Give a Boy a Gun
by Todd Strasser

 

Tenth Grade

We moved to Middletown at the end of ninth grade, so tenth grade was my first year here. It’s so different from my old school. You expect it to be different, but what surprised me was the way it was different. It’s just a lot more rigid here. It’s like, are you in the popular crowd or not? There was a popular crowd at my old school, too, but they were still nice to most people. They didn’t act like if you weren’t one of them you didn’t deserve to exist.

I remember coming home after the first week and telling my mom I didn’t like it. Some of the kids just weren’t nice at all. They’d push and curse in the hall, and it didn’t seem like any of the teachers really went out of their way to stop it. Mom said to lie low. I’ve always been pretty good at making friends, and she knew I’d find some at Middletown High. She said I only had three years to go. I remember thinking it sounded like an eternity.

—Chelsea Baker, a transfer student to Middletown High School

One thing I don’t think a lot of people on the outside realize is how incredibly hard a football team trains. The hours of practice on the weekdays and weekends. Learning forty or fifty plays in your playbook, plus each week studying the films of the team you’re facing that Friday night. On top of that you’ve got schoolwork. And the weight and strength training you have to do on your own just to survive out there. The pressure is huge, and to be honest, there are guys who . . . well, the only way they have to blow off steam is fighting.

— Dustin Williams

I always felt Brendan and I had a special connection, even after the point, around the beginning of tenth grade, when we didn’t talk much anymore. Maybe it went back to seventh grade, when we were both new. Maybe it was because we were both quote, unquote “outcasts.” Anyway, you know how Brendan always seemed to attract trouble. There was just something about him. Every slight, real or imagined, made his fur go up. And he couldn’t back down. I mean, it wasn’t like he was trying to prove how tough he was. I really think there was something in him. He was helpless to resist it. Even when he was scared silly, he had to stand up to it.

—Emily Kirsch

A lot of what they’re saying about the football players is a load of crap. So what if we wore our jerseys to school on game days? All we were doing was trying to get some school spirit going. I’ve got news for you. You’re out there on the field banging heads with some 220-pound lineman for four quarters, you need some support from the stands. But it wasn’t like it was a rule. If you didn’t want to have school spirit, that was your business. But some of those guys went further than that. It was like they wanted to destroy school spirit.

— Sam Flach

It’s important that you look at this realistically. The issue of school spirit is certainly a factor in the tensions between these two groups of kids, but you have to believe it’s been blown out of proportion. You’re not going to have cheerleaders for the chess team. You’re not going to fill the bleachers with fans who cheer when a kid from Middletown takes his opponent’s rook. Even the chess players don’t want that. Of course we want to produce scholars and we take pride in our National Honor Society members. But that’s a matter of school pride, and it’s different from school spirit.

— Dick Flanagan

When you’re with someone a lot, they can change, but it’s gradual, so you’re not always aware of it. I think that’s what happened to all of us, but more to Brendan. Looking back on it, I realize he just got weirder and more and more twisted. It was like he stopped caring. He’d do whatever he wanted.

There was one night when Gary wasn’t around. I think maybe he had to go see some psychologist with his mom. Brendan called up and wanted to go out. I’m older than most of the kids in my grade and I have a license, so I usually drive. Anyway, I supplied the car and Brendan supplied the booze. It was probably screwdrivers. We went up to the park and drank for a while and talked. I can’t remember now what we talked about, but with Brendan it was usually about how much he hated school and town and blah, blah, blah. Sometimes when I had a good buzz going, I could just tune him out.

After a while Brendan wanted to get in the car again. We drove out of the park, and I thought we’d head back toward town, but he wanted to go the other way. The other way is basically nowhere. Just dark roads and farms and hills, but by then I was pretty trashed and couldn’t have cared less.

We’re driving along this road way out in the country, and it’s a pretty cool night, so I’m kind of surprised when Brendan rolls down the window.

I guess I was sort of aware that he took something out of his jacket. When I heard the bang, I thought one of the tires had blown out or Brendan had thrown a firecracker out of the window. That’s what it sounded like. Not really loud or anything. Then we came to the railroad crossing. The red lights were blinking and the gates were coming down, and out of the corner of my eye there’s a bright flash and I hear Bang! Bang! Only it’s louder because we’re stopped, and then there’s the sound of glass shattering. That’s when I realized Brendan was shooting at things.

Bang! Bang! He shot out the other light. You know the smell of burned gunpowder? Then he looked across the seat at me and smiled. I was beyond caring. The railroad gates went up, and we kept driving. Brendan kept shooting. Mostly at signs. Then he opened the glove compartment so he had light while he put more bullets in the clip, or whatever they call it. The gun looked bigger and squarer than the one he’d showed us that time in the park.

I never said a word. I didn’t tell him to stop. I didn’t turn around and go back to town. To be honest, I just didn’t care. I actually thought it was a little cool. Like we were a couple of outlaws on the run in Natural Born Killers.

After a while it was late and we did head back to town. By the time we got to Brendan’s, just about every house on his street was dark. Everyone was asleep. Brendan and I sat for a while in the car. You could still smell the gunpowder. I realized that since we’d started driving, he’d hardly said a word.

He looked across the seat at me again. I hope this doesn’t sound sick, but it was a really sexy moment. I mean, he really was an outlaw and dangerous and unpredictable, and I happen to find that extremely attractive. I think he knew that. He started to move toward me, and I’m thinking, This is my boyfriend’s best friend. I dont believe this. But I really don’t think he cared. I really don’t.

Anyway, I know this will sound weird after everything I’ve just said, but I wouldn’t let him touch me. I still don’t know why. I think maybe it was that dark thing inside him. He could be sexy and attractive, but it was too scary.

—Allison Findley

The school I came from had the same crowds as Middletown. There were athletes and brains and preppies and rah-rah girls and stoners. There were cliques, but they weren’t that big of a deal. Sometimes I felt like the real power of a clique was only in the minds of those kids who wished they were in it. If you didn’t care, you just went along with your life. At least, at my old school.

— Chelsea Baker

In ninth grade we might have done some drinking once or twice a month and smoked some pot or hash now and then. By tenth grade we were smashed every Friday and Saturday night. We were getting high in school. A couple of times we dropped acid in eighth period so we’d have a nice buzz going by the time school was over. Oh, and I’m not just talking about Brendan, Allison, Gary, and me. This was a lot of kids. Athletes, too.

— Ryan Clancy

I’m not so far from being a teenager myself, and I can tell you that there’s a huge amount of denial among parents. Anyone who insists that “my kid isn’t drinking, my kid isn’t smoking pot, my kid isn’t having sex.” Maybe they’re right. But look at the statistics and you’ll know they can’t all be right.

— F. Douglas Ellin

 

TerminX: Ever C a dead person?

Blkchokr: In a casket

TerminX: What was it like?

Blkchokr: It was my grandma. Not a lot different than when she was alive.

Dayzd: LOL.

Rebooto: You can go C my grandparents, Trm. They’re almost dead.

TerminX: I mean it.

Dayzd: What?

TerminX: A dead person. Spark gone. Lifeless flesh.

Blkchokr: I don’t want 2 talk about this.

TerminX: Y?

Blkchokr: So what’s tomorrow’s weather supposed 2 B?

TerminX: Scares U?

Blkchokr: Bothers me.

Dayzd: I can C it.

Rebooto: What’s 2 C?

Dayzd: Eternal peace.

Rebooto: Eternal nothingness.

TerminX: Same difference.

Blkchokr: I’m outahere.

Dayzd: Later, Blk.

Rebooto: Bye, Blk.

TerminX: Imagine death.

Dayzd: No pain.

Rebooto: No gain.

TerminX: Insane.

Everything seemed to get more extreme [in tenth grade]. The battle lines became more clearly drawn, you know? I think a lot of things contributed to it. The Middletown Marauders went to the states that fall. It was the furthest a team from Middletown had gone in twenty-five years, and we were feeling pretty full of ourselves. We deserved it, considering how hard we’d worked. But it was kind of like Brendan and Gary were on a campaign to belittle what we’d done. Make it seem as if what we’d accomplished was meaningless and that we were basically just a bunch of dumb jocks with no future. They never said it in words. It was all done with looks and smirks and sniggers. But the football players heard them loud and clear.

—Dustin Williams

The weird thing is this year I actually started to make friends with some of the quote, unquote “popular” girls. I’m not really sure why. I think maybe it happened because I don’t judge people and they were sick of being in a crowd where they were judged all the time. Like, how cool is your car and how many free minutes do you get on your cell phone? I mean, who cares?

But sometimes they forget. Like the whole judgment thing is so ingrained in them they can’t help it. I have a friend who has lots of piercings and he wears black all the time and he likes heavy metal. I was with him one day in the hall, and my “popular” friends gave me these looks. I saw them later and they were like, “How could you talk to him? How could you even acknowledge his presence?” They just couldn’t shake it.

—Emily Kirsch

Our school puts a significant emphasis on sports. I’m in the English department, and you can imagine how it feels when you hear that they’ve hired a private plane for $25,000 to take the team to a game. Do you have any idea how many classroom sets of Guterson, Shakespeare, and Lowry that would buy? But you also have to understand that a lot of these boys would be lost without athletics. They are simply never going to be scholars. This is the playing field where they’ve chosen to compete, and unfortunately it’s a lot more expensive than an English classroom. These boys are not studious; many of them will not go to college. A great season here may be the highlight of their life. But even if it isn’t, the lessons they learn about work and discipline on the team will serve them well in whatever they do. It just may be that for these boys those lessons are more important than Shakespeare’s sonnets.

— Dick Flanagan

At my old school you didn’t have this feeling that one crowd was so totally in power and better than all the rest. It was great if you were a super soccer player, but it was pretty cool if you could make your own movie, or draw or act or play the guitar really well. And it was just dumb to put someone down because they got good grades. But here, it’s like the only thing that matters is sports. You get straight A’s and people dump on you. It doesn’t make sense.

—Chelsea Baker

Running a school is like running a business. I know this may sound crass, but you’re producing a product. In our case, that product is a high school senior who is prepared to go on in the world and be successful in the community. So, in a way, you can say that we have to produce a product that the community approves of, that they will buy into. Sure, I would love to be Edward James Olmos in Stand and Deliver and produce a bunch of kids who value calculus over athletics, but if that’s not what the community wants, I’ll be out of a job.

—Allen Curry

Being on the football team made you special, and some guys definitely took advantage of that. They’d be late for class or curse right in front of a teacher, even in front of an administrator, and nothing serious would happen. Some of these guys acted like they ruled the school. It affected the way a lot of kids looked at us, especially the younger kids. It was like, “Hey, if I make the team, I can get away with that stuff too.” Be honest, deep down inside, who doesn’t want to be in the spotlight? Who doesn’t want to see their picture in the Middletown Reporter? It was a real temptation, and if you wanted to take advantage of it, you could have a great life. Believe me, it was a lot harder not to get a swelled head than to let yourself have one.

— Dustin Williams

They talked about guns and they talked about bombs. Gary and I were in McDonald’s once and someone left a newspaper on the table, and there was something about bombing an abortion clinic in it. So Gary’s like, “How do they do it?”

And I’m like, “How do they do what?”

And he says, “Make those bombs.”

So I go, “Maybe they go to bomb school.”

A couple of days later he said he wanted to go to the public library. And I’m like, “What for?”

And he’s like, “I want to look at some books, maybe go on-line.”

And I’m like, “You can do that at home.”

But he says he has to do it at the library. I think he said something about not wanting anyone to trace it back to his computer. He could be a little strange.

We’re in the library, and I’m over by the magazines, looking at all these stupid pictures of skinny, perfect girls with perfect hair and skin. It makes you wonder why all the rest of us don’t just crawl in some hole and do the world a favor and die. Anyway, Gary comes by with this big grin on his face, and I go, “What?”

And he’s like, “Not here. Outside.”

We get outside and he starts laughing, like, “You can’t believe this, Allison. I found everything I need to know.”

“Need to know about what?” I ask.

And he goes, “About making a bomb. Right in the good old library.”

I’m not sure which he thought was cooler: the fact that he found the information, or the fact that he found it in the library.

—Allison Findley

Everyone’s painting this picture of Brendan being the leader and Gary following, but there’s another side to it. Especially where those pipe bombs are concerned. Brendan wasn’t mechanical. I mean, he just wasn’t interested in that kind of thing. But Gary loved building stuff. He really had a talent for it. I remember going to his house for a birthday party and seeing what he’d done with LEGOs. He’d made LEGO robots and programmed them with his computer, so if they walked into something, they could turn around and go in another direction. It was pretty awesome. You hear the police reports about how well constructed and intricate those pipe bombs were. I guarantee you, that was Gary’s work.

—Ryan Clancy

I had to take him to the hardware store and over the state line, where they sell fireworks. When we got to the [fireworks] stand, that was probably about the most excited I’d ever seen him. He wanted to know which ones had the most gunpowder. They told him, and those were the ones he bought.

—Allison Findley

Brendan and Gary had this big announcement they wanted to make. They were going to announce it on Saturday. So Allison drives up and Gary’s in the front seat and Brendan’s in the back, and we just take off. Listening to music, smoking, cruising. We probably drive for more than an hour and a half, until we’re way out in the middle of nowhere. Then we go down some dirt road, and we’re at this cabin. I thought Gary said it was his uncle’s, but anyway, no one’s around.

So Gary opens the trunk and takes out this green duffel bag and all these big sheets of colored paper, like the kind you do school projects on. And we all go tromping off into the woods. The thing is I have no idea what’s going on. I’m like, “So what are we doing today? An art project?” And they’re not telling me. It’s an announcement, you know? I’m supposed to wait.

We get to some place that Gary likes, and he stops and says, “Okay, we’ll do it here.” Next thing I know, he’s taking pushpins out of the duffel bag, and we’re supposed to pin all these sheets of paper up to these trees. Like we’re making a multicolored room in the trees that’s all paper walls. This probably takes an hour itself. And then Gary has to very carefully number all the sheets and make notes in a notebook. I have no idea what this is about, but so what? It’s as good as doing anything else, I guess.

Then Gary says we’re ready, and he goes back to the bag and he takes out this thing and sets it on the ground right in the middle of the paper room we’ve created. Then he tells us to get the hell out of there. I ask him how far, and he says a hundred yards at least. If you want to know the truth, I thought he was nuts. A hundred yards is the length of a football field. It’s pretty obvious by now that he’s got some kind of homemade bomb. But it’s kind of fun and goofy to run off into the woods, so I do it.

We go running, and before long we’re all bent over with our hands on our knees, gasping for breath. It’s the smoking. And a little while later Gary comes crashing through the trees, and we yell to him that we’re over here.

The thing goes off before he can get to us. There’s this really sharp, loud thunk! sound, and I swear a hundred yards away I can actually feel the ground shake and the leaves in the trees rustle. Now Gary and Brendan take off back toward the “blast zone.”

So I get there, and I can’t believe what I’m seeing. First of all, every single piece of paper is blown away. Totally shredded. It’s like a big circle of multicolored paper shreds on the ground around the blast site. Leaves are blown off the trees, so the leaves and paper are mixed together. The whole place reeks of burned gunpowder. Twigs are snapped and some of the smaller branches are broken. You can see that this thing was a lot bigger than it sounded from so far away. Maybe the sound was muffled by the trees and whatnot.

Now Gary says we have to pick up every shred of paper, and he’s got rolls of Scotch tape so we can paste them back together. And that’s when I figure out what’s going on: We’re re-creating the scene. Like what they did with that 747 that blew up and they couldn’t figure out why.

So now we have to gather up all these little colored shreds of paper and try to tape them together. The thing is maybe you can do it with some of the larger pieces, but the smaller pieces are impossible, and it’s not like we haven’t been drinking screwdrivers from a plastic half-gallon milk container we brought along.

Finally Brendan says the hell with it. Gary’s the only one who doesn’t want to stop. If it were up to him, he’d stay out there for a week until every single shred was taped back together. He wants to see the blast pattern, he wants to make sure they built the bomb right. Brendan says, “Look, if we didn’t build it right, you think there’d be all this shredded paper and leaves and branches everywhere?”

And Gary’s like, “Yeah, but I still want to see.” Brendan and I quit and just sit and drink and smoke and watch Allison and Gary pick and tape and pick and tape until even Allison’s tired of it. You can see it’s hopeless, but Gary is like a fanatic. He just has to see the blast pattern.

Brendan, Allison, and I go back to the cabin, and the door’s locked, so Brendan gets the tire iron out of Allison’s car and uses it to pry the door open. He pretty much destroys the lock, but we’re too trashed to care. We go in and hang around and eat some of the food in the fridge and watch TV. After a while Gary shows up and he’s like, okay, he’s seen enough. He declares it a success.

He says we should go, and I say, “Well, shouldn’t we at least fix the door so your uncle won’t have a total fit?” And Gary’s like, “Uncle? I don’t have any uncle.” Can you believe it?

Anyway, we get in the car and start driving back, and all the way they’re talking about who they’re gonna blow up with these bombs. And it’s a pretty good-size list. The only thing is they really meant it.

—Ryan Clancy

 

TerminX: Pretty awesome 2day, huh? A couple of those suckas in school would put a lot of jerks out of their misery.

Blkchokr: Plus a few non-jerks.

Dayzd: Civilian casualties.

TerminX: Collateral damage.

Rebooto: U guys need 2 make a smart bomb.

Dayzd: Smart bomb 4 dumb jocks.

TerminX: B cool if U could convert that semiautomatic into fully automatic.

Dayzd: Need a hellfire switch.

Rebooto: What R U talking about?

Dayzd: You get a 50-round clip, it’s almost the same thing.

TerminX: Jungle-clip them. Then it’s 100 rounds.

Rebooto: Hello?

Blkchokr: Gunz, Booto.

Rebooto: :-o

TerminX: I read the marines use a special version of “Doom” 2 train soldiers.

Dayzd: 1-shot kills?

TerminX: Head and upper-torso shots.

Blkchokr: Seen any good movies lately?

Rebooto: Read any good books?

Dayzd: “Unforgiven.”

Rebooto: O yeah!

Blkchokr: Weird flick.

Dayzd: Y?

Blkchokr: Couldn’t C the message.

TerminX: When a real man has a problem, he gets a gun.

Rebooto: U C where they want 2 expand the movie ratings so they have warnings like cigarettes?

TerminX: Stupid. It doesn’t work with cigarettes.

Blkchokr: They’re on booze, 2.

Dayzd: Warning: Uncontrolled firearm use may be hazardous to your health.

Blkchokr: LOL!

There are probably about 150 million law-abiding American citizens who enjoy watching football. Myself included. The idea that this incident can somehow be blamed on football is sadly mistaken. These were two sick, disturbed boys. Like many people I know, I also happen to own several hunting rifles and a handgun I keep in my home for personal protection. Is it locked? No, but it’s hidden. If I ever have to defend my home against someone trying to break in, the time it takes me to unlock a gun might just be the difference between the life and death of my children.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution gives us the right to bear arms. Are you going to change the Constitution? Why stop at the Second Amendment? Why not throw out the First Amendment, too? Who needs freedom of speech? Hey, who needs the right to vote? See where this is going?

— Dick Flanagan

It’s horrible when kids are killed in schools. It’s a nightmare. Obviously, after what happened, I should know. But if you want to save kids’ lives, you’ll save a lot more by raising the driving age than banning guns.

—Allen Curry

It still seems strange to me that I was nobody until Dustin asked me out. I’d be in the girls’ room with Deirdre Bunson and some of those other girls, and it was like I didn’t even exist. I wasn’t on their radar. At my old school you’d say hi to someone even if you didn’t know them. Here you say hi and it’s like, “Do I know you?”

—Chelsea Baker

I’m sure you’ve heard about that fight at Dustin’s house. If you want to know the truth, up to that point, that was one of the scariest things I’d ever seen. The thing is I always knew [Sam] Flach was mean and strong, but this was just beyond anything you could have imagined.

—Ryan Clancy

I still don’t understand why Brendan wanted to go to that party. I mean, he must have felt that Dustin was his neighbor and sort of his friend, but Dustin was on the football team, and everyone knew it was a football party. Some people say Brendan was just asking for it. I don’t know. I think it was more like Rosa Parks. He was tired of sitting in the back of the bus.

—Emily Kirsch

We came around the side of the house. You had to go through this gate because Dustin has a pool in his backyard. Brendan and I were going in. Sam and Deirdre were coming out. The thing is it was just, like, bad timing. Sam got to the gate first. He pushed it open and just kept going. Like he wasn’t even going to bother holding it for Deirdre. So Brendan caught the gate and held it for her. Some people say he bowed or touched her on the shoulder or something. I didn’t see it. All I saw was Sam come out of nowhere and get Brendan from behind.

— Ryan Clancy

I was in the kitchen and I heard the shouting. I came out, and Sam had Brendan on the ground and was smashing him like a wild animal. There had to be six guys standing around watching. Any one of them could have pulled Sam off, but they didn’t. I had to get Sam in a choke hold and practically suffocate him to get him to stop.

— Dustin Williams

Have you ever heard the sound of a fist on bone? It would make you sick. One thing I know for certain, Sam was definitely going for Brendan’s face. I swear if I’d had a gun that night, I would have shot Sam myself.

— Ryan Clancy

I went home that night and told my mom there was something really wrong with these kids.

—Chelsea Baker

It wasn’t like that in elementary school. I mean, even when two kids got into a fight, they didn’t try to hurt each other so badly. Kids in elementary school are way more open to teachers’ influence than when they get to middle school and high school. Why can’t they teach something in elementary school that could help kids learn how to deal with one another without it always becoming violent?

— Emily Kirsch

I heard about it in the teachers’ room first thing Monday morning. A little later I saw Brendan in the hall. His nose was swollen, and his lip was fat and split, and his eye was black and blue. A few minutes later I saw Sam. Not a scratch. You never would’ve known he’d been in a fight.

—Beth Bender

Boys fight. They’ve always fought and they always will fight. Was Sam provoked? Who knows. We weren’t there. We didn’t see. Forgive me if I sound callous, but this was an incident that took place off school property.

—Allen Curry

Gary was really down. I didn’t know why. It could have been something at home, I’ll never know. We were talking on the phone about what happened to Brendan at the party and how the jocks just stood around and didn’t stop Sam. Gary said he wished they’d all die. I said, “Not really, right?” He said he really, really did want them to die slow, painful, miserable deaths. I said, “While you live to be a hundred?” He said he really didn’t care. He was past the point of caring. He just wanted them to die.

—Allison Findley