I WILL INTERVENE, WILL YOU JOIN ME?

I want to start a revolution, that’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.  I want to start a revolution, and I’m not Tracy Chapman.  I want to start a revolution.

(not me.  although I think we play on the same team.)

This school has a “No-Tolerance” Bullying “Policy,”

That school has a “No-Tolerance” Bullying “Policy.”

This organization has a “No-Tolerance” Bullying “Policy,”

That organization has a “No-Tolerance” Bullying “Policy.”

But, there’re a few problems. 

One: it’s merely a Policy.  Think about it.

Two: An organization is only as strong as its people. It’s really only as strong as its weakest person. 

Think of the weakest person you know.  Do you want something as important as an Anti-Bullying Policy to be left in the hands of this person?  Sigh.  If you only knew who I was picturing…  

There’s something inherently wrong with leaving the task of protecting our most vulnerable to any Organization’s Policy.

What am I talkin’ ‘bout?  A revolution.

Once upon a time, THIS WEEK, there was a Little Autistic Boy.  We’ll call him Ben.  The fact that Ben happens to be utterly adorable seems unimportant, but I feel compelled to toss it in.  Anyway, turns out, Ben has been bullied at my Happy Little Elementary School for Weeks on End.  But, you ask, Don’t you have an ANTI BULLYING POLICY?  Of course.  Also, Don’t you have a Fantastic Little School?  Yes, mostly.  Aren’t many of the teachers at your school unbelievably perceptive, caring, and good at what they do?  Indeed.  Isn’t your principal pretty good?  Well… yeeeees… And what about your assistant principal?  Don’t you say she walks on water?  I do. 

What happened, you ask?

It’s a Policy run by People, remember?  Imagine an unenforced policy in the hands of the weakest person you know and, well, little Ben gets taunted continually and, oh yeah, eventually beaten up.  Kids circle around and point at him.  They mimic him.  They have no understanding or appreciation for the fact that he has autism.  The kids rally around each other: they’ve found a common enemy!  It’s 50-pound Ben!  How Cool These Kids Are!  How Powerful!  What a Fantastic Common Enemy!  Let’s HURT BEN!

Policies can work, but sometimes don’t.  Organizations can be mostly strong, but not completely. 

Bullying is personal. 

Kids need to know that someone will DO something. 

Here’s my revolution: it’s the I WILL INTERVENE Coalition.  It’s not that my SCHOOL has an anti-bullying policy, it’s that I have an anti-bullying Commitment.  And I am not weak and I am not a policy.

 

What does this mean?  This means that I will keep my eyes and ears open.  I will be a safe place for a victim to go.  I will put my nose where it might not belong.  I will make any bullying MY BUSINESS.  I will inform whoever needs to be informed of any potential bullying situation.  If those “in charge” do not handle the situation, I will report it to the police. 

If this somehow became huge, then our coalition would be monumentally more powerful than any bully or any group of bullies.  Kids also need to identify themselves as “interveners.” 

It’s easy to look away.  It’s easy to make it someone else’s problem.  It’s easy to want to assume that a situation can rectify itself and that Kids Will Be Kids.  It’s easy to just figure or hope that anti-bullying policies are working.  Maybe some are, don’t know.  You know what’s not so easy?  Seeing Ben’s beaten-up face.  Picture the most innocent-looking kid you know with his face beaten up.  Meet Ben. 

And, guess what?  Ben’s parents don’t even advocate for him!  Know why?  Kids Will Be Kids, I guess?  They’re too busy?  Didn’t notice?  Don’t care?  I HAVE NO IDEA!

If they won’t, I will.  I WILL INTERVENE.  Will you?

I want to start a revolution, will you help?  

An Excerpt

Something all the books tell you not to do: post an excerpt of your own book.  Not one to follow the rules.  I've been working on this so long, I need to let part of it out.  In this excerpt, a friend of the main character explains what happened the night her brother, mother, and father died.  

“We’d just come back from ice-skating.  We had a great time.  Like a normal family, not like a poor family from Nebraska who’d run away from a drunken asshole.   A Hallmark card that day.  Keith was really good on the ice, he was always really coordinated.  Mom looked like she had some sort of physical disability while she tried to skate and we kept laughing at her.   But Keith kept trying to help her, which was a disaster.  It was like trying to save someone who’s drowning: how they both die.  He told us what you said.  About whole families disappearing under the ice.  We laughed about that a lot.  We imagined them living under the ice, frozen.  They lived underground in frozen houses.  They watched a frozen T.V. and ate frozen T.V. dinners.  We kept telling each other we were going to disappear under the ice forever, just like you worried about. 

“On the way home we stopped to get a box of hot chocolate and marshmallows.  Keith wanted the little ones and I wanted the big ones and Mom decided to get me the big ones and I wish he would’ve gotten what he wanted.  That’s a lot of what I think about.  I’m glad Starbucks doesn’t have marshmallows because I can’t look at them anymore.

 “Everything seemed normal in front of the apartment.  Keith had been looking for my dad’s truck for the past couple of weeks; he didn’t tell me this, I could just tell.  We knew each other like that.   But as the holiday grew closer and closer, it was pretty obvious we were all on the lookout.

“I can’t say my dad was a total idiot because he parked around the side of the block, so maybe he did have a brain cell.  We were too happy and excited (and cold) for our hot chocolate to look carefully for his truck.  Mom didn’t think he had Aunt Casey’s address anyway and I think we all thought he was too dumb to figure it out.

“He did, though.  There he was.  He sat inside the apartment, in the dark, holding an oversized can of beer in one hand and a shotgun in the other.  He said, ‘Merry Fuckin’ Christmas, pack your shit, we’re leavin’.’  Keith grabbed the shovel to the fireplace and told me to go to our room.  I couldn’t move and then he yelled it in my face: ‘Go!’ It was a yell out of love, not one that my dad would do.  But it’s funny how both kinds of yells can sound the same.  I pretended to go to our room but I grabbed the biggest knife I could find in the kitchen and climbed on to the rafters of the ceiling.  I thought I’d jump on my dad if I needed to. 

“I don’t know.  Mom and Keith were telling him to leave.  Mom tried to reason with him—it was better this way, doesn’t he realize?  Keith was yelling that he was going to kill him.  Dad was drunk and grabbed Mom by the hair, pulling her neck in an awful way.  Keith struck him in the side with the shovel, and then in the arm.  I think he tried to knock the gun out of his hand.  Dad hit him across the head with his rifle.  Mom picked up the shovel Keith dropped and whacked Dad in the balls.  He crouched over in pain and Keith came at him and knocked him to the floor.  That was amazing because Keith was, like, a tenth the size of my dad. Mom grabbed the shotgun and pointed it at Dad.  But they were no match for him.  He was such a fat motherfucker.  He grabbed the gun from her in a second.  He was so pissed off and drunk, he shot them instantaneously, like a knee-jerk reaction.  No real thought.  Pow, pow.  Like he was playing a video game.   That’s when I let go of the rafters and fell on him.”

Nicole drinks the vodka like it’s water.  She lights another cigarette.  “He threw me off of him and said to get my shit, little girl, and hurry the fuck up.”

“And then he shot himself?”

“He didn’t see the knife. I stabbed him in the ass, grabbed the shotgun and killed him.” 

Nicole looks out into the water.  It shines from nearby lights.  On this late April evening, other couples pepper the rocks.  Three, four maybe.  It’s the middle of the week.  Their talk is of love, of Spring, of the future.  Or, maybe, of killing their fathers.  Since my own life was turning out the way it was, there’s virtually nothing that surprises or shocks me.  Nothing is worthy of embarrassment, despite my latent adolescence.  What might only surprise me now, is life’s occasional predictability. 

“But the crazy thing is?” she gathers her cigarette butts.  She always picks them up off the ground.  She shoves them into her pockets and empties the pockets later.  She feels bad about leaving the ashes.  “Before the police came?” She lights the last one from the pack.  She takes her time to tell me.  “I made myself the hot chocolate.  I put in three marshmallows.  The big ones.  One for each of us.”

Dear Old Friend

Dear Old Friend,

As bizarre as it sounds, Facebook, merely a popular “social network,” has added a dimension to my life.  It’s hard to admit, as I mostly enjoy disliking anything that is too popular, like the Kardashians.  (But don’t you mess with my Dr. Phil.) Nevertheless, even in a life filled with wonderful family, good friends, and a great job, it’s warming to find a quick hello or a like to a post.  It can make the, still, sometimes lonely world a bit less so.

It was with, then, excited intentions that I contacted you, in hopes that I could add you to the list of people who throw out cyber hugs to me and to whom I reciprocate with such hugs.  So, I did.  I contacted you. 

I have memories of you.  Mostly of laughter.  Just so you know, as I now feel compelled to tell you, many people didn’t like you.  They called you a Snob and Shallow, but I didn’t find you as such.  I liked you. 

You and I and Others spent summers together in Wisconsin.  I loved these summers and I loved the people there, including you, and these summers were so wonderful and free and lovely. 

I told Another Old Friend, that I had found you on facebook and had she talked to you in recent years?  This Other Old Friend and I both contacted you at the same time.  I am quite certain that I know why you accepted her friend request and not mine.

The pictures of me and my Alternative Family Freaked You Out.  Yes, even in these days of Ellen Degenerous, Rosie O’Donnell, and Chastity Bono, you still find my “lifestyle” Vile and Disgusting.  Some may argue, “No, that’s not why she rejected you--.”  But we both know the truth, don’t we.

The world is changing and I am changing and People like You don’t have the Power to make me feel Vile and Disgusting anymore.  So don’t worry about having hurt my self-esteem.  I’m sure you’ve lost many nights’ sleep worrying about this too, but I’m officially informing you now that you can get Over It.

I want to be bigger than you and wish you a good life.  I want to say your rejection didn’t hurt.  The truth is, while I don’t wish you any harm, I also don’t necessarily wish you a good life.  This is because it did hurt.  While I’m just as valuable a human being as my straight peers, your rejection of me, due to something I can’t control, did hurt. 

Perhaps I should just cast it off as the Others were right: you are Snobby and Shallow.  I think, though, that this makes you get off too easy.  I still think these old friends were wrong: you weren’t Snobby and Shallow and this is precisely why your rejection stings.  Instead you perhaps were (and are) merely Mean Spirited and, for lack of something more creative to call you, a Bigot. 

And so, it is with Disappointment in Myself that I am Not Martin Luther King, Jr. or Mahatma Ghandi (sp?), who would instead Pray for your Fortitude (don’t know what that means, but it sounds right) that I feel compelled to forever leave you with two little words that I find necessary to utilize in times like these.

Fuck off.

Signed,

What?  Did you think I was in Love with You?  PLEASE!