This is a story I wrote after the events at Columbine High School. It has been a while, but I think it is still germane. I'd like to hear feedback. I am publishing other stories on Amazon Kindle as James McKain. I'd like to invite people from Daily Kos to read them, which I can provide in Word format so you don't have to buy them. I welcome feedback and reviews.
SHOOTER
By
James R McKain
Copyright © 2013, James R McKain
All rights reserved
Jenny has struck up a conversation with the woman next to her, so Elroy turns back to the television screen above the bar. CNN is reporting on the Omaha school shooting that happened yesterday. Four people have been confirmed dead: two students, one a girl, the other a boy; a teacher; and the shooter, himself—a junior, sixteen years old, white, from a middle class family. According to the reporter the boy was never in trouble before and had no record of disciplinary or scholastic problems. A picture of the boy appears on the screen. His hair is long and knotted looking. He has studs in his nose and lower lip. A toothy grin suggests that the picture was taken in happier times.
"He looks weird," Jenny remarks, glancing up.
"They all look weird these days," her new acquaintance declaims. "You should see the kids that come into my brother's store. They look like a bunch of natives."
"Who knows what's weird and what isn't?" Elroy wonders aloud.
A woman being interviewed on the news show—a friend of one of the victims—points out that the shooter—his name was Donald Emerson—while not a trouble-maker, was something of an outcast at school. A loner, she says—the object of taunts and harassment because of his unconventional attire and attitude.
"How would you describe his attitude?" the commentator asks.
"Oh, you know—he just—well, he didn't fit in, I guess you would say. I didn't know him personally," she shrugs.
Elroy looks at the picture of the boy. He is wearing rimless glasses, worn-out baggy blue pants, and a button-down shirt that looks incongruous. Maybe he looks weird, Elroy thinks, and maybe not, but people have no business being mean to a kid because he looks weird.
This is a personal issue for Elroy. He looked weird when he was a kid, too. His head and face were narrow, his ears stuck out, and he had a wandering eye that he had to wear corrective lenses for. The glasses made him look like a fish. He remembers looking in the mirror and wondering sometimes if he didn't have some disease or abnormality inside him, something so severe it showed on the outside where people could see.
Elroy experienced harassment in high school just like Donald Emerson probably did. The derision of his classmates came upon Elroy like a plague from God—out of nowhere and for no reason he could understand. "Brillo" they called him, because his hair was so curly. Fairy, because—well, Elroy was never sure why they called him fairy. Maybe because he was skinny. Maybe because he wasn't any good at sports. Maybe just because he was afraid of them, and they knew it, and could call him what they wanted.
Life was not always so harsh for Elroy. His problems only started after his family moved from Meyersdale to the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Elroy thinks none of it might ever have happened if they hadn't made that move. In Meyersdale he never thought of himself as being weird. The way he spoke—branded a hokey twang in Pittsburgh—was how everybody talked in Meyersdale. In his old neighborhood there were kids he'd known since he was born. They weren’t unfriendly. He’d had friends he played with after school. He’d also had interests—things like model airplanes and electronics—and while he pursued these mostly on his own, it was by choice, not because he had to. He was completely unprepared for what happened in Pittsburgh.
Mockery by his new classmates frightened Elroy and made him feel ashamed of himself. In the beginning he tried to correct the things he guessed were wrong with him. He tried to learn the words and phrases everyone used— words like "wild" to describe something exciting, and "cool, man," and "tough," to describe a good looking girl, for instance—“What d’ya think of Brenda Rains?” Gordon Bundy once asked him in what seemed like a moment of friendliness, and Elroy said, “She’s tough,” and Gordon said “Tough! What’s that mean? Like she’s a piece of meat? Boy are you stupid.”
Elroy got a short hair-cut like the popular boys wore—a flat-top it was called—and he started wearing blue-jeans like they did, instead of the baggy dungarees he'd brought from Meyersdale. He wore his t-shirts with the sleeves rolled up. But the new pants hung on his slender frame like cardboard, and the rolled-up sleeves only made his arms look more like the spindly appendages they were.
The more he tried to fit in, the more it seemed clear there was something his new classmates knew about him that Elroy did not, but he still believed he could master it. Tom Blynn, the coolest and most popular guy in the school, had a penchant for wearing bright colors and flashy clothes. He had the disdainful demeanor of a peacock, but it was successful, and it was this panache that Elroy sought to emulate in a last attempt to establish himself.
He convinced his mother to buy him a pair of bright red chinos that he saw at a department store at the new Southland Mall. Elroy thought the pants were beautiful—even magnificent—and riding home on the streetcar he imagined how they would make him the sensation of the entire school, the envy even of Tom Blynn.
He tried them on in his bedroom before he went to bed, giddy with delight, but when he put them on again in the morning and looked at himself in the mirror, the ticklishness in his stomach grew to a tightening knot, a foreboding of what was to come. In spite of this he wore the pants to school. He was too proud to admit to his mother, or even to himself, that a terrible mistake had been made.
The price he paid was legend. At school, students' heads turned and their eyes widened. Whispers, snickers and even outright laughter followed Elroy through the halls each time classes passed. The pants were not beautiful. They were hideous—the ugliest pants ever made—and they earned Elroy new distinction, and an enduring nickname. "Flamer."
The television screen shows a picture of the teacher who was killed in Omaha. He taught history and coached junior-varsity basketball. During the incident he approached the shooter in the hall and tried to talk him into putting down the gun. Emerson told him to stop, and when he didn't, Emerson said, "Fuck you, asshole," and shot him in the face. The teacher is a hero now.
Elroy looks at Jenny. She is staring in horror at the screen which now shows the teacher as he lay dead in the hall in a pool of blood.
"They shouldn't show that," she objects.
"Why not?" Elroy asks. "It's news."
"That's something you would say." Jenny glances at Elroy reproachfully. "Think of his poor family."
Elroy isn't thinking of the teacher’s family. His thoughts are going back to some of the teachers he had in Pittsburgh. Especially, the gym teacher, Mr. Voltz. It’s Elroy’s opinion that they should never have let the man anywhere near a gym class. He had favored the jocks as if they were his own sons, and often showed outright scorn for any student who wasn’t blessed with athletic talent. With the popping veins on his hairy arms, and his loud, rasping voice, his greatest skill seemed to have been shaming the incompetent. If you failed at some prescribed move or play—shooting baskets or rope climbing, for instance—he would belittle you with epithets like “wimp” and “faggot.” His favorite word for Elroy had been “dipshit.” To make matters worse, he would make you try the task over and over again, long after it was clear that you couldn't do it.
Elroy had tried to avoid this man by being as inconspicuous as possible during gym class, but when you were tested on your skills, you had to perform in front of the whole class, and Elroy's performances regularly drew smirks and catcalls from the other boys—derision which Mr. Voltz’s own conduct seemed to encourage. Certainly, he never did anything to stop it. Elroy had understood then that Mr. Voltz despised him just like all the others. It was further confirmation that they had good reason.
Still, Elroy survived. As cruel as they could be when they decided to notice him, people also had other business to occupy themselves with besides taunting him. If it was impossible to ingratiate himself into the society of his new schoolmates, it was possible to ignore it much of the time. Elroy studied hard in the subjects that he liked—math and science—and did well enough in them to make up for doing poorly in English and history. Away from school, he relied on his accustomed interests for entertainment. He once bought a Dyna-kit stereo with money he earned bagging groceries, and built the thing himself. Another project was a model of a B-52 that was an exact replica of the real thing, clear down to the interior of the plane, clear down to the wheel-wells. When that was finished, he’d bought a kit for an airplane that would actually fly. It had a control console that you held in your hand that was attached to the plane by a wire two-hundred feet long.
This strategy of retreat worked some, but not all of the time for Elroy. The trouble was his own mind. Each time someone made fun of him, Elroy found that the imprint of the moment would stay with him long afterwards. It would anchor in his brain and repeat itself over and over, pounding like a headache, like a voice echoing inside his head that was not his own. It accompanied him everywhere, day and night, affecting his ability to study, and causing him often to lose sleep. It made him feel like a prisoner at the mercy of his tormenters, even when he was alone in his own room.
Now the person being interviewed on the television is talking about Emerson's family. He had two brothers, no sisters. The father is an engineer and the mother a housewife. They are a normal family that goes to church regularly. “What did they know of Donald's troubles?” the reporter wonders to the world. He suggests it will be a question the police will be asking.
Elroy had no brothers or sisters. Both of his parents worked until recently. When he was young, they were demanding in certain ways, but not unkind. Elroy had regular chores around the house. His parents expected him to do well in his classes, and were very strict about things like money and personal behavior. No swearing, no smoking or drinking, not too much TV, and Sunday school every week. He was not allowed out evenings during the week, and had to be home by ten o'clock on weekends. Elroy never told his parents about his problems at school. He didn't want them to know what people thought of him. It seemed all too possible that such knowledge might bring them to think the same.
It was at Sunday school that Elroy finally found a friend. Zig Schwartz was a fine friend. He was smart and clever and interested in science, and Elroy couldn't have cared less that he was fat. He and Elroy spent hours talking about physics and astronomy—Telstar, Sputnik, the possibility of putting a man on the moon. It was an exciting time to be alive in that regard.
Zig was also a chess player. He taught Elroy to play, and the game became the focus of their friendship. Elroy joined the chess club that Zig belonged to which met on Friday evenings in the basement at the First Presbyterian Church. On Saturday nights Zig and Elroy would play the game by themselves at one of their homes.
Interestingly, Zig didn't go to Elroy's high school. He was enrolled at a private Christian school for boys. Perhaps this was a misfortune because he and Elroy could not be pals at school, but it also meant that Zig knew nothing of Elroy's shame, and Elroy never told him about it, even though he sensed that Zig may have had similar problems. Certainly Zig showed great disdain for athletes and other icons of social stature.
The commentator mentions that Emerson had a girlfriend. They broke up recently. There is speculation that the break-up may have been part of the reason for Emerson's rampage.
"I would have thought he was queer," Jenny says.
"Why?" Elroy asks.
"I don't know. It would fit."
"Fit what?"
"Don't get snooty. All I said was he might be queer. I have a right to my opinion. Everybody has a right to their opinion."
People thought Elroy was queer, too, even though he wasn't. True, he never had a girlfriend in high school, but he was in love once. It was with a girl he didn't know. She was a senior when Elroy was a junior. Her name was Jeanne Herron, and she was radiantly beautiful—long, wavy tresses of satin blond hair, deep blue eyes, and the complexion of a peach—just like the girl on the Breck shampoo bottle. She was also the most popular girl in her class.
Going through the front doors of the school one day, Jeanne Herron and Elroy had a near collision. "Excuse me," Elroy said automatically, before he realized who it was. Then he drew back.
"Excuse me," Jeanne said sweetly in return. Then she smiled, and continued on her way.
Elroy was smitten. After that, though he never spoke as much as another word to Jeanne Herron, he thought about her almost constantly.
Nowadays people would say that Elroy was a stalker, although he never meant any harm at all. He didn't even lust for her. He just thought she was beautiful and sweet. He saw how she smiled at the people she talked to, how she never seemed to engage in the cattiness the other popular girls reveled in.
The closest Elroy ever got to Jeanne again at school was when they had the same study hall period. Jeanne sat clear across the room, which was partly a disappointment to Elroy, but better in a way, because from that distance, she wasn't likely to notice how he watched her all the time. And he did watch her. It set his heart at rest to do so. As he gazed at her he liked to fantasize that she would become his girlfriend. He imagined going to the movies with her and to dances. He imagined how she would be impressed with his knowledge of scientific matters, how she would respect his intelligence. She would always be sweet to him.
He didn't imagine sex with her. Elroy's parents and his Sunday school teachers had firmly impressed him with the need to refrain from lascivious thoughts. He rarely masturbated, and when he did, he didn't think about Jeanne Herron. The most he ever allowed himself to think about was breasts, and these he imagined in an almost disembodied way that removed any personal particulars, and so seemed to make an acceptable compromise between morality and the urges he felt.
After his parents bought him a little Ford Falcon for his sixteenth birthday, Elroy started driving by Jeanne Herron's house now and then. He never slowed down or stared or did anything else that might have attracted attention. He didn't feel guilty about his behavior. He was not trying to gain access to her, or to peek on her. He had no desire to invade her privacy. He just liked to drive down the street where she lived, like in the song. It gave him a feeling of peace, even of joy. Some weeks he drove by every day.
Only once did he ever see her when he drove by. She was coming out the front door. Then it seemed as if she'd forgotten something because she turned and hurried back in. He remembered forever how her hair had flipped and swirled as she turned. How she scampered up the steps as lightly as a ballerina.
It was in the spring of that year, on his way to his car in the parking lot after school one day, that Elroy noticed there was a group of boys hanging around a car parked close to his. He would have to pass them. He had no special reason to be afraid that day, and so his plan, as usual, was to mind his own business and ignore them. Walking swiftly, straight toward his car, he kept his eyes ahead and his head down. As he neared the boys, one of them turned toward him and began moving in his direction. It was Gordon Bundy, Jeanne Herron's boyfriend. The other boys followed. Elroy's blood drained into his stomach, but he kept on toward his car.
"Where you going, Flamer?" Gordon said. "Come here. I want to talk to you." Elroy kept moving. Gordon started walking more swiftly, and the others followed. Elroy broke into a run.
Elroy already had the car door open when Gordon got hold of his shirt and yanked him backwards, turning him around and pinning him against the side of the vehicle. With his forearm jammed under Elroy's chin, Bundy lifted him off the ground.
"You got some business with Jeanne Herron?" he inquired with cool menace in his voice. His face was contorted and flushed.
It was almost impossible for Elroy to speak, but he managed to bleat, "No, sir."
"Then what're you looking at her all the time for? How come you drive by her house all the time? You some kind of pervert?"
"I don't look at her," Elroy lied.
Gordon spit in Elroy's face. "Don't ever look at her again."
Elroy began to cry. "I won't," he sputtered.
"He's crying," someone said.
"Look at the cry-baby."
Gordon took his forearm away from Elroy's throat and Elroy stumbled to the ground. He scrambled to get up. All the boys were staring at him. No one said anything.
Elroy's only goal at this point was to escape alive. Just as he reached out to open the door one of the boys put a foot through his left tail-light. This drew the rest of the boys' attention and Elroy jumped into the car. He locked the door, reached over, and locked the other. He heard them laughing as the other tail-light shattered. Somebody went looking for a stick. Elroy started the car, put it in reverse, and stomped on the accelerator. His tires squealed and the boys jumped out of the way as the car sped backwards. Elroy wasn't sure he hadn't hit one of them, nor did he care. He threw the gear shift into drive and floored the accelerator. The car lurched forward, bounding over the curb, then back onto the pavement with a squeal. Elroy let up on the accelerator. He was shaking with terror and his face was hot with shame.
Elroy didn't decide to kill anyone right away, but in the days after his encounter with Gordon Bundy he had feelings he had never experienced before. Feelings of deep emptiness and apathy. They were so overwhelming that even his usual interests seemed to be without the least appeal. He quit work on his half-finished plane. He had no desire to listen to music. When Friday came, he told Zig he didn't want to go to chess club.
On school-day mornings, Elroy awoke to dread, not just of the day ahead, but of any day he could imagine in the world where he lived. He ate breakfast as usual to avoid seeming upset to his parents, but his appetite had disappeared. At school, he found it difficult to pay attention in his classes. At home in the evenings he went to his room after dinner, but he studied sporadically, his mind always drifting to recollections of his humiliation, and when he looked forward in time, it was without enthusiasm for any event or occurrence he could imagine. It seemed as if the present moment of pain and shame was going to last forever. What sickened him most was the knowledge that Jeanne Herron surely thought he was a creep, too. His love for her was over. He couldn't drive past her house anymore. He couldn't even think about her anymore the way he used to.
It was several weeks before his feelings coalesced into hatred. When they did, he was actually surprised at himself. He was in his room trying to work on his math while visions of Jeanne Herron haunted him, her formerly smiling face now drawn up in scorn. For just a moment then, Elroy imagined how things might have turned out had he somehow stood up to Gordon Bundy and his friends. In his fantasy his arms and chest suddenly swelled up with powerful musculature and he broke Bundy's grip, grabbed him, forced him to the ground and then stomped on his face until he pleaded for mercy. Of course it was only a fantasy, but the mere notion of it gave Elroy the first feeling of peace he'd had since that day in the parking lot.
In the days that followed, Elroy found himself dwelling on these thoughts, as unrealistic as they were. They were his only comfort. And slowly he began to realize that it would be possible to get even. Although he would never be a physical match for Bundy or his pals, there were other things he could do. It was just a matter of being willing to accept the consequences. For instance, he could smash up Bundy's car. He could ram his own car into it in the parking lot and wreck it completely while Bundy was nowhere in sight. But the trouble with that idea was that Bundy would inevitably get even with him, by beating him up, or worse, which would ruin the taste of Elroy's revenge.
It was in consideration of this conundrum, and of similar impossibilities, that Elroy understood: the only way to be unequivocally avenged on Bundy would be to shoot him. To kill him.
To his own amazement, Elroy realized it would be easy to do. There was a gun he could use. His father had a twenty-two magnum, complete with a telescopic sight, stored in a closet in the basement, along with boxes of ammunition, and Elroy had long ago learned how to shoot it. It was a regular part of growing up in a farm town. Back in Meyersdale he'd used it to kill ground hogs that visited their garden, and even a raccoon when it started killing the chickens he was raising for the 4-H competition.
In a burgeoning fantasy, Elroy now imagined himself putting the gun in his car and driving to the school parking lot, where he would find Bundy's car. He would park somewhere close by—close enough for a good shot, but far enough away not to be noticed by anyone. Then he would just sit there and wait for Bundy to come out of school.
Elroy understood that the conclusion of this plan would mean the end of life as he knew it, but it no longer seemed to matter. In fact, in a way, life as he knew it had already ended. Maybe this would be the beginning of something better—something new he couldn't imagine.
Night after night, Elroy went to his room after dinner and lay on his bed imagining how he would shoot Gordon Bundy. Each time he imagined it, he felt wonderful relief, as if knots in his internal organs had been untied. In the mornings, he beat back his dread of the coming school day by going over his plan again.
He began to practice in secret, going to the basement and taking the rifle out of its closet, then pretending his way through the imagined scenario. Each time he did this, it had a magical effect. It made Elroy believe in his own power. He was taking steps, moving forward out of his stalemate of shame and humiliation. He was taking initiative.
On the twelfth of May, Elroy went to the basement and got the gun one last time. This time he loaded the magazine, put it under the seat in his car, and drove to school. It was early in the morning because Elroy wanted everything to appear normal—as if he were going to his classes as usual—but when he got to the parking lot, he didn't go into the school building. Instead, he stayed in his car, waiting. Imagining. When it was all over, he knew he would be sent to jail or to reform school, both of which he knew were terrible places, but at least the people there would have to respect him. They would know that he had killed someone. They would be afraid of him.
When students finally started coming out of the building for their lunch breaks, Elroy picked up his rifle and pointed it out the window, holding the barrel with his left hand which he rested on the side-view mirror. He looked down the scope at the figures coming out of the big glass doors. His hands trembled but he stilled them.
Alan Erskine was the first to appear of the boys who had assaulted him. Elroy had already noted that Erskine's car was parked next to Bundy's, along with Mark Miller's and Izzy Bates'. Elroy's stomach muscles clenched and his heart beat fiercely. He seemed to hear every sound in the parking lot. Cars starting. Voices. A twitter of laughter. A breeze rustling the fresh green leaves on the tree next to his car.
Now Erskine was walking across the asphalt toward his car, a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty yards away—barely within range, but Elroy was confident in his marksmanship. On the other hand, Elroy considered that if he waited, all the boys might gather at their cars before taking off somewhere together, and in that case, if he shot fast, he might get more than one of them. He was startled by the tinkle of something dropped on the pavement not far away. A girl stooped to pick up her keys but she didn’t look his way. He waited anxiously.
Bundy came out of the school building, walking with Mark Miller. Erskine was lighting a cigarette by his car.
Bundy and Miller crossed the asphalt. Elroy decided three would have to be enough. He put his eye to the scope. When he found Bundy, he put the cross-hairs directly over his heart, then raised the barrel ever so slightly to compensate for the distance. He squeezed the trigger and a loud, high pop split the air.
"Pow," Elroy said under his breath. Bundy faltered, then dropped to his knees, pulling at his shirt. Elroy felt the warmth of his own blood surging through his body. He drew a bead on Miller who was standing next to Bundy like a stunned rabbit.
"Pow." The bullet ripped a small hole in Miller's head and homogenized his brain. Elroy savored the power that seemed to have materialized spontaneously in every muscle of his body.
He aimed at Erskine who was cowering stupidly on the wrong side of his car. "Pow."
Then they were all dead, all three of them.
People were screaming hysterically and running every which way. Elroy's spirit seemed to swell and rise up out of himself like an erupting geyser. He decided to do it again. Putting his eye to the scope, he leveled his sight on Bundy who was closer now than before. This time Elroy shot him in the stomach, ripping up all those magnificent muscles and curling him to his knees like a supplicant. Another shot caught Bundy in the shoulder, destroying his passing arm, the one they called "magic." Then he shot him in the testicles, then in the teeth. He would have kept on shooting, but people were beginning to reach the cars close to him.
The commentator asks the question that is on everyone's mind. "Why would a person do this?"
"That's what I wonder about," Jenny concurs. "What I want to know is what was he thinking when he shot those people. What was he thinking, period?"
Elroy wonders about this.
Jenny continues. "I don't remember any kids like that in my school. I mean, we had some oddballs, but not like that."
"Well," Elroy replies, "If you want to know the truth, I think I can sort of understand a person like that."
Jenny registers her disbelief with a glare.
"Really," Elroy continues, emboldened. "I was kind of like that guy myself when I was a kid." This is more than he has ever said to Jenny or anyone else.
Jenny cocks her head dismissively. "Oh, you were not. What are you saying? You went out and shot somebody? How can you say that? This was a serious thing."
Elroy shrugs. He finds Jenny's certainty annoying yet also comforting.
"There's something wrong with a person like that," she goes on. "He was deranged. He was a maniac. Everybody has bad feelings, but not like that."
They both stare at the television. Elroy wonders about Jenny's statement. It seems possible to him that the only important difference between himself and Donald Emerson is that Elroy never actually pulled the trigger. He only imagined doing it. Why? Was it because he was afraid? Was it because, in the end, he was too ashamed of himself for wanting to. Wouldn't it have been just another reason why there was something wrong with him. Wouldn't it have proved they were right.
But a kid might look at it differently today, Elroy thinks. Maybe the real reason for Donald Emerson's crime wasn't that he watched too much violence on TV, like everyone wants to believe, or that he had access to the gun he used, but simply that he understood the fundamental injustice of his persecution. Elroy never really understood that. He wondered about it but was never sure. In those days the media didn't bring out that sort of thing. There had been no civil rights marches, no anti-war movement full of long-haired freaks, no flower children mooning about peace and love, no gay rights protests. As far as Elroy knew when he was in high school, there was only one worthy model of personal value in the world, and George Bundy came close to embodying it.
Things are different nowadays. People have changed the way they look at themselves. Everybody has a right to be who they are. Today a kid like Emerson would know he was being cheated.
Sadly, Elroy considers, what Emerson will never know is how things might have turned out. For Elroy, life changed utterly when he went to college. In the freshman dorm, there was no pre-existing social hierarchy. Everyone was more or less in the same, unfamiliar boat. Being studious and intelligent became a virtue rather than a peculiarity. The hell of Elroy's high school years was over as abruptly as it had begun.
All the same, news like today's can bring it back, like a flash flood, sucking a person into a maelstrom of forgotten shame and terror, as if that despised person you once feared you were was rising up to overwhelm you again.
Jenny pinches Elroy, bringing his thoughts back to the bar. "Come on, killer," she says. "Let's go home and make hamburgers. I've had enough of this."
Elroy follows his wife out of the bar. He's glad today that he didn't ever shoot anybody, but he doesn't mind remembering how much he wanted to. And if it weren't so outlandish, he might even confess to envying Donald Emerson in a certain way.