Lordy, I’ve got to get to work. I’ve got all these stories and interviews backing up. Everything’s done; every person’s words are on paper…now I’ve gotta get in gear and just do it.
Which, of course, I’m not currently doing. Sigh.
On nice mornings I wrap the kiddo up and we go for walks in the park near my house. It’s peaceful – birds big and small, the wind in the trees, deer, small tree and ground rodents, and plenty of crickets. My mind gets to wandering, and this morning it wandered to a kid named Kelby. He was 16 years old when he was expelled from his high school and brought to court on charges that he conspired to murder several of his teachers and classmates. I knew Kelby because I subbed at that high school, which was also the rebuilt-after-fire version of my high school. Kelby dated boys. You can imagine what kind of hell kids and teachers alike put him through…this ain’t no California.
Kelby was a sweet kid. I worked there a lot during his sophomore year. We would hang out together during the day, watching Judge Judy and exercising on a gazelle during the last period when I had nothing to do but “be there” for an absent teacher’s office hours. I helped him with projects, talked about everything, and I hope helped with a few problems. I totally broke the law many times and gave him rides, or met him for coffee so he could talk and I could listen.
Then I left subbing, I left Kelby. And he was arrested for some bullshit charge. I don’t blame him for having a “kill” list…we’ve all got one somewhere in the deep recesses of our minds. The only difference is that most of us don’t write them on paper.
The powers that be never found Kelby’s famed list. He’s since moved on, away from his intolerant and, by all accounts, horrible family and moved to “o-town,” wherever that might be.
It’s hard not to fall a little in love with some of those kids, and it’s even harder not to have your heart broken when they fall. Or, in Kelby’s case, get kicked down the stairs. I hope he’s doing ok, wherever he is, and I hope he remembers me as fondly as I do him.