Then there are the obsessive types. Girls will write about how they are “in love” with Eric and Dylan. Some have gone so far as to write about wanting to “dig them up and make love to their headless corpses.” Others pretend to be students from Columbine. I entered a chat room discussion with a guy who swore up and down that his name was Brooks Brown, and that he'd graduated from Columbine High School in 1999. I was just like, “Um, I'm pretty sure you're not, dude . . .”
I don't pay much attention to these people. But the kids who intrigue me are the ones who write about how they idolize Eric and Dylan, or call them heroes. They write that Eric and Dylan made a “brave” choice by attacking their high school, and that it sent a message to all the jocks and bullies of the world.
These people have a horribly skewed outlook on life—but at the same time, I recognize what's happening to them. They may not have started out any different from you or me. But they've become so frustrated with the world that in their anger they look upon two mass murderers and actually see reason there.
Some of the posters on Little Brother asked me if I was worried that sooner or later those types of messages would show up on my board. The truth is, I hope that people who feel that way will use the Web site. After all, why would people post messages about how much they admire Eric and Dylan? Because they're going through the same kind of shit Eric and Dylan did, and they feel so alone that they think only Eric and Dylan would have understood. Yet by reading just a few of the posts on our board, they can see that there are people who are having the same kinds of problems they are, but are staying in touch with reality.
Maybe it will help them to reevaluate. Maybe it will help them realize that a lot of people are screwed over by the system, but that doesn't give them a reason to become like Eric and Dylan.
If even one of them starts to think twice about idolizing Eric and Dylan, or imitating them, then my site has served its purpose. The answer to feeling alienated isn't to do what Eric and Dylan did. It isn't to give up. It isn't to kill.
It's to use your mind, and make things better.
23
where do we go?
I'M STANDING IN CLEMENT PARK, AT A MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR Columbine's victims. It's April 20, 2002.
I can't believe it's been three years since it happened.
In one more month, the Columbine High School Class of 2002 will graduate. These are the last kids who were there when Eric and Dylan took their revenge. Starting next year, there will be all new students at Columbine—students who have no firsthand memories of hiding in their classrooms, or running away as bullets flew overhead. They will have no memory of seeing friends turn into mass murderers. They will have a clean slate.
The Columbine library is gone, demolished nearly two years ago. It's been replaced by an atrium. The place where Rachel Scott was killed is gone, covered up by an entryway that links to the new library. The patch of asphalt where Danny Rohrbough was killed is no longer there; that entire concrete stairway was pulled up and remodeled.
If you don't know what happened there, Columbine High School looks like any other school in America.
Some students tell the newspapers now that there is no bullying at Columbine. Others say the bullying is so bad that they're glad graduation is finally coming.
In today's newspaper, a teacher said that when she hears the claims about bullying at Columbine, “I think sometimes we feel like the rape victim who's told her skirt was too short and she shouldn't walk down the street at night.”
Attempts are already being made to rewrite history. Also in this morning's paper, a Columbine teacher told the reporter, “[Harris and Klebold] scared me more than any other kids in the building. They bullied more kids than they were bullied.”
Now, walking with my friends toward the memorial service, I see that same teacher moving in the opposite direction. I glare at her as I walk past. She doesn't return my gaze.
Some choose to deal with Columbine through ignorance. But the memories of that day can never be covered up for long. Nor can the repercussions.
Even though the cloud of Columbine will hang over us for the rest of our lives, all of us are trying to move on as best we can.
My brother graduated from Columbine High School last year. He's thrown himself into composing music, recording demo CDs for friends and spending entire nights hunched over his synthesizer. Music has always been his passion, and I imagine it always will be.
Trevor and I are still close friends. When memories of Columbine really start to weigh me down, he's the best confidant I have. He was there with me the whole way. Most of the time, though, we just have a beer or play a good video game, and concentrate on happier times.
From time to time, I still see guys like Nick Baumgart, Zach Heckler, and Chris Morris around town. Sometimes we nod. Sometimes we talk. But there's distance there now. I imagine it will always be that way.
I moved out of my parents' house a couple of years ago; now I live with friends in an apartment across town. Like any family, my parents and I still have our arguments and our rough times. But we've grown much closer since Columbine happened. In fact, I got my father to go with me to Detroit and attend a Twiztid concert. Imagine my dad, surrounded by juggalos with their faces painted and chains hanging off their clothing! It was a good time.
These past three years have been difficult. Even today, I'm still not over what happened. I go through major mood swings and depressions, something I never had to deal with before April 20. I do different things to cope with it. Sometimes I go online, sometimes I play a video game, some nights I wind up drinking. I'm doing much better today than I was a few years ago, but things can be hard sometimes.
Lots of things trigger painful memories—not just when I drive past the school or hear Columbine mentioned in a news report. There are little things, too. Maybe I'll buy a new multi-player computer game, and as I start to play, suddenly I'll wonder what Dylan would have thought of it. And then I'll get angry with him and Eric again, for having done something so stupid and cruel. We had so many good times, and those memories are forever tainted now. I hate them for having betrayed me like this. For having betrayed all of us.
But things are getting better. I've realized something important over the past three years: In spite of the hell that I lived through, I am still alive. I'm one of the lucky ones.
As we stand there at the anniversary ceremony, the time reaches 11:19. Principal DeAngelis is reading the names of the thirteen who died. As he reads each one, a balloon is released into the air. Kyle Velasquez's parents are standing a few feet to the left of me. When I hear his name, I see the balloon leave their hands and float away, joining the others already disappearing into the distance.
Walking away from the ceremony, I glance over at the sidewalk, about a hundred yards away, where I stood three years ago. Where I saw Eric pull in. For the past two years, I marked this anniversary by standing in that spot.
I don't feel compelled to do that this time.
One reason is because of what happened last year. That day, I was standing there, just as I had the year before, smoking a cigarette and remembering. Then the police pulled up and demanded my name. The public had been banned from entering Columbine on the anniversary, and apparently the sidewalk out front was considered part of school property. I tried to explain that I was a former student, and was mourning my friends, but they didn't care. They ordered me to leave.
Back then, I was so shocked by their actions that I complied. But I'd had a year since then to fume over the memory. I knew that if I went over there today and they tried to make me leave again, my response would probably get me into a lot of trouble. Since harassment from the police wasn't how I wanted to spend this day, I decided against going to “my spot.”
Besides, in some ways it was a healthy decision. Standing there with a cigarette, remembering Eric's car pull in, helped me for the first couple of years after the tragedy. But that moment doesn't define me. Who I am from this d
ay forward is what defines me.
I don't know where my Web site will go. It is simply my personal attempt to make a difference. Yet that's my point. If each of us quits complaining about the world—and instead takes action in his or her unique way—who knows what could be accomplished? I don't want to mark the deaths at Columbine with a “moment of silence” anymore. I want to mark it with moments of action. For me, those moments include helping with Michael Moore's project, or working on my Web site, or telling my story. I want people to learn from what happened here, and I want them to keep asking questions.
When it comes to Columbine, some solutions are more obvious than others. We have to crack down on all forms of bullying. Obviously, this means the kids on the playground who beat up the outcasts, or the high schoolers who mock and harass the kids wearing black and keeping to themselves. But we also have to look at teachers. Teachers who only like the “good kids” and turn their backs on the rest are causing untold pain and anger in those forgotten students. If students are given up on early, then they learn to hate the system and can no longer be rescued by it.
We have to reevaluate what we as a society are doing to our children. They, and not our careers or our personal lives, must be our priority. When people choose to become parents, they must make those children their primary focus—not just say it, but live it. Our kids need that kind of guidance in today's world.
Humanity has not changed in several millennia, even if our technology has. Because of technology, we can survive twice as long as we could a few hundred years ago—yet most of us accomplish only half as much. We can find out any fact we want through the Internet—and many of us want porn and hate.
As the writer Jhonen Vasquez said, whether in a loincloth or business suit, we're the same.
Why do people wonder where Eric and Dylan came from?
I guess they ask because they never look at themselves.
We as a society allowed Eric and Dylan's creation. If we sit back and wait for society to fix itself, it will never happen. We will only see more of the same.
But if we as individuals choose to do something, then it's the first step toward change.
I saw my best friend from grade school become a mass murderer. I saw my report to the police get swept right under the rug. I was asked by my own school never to come back. I was called a killer on the street. I saw the families of murdered children lied to for three years, then saw our lawmakers tell them there was no reason to investigate it.
I saw all of this, and I haven't given up.
Neither should the rest of the world. If there's one lesson to be learned from Columbine, it's that we can't let things remain the way they are. We can't succumb to feeling powerless against the world.
Learn from the injustice of Columbine. Look for where parallels are happening elsewhere. I guarantee, you won't have to look far. Then fight to change it. Don't wait for everyone else. Don't let the world happen around you. Don't stay powerless.
Don't give up hope.
No Easy Answers Page 23
