2001-03-07 - 7:48pm
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. –– A 14-year-old girl shot a female classmate in the shoulder Wednesday in the cafeteria of their parochial school but dropped the gun at the urging of another student, authorities said....George Lepley, the girl's attorney, said he understood from police and other students that his client had been teased by classmates, including the victim.
Fifteen years ago, it was 1986 and I was in seventh grade. I lived in the "ranch houses and split levels from the 50's and 60's" section of a suburb known for its big expensive new construction in planned communities with names like "Whispering Thrushes". I was quiet, I was studious, I wore glasses, I followed the dress code imposed by my Catholic grade school - no makeup, no earrings, knee socks pulled up.
I didn't stand a chance.
I've forgotten most of what happened in that year - whether it's due to my subconscious blocking it or just having my brain fill up with other memories, I don't know - but every once in a while a memory will pop up and I'll wince. Gee, Medea, remember the time you had to get new shoelaces for your sneakers, but they were too long so your Mom tied one bow at the top of your sneaker to make them shorter, so you had two bows on each shoe, and everyone went around muttering "Shoelaces!" under their breath? Remember how they played keep-away with your purse, the one made of that powder-blue parachute material? Remember on that one dress-up day, you wore stirrup pants that wouldn't quite stay up, and you spent the entire day trying to casually hitch them back up? Not casually enough, as for the next day everyone went around pretending to hitch up their pants when you walked by? Remember how all the girls mooned you in the locker room shower that one time after gym class?
At some point before seventh grade, they built a huge playground behind the junior high building for the school. It was an impressive structure, monkey bars and slides and ramps and tires and a maze all hooked up in large ring around an old tree. And to the side, there were swings.
My friend Jennifer and I were riding one of these swings one lunch hour - it was basically a tire, parallel with the ground, with two chains attaching it to the beam above. One person stood on each half of the tire (hoping that it wouldn't collapse under you) and someone would push you, as usually happens on a swing.
It was when I was highest in the air that I felt the slightest jerk of the tire underneath my feet.
I turned around and saw him, surrounded by his friends, laughing.
He, of course, was the epitome of the big expensive new construction in planned communities with names like "Whispering Thrushes". His father was a neurosurgeon. He seemed to be constantly tan. All the girls had a crush on him. He was the Golden Boy; he could do no wrong. If each of his sneakers had two bows in it, you could bet that everyone else would have them the next day.
And he was jerking the swing when it arced up towards him.
The lunch mothers were chatting amongst themselves.
Jennifer saw what was going on and we tried to stop the swing as quickly as we could.
Not quick enough.
JERK, and my feet flew out from under me and I got dragged to a stop, knee-first.
According to the National Program for Playground Safety, a playground should not be covered with "hard surfaces such as asphalt, blacktop, concrete, grass, packed dirt or rocks."
Apparently this little guideline came into effect after the school playground was built, as the school had used gravel.
The boys saw the blood and ran.
The nurse's office was across the parking lot from the playground. Jennifer helped me.
For some reason (I still don't know why), my mother was at school that day, and happened to be in the parking lot at the same time we were crossing it to get to the nurse's office. She saw me and we went home.
I stayed home from school the next day. He called with a half-hearted apology; I accepted it half-heartedly.
Things must have calmed down after that; again, it's the curiosities of memory that leave me to wonder. By eighth grade, things were relatively normal. By ninth grade, I went to the all girls' Catholic high school, he went to the all boys' Jesuit high school.
By senior year, ten years ago this week, he was dead.
Meningitis.
The popular girls went and cried at his funeral.
I sat in AP Calculus and tried not to smile too broadly.
