Crime and Justice

In 1965, two high school seniors had failed to complete their leaf collection assignment so long, the winter trees were leafless. But since one student was football star and other top student, the teacher allowed them to simply hand in photos of various trees. While the two students were out taking pictures of trees, they came upon the class “nerd” out on frozen local pond. He was so into testing ice thickness for his science project based on effect of auto exhaust on ice formation, he never saw the two boys approach. The “nerd” was their favorite target for bullying in school, thus thought it would be great fun to shove him into the hole he made in the shallow pond, and take a photo of him in the icy water, especially since the “nerd” had removed his coat, hat and gloves to test the ice! When the one boy shoved him in, the other snapped the photo of him at the edge of the hole in the freezing water! Both boys were hysterically laughing when they suddenly noticed him sinking lower in the water! When they neared the edge of the hole to help him out, HE SUDDENLY WENT DOWN UNDER THE SURFACE (hypothermia quickly overcoming this thin, ill-clad youth, his legs drawing up in a cramp) and the current had carried him under the ice.

Both boys in a panic knelt at the edge of the hole, plunging their arms in the freezing water, hands desperately searching for him. He was gone! The one boy began frantically wiping the snow from the surface of the ice…crawling on the ice, removing snow for a clear view down into the water. Suddenly he was staring down into the half closed eyes of the youth whose face was pushed up against the ice, his hands pressing, slowly scratching at the ice! As the one hysterically frightened lad went to find something to break the surface, the other kept scooting across the ice, removing the snow, staring down into that upturned face…suddenly the drowning youth’s eyes opened wide. The eyes were staring straight into his own for a brief period, before that young man sank slowly out of sight! The boys backed away in silence on the snowy ice. They exchanged no words, before breaking into a run in opposite directions toward their own homes.

The drowning was determined by authorities to be an accident! The shared tragedy was not only not confessed to anyone by either boy, they would never speak of it with the other. The boys graduated high school and went off to different colleges. The one on an athletic scholarship to business college, the other boy went to law school. The one young participant in this tragedy, who had gone on to become a wealthy, successful businessman, was the one who had told me this story. He then told me for the rest of this story: I should go to a prearranged meeting with his mother at his childhood home in the town where the drowning had happened!? He told me I would understand once I had gone and spoken with his mother.

His mother told me the following heartfelt story: “My son called me one day from college and asked to search among his old high school things in his old bedroom for representative pieces of his school years to be used as decorations at a fraternity dance. I had gathered a number of items when I thought of looking in the compartment of his bed’s headboard. I was thrilled to find what I believed was an old, lost Christmas roll of undeveloped film! After mailing my son the high school items, I took the roll of film to the developers who was offering a deal of larger, 8 by 10 reproductions. Two days later, I went to pick up the developed film. Excited to have found the lost film, I could not wait to see the images. I sat in the car in confsion looking at one 8 by 10 photo after another of trees. Then that last heart stopping photo! The photo of the boy who had drowned peering back at me from that icy water! I knew the boy had not “accidentally” drowned! And I knew my son had something to do with his tragic death! I drove home in shock. Once home, I immediately called my son at college. He cheerfully said he had received my package of high school items. With pounding heart, I only said “Son, I found this roll of film in your room!” It must have been the inflection in my voice powered by my sad heart. My son fell silent, then began to cry. He confessed he and his best friend were there and had accidentally caused the boy’s drowning. He pleaded with me not to tell anyone! I told him I would tell his father when he got home, and then would call him back and discuss what must be done. But after we hung up and I was sitting in tears, my son called back and said “Mom, I must confess to my part in the boy’s death…what ever happens to me can’t be as torturous as every night I go to sleep.. I SEE THE FACE OF THAT DROWNING BOY, HIS EYES STARING UP INTO MINE!” As you know Jim, my son did turn himself in, confessed, was tried and along with his friend was punished for his part in the fatal act. And as you also know Jim, he wants you to lecture on the incident in your anti-bullying speeches; as he has done himself since his release from incarceration!”

Being in that town where the fatal incident had happened, before driving home with this inspirational, symbolic story… I first visited the pond. It was winter. It was frozen over. I got out and walked on it, expecting to suddenly envision that boy’s tragic face, eyes staring up through the clear ice. This was 1982, though to the rest of us this incident had happened many years ago, knew to the drowned boy’s mother, it had happened just yesterday… but I decided I must speak with the mother of the victim to make the story complete! I think she let me in that small shack of a house, only because it was so cold outside. She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to talk at all about her late son, even after I told her my interest in the story was to include in my anti-bullying speeches in schools, to possibly save another bullied boy like her son. I told her I was going to use the photo of her son in my speeches. She said she knew of the photo from the trial. She asked me If I had it with me and then shocked me by asking to see it. I got it from the car, handed it to her. She gazed at her son’s last living moments, emotionlessly… then sighed. “He’s better off. You see he was bright and sensitive like his father. And like his father the teasing, taunting, bullying would never end! They were the type of males who have never been understood by a world with a totally warped view of what a real man is. He’s better off, Jim.” She took one last look at the photo of her son, handed it back and said as I turned to leave “I hope the photo can save others. I don’t know what they’ll see in his eyes, but believe me those bullied like my son, will see beyond the anger, fear… the relief that the bullying is finally over!”

Twenty years after the drowning, I asked sheriff of that town why they hadn’t noticed other tracks on snowy pond? “They are not looking that hard cause victim was weird nobody to them; now if victim had been one of those two popular boys, you can bet there had been big investigation!”