Tardy

"Be the Helping Hand" My Ass

For as long as I’ve known him, give or take three weeks, there has never been a time when Dylan Mathers was speechless. There was always some snarky remark to be said, yet, right now, he’s silent. Looking at him with astonishment and sorrow dripping from his face; it’s odd. Silence doesn’t suit him. Something about him reminded me of death. How one moment you’re breathing and the next you’re not. How one moment there’s a fire burning in your eyes and the next it’s blown out for eternity. And it all happens in an instance.

It’s frightening; the thought of changing so quickly, leaving emotional whiplash at every twist and turn in your path. It makes me wonder, is that what I did?

The week that followed Mason’s attack, the school was still closed. The district felt that it would be more appropriate for the students to stay home. Can’t say I didn’t agree; no one needed to see that halls where three people ceased to be. So, everyone was home. Preparing for the funerals.

There’s this saying; bad things come in threes. For us, we there were three deaths. Three deaths; Carey, Mason, and Chase. 

Three people may have lost their lives but I only cared about one. Only one made me deny myself sustenance by throwing every meal my mother made at the wall outside my room. Only one made me take a vow of silence for over two months.  Only one kept me locked away, balled up in a corner of my shower letting the water rain on me as it drained the blood residue from the holes in the looted black hoodie I wore. That one was Chase.

It took all I had to throw myself out of the bed on the day of their funerals. They were all held on the same day. Carey and Chase’s funerals were held in together in the Cathedral, but Mason’s was held, in the basement of the local funeral parlor as he was cremated. The whole town came to celebrate the lives of Carey Banks and Chase Harrington, but for Mason Taylor, there was no one. No church would take him because he had taken the lives of others and himself, and no one came because they were ashamed; ashamed they had pushed him to his limits and beyond and he had finally fired back. And his father didn’t attend because he was a disgrace in his eyes and was no longer his son.

I wish I were strong enough to have gone to Mason’s, but I barely had enough strength to Chase’s. As I opened the doors of the church, the first thing my eyes landed on were the two caskets that laid in the front. All I could think was, it’s my fault their in there. I wanted to turn away and run, but I owed it to them. I had to be here, so I gathered whatever ounce of courage I had left and stepped into the church. I started to walk up to the front seats but then I glanced over and saw Chases parents. Mrs. Harrington was sobbing uncontrollably into the crook of her husbands’ neck. She glanced back at me with mascara dripping down her cheeks and a pained smile across her lips, and all I could do was look away.

I didn’t deserve her smile. After Chase died, I stayed away. I didn’t call, visit, or send any form of my condolences. I couldn’t. How was I supposed to look her in the eye and saw “I’m sorry for your loss”, when it was my fault he’s dead in the first place. So I looked away and found a seat in the back.

The worst part of the ceremony was the reading of the eulogy. Our principal used it as way to fight any developing problems that the school and the district may be facing as a result of the shooting. Principal Jones talked about how devastated he and the students of Septima Clark Senior High School are, and how the district has funded a memorial that will be placed in the front of the school to honor and commemorate the students that lost their lives in the midst of this horrible tragedy. The memorial would be a colossal hand with the names of the victims chiseled into the palm and the phrase “Be the Helping Hand” etched into the wrist to put an end to bullying in the school.

Be the helping hand my ass. They knew exactly what was happening to Mason. He’d gone to the administration over ten times about all the abuse and torment he was getting. All they ever did was make an announcement over the intercom about how we are a family and should support each other and not tear each other down. Did they not know whom they were speaking to? These were angst-filled hormone infested teenagers they were talking to that had a deep hatred for authority. How could they ever think that would work?