeping into the urinals, or (2) Erik comes along to see just how pathetic I really am. I close my eyes for a second, then open them, shaking my neck and shoulders until I don’t look like a hunted animal. When I’m sure I look normal, I head back.

  I can hear the group before I even get to the doorway. It doesn’t sound good. Carefully I open the door and peer in. Molly, Erik, and Jax, who’s still wearing the sock on his hand like a puppet, are grouped in the middle of the room.

  Jax is yelling, his sock-puppet mouth opening and closing. It looks like he found a pen and added eyes while I was gone. He’s still channeling Jamal. “Why would you do what you did to me? That’s the real question: WHY? Why would you want to hurt people? What did I ever do to you?”

  Meanwhile, Molly, who has apparently taken on the role of Derek, is standing red-faced and angry next to him. “I…” She pauses. “This is so dumb!” she says finally. “I have no idea why someone would—”

  “Just do your best, Molly,” Ms. Lewiston says quietly. “Think about what someone might have been feeling, to be so violent.”

  Molly stays silent.

  Erik steps forward. “Uh. I’m Derek’s friend…you know, one of the guys he used to hang out with when he was doing all his crazy stuff.” He gulps. “Well, I just want to say that, um, Derek, you were a friend of mine, we were like a team, you know. But, um, now we’re not friends. I can’t…You can’t do stuff like you did, man. And it’s not because you got busted. But I can’t handle how crazy you get, you know?”

  I sigh, loudly. Erik should definitely not pursue a career in acting. Molly just scowls harder, then finally speaks.

  “I can’t…I couldn’t help it,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “Everything hurt so bad, and nothing made it better. Nothing but hurting other people.”

  There’s silence for a second, then Jax’s sock puppet opens its mouth. “EXCEPT FOR STEALING CHOCOLATE!”

  Molly freezes, mouth open. “WHAT?” She lurches forward, whips the sock off his hand, and flings it at his face.

  Jax catches it but loses his balance and staggers into Erik. “It was just a jo—”

  “YOU—YOU ARE SUCH A—”

  “CHILL OUT!”

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE—”

  A piercing whistle cuts through their shouting, and they both go silent. Ms. Lewiston has two fingers in her mouth.

  “Enough. Both of you. Jax, I understand you thought you were making a joke. But this isn’t the time.”

  Jax stands there, clutching his sock to his chest. He scowls. Nods.

  Ms. Lewiston goes on. “You all shared different elements of what makes this so powerful and so hard. Going through something traumatic like they do in the story can bond people together. Or it can tear them apart. Which is why restorative justice is so important. It’s all about finding a way forward.”

  She sighs. “It may be that we need to get to know each other a little better before we dig in on this. It’s hard work, what I’m asking you to do.”

  I nod along with everyone else, but part of me wonders: If this is going to work, do I need to be more traumatized? Because I’m committed to this process. Seriously, I am. I get how it’s better for everyone if we move forward and get some answers and figure out how to “deal with it as a community” or whatever, but nobody hurt me. I mean, there was poor Jamal with broken ribs and a concussion and serious trauma like after a war. Part of me feels like a big fake even being here, with my poor boo-hoo-Theo’s-photos-are-messed-up life. But I don’t dare say that to Ms. Lewiston. For her sake, I’ll pretend this all really matters.

  We all go
take a bathroom break, and when we get back, everyone’s calmed down. Jax apologizes again for disrespecting Molly’s process and using a sock puppet, and Alice asks why the sock puppet was the problem, because she really liked that part, and Erik says he thought Alice’s version of Derek was really cool, and I’m left once again wondering why on earth I’m here.

  The more time we all spend together, the less I understand what happened. It’s like some cosmic joke: the more we talk, the worse I feel. I’m pretty sure that Erik must have done it, but is he really able to fake looking so clueless? And how much do the others know? I mean, someone must have seen something, right? I don’t know. I don’t know anything.

  Ms. Lewiston claps her hands, and I head over to rejoin the circle.

  “It may have been a little premature to work through the story like that. It was a lot to ask of you, and I appreciate the effort. But now I want to switch gears a little, and get to know each other a little better. I want to talk about something that matters to each of us, something that maybe isn’t schoolwork—”

  Here Molly looks disappointed.

  “—but that we are intrinsically motived to work on.”

  She turns to Jax. “And we’re going to start with you.”

  Jax looks startled, his usual I-got-this grin absent from his face.

  “I…uh. I’m intrinsically motivated to chillax, you know?” he starts, but Ms. Lewiston has a hand up before he can finish.

  “Nope. We’re dropping the act, for a little while. I need you to take this seriously. There is, I promise you, no wrong answer. If it’s something dangerous or illegal, I’ll have to talk with you about it, and, yes, reach out to your parents if I’m really concerned. But otherwise”—she waves her arms—“the sky’s the limit.”

  Jax is silent for a second. Then he leans back and spreads his legs wide, sliding down in the chair. “Okay, cool,” he says. “I guess, I’m pretty into hip-hop. Like, I love listening to new songs, waiting for new mixtapes to drop, stuff like that.” He pauses. “But that’s probably not even what you mean, because it’s not like I’m recording or anything, I just—”