Donorboy Read online

  SC: No, I—

  SV: “What’s Right with Public Education”?

  SC: No, I—

  SV: It aired on Weekend Edition on four successive Saturdays.

  SC: Yes, well, if we could—

  SV: Scott was here for the better part of a week, and he seemed to be changing the minidisc all the time. Still, the sound was fantastic on the radio—sounded just like I was in the room. Which of course I was, ha ha! Strange experience, hearing yourself on the radio.

  SC: I’m sure. Now you’ll forgive me, but I was a bit flustered when you called, and if you can just walk me through the procedure here one more time.

  SV: Of course. As you know, we have a mission here at Charlesborough High School to educate the leaders of the twenty-first century, and integral to that mission is the maintenance of a safe environment here in the school building.

  SC: Yes, Dr. Vanian, we are aware of the seriousness of what Rosalind allegedly—

  SV: I’m sorry, Mr. Cassidy, but there simply is no allegedly about it. There is a boy in the nurse’s office with bandages all over his broken nose, and had our crack custodial staff not cleaned the blood up already, you could see the rather gory scene that awaited me when I arrived in Room 411.

  SC: Yes, I am sure it was a very gruesome scene, and when we return for the hearing in, what?

  SV: In three days.

  SC: We’ll get to the bottom of exactly what transpired. Now, did I understand you correctly on the phone that this will be an expulsion hearing?

  SV: That is correct.

  SC: Now, is this standard procedure in a fight situation? Because your handbook states that a three-day suspension is the standard punishment for a fight, and so I am just curious as to what makes this fall outside of that procedure.

  SV: Well, if there is a weapon involved, that falls into a more serious category, assault with a dangerous weapon, and as we are dealing with a particularly egregious unprovoked act of violence, it’s my feeling that we need to take this course of action in order to protect the safety of the learning environment here at Charlesborough High.

  SC: I’m sorry, but you mentioned a weapon?

  SV: Yes, in this case, a shod foot.

  SC: A shod foot.

  SV: Correct. As the second blow was administered with a shod foot, that clearly falls under the definition of a dangerous weapon in Massachusetts. And I need to tell you that any action the school takes is distinct from any legal action that the Commonwealth may choose to pursue. Pursuant to our procedures, I have informed the Charlesborough Police of the incident, and they will be coming to take statements. Should the Hoffmans choose to press charges, there may be serious legal consequences.

  SC: (Whispering) You actually had “a shod foot.”

  ROSALIND BUTTERFIELD: (Unintelligible.)

  SV: I’m sorry?

  SC: I’m sorry, Dr. Vanian. I just needed to go over something with Rosalind.

  SV: As I’m not certain you fully grasped the seriousness of what I said, I will repeat.

  SC: If the Hoffmans press charges, Rosalind is headed for DYS lockup. I got it.

  SV: Mr. Cassidy, I really don’t think your nonchalance here is at all appropriate. Because as the educational leader of this institution, I am forced to take seriously any threat to the safe learning environment here, and I need to tell you that this is a situation we are taking most seriously.

  SC: Yes, Dr. Vanian, we are taking it seriously too. But I know my daughter, albeit less well than I would like, but I suppose any number of parents might say the same, um, but anyway, I am confident that once I get Rosalind’s side of this story, I’ll say, “Bingo! Now I understand!”

  RB: Damn!

  SV: I’m sorry?

  SC: Well, Dr. Vanian, if that’s all for now, I will take Rosalind, and we will see you and … Superintendent Boon?

  SV: Actually it’s Assistant Superintendent Watt.

  SC: Fine. Well, see you at the hearing on Thursday at … ten?

  SV: Correct.

  (Sounds of papers, walking.)

  SC: It was “educational leader.”

  RB: Yeah, I gave you the one that had “safe environment” twice. Shoulda kept that for myself.

  SC: So. You wanna tell me about it?

  RB: I don’t want to cry here. Can we do it later?

  SC: Yes, but given that we only have three days to try to keep you in school and out of lockup, I think we ought to.

  RB: OKAY! God! We can talk about it when we get home! Jesus! (Pause.) Are you still recording?

  SC: Oh, yeah thanks, I

  END

  STATEMENT OF MR. ANDREW WESTERBERG

  Upon the end of my D period class, a group of four or five students stayed behind. They were talking and laughing. As I was erasing the board and entering attendance in the computer, I was not aware of the content of their conversation.

  I heard a scream and turned around to find Jim Hoffman on the ground with blood streaming from his nose. Rosalind Butterfield, a student in my E period class, was standing over him and, as I ran to the scene, kicked Jim in the thigh.

  I restrained Rosalind. It is my opinion that she would have struck him again had I not intervened. I directed a student to fetch the nurse and another to contact Dr. Vanian.

  I asked Rosalind what happened, and she replied, “Tell him to shut up.”

  Dear Fluffy:

  Lisa says I should write about it so I can “try and make sense of it for yourself before you have to go defend yourself.” She was nice about it. And Sean even though I kind of hate to say it was very cool in the meeting which helped because I was actually kind of scared. Which is funny because when we met with Mould I was all like who cares, but this seemed like it was more serious which I guess it is because they could lock me up. But Sean says he asked somebody he knows and they said that they never lock you up for a first offense, they just give you a parole officer and make you go to school, except I don’t know where I’m going to go if I’m expelled except maybe some kind of special school for violent troubled teens, which is not what I think I am but considering I broke that kid’s nose and I guess I smoke and drink, or at least smoke, maybe the shoe fits, if you know what I mean.

  Which I am still not writing about it because I can’t believe he said that and I don’t want to have to write it down or think about it or anything. But I don’t know, maybe Lisa is right and it will help and even stupid Denise was right about the writing sort of, so here I here I here I go.

  I walked into English and heard this stupid kid who I don’t even know, I mean, whatever, I guess I know him now, and he is a junior and he is a total dick, but anyway, I just heard him talking to his friends and he was like, “I keep watching E! just hoping they’ll show that again, I swear to God I was laughing my ass off, two dykes crushed by meat!”

  What’s weird and I guess kind of scary is that I don’t remember making the decision to punch him or anything, it’s just like I was looking at my fist and it was hitting the kid’s nose and it made this sick crack and then I kicked him and then Westerberg was grabbing me probably trying to cop a feel, no not really.

  It didn’t make me feel good. I don’t really feel good about it now. It was sick looking at all that blood and the kid crying and it’s not like I feel so bad about him because he is a fuckhead and I hope he dies but I feel bad about me being some badass chick who punches people because it doesn’t feel good. It feels ugly. And I kind of like it even though I don’t. I guess I like the idea of being like this girl that nobody is going to fuck with (but not like that, ha-ha, although I guess girls who beat the shit out of guys might not get the most dates, at least with guys but let’s not get into that right now because I have enough to think about) but I don’t like the jittery way I felt and I don’t like the memory of the crack under my fist and I don’t like the blood. Because I made him hurt doesn’t make me feel better. I still feel awful. Awful.

  I wonder if I will ever stop feeling awful. Sea
n says I will feel less awful all the time but then he cries at commercials so who the hell knows if I can believe him. Also I guess Lisa told me that I won’t always feel terrible all the time and that one day I will have a day when I go a whole day without missing my moms and then I will feel guilty about it but it will keep happening because they are dead and I’m not.

  Still thinking about the black album not the Metallica one but now that I am a smoker and a drunken teen and a badass chick who breaks noses of hockey players I don’t know if I could stand to see something else about how I was this sweet precocious baby who was so cute. I wonder if I’ll get expelled. I wonder what I would do because even with not doing the work and stuff at least school gives me something to do all day long and I can’t imagine just sitting here all day with nothing to do which I guess is what Saturday and Sunday are like and which is why I will probably do some dorky bonding thing with Sean like he keeps asking me to because you can only watch so many cartoons.

  I don’t want to get expelled. But I don’t want to go back there and have everybody talking about me and whispering and stuff and figure out how I fit in with Sasha or Jen and who wants to be friends with some violent kid.

  Have I mentioned lately that I feel really bad all the time? You would think that breaking some kid’s nose would help me work out my anger issues or whatever but instead it just feels like I fucked up my life even more if that is even possible just because some fuckhead kid is an asshole and it’s funny to me that breaking his nose didn’t even make me stop being mad at him.

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Subject: Trouble

  Well, we are in some trouble here, my friend. That is to say, Rosalind is in trouble because she broke the nose of some junior hockey player(!) because he saw the same thing I TiVoed from E! about Eva dying and he was making some stupid joke about “dead dykes crushed by meat” or words to that effect.

  This presents a number of problems. There are the disciplinary and legal consequences, which I am confident I can get her out of, given the fact that the hockey player in question used the word “dyke” and could reasonably be seen to be creating a hostile environment, and, in any case, mocking someone’s dead parents would seem to constitute fighting words. So she is suspended from school, and we are facing an expulsion hearing, but I do, after all, sue schools for a living, and so I am feeling a great deal of confidence. And yes, I do plan to pull out that line if this meeting goes badly. I believe I told you I was saving it up for something serious, and I suppose this qualifies.

  The larger problem for me (because it is, after all, all about me) is that I simply do not know how to play this as a parent. On the one hand, I don’t want her to screw up her life, and she has followed the sneaking out and getting drunk with a violent assault (did I mention that she kicked him when he was down?), and I am concerned, despite your reassurances, that I am watching her become a Troubled Teen. As horrible as this is, I feel like this might be more than I signed up for. And yes, you did warn me about the difficulty of raising a teen when I made this decision, but I suppose I didn’t anticipate having so many difficulties in so short a time.

  Additionally, I feel that I may be partly responsible here, because I don’t feel that I am handling her transgressions especially well. I simply can’t help admiring her. She made us buzzword bingo cards for our first meeting with the principal. I played and won, which felt like the right thing to do at the time, because it was to some degree a bonding experience, but have I sent her the message that this doesn’t matter? Is that what I’ll be doing if I get her off the hook for this?

  I think because I was such a goody-goody for my entire life, I really appreciate her sense of humor and willingness to be defiant. I have always had the former and lacked the latter, and I can’t help looking at her and admiring her strength.

  I do have to go because I am trying to prepare a rather bone-crushing defense for her in addition to filing a motion in a specialed case that is actually what I get paid, if only nominally, to do, but I also want to say that I further admire her for breaking that kid’s nose. This goes against everything I believe about violence, but I do feel like she taught that little fucker a lesson he won’t soon forget, and one that he probably needed to be taught. But here, again, I am projecting my image of some hockey players from my own high school. The kid was making a cruel joke about someone he assumed was a far-off celebrity, and God knows you and I have done that enough times. Still, when she told me what he said, I wanted to punch him myself and was glad that she had done it.

  I am afraid that I am allowing Rosalind to ruin her life because I am getting vicarious joy out of the things she’s doing. Parenting appears to be this constant jumble of fear and guilt. Why didn’t you warn me?

  Yes, I know you did warn me.

  —Sean

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Subject: Re: Trouble

  Wow. Well, I don’t have any words of wisdom about how to play it because I am glad she clocked that kid too. I would worry more about the social fallout for her, but if the kid is as much of a dick as he sounds like, kids might be carrying her on their shoulders when she gets back. Or else harassing and ostracizing her. Could go either way.

  Sorry. I’m ducking your big questions because I’m fucked if I know the answers. I guess just remember that she seemed like she was fundamentally a good kid before you got her—sorry, I mean, before her moms died, and so hopefully that good core is still there and she will snap out of this.

  I dunno, man. I got nothing here.

  Why don’t you guys come up here on Saturday? We’ll do some outdoorsy, fall in New England kind of stuff, or something. I haven’t seen you in too long, and maybe Rosalind could stand a little change of scene.

  Workin’ for the weekend,

  —D

  STATEMENT OF JIM HOFFMAN

  At the end of my D period English class, I was talking to some friends when out of nowhere this girl just hit me in the nose. She totally blindsided me, which is why I fell, and when I fell, she kicked me. I don’t know this girl. I guess I have seen her coming into Mr. Westerberg’s E period class before, but I don’t know who she is or her name or why she hit me.

  STATEMENT OF ALEX KINGMAN

  It was the end of D period and the beginning of E. I have a free period E, so I was hanging around with Jim Hoffman, Pete Summers, and Robby Andersson, and Jim was talking about some thing he saw on TV, and he was laughing, and all of a sudden this girl comes up and punches him in the face. Jim goes down, and the girl kicks him, and then Mr. Westerberg grabbed her and Mr. Westerberg asked me to go to the nurse, so I did.

  EXPULSION HEARING OF ROSALIND BUTTERFIELD

  CHARLESBOROUGH HIGH SCHOOL

  Hearing Officers: Dr. Stephen Vanian, Dr. Richard Watt

  SEAN CASSIDY: Before we begin, gentlemen, I would like to make a recording of this meeting.

  STEPHEN VANIAN: Well, we write detailed minutes of the meetings as a matter of procedure.

  SC: Then you won’t have any objection to my recording this.

  RICHARD WATT: No, no, that’s fine, that’s fine. Is that, what, some kind of MP3 player?

  SC: Minidisc.

  SV: It’s like the one Scott Simon used.

  RW: Right, right. All right. In any case, this hearing is now under way. I’d like to, if I could, piece together what I have from the information I’ve received. We have Rosalind entering a classroom and consequently breaking Jim Hoffman’s nose and kicking him—

  SV: Assaulting him with a shod foot.

  RW: Yes, kicking him as he lay on the ground.

  SV: I need to repeat that I view this not only as an assault on Jim Hoffman but also as an assault upon the safe learning environment at Charlesborough High School.

  RW: As much as our instincts as educators and as human beings are to be compassionate in the face of t
he tragedy Rosalind has undergone, it just seems that her grief has taken unacceptable forms. We have fifteen hundred students in this building, and at any given time, at least fifty of them are undergoing some sort of serious crisis. I can show you fifteen kids here who have lost parents in the last two years. So while Rosalind is not alone in this building in suffering through a difficult time, she appears to be alone when it comes to translating that difficulty into unprovoked violence. I need to tell you up front that my instinct here is to remove Rosalind from the high school and hope to find her a more appropriate placement.

  SV: Mine as well.

  RW: Which is not to say, again, that we do not feel compassion, and we would happily offer Rosalind access to a variety of counseling services that the town has to offer, and of course assist with a referral for an alternative placement, some kind of therapeutic setting, we have relationships with a number of programs, but I simply don’t feel that Rosalind can continue here if she is going to be a threat to the safety of her classmates.

  SV: As educational leaders, we have a responsibility to the entire learning community that must outweigh all other concerns.

  SC: Thank you, gentlemen. Is it our turn to speak now?

  RW: By all means.

  SC: Fine. First of all, you’ve characterized this as an unprovoked assault, but I believe that characterization to be inadequate. First, according to Alex Kingman, Jim Hoffman was telling them about something he saw on TV. If I can direct your attention to the laptop here, I actually have a clip of what Jim Hoffman was referring to, and, indeed, joking about.

  Speakers: (Music.) And now, a sad note. We have just learned of the death last month of Eva Butterfield, who starred in commercials and made guest appearances on numerous shows in the 1970s, including Barnaby Jones and Banacek, but who was best known for her role as Tracey on Single Dads Club, which ran for two seasons between 1979 and ’81. Long retired from acting, Eva Butterfield had become a dentist. She and her partner, Sandra Cash, were killed in a freak traffic accident near their home in the Boston area when a truckload of frozen poultry overturned.