Columbine

by Jeff Kass

  “Fuck you!” Brooks yelled. “Fuck you, Eric! You’re going to pay to fix this!”

  “Kiss my ass, Brooks! I ain’t paying for shit!” Eric said.

  Brooks went to Eric’s house and told Eric’s mom what happened. He added, gratuitously, that Eric had been going on vandalism sprees and that Eric had liquor and spray paint in his room. Katherine Harris did not appear to believe Brooks and asked him to wait until Eric got home. But Brooks didn’t want to confront Eric again.

  Meanwhile, another friend of Brooks had snagged Eric’s backpack from the bus stop. He met up with Brooks at Brooks’s house and they all drove back to the bus stop with Brooks’ mom, Judy Brown. Judy told Eric they had his backpack and were going to his house. Eric turned bright red and began shrieking and pounding the car. He pulled as hard as he could on the door handle to get in. They drove away and returned to the Harris house. Judy calls Katherine Harris a “very sweet, a very nice lady,” and says tears welled up in her eyes as she recounted Eric’s behavior. Wayne Harris thought the whole thing was “just kids’ stuff” and that Eric was actually afraid of Judy. Judy figured Wayne “didn’t want to hear that his son had done anything wrong.” Later, Judy would also wonder if the bag contained pipe bombs.

  Brooks heard the next day that Eric was threatening him, and Judy called police. An officer came to their house, and she asked him to go to the Harrises’, just a few blocks away, to talk about the windshield and let Eric know he didn’t get away with it. The Browns think police contacted the Harrises because Wayne brought Eric over that night to apologize.

  “I didn’t mean any harm, and you know I would never do anything to hurt Brooks,” Eric said.

  Judy thought Eric was faking it. “You know, Eric, you can pull the wool over your dad’s eyes, but you can’t pull the wool over my eyes,” she said.

  “Are you calling me a liar?” Eric asked.

  “Yes Eric, I guess I am,” Judy responded.

  He left mad and joined his father who was waiting in the car.

  “Maybe he had gotten away with it for so long, manipulating people that way, that he was stunned when it didn’t work,” Judy thought.

  ∞

  Eric’s mission number three is undated, but it consisted of plastering model putty on Brooks’ Mercedes. The coda to mission number four was Eric’s denial: “Brooks Brown thought I put a little nik in his windshield from a snowball . . . BS? Yes.” But mission number four was also “liquor free” because Brooks told Eric’s mother about his liquor stash. “I had to ditch every bottle I had and lie like a fuckin salesman to my parents,” Eric wrote.

  Mission five illustrated an ongoing problem for Eric and Dylan: It was free of girls. “We were supposed to have a few chicks come with us, but they couldnt make it . . . so may be next time.”

  The last mission, mission number six, had a more direct prelude to Columbine: Dylan brought his sawed off BB gun. “So we loaded it, pumped it, and fired off a few shots at some houses and trees and stuff,” Eric wrote. “We probly didnt do any damage to any houses, but we arent sure.” Mission number six lasted about three hours, Eric figured, and employed a whopping 1,152 firecrackers. “We were tired as a priest after a 5 hour orgy,” he concluded.

  ∞

  Eric was also writing of the first four bombs he and Dylan created “entirely from scratch.” “Atlanta” is named for the 1996 Olympics bombing in that city, while “Pazzie” seems a likely play on the Italian word for lunacy. “Peltro” is Italian for pewter, and “Pholus” is the centaur who offered wine to Heracles. “Now our only problem,” Eric added, “is to find the place that will be ‘ground zero.’”

  ∞

  On August 7, 1997 Brooks’ younger brother Aaron walked into the Jefferson County sheriff’s substation in the Southwest Plaza Mall around noon and reported Eric’s website to Deputy Michael Burgess. Burgess later wrote that the tipster was an anonymous “concerned citizen,” but Aaron apparently gave Burgess his address. Within forty-five minutes, Burgess requested that an officer be dispatched to the Browns’ house. Deputy Dennis Huner met with one or both of Aaron’s parents and left the house at 1:40 p.m. with seven webpages recounting the night missions and Eric’s “philosophies” in hand. Huner gave the pages to Burgess at the substation, and Burgess wrote a cover sheet indicating that “Dillon Klebled” was one of Harris’ followers. Burgess sent it to investigator John Hicks, known in the department for his expertise in computer crimes. Hicks apparently files it away in the “Computer Crime Intel” binder and says he never sees, or thinks of it, again. The same goes for everyone else in the criminal justice system. Or at least that was the story that began emerging years after Columbine.

  ∞

  As Eric was blazing his anger on the web, his father was recording his own thoughts in a small spiral notebook. In this stroke of interesting timing, they both began their introspections around the same time. One wonders whether Wayne even told Eric to start a journal, hoping it might be therapeutic.

  Wayne’s journal is not so much a diary as brief notations. It is difficult to tell whether he is recording his own thoughts or those of the people to whom he is speaking. It does appear to be a first attempt to manage his youngest son. His spiral steno pad marked “Eric” seems to reflect Wayne’s military background as he stiffly records his son’s behavior, looking for clues, wrongdoing, and patterns. The first entry of “2/28”(1997) mentions the cracked windshield and contains notes from what appears to be a conversation with Randy and possibly Judy Brown. “Believing Eric vs. wife,” Wayne wrote, along with, “being little bully.” While the exact context remains unclear, Wayne has also written:

  aggression

  disrespect

  idle threats of physical harm, property damage, overreaction to minor incident

  His second journal entry, March 3, 1997, continues the saga: “Plotting against friends’ house—other boys involved, including Brooks.”

  A dean at Columbine High, Craig Place, was notified about Eric and Brooks and their apparently troubled relationship, according to the journal.

  Eric also wanted to talk it out with Brooks, Wayne notes, but “with an adult present.” (Asking for the adult might seem a mature gesture on Eric’s part, or confidence that he could manipulate an adult and put Brooks on the defensive.) Wayne adds that someone “would talk to Eric today and the other boys possibly together.” But in the end, Eric and Brooks decide to “leave each other alone.”

  Wayne’s other jottings from March 3 indicate he was “very concerned about alcohol acquisition. Would get police involved if necessary.” Wayne notes that Eric denies having the alcohol, but jots down details of Eric vandalizing Baumgart’s home. Wayne talks to Nick’s mom, Bonnie Baumgart, on April 18. She recounts some of the vandalism—a door is glued, toilet paper—but can’t say who did it. She says she knows of no problems between Eric and Nick.

  The next day, a sheriff’s deputy contacts Wayne about tree damage (maybe to Nick’s house). “We feel victimized too,” Wayne seems to write of his own feelings. “Brooks Brown is out to get Eric.”

  The journal adds, “We don’t want to be accused every time something supposedly happens. Eric is not at fault.”

  Wayne points the finger at Brooks, noting that he has issues with other boys, and that a mediator or attorney may help sort out future problems. Wayne repeats in his diary, “We feel victimized too,” along with “Manipulative,” and “Con Artist,” quite possibly referring to Brooks.

  Zach Heckler’s name also pops up in the journal. And while Dylan’s does not, Wayne writes down “Sue” and the Klebold phone number. After April 27, 1997, Wayne’s journal falls silent for nine months. It restarts when Eric and Dylan are arrested in January 1998 for breaking into a van.

  ∞

  In another odd coincidence, at almost the exact same time Eric and Wayne begin to record their thoughts, so does
Dylan. Although different feelings define him.

  “Fact: People are so unaware . . . well, Ignorance is bliss I guess . . . that would explain my depression,” Dylan writes on the cover page of his diary which he labels across the top, “A Virtual Book” and “Existences.”

  On this same cover page, Dylan is childlike as he notes the “properties” of his diary: “This book cannot be opened by anyone except Dylan. Some supernatural force blocks common people from entering.” He signs his name and his nickname, “Vodka.”

  On page one Dylan draws a box symbolizing “existence” for the rest of the world, but he is outside the box. “This is a weird time, weird life, weird existence,” he writes on March 31, 1997, the first entry, or what he calls “El Thoughtzos.” “As I sit here (partially drunk w/ a screwdriver) i think a lot. Think . . . Think . . . that’s all my life is, just shitloads of thinking . . . all the time . . . my mind never stops . . . ”

  He thinks about friends, family, and girls he loves but can never have. “Yet I can still dream,” he writes, and adds, “As i see the people at school—some good, some bad—i see how different i am (aren’t we all you’ll say) yet i’m on such a greater scale of difference from everyone else (as far as I kno, or guess). I see jocks having fun, friends, women, LIVEZ. Or rather shallow existences compared to mine (maybe). Like ignorance is bliss. They don’t know beyond this world . . . yet we each are lacking something that other possesses. i lack the true human nature . . . & they lack the overdeveloped mind/imagination/knowledge tool.”

  Dylan figures he will find his place “wherever i go after this life—that i’ll finally not be at war w. myself, the world, the universe—my mind, body, everywhere, everything at PEACE . . . ” He is about to finish his sophomore year and frets about going to school where he is “scared and nervous . . . hoping that people can accept me . . . that i can accept them.”

  On April 15, 1997, almost two years to the day before Columbine, Dylan writes:

  Well, well, back at it, yes (you say) whoever the fuck ‘you’ is, but yea. My life is still fucked, in case you care . . . maybe, . . . (not?). I have just lost fuckin 45$ & Before that I lost my zippo & knife (I did get those back) Why the fuck is he being such an ASSHOLE??? (god i guess, whoever is the being which controls shit). He’s fucking me over big time & it pisses me off. Oooh god i HATE my life, i want to die really bad right now—Let’s see what i have that’s good: A nice family, a good house, food, a couple good friends & possessions. What’s bad—no girls (friends or girlfriends), no other friends except a few, nobody accepting me even though i want to be accepted, me doing badly and being intimidated in any & all sports, me looking weird and acting shy—BIG problem, me getting bad grades, having no ambition or life, that’s the big shit.

  Was Dylan cutting himself?

  I was Mr. Cutter tonight—I have 11 depressioners on my right hand . . . & my fav. contrasting symbol because it is so true and means so much—the battle between good and bad never ends . . . OK enough bitchin . . . well i’m not done yet. ok go. I don’t know what I do wrong with people (mainly women) it’s like they are set out to hate & ignore me, i never know what to say or do. [name deleted by police] is soo fucking lucky. He has no idea how I suffer.

  May 1997:

  Yo . . . Whassup . . . Heehehehe . . . Know what’s weird? Everyone knows everyone. I swear like i’m an outkast, & everyone is conspiring against me . . . Check it . . . (this isn’t good, but I need to write, so here . . .

  Within the known limits of time . . . within the conceived boundaries of space . . . the average human thinks these are the setting of existence . . . Yet the ponderer, the outkast, the believer, helps out the human.

  Miles and miles of never ending grass, like a wheat, a farm, sunshine, a happy feeling in the presence. Absolutely nothing wrong, nothing ever is, contrary 180 degrees to normal life. No awareness, just pure bliss, unexplainable bliss. The only challenges are no challenge, & then . . . BAM!!! realization sets in, the world is the greatest punishment. Life . . .

  Dark. Light. God. Lucifer. Heaven. Hell. GOOD. BAD. Yes, the everlasting contrast . . . HA fuckin morons. If people looked at History they would see what happens. I think too much. I understand I am GOD, compared to some of these unexistable brainless zombies. Yet, the actions of them interest me, like a kid w/ a new toy . . .

  On July 23, 1997 Dylan writes about a friend whose name police have blocked out, although it may be Zach Heckler based on the description of the deviancy they shared.

  It is not good for me right now (like it ever is) . . . but anyway . . . My best friend ever: the friend who shared, experimented, laughed, took chances with & appreciated me more than any friend ever did has been ordained . . . ‘passed on’ . . . in my book. Ever since [name deleted] (who I wouldn’t mind killing) has loved him . . . that’s the only place he’s been with her . . . If anyone had any idea how sad I am . . . I mean we were the TEAM. When him & I first were friends, well I finally found someone who was like me: who appreciated me & shared my common interests. Ever since 7th grade i’ve felt lonely . . . when [name deleted] came around, I finally felt happiness (sometimes) . . . we did cigars, drinking, sabotage to houses, EVERYTHING for the first time together & now that he’s ‘moved on’ i feel so lonely w/o a friend. Oh well, maybe he’ll come around . . . I hope.

  Undated:

  My 1st love??? . . . OH my God . . . I am almost sure I am in love w. [name deleted] hehehe . . . such a strange name, like mine . . . Yet everything about her I love. From her good body to her almost perfect face, her charm, her wit & cunning her NOT being popular, her friends (who I know) . . . I just hope she likes me as much as I LOVE Her. I think of her every second of every day. I want to be with her. I imagine me and her doing things together, the sound of her laugh, I picture her face, I love her. If soulmates exist, then I think I’ve found mine. I hope she likes Techno . . .

  I love you

  Dylan

  ∞

  Dylan wasn’t the only one in the Klebold household with problems. Tom and Sue were dwelling on his older brother, Byron. It was minor, but on October 14, 1995, just shy of his seventeenth birthday, the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Department cited Byron for curfew violation, according to court records. It appears the time was 12:46 a.m. on a Saturday. The district attorney dismissed the case around one month later.

  Byron attended Regis Jesuit High School in the suburb of Aurora, but went to Columbine as a senior and graduated in 1997, when Dylan was a sophomore. But after graduation, in July, he was kicked out of the house, possibly for using marijuana.

  That story was partially told after Eric and Dylan got busted for breaking into a van and entered a juvenile diversion program. Dylan’s file notes, “Dylan’s brother has a substance abuse problem, and was kicked out of the house for continued drug use. Dylan said that he has seen first hand how drugs can ruin your life, and that is why he decided to stop.” The family went to counseling over the drug use.

  The file does not name Byron’s drug, but it was most likely marijuana given that Dylan’s drug use was summarized as, “Has used mj. 2X does not like it and does not like what it has done to his brother. Has tried to help brother but doesn’t have any impact. Realizes if someone wants to use he can’t stop them.”

  Dylan also said he loves his brother “but cannot condone his behavior,” a diversion counselor concluded. Dylan himself indicated Byron was the least supportive family member. “Isn’t involved in my life (not a problem),” he wrote.

  By the time of the shootings, Byron was twenty and working at Ralph Schomp Automotive. He was a lot technician who shoveled snow and moved and washed cars, according to the Rocky Mountain News. “It was an entry-level job, but man, he’s good,” personnel director Jim Biner told the paper.

  But it wasn’t what the Klebolds had envisioned for their first-born. They would still try to shepherd Byron, but thought Dylan would
be their star.

  Summer Dreams

  Just around the corner from Columbine High is a strip mall with a couple of hair salons, a dry cleaner, a bar, sundry offices, and a Blackjack Pizza. The strip mall is tucked behind smaller streets and doesn’t face a main thoroughfare. The grandest view from many of the storefronts is a massive parking lot.

  Blackjack has since closed down; new tenants include Christian-themed schools. But the pizza shop hired Eric in the summer of 1997 on the recommendation of his buddy, Chris Morris. Dylan soon followed. Blackjack was more than just a job for Eric and Dylan. It gave them friends, paychecks to fund their arsenal, and a laboratory for their explosives. The strip mall is secluded enough so that if Eric and Dylan blew up a couple things with small homemade bombs, not many people would notice. Although sometimes, they did want them to notice: Eric talked of installing a trip wire and bomb at a hole in the fence behind Blackjack that kids popped through.

  Blackjack was basically a kitchen with a cash register. There were no dining tables, and Eric and Dylan eventually earned over $6 an hour tossing pizzas, as opposed to making deliveries. Owner Bob Kirgis, then twenty-eight, considered Eric and Dylan good employees. Kirgis would drink at work, and when he wasn’t around, sometimes left Eric in charge. Eric and Dylan would drop by during school lunch break, just after 11 a.m., to smoke cigarettes and have free salad or pizza. Eric liked pepperoni and green pepper.

  Kirgis remembers Eric and Dylan being “tied at the hip” and treating his six-year-old daughter well. Kirgis shot bottle rockets off the Blackjack roof with the two, but admonished Eric when he brought a shiny, one-foot long metal pipe bomb to the store so he could blow up a watermelon after work. Kirgis told him to take it away, and never heard either teen talk about pipe bombs again. By at least one account, Dylan also brought in a bomb once, and went back and forth working as a Blackjack employee. Eric, Dylan, and their friends talked of fighting with the jocks. But Kirgis never imagined anything on the scale of Columbine.