The Divides

Last fall, not long after the school year began, a text message from Megan woke me up in the middle of the day and split me in two.

“a kid is threatening to blow up the school…im scared”

The rip of indecision came from the intuitive feeling that this was one of those drama-fueled teenage hallway rumors that can escalate from a stubbed toe to Armageddon inside the length of a lunch period. The first half of her text was a bit hard to believe.

But the second half of her text struck home. I realized she was genuinely afraid, because Megan almost never texts me unless it is something urgent. I often get a “dad my self-dye job went bad and I need It fixed,” or “these boots are only on sale TODAY!!!!!!” or “need a ride now,” but never before in her life has Megan ever sent me the words “im scared.” I pictured her very frightened there in her classroom.

I asked her to give me some time to figure out what was going on and contact the school. I was still finding it all very hard to believe, and found it even more unbelievable when she told me that the young man in question had been called down to the office but was back in his class. I thought that meant that someone was at least addressing the situation, evaluating it, and determining things were safe.

Then it struck me, at that moment, that all of these situations which have happened in the past and ended in tragedy were neither predicted nor prevented. “What if” thoughts started bouncing through my head about what quiet dangers may be lurking undetected in the halls of Megan’s school, and I suddenly felt the urgent need to know or do more. What did the school know? Was there any communication sent out? Did they know about the information circulating in their building, and what were they doing?

The woman that answered the phone at the school that day likely had no idea how poorly she chose her words to address such calls, because her response, after I explained the text message I had received from Megan was:

“We have the situation under control.”

And that was it. No further comment, no explanation that it was overblown drama, or any information or indication about whether or not the threat was real or only perceived. I waited, half shocked at the silence at the other end of the phone, and then asked her for more information. She said she could offer nothing more other than “the situation was under control.”

Michelle and I exchanged a few calls and my blood pressure just kept ratcheting skyward. Megan had sent her the name of the student and she had checked out his Facebook page, which—unfortunately for him—he had not made private. She described disturbing things, but I couldn’t check it out myself because, by this point, I was in the car on my way to pick up Kylee. Megan was also on the bus and removed from any immediate danger.

At Kylee’s school I had a quick conversation with the principal there to see if he had picked up any news of the ordeal from district communication. He hadn’t. Nor was the district office answering their phones.

Megan met us there and we talked as I drove them both to Michelle’s house. After I had dropped them off I drove home, still trying to figure out the reality of the situation and not having much luck in doing so. It bugged me to not know. There was too big a gap between the depth of Megan’s expressed fear and what I could get in information. And so, when I got to the intersection where I either turned home or turned toward the school…I headed west for the school for one last try.

I didn’t expect to find anyone there, honestly, since it as a good hour after the junior high had let out. In fact, when I got there the doors were already locked, and there was only a solitary car in the lot. But as I turned to walk back to my car and leave, I spotted a woman on the phone in her office which I thought to be in the vicinity of the deans’ offices.

I did what any reasonable father would do: I knocked on her office window and pointed at the door, hoping she would interpret this knock and the look I gave her as meaning I wanted in to talk with someone…now. She nodded at me and quickly hung up the phone, and then met me at the front doors with a smile. She introduced herself as the principal.

We went to her office and she patiently listened to everything I could tell her about what I knew from Megan, from Michelle, all the while taking notes on what seemed to be new to her. Then she took her time in explaining all that she could to me without stepping outside boundaries of confidentiality, while still trying to alleviate my fears as a parent. When I left, I felt confident that she was on top of the situation, and that there was no imminent danger to anyone. But, I did see she had quite a mess on her hands in dealing with the aftermath.

By the time I got home there were two e-mails from her, one a mass e-mail to all parents and another to me thanking me for my time and concerns and reassuring me that she was committed to everyone’s safe navigation through this event. My nerves started to calm a bit in her words, but I somehow still didn’t feel like I knew everything I could. I felt like I needed to know as much as I could about the young man who supposedly made the threats.

So I did the next thing any reasonable father would do: I Googled, and I found his Facebook page, and I searched it for any telltale signs of imbalance, and for the things that Michelle had previously described to me. Sure, there were some things on his page that I probably wouldn’t put on my own, but they seemed more like the kind of things a teenage boy interested in zombie-killing video games would post more than anything. There was a reference to gasoline that kind of raised my radar a little, and a reference to an anarchist, but he seemed more a young man being a little provocative than being threatening. I think I remember being a little provocative at that age as well, when I wanted attention.

By the next day, through conversations with Megan and others (and my Googling), a clearer picture of this student came through. For whatever reason, he was a young man without many friends in his own school, and he was apt to do and say things that sometimes were meant to shock and gain attention. It was his way of being noticed in the sea of anonymity we all know large schools can be. But he didn’t know how to distinguish between things appropriate and inappropriate to say within the context of school, or within social norms. He apparently did not know that some things said may call all kinds of wrong attention to him, or that they may actually cause real fear in others.

After the fact, I actually felt for him. He did, in fact, make an inappropriate comment in the school hall that caused someone concern. But, because that comment became more and more distorted as the lines of communication stretched out wider and longer, the entire school had—by that afternoon—begun to paint him as a monster that threatened them all. By the end of the day he sat at a precarious edge, where either someone could reach out to him and pull him back, or where the entire student body could push him socially, and psychologically, off the edge to become the very thing they all feared him to be.

And I began to wonder whether many of the young people whose tragic actions we have heard and read so much about had once been at this same juncture. Was there a moment in their lives when they could have been pulled back from that chasm by someone who recognized their actions as a cry for meaningful human contact? Was there a tipping point in their lives where they decided to make real the things that people whispered about them in the halls? What might have changed with a little understanding instead of foregone conclusions spread rampantly?

The next day Megan came home from school and said that she had been to the principal’s office that morning along with several other students. I imagine a number of those visits happened all day in her office, with a number of different students. Megan didn’t give me all the details, but she did tell me that they talked about the young man, about everything that happened the previous day, and about being responsible with sharing rumors and information.

I remember Megan’s sincerity and maturity when she told me all this, and how she seemed to have taken a genuine lesson from it all. I also remember feeling very proud of her when she mentioned that she and some friends toyed with the idea of reaching out to this student, helping him feel less isolated.

I’ve never asked, so I don’t know if she ever did, or if anyone did. I hope so, because it seems to me a situation where the fate and future of One and Many are intertwined and shaped by each other, And that’s probably not a bad lesson to learn as young as when you’re in junior high.

© 2011 Cody Kilgore. All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.