by Sarah Bannan
Why the DA used the Old Courthouse didn’t seem important to us – but we thought about it later. And we figured out what she wanted: to look positively legal in the eyes of the rest of the state, the rest of the country, the rest of the world. Some of the parents called it cynical. We weren’t sure that that was true – but we did think it was weird.
The foreign media – that’s what we ended up calling them, in the end, even though we were pretty sure nobody from abroad had ever stepped foot in Adamsville – they were camped outside the Courthouse from seven that morning. When Judge Sanders emerged at 11.37 a.m., you’d think the crowd might have cleared. But it hadn’t. Not at all. The mob had gotten bigger and bigger as the news – the news that news crews were in town – had spread. And the heat of the morning made them look even thicker on the ground, the whole scene more claustrophobic. We wondered how anybody could breathe.
We watched the whole thing on TV, and/or streamed from the Adamsville News’s website. And as watched the Twitter feeds went, like, crazy:
Carolyn Lessing’s #bullies charged
Carolyn Lessing #bullies & tormentors get what they deserve
Let’s hope this sticks to Lessing #bullies
They were going to be tried as adults. That was the first thing.
Then they listed the charges: violation of civil rights, criminal harassment, disturbance of a school assembly, stalking, assault with a deadly weapon. Statutory rape for Andrew and Shane too. We were curious about the “deadly weapon.” The DA explained that it was the bottle of Dr Pepper that Brooke had thrown at Carolyn. If we hadn’t been so shocked, we said, that would have made us laugh. But it didn’t.
We didn’t understand what statutory rape meant, so we Wikipedia-ed it. ’Cause Carolyn hadn’t turned sixteen – “the age of consent” – when she was hanging out with Shane, and the same with Andrew, at least in the beginning: that meant they were rapists. Weird and stupid, we said to each other. You could prosecute the whole high school for statutory rape, we thought, except for a few of the born-agains and the band kids, but even those kids ended up losing their virginity eventually. How they’d prove it became the other topic of conversation – Andrew could just say he’d gone down on her, Shane could claim that she’d just sucked his dick. That wasn’t sex, or at least we didn’t think so, and we weren’t sure about the anal stuff, or what it meant if you just let a guy inside you, but made him pull out before he came. We remembered the surveys they made us take – some state-sanctioned thing – giving details of what we’d done – how far we’d gone, how often we did what we did, what we felt when we did it. We wanted to get the results of that one, to see what percentile we came out in. Like with the PSATs or any of the other crappy tests they had us take to judge our aptitude. But we never got anything back. We didn’t know where we fell, and we wanted to.
Carolyn would have been an outlier, we said. All her experience from her old school, the way she flirted, the straps of her bras, the way she sat in class after the weekend. She was different. And she knew how to do things we just didn’t. Maybe that’s where some of it came from – the way people loved her and hated her. It was always one way or the other with Carolyn. And that was her problem, really. In the end.
There were so many things the news got wrong, so many things we wanted to correct, so many things we wanted to shout about, so many things we wanted to tear up and smash. Only we didn’t know how, not really, and we were also tired: tired by the year, by the year that they had created, by our memories, by the things half remembered, half said; half forgotten, half written. We would have corrected things if we’d known how, that much we were sure about, only we didn’t know how, and we no longer knew what was true. You tell a lie so many times you forget whether or not you made it up; it starts to seem plausible, tangential memories form around it, giving the lies a hinterland, some credibility.
When the journalists started snooping around the school, we weren’t the ones they wanted to talk to – they wanted Brooke and Shane and Andrew and Gemma. They wanted the really popular kids, the “bullies,” and they wanted the bullied, too.
The story about the bathroom was the first one that got out of hand. Brooke following Carolyn in, Brooke calling her a bitch, a slap. They named the date (13 December) and even the time, which made it seem real, we thought, and even though we didn’t remember much of it, that kind of thing messed with us, made us not trust our memories. We could have blocked it out – that’s what a psychiatrist would say. When we talked to each other, we couldn’t remember everything exactly the same, and we weren’t even positive it had been Brooke and Carolyn. We said we remembered a hand dryer and a blocked drain. The sound of a hand and a ring against a wall. We remembered that two girls talked. They fought. But what exactly they said . . . we couldn’t remember. And this scared us. All of a sudden it mattered.
USA Today ran it, The Today Show replayed its re-enactment at least three times, Good Morning America brought in a psychologist to analyze the motivation of Brooke, to reveal Carolyn’s emotional state. On Live with Regis and Kelly, Kelly Ripa related a story of her own from high school, in which she had been afraid to be alone in the bathroom with a bully. People texted in with their stories.
The couple of journalists who spoke to us – there were two young ones, from liberal online magazines – wanted to know first if we were relieved. Relieved about what? About the fact that the bullies were gone, that Shane and Brooke and the others were going to be punished, that they were going to be charged, sent to prison, they wouldn’t graduate with us, they’d have to be reformed.
We felt so many things in those days and weeks and months that followed. We were lost, and we were sad, inexplicably weepy, crying at the freaking “Star-Spangled Banner,” crying at a long-distance commercial, at the previews for Grey’s Anatomy. We were angry, too, and desperate for everybody to leave our school alone, but at the same time wanting to tell everybody in the world our story, wanting to shake people who weren’t paying attention, who were looking the other way. We were mad – mad at our teachers – at Miss Simpson, at Mr Ferris, at Coach Cox, at Mrs Matthew. At the teachers we thought knew more than they had let on – why hadn’t they stopped things? Were we mad at Carolyn? We couldn’t be sure. We cried at the service, we cried when we saw her face on the news, begged our mothers to let us stay home from church, from the country club, from the pool, just so we wouldn’t have to face a conversation about her. But we may have hated her a little too. She had been popular, she had been beautiful and nothing that happened to her was that special, nothing that happened to her made her so unique, made her entitled to die. We couldn’t say that to the journalists, we couldn’t tell them that we thought she did it for the attention, and that we thought things just went wrong. We couldn’t say that, ’cause imagine how we’d look. But we couldn’t say it because we didn’t believe it, not really.
Were we relieved that Shane was being prosecuted? That Brooke could go to jail? No. No, we weren’t. They were victims too, and that’s the part that nobody understands. That what went on between Carolyn and those guys, and Carolyn and those girls, that kind of shit happens every day of the week and we just fucking deal with it, you know? And she was part of it. That’s what we knew for sure. And we told them that. We told them that again and again and again. And the online magazines, they reported this, and they were discredited, and USA Today continued its series: the bullying teens being brought to justice, a school safe at last.
To say we were relieved wasn’t true, but that’s what was printed, and it was said, and it was printed and said again and again, and before you knew it, you half believed it yourself. The counselors told us our “memories weren’t reliable.” They shifted and changed and, as we swapped stories, things became cloudier, our vision became blurred, we just couldn’t remember exactly who was to blame, who started what, who was where and when and why. The reporters didn’t help, and talking to them, or to the psychiatrists and psychotherapists and psycholo
gists and social workers didn’t help either. It clouded us again. We were young, that was the thing. We were young. We knew it wasn’t an excuse.
Letter to the Editor, New York Observer (Never printed; obtained under FOIA)
Timothy Towers
New York Observer
321 W. 44th Street
6th Floor
New York, NY 10036
10 June 2011
Dear Mr Towers
I am writing in relation to the article “Mean Girls and Football Fanatics: How Adams High School helped kill Carolyn Lessing,” which was printed on 16 June 2011.
The school faculty did not “turn a blind eye” to the allegations of bullying leveled against certain students in relation to Carolyn Lessing, as you suggest. We are currently in the midst of an investigation and review into the incidents involving Ms Lessing and her classmates. We plan to issue a public statement following this work, but in the meantime, we would assert that the implications within your article are defamatory, particularly in relation to the school’s attitude to athletics, and I would request that a full correction is issued in tomorrow’s paper, accompanied by a robust apology to the faculty, parents and students of Adams High.
If this is not undertaken, the Superintendent has instructed his legal team to begin formal proceedings with your newspaper in relation to libel.
I understand that parents have written to you under separate cover with similar grievances, and I would strongly encourage you to re-examine your newspaper’s editorial approach to this subject, which is clearly agenda-driven, reflecting an urban and liberal bias and an overall lack of knowledge regarding the basic facts of Miss Lessing’s tragic suicide.
Yours sincerely
Richard Overton
Principal, Adamsville High School
JULY
Chapter 27
Our parents were to blame. That’s what the papers said later. That was the explanation for a lot of things: our parents. They talked a lot and they met a lot and they cared a lot, but, really, they didn’t do a thing. Or they didn’t do enough. Not in the end.
The PTA met in the cafeteria on a Tuesday evening, the parking lot full of SUVs and mini-vans and Volvo station wagons. We weren’t sure what they talked about most of the time, but that day in July, three days after our postponed prom, we were pretty sure. We were sure that they would demand stricter codes of conduct, more supervision, fewer bathroom passes, more restrictions on phones, more firewalls on the web. We were sure they would demand things, and call on the Principal to call on the Superintendent. Someone might have to resign.
We saw them later on the nine o’clock news. Streaming out of the cafeteria into the parking lot, wide-eyed and mouths open, pupils dilated by the flashbulbs and the camera lights. Microphones were shoved toward them for a moment then a reporter was at the forefront, as we watched our parents retreat toward their cars. Older and fatter versions of ourselves, wearing Talbots jeans and not Rock Revivals, wearing brown loafers or New Balance sneakers. We watched them: some with their heads down, some with their eyes glazed, others red-faced and veins bulging. Versions of ourselves, only solid, permanent.
Mr Overton was interviewed – or they tried to – and he just kept saying “No comment,” which we thought sounded pretty bad, made him sound even stupider and guiltier than before. We heard later he had a whole legal team telling him what to do. They were crap, we said to each other. If he had just said a little bit more, explained things better – then it all might have calmed down.
On TV, Carolyn’s class picture came up in the left-hand corner of the screen. We flipped the stations and Carolyn’s image remained the same, only the reporter changed. Kristina Champion for Dothan MCBC, Brent Brinkley for Birmingham – ABC. Carolyn’s picture – that picture – would be in US Weekly, USA Today, People, even the New York Times. And blog posts and dedication sites popped up by the dozen in the days that followed. The picture looked different when we saw it there – maybe because it was bigger than the wallet-size photo she handed out two months earlier, writing in pink ink on the back, with hearts underneath her name. BFF she wrote to some of us. BFF.
The reporters summarized the meeting: the parents were “angry” and “upset” and “ashamed.” The school board was “shocked” and “undertaking an investigation.” They reported on our prom, which had been postponed from June until early July out of “respect.” They scanned the inside of the gym: blue and white streamers and a drinks table – the punch looked purple – and the DJ and the airbrushed proscenium arch. Our theme was “A Night to Remember,” which we all thought was lame and not really a theme, but the reporters said it over and over and over again. The reporters told us how it was “shameless,” “lacking in empathy” – they did a vox pop on the other side of town. People were “amazed” and “disgusted.” They showed footage of Shane Duggan getting out of a limousine outside the gym – in black tails with a purple bow tie to match Brooke Moore’s dress as she stepped out of the limo after him. They were smiling and Brooke’s eyes were like slits – was she drunk? The reporters didn’t say that, not exactly. But we knew what they meant.
We drove by Carolyn’s house over the summer. More than once. Her mother’s realtor had difficulty selling it, we heard, and we weren’t sure if it was just the economy or whether it was all the publicity, or maybe it was both. In any case, Century 21 did an Open House that ran for a few weeks. We read about it in the paper. On the Friday afternoons, you could walk around without an agent shadowing you, trying to sell you something even though it was obvious you were not even old enough to drink. Let alone buy a house.
We went to see it. Couldn’t not. When we arrived, we were the only people there, and we sat in Jessica’s car for ten minutes before we got the nerve to get out and go in. Why we wanted to see it wasn’t clear, even to us, but we felt compelled, drawn, driven to the house, to Carolyn and to her mother. We just wanted to look around. Find clues, memories, whatever.
It smelled the same, we said. Smelled like new house and chlorine and freesia. It smelled like Carolyn. We stood in the front hall for a couple of minutes, breathing it in, until we couldn’t smell anything anymore.
We walked through the kitchen: no food on the shelves like before, no bills lying around the counter, no Abby perched at the breakfast bar eating an almond. We were afraid to touch anything at first, but then Nicole opened a drawer. It was empty, of course, but it made us feel braver, and we began opening everything, just in case. An Adams High School magnet in the drawer next to the dishwasher, a pale green Post-it note with a telephone number, in Carolyn’s handwriting. We didn’t touch it. We left it where it was.
We went to her room. It didn’t look like we remembered: looked smaller, somehow, without the furniture inside. We remembered the piles and piles of books and the pictures of her in New York, in New Jersey. And the pictures of her dad. We remembered it all.
In the bathroom, all was clean, sparkling. No Kérastase, no Lancôme, no Sephora candles. Jessica popped the medicine cabinet open. No Seroquel, no Yasmin, no Pepto-Bismol. Just one item – a bar of Dial soap – something Carolyn would never use, we said. Jessica lifted it up and a wide piece of thick yellow tape dangled from its corner. It drifted to the ground. Nicole picked it up: from the crime scene. We remembered this, of course. She had done it here. We backed up and away and out the door of the bathroom. We went down the stairs. We walked out the house. And we didn’t talk about it again.
Facebook
Fan page RIP Carolyn Lessing
MARGARET Gross. My heart goes out to Carolyn’s mother and father, all of her family. I am praying for all of you. Carolyn, you were a beautiful girl who did not need to die. Your killers should be punished with the full force of the law
BRENDA Moody. Those kids deserve what they get
GEOFF GILBERT Carolyn, you are an angel looking out for us. Your tormentors will burn in hell. This never should have happened
TOM STEPHENSON That whole sc
hool should be burned to the ground
SANDRA SAMPSON Carolyn, you were so beautiful and kind. May you RIP
Chapter 28
There are things that we remember. That Carolyn was beautiful, yes. That she was different, of course. That she came to our school and she wore California Brand t-shirts and never the same one twice. That she could wear her hair curly or straight. And then there are other things, the things that people may forget, or may want to forget, or maybe they didn’t see them. Only that’s very hard to believe. She was popular. She wasn’t an outsider, not in the beginning. She had more friends than we did, at least at first, and she had become popular overnight. She was funny, everybody thought so, and she was so pretty, and her clothes were so cool. It was easy to see how it happened.
Brooke and Gemma weren’t mean girls. And Shane and Andrew weren’t bullies. We said this to the journalists, again and again, and to the guidance counselors and to our teachers and to anybody who said it to us – ’cause they said it a lot.
Some people resented the way the story played out. Gemma and Brooke and Shane and Andrew, of course, but there were other people, too. Popular kids and band kids and druggies and the Odyssey of the Mind-ers. They bitched about the story, about how Carolyn’s family had turned things all around, how the story got reversed – Carolyn could be a bitch, too, and the articles never said that, and nobody blogged or tweeted that – you’d be shot.
But there were others, of course. And maybe they were the majority, in the end. The people that began to believe it all – or maybe they did all along – that Carolyn was a victim, and not a victim of herself, but a victim of those four, and that we were all complicit. That we had watched it all and let it happen. That the four of them should go to jail and then maybe we’d be safe. That they should be punished, and if not by the courts, then by us.