Violent Past

This is a work of fiction. Though the characters in the story are very real, and I have not altered their names, this is something I imagined about these people I knew years and years ago.

Violent Past

By Ian Hrabe

2/17/08

When they are twelve years old, boys are at the exact age where the saying “boys will be boys” applies. They’re frustrated. They’re becoming men in the old sense of the word. They’re territorial, they have petty feuds over nothing, and they are just discovering what pornography is for. After boys discover masturbation everything changes. Something goes off in their heads. This is when they start playing football and this is when they start getting into fights. This is a story about how boys will be boys.

In 1997 a boy I knew in elementary school killed two other boys I knew in elementary school and I just found out about it today, although it’s only hearsay. My friend Derek, who I haven’t seen in years called me and told me all about it because in a way, we are connected to it. You see, there was this kid, Scott Wolfer, and we fought him. It was kind of cute, thinking about it. We were out in the woods adjacent to our housing development when Scott and his older brother accosted us. It made no sense at the time because we thought Scott was our friend, but his brother was a year or two older and decided that there should be a fight. So we fought in a clearing near the creek. That is, I fought. I fought Scott and after a few minutes of us rolling around in the grass, punching each other in the face, I punched him in the balls and, as he was keeling over in pain I kicked him in the face as hard as I could and they left. Apparently, this is what Scott and his brother did for fun. They would wander the woods looking for someone to fight. And this is how they ended up buried beneath the bike trail the city was building in 1997.

A few weeks later Scott disappeared from school. Our teacher, Mr. Alburty, said that his family moved away. I was relieved, as it was quite awkward seeing Scott in class even though the day after the fight he acted as if nothing had happened, as if we were still friends. This is what Derek said to me on the phone today.

“Do you remember Jamie Stull?”
Of course I remember Jamie Stull, the kid we tormented for no reason in 6^th grade.

“Of course,” I said.

“Well, apparently he killed Scott Wolfer and his brother.”
“Holy shit.”

“That’s just what I heard. It makes sense though, if you think about it.”

Jamie was always violent. Well, only violent when we were tormenting him. Again, I don’t know why we did and when Derek wasn’t around I was nice to him. But according to Derek, Scott and his brother decided to pick a fight with Jamie Stull and they ended up buried underneath the new bike trail. Apparently, they just found the bodies today, which is so strange. Even stranger is how the bodies were discovered, because it’s another case of boys will be boys. A couple of kids were trying to bury a pack of cigarettes in a cigar box next to the trail and they found a hand connected to an arm connected to a skeleton. They told their parents and their parents told the police and the police discovered that Scott Wolfer’s parents had moved away shortly after their boys disappeared. They were the immediate suspects, but were acquitted given that there was no real evidence whatsoever linking them to the killings. How could there be?

How Derek discovered that Jamie Stull did it is a little fuzzy, but apparently he spoke to him recently which is bizarre because I’ve been trying to find out how to contact Jamie Stull for years to apologize for all the shit I did to him and have come up with nothing. I even tried variations on his name, I remember how he always wanted us to call him Jim. Thinking about it, I remember he moved away at the end of that year and I can only assume he left the country, changed his name, or something like that. But somehow he contacted Derek and told him the whole story.

Here is what happened. Scott and his brother encounter Jamie in the woods. Scott starts to fight Jamie and Jamie, who was enrolled in Tae Kwan Do at the time, punches Scott in the throat and crushes his windpipe. He realizes that Scott is going to die, as he gasps for air on the ground, and Scott’s brother realizes this too and goes after Jamie. Jamie picks up a thick branch and hits Scott’s brother with it, knocking him to the ground. He then strangles Scott’s brother to death. Knowing what he has done, he digs a shallow grave in the loose dirt that is piled up for the new bike trail. It takes him a while, but the sun is going down so he works under the cover of dark. Surprisingly, after an hour of digging with his bare hands no one has stumbled across the bodies. He goes to bury the bodies in the makeshift grave. He throws Scott in first but when he goes to throw Scott’s brother in he realizes that he is still alive. He throws him in anyway and replaces the dirt and smoothes it over. He sits and waits for an hour to make sure Scott’s brother is sufficiently suffocated and then washes the dirt off of his hands in Indian Creek.

It made sense that Jamie would have done it, what with being tormented all throughout elementary school and that Scott was part of the group that tormented him. I started trying to find Jamie again, mostly because I was upset that he contacted Derek (who was much harsher on him than I ever was) rather than me. I scoured the internet, surely if he contacted Derek then he must be on the internet somewhere. I called Derek back and asked how Jamie had contacted him, what the area code on the caller ID was, etc. Derek said it came from an unknown number.

And then I found out that Jamie was dead. That he’d committed suicide in 2003. His family had moved to Pittsburgh and he apparently, didn’t fit in there either and I wondered if I had contributed to this or if he was destined to hang himself in his parents tool shed in Pennsylvania. I couldn’t think about it too much though, I would think about it later, forever probably, how I’d been a terrible person when I was twelve years old, but I had to call Derek and ask him why he killed Scott Wolfer in his brother and why he decided to tell me about it. He said he had to tell somebody, he felt guilty.

“Did you know that Jamie killed himself?” I asked.

“He did?”

“Yeah, in 2003. I think that was our fault,” I said.

“How is that?”

“Don’t you ever feel bad about the shit we gave him? Remember that time we stole all of his mechanical pencils and flushed them down the toilet and he started crying and tried to attack me in the book corner?”

“Yeah, but you did that.”

“Oh yeah. Shit, you’re right. But do you remember the time at recess when you started throwing the kickball at his head and then everyone started doing it till he tried to attack you.”

“You were throwing the ball too.”

He was right.

“How did you end up killing Scott Wolfer?”

“After you guys fought,” he said, “he challenged me to a fight the next week. When I went down, I hid a steak knife in my backpack because I knew he was going to bring his brother and that his brother might try to start some shit.”

“Why didn’t you ask me along? For backup? You were there when I fought Scott.”
“You were never much of a fighter,” he said.

“I guess you’re right. So what, you stabbed Scott?”

“No, I crushed his windpipe on accident. I mean, I guess when you’re fighting someone there are no real accidents. I didn’t mean to kill him but he was dying on the ground and Scott’s brother was freaking out and I just knew that when he got over the initial shock, after Scott died, he was going to come after me so I got the knife out of my backpack and when he tried to come after me I stuck him with it.”

“And then buried them under the bike trail.”

“Yes. After finishing Scott’s brother off, though. I didn’t really bury him alive.”

“This is fucking intense, man. God, what the fuck.”
“They found the bodies last week, I had to tell someone about it and I know I’m safe to tell you.”

“I haven’t talked to you in years, though.”

“I know you won’t turn me in though.”

He was right. What is the right thing to do in this situation, anyway? It’s like double jeopardy or something. If this had been discovered in 1997, had Scott’s parents cared enough to launch an investigation and Derek had been caught he would have had to suffer the consequences, but twelve years later he’s a different person. He’s married now, it’s so strange, and even stranger to think about how he has lived with this for so long without telling anyone. And I feel selfish thinking that I won’t turn him in because he has a family now, he said his wife was pregnant, and he was my best friend for two years and Scott Wolfer was an asshole anyway. And to be honest, I was more worried about Jamie Stull and my involvement in his death. How I might as well have buried him beneath the new bike trail when I was twelve years old. How all roads lead to Jamie hanging himself in his parents tool shed and how I should have told Derek to fuck off and been Jamie’s friend. But as I said, it’s a case of “boys will be boys.” Boys will find someone weaker than them, with uglier clothes, who lives on the poor side of town and they will torment him and sometimes it’s a case of what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger but sometimes it’s a case of what doesn’t kill you kills you eventually.