Every time I open the door of my elementary classroom, I remember.
It was a Wednesday, and yes, sometimes I think of Wednesday’s child, the “full of woe” thing. My cellphone vibrated, and I knew it was Carl. My husband is the only one who calls me at work, and he only calls when it’s something urgent. He’s a computer programmer who works from home and he might text a question, clarifying whether to buy cream cheese or sour cream at the store, but he won’t call about something mundane. So, his call got my attention, and since my students were busy working on fractions, I slipped into the hall, which smelled of lunchroom spaghetti, and answered.
Even before my cheery “Hi,” I heard his tense voice, “There’s a lockdown at the high school—a shooter. Our handguns are gone. I. . . ” There was a choking sound. “I think it might be Drew.”
“No,” I barked, as rage enveloped me. How could Carl even think something like that? Then, remembered where I was.
“No,” I said tersely. “He would never hurt anyone.” But my head quickly cataloged Drew’s depression and isolation of this past year and my final “No,” held less conviction.
“I’ll meet you at the school,” Carl said as the line went dead. Trembling, I walked back into my classroom trying to keep my face impassive. “When you’ve finished your math assignment,” I said, “you’re welcome to read your library book.” Then I grabbed my purse and without a backward glance, dashed down the hall. In the office, I told Irene that I had a personal emergency and ran out the door.
Carl’s Toyota Camry was parked in the “No Parking” zone in front of the high school, and I caught up with him at the locked front door. Pounding frantically, we saw Mrs. Reynolds running towards us from the main office. She nodded as recognition flashed in her eyes. She hit the entry bar and croaked, “Mr. Raskin. . .” She couldn’t form words, but we read the message in her eyes.
“Where?” Carl demanded.
“Music room.”
We raced past the school secretary and stopped by Mel Johnson, the principal, who was standing outside the door of the music room. It was then that we heard Drew’s voice choked with emotion. “You’re an ass.”
He was shouting words I had never heard him say and with a fury I hadn’t seen in him before. “And what you said wasn’t even true,” his strained voice continued. “Just because I don’t like sports doesn’t mean I’m gay.”
“Drew,” said a man’s voice. “We can talk about this.”
“No, Mr. Vance, we can’t talk about this. We could have before. You could’ve stopped this kid from saying what he was saying—what they were all saying. But you didn’t, you just let it go on.”
“But I didn’t know,” Mr. Vance continued.
“Yes, you did! You just didn’t want to deal with it,” Drew shrieked.
There was some shuffling, and then I heard Drew’s voice again. “Don’t move, not even an inch. I will pull this trigger. I promise you,” and this time his voice was icy cold.
“I can’t believe this was my favorite class last year. I’m calling the shots now,” he sneered.
Outside the door, Carl leaned toward Mr. Johnson. “How long’s this been going on?” he asked, sotto voce.
Johnson’s mouth tightened as he glanced at the hall clock. “Seven, eight minutes. At first Drew was just disruptive. Yelling and claiming he had guns. We didn’t know if he really did, but we locked down the school as a precaution. Then about three minutes ago, he pulled one out. The police are on their way.”
(Something inside of me was screaming. Wait! Slow down! Let me think!How could everything be happening so fast?)
“Let us in,” Carl said quietly.
My eyes met his determined face, and I nodded in agreement. Johnson stared hard at Carl and neither said anything while Drew continued to recount what each student had done to him.
“I shouldn’t. . .” Johnson started to say, but then he stopped and reached for the door handle.
Carl started in the doorway, then stopped and let me squeeze in front of him first. Drew somehow looked taller to me and was holding a pistol aimed at my chest. His wild eyes met mine and then flashed to his dad’s. He looked like he’d been slapped and faltered for a second. Drew set his mouth and rage filled his eyes.
“Get out!”
I shook my head slowly and swallowed, “We love you Drew.”
And we stood there staring at our youngest son while he pointed his father’s Smith and Wesson at us. My hands were clammy and I could feel sweat on my back. Finally, he grimaced and moved the muzzle of the gun to point again at the students, “They make my life miserable,” he said. “You don’t care, and they deserve to die.”
“We care,” Carl said softly, but Drew’s face twisted in fury.
“No, you don’t!”
I swallowed. How much did I know about his band class or even his life in general? Not as much as I should have. He used to love playing the French horn, but I hadn’t heard anything about this year’s band class.
I heard the police in the hallway and knew we had to do something quickly. “I don’t want you to die,” I choked out, and suddenly tears I couldn’t stop poured down my cheeks.
Even though I kept blinking, I couldn’t really see what happened next. I heard Carl talking softly to Drew, and I was aware that Carl was slowly moving towards Drew as I struggled to breathe. I heard the thunk of the gun hit the floor. I blinked hard and saw Drew collapse in his father’s arms, all the fight gone out of him. I saw his tearless face, looking dazed and defeated. In an instant, the noise burst through the intimate moment. Police filled the room, and everyone was moving. Even me. My last memory of that scene was of Drew’s face in anguish as he was led away in handcuffs.
And suddenly it was over.
Carl and I exited the front doors of the school with police on both sides of us, but I could hear the student’s nervous voices as we passed.
“Did you see him?”
“It’s Drew Raskin. I can’t believe it.”
“I was so scared.”
We slid onto the cold vinyl seat of a police car and spent the rest of the afternoon at the police station telling them what little we knew. “Yes, the guns were ours, or Carl’s, to be more exact. No, Drew had never exhibited any violent behavior towards other people. He is an eagle scout for heaven’s sake. He is a youth leader in our church. Yes, he probably knew where the key to the gun cabinet was kept, but we’d never imagined he would take the guns without his father’s permission. He is a good kid—a great kid.”
When the questions finally stopped, we waited in an office to find out where Drew would be sent and when we could see him. I sat quietly staring at a calendar on the opposite wall while a quote from a former president of my church kept running through my mind, “No other success can compensate for failure in the home.” I had given talks on that subject in church meetings. I taught parenting classes and had repeated that quote over and over again.
***
After the police drove us back to our cars at the school, we headed home, exhausted and hungry. But when we arrived, neither of us went to the kitchen. We sat on the couch and looked at each other, trying to understand how this could have happened.
“Did he seem angry to you?” Carl asked.
I shook my head, “Sad maybe, but not angry. I’ve been busy with the school fund raiser though and haven’t been home much.”
“He didn’t seem angry to me either,” Carl replied, “but I’ve been asking myself why I checked out the gun cabinet as soon as I had heard of a threat. Why would a father who totally trusted his son go check the guns in the house?”
When I didn’t answer, Carl continued. “I knew he was morose and hiding away in his room, but lots of teenagers do that. Still, I must have thought there was a possibility that he was the shooter. I must have.”
I nodded.
He closed his eyes and opened them again. “Will Drew think I betrayed him by checking on the guns?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, not meeting his eyes while at the same time realizing there were a lot of things about Drew I didn’t know.
“It hasn’t been all you,” I said, and thought back to the many afternoons when our older son Trevin would eagerly spend hours telling me about his day at school, while Drew retreated quietly to his bedroom. “I should have been spending more time with Drew, listening more, but he hasn’t seemed to want to talk.”
Carl nodded, “And, even though I’ve been working from home, I’m not really here,” he said. “I’ve been in my office working. Of course, Drew has been free to come in, but I should have been going to him, asking about his world. I don’t even know his favorite music group, but this last year I haven’t heard much music coming out of his room. I haven’t wanted to intrude, but I should have. Maybe if I had forced the interaction. . .”
“Maybe,” I said. “But maybe not. And I’ve spent so much time focusing on my job these last few years…” I thought back to 2014 and the ceremony where I had been awarded Teacher of the Year. I worked hard and prided myself in thinking about my students and how to be a better teacher. Should I have been thinking more about Drew instead of my students? “No success. . . ” I had failed one of the most important people in my life and guilt overwhelmed.
Carl and I sat silently for a minute or two, and then he said, “We have to call Trevin at the university and tell him before he sees it in the news.”
I nodded, reached for my cellphone and began crying in earnest, my shoulders shaking. Carl put his arms around me, and I collapsed on his shoulder, feeling warm tears on the back of my neck, realizing we were both crying.
***
Drew was sent to a juvenile detention facility, and while a part of me wanted to see him immediately, another part of me knew I wasn’t up to it. When we were finally granted permission, we went right away. How small and vulnerable Drew looked on the other side of the glass. I had promised myself I wouldn’t cry and gripped my tissue tightly as I reached for the phone.
Before he could say anything, I blurted. “We love you Drew, and we’re getting a good lawyer to help you.” He nodded, but his eyes were dull, lacking focus.
“Do they have you on some kind of medication?” Carl asked.
Drew nodded again. “But it makes me really sleepy.”
“Are you eating okay?” I asked lamely, and again he nodded, dropping his eyes.
I didn’t know what to say or ask and apparently Carl didn’t either because there was silence and finally Drew said, “I just wanted to die.”
“Oh Drew,” I reacted, gripping my tissue again as the tears flowed once more. “I didn’t know. Are you feeling a little better now?” He shrugged and there was silence again.
On the way home, my anger bubbled to the surface. “If you hadn’t bought those handguns,” I accused. “Maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Twenty-two pistols and those nine- millimeter Smith and Wessons—really? What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking he was drifting away from us, and it was the one thing Drew, Trevin, and I could do together,” Carl replied stiffly. “Don’t tell me not having guns would have made all the difference.”
“Not having handguns might have,” I countered trying to keep the acid out of my voice. “Kind of hard to smuggle shotguns into a school.”
Carl sighed and slumped in the seat while he continued to stare at the road. “Don’t you think I’ve thought about this and beat myself up? When I was a kid, I bonded with my dad on hunting trips. You know I don’t hunt anymore, but Trevin was interested in target shooting, so we went. It was Drew who wanted to try handguns—Drew who never expressed an opinion about much of anything. That was something he wanted to do, and yes, I jumped at it.”
All the anger melted into the car seat and I teared up again. “I just need something or someone to blame,” I said softly. “You know, ‘No success can compensate…’”
“’…for failure in the home,’” he finished.
“Yeah that,” I said. “I can think of hundreds of things I should and shouldn’t have done and yet I don’t know whether any of them would have made a difference. Somehow, gut deep, I think I’m responsible.”
I thought Carl would argue and repeat some of the glib things people had been saying to us in consolation, but he simply said, “Yeah, me too.”
“Is he going to be okay?” I asked, knowing there was no sure answer. “Will he be able to get the help he needs?”
My husband was quiet, and I continued, “I suppose he’ll go to jail for a while, but I wonder if he can ever get his life back?”
Carl shrugged and stared hard ahead at the road.
***
I still teach, but I know I shouldn’t be teaching. Every time I open the door I think of Drew. In the middle of my lesson, my mind drifts back to him and I worry about what lies ahead for him. Will he be okay? I have always been an advocate of working where you feel passion. And I have always believed teachers who can have great influence on so many young lives, should either love what they do or get out. I don’t hate what do, but I should get out. My heart says move on, do something else, but I keep hearing “No other success. . .” and it seems like I no longer want to succeed at much of anything.
December 1, 2016 CBS –
“Utah Parents Disarm Teen Son Who Brought Family’s Guns to School”
