Head on

It was in art class that you told me you'd broken into the student council closet that held all the candy machine supplies. You pushed a candy bar at me with a sneer. I don't believe we'd ever even shared two words before that. I was a freak then, I know that, and you wanted to see how the freak would respond.

I was not popular in High School. I was reasonably attractive. I was good at almost everything, and especially good at art, but what made me a freak was that I could not lie. That paired with a hyper sensibility to rules meant if you broke a rule in front of me, I would report you. I cared more about how adults saw me than how other kids saw me. It made me feel empowered. It also made me a victim.

I had been one of the kids that got the school to agree to the candy machine. The proceeds were going to fund dances and the like. My point was that these would benefit all of us.

You were one of a gang of "bad boys" who split their time between auto shop, cruising, and harassing other kids in the halls. There was no question, you were dangerous. Your friends were dangerous. There had been rumors of weapons at school and beatings after school. If you weren't the gang's leader you were certainly at the top of the pack. No one stood up to you.

I stared at the candy then calmly suggested you should put it back - all of it. I told you if you put it back, I would pretend you never told me. I also told you if you did not put it back, I would report you.

You laughed at me. I reported you.

Retribution came first with threats from your gang. I was cornered in a hall and weapons were flashed at me. They were clear, I would pay for turning you in. Something stopped me from reporting that. Perhaps fear. Perhaps curiosity. It was not long before I found my beloved VW bug destroyed in the school parking lot. Tires flattened. Paint scraped and dented from the knives and the brass knuckles I'd seen.

I should have been scared, but instead I saw it as an act of cowardice. They had attacked my car, not me. My car could not fight back. My car could be repaired and I refused to be bullied. I marched back in and reported the damage and the prior threats.

I was marked. From then on every time someone truant was found out, every infraction of the rules - anything at all - it was assumed I told. Nothing I could say or do could change those opinions. I did not know anything outside my own little world, but it did not matter. I was a snitch.

My sister dated within your gang. She wore the leather jacket and played the bad girl to my goody two shoes. I'd cried wolf so many times, our parents ignored my pleas for them to stop her.

When I heard you were in the car that crashed head on into a tree at 50mph - I cried. The boy who'd put the jacket on my sister was in that car too as was another of those who'd threatened me. I was away at college by then. You and your friends were drinking and cruising that night. Everyone in the car died. For the rest of us, life went on.

That day in art class, I was willing to lie for you.
I was not afraid of you.
I was afraid for you, and the path I saw you on.

You died within walking distance of the cemetery you were buried in.