The Kanc

Throughout his life, Riley Lynch was never the type of person who ever chose to make a scene or even wanted to be noticed for that matter, and being physically average in every way, he was content to blend unnoticed into any group. Riley was smart, or scary smart as an elementary teacher once described him in a news interview following his arrest, and what he lacked in social grace he made up for in intelligence and cunning ingenuity.

  It wouldn’t be until much later in life that he appreciated how badly people would always need him.

  Way back in eighth grade at South Boston Middle School, he developed a mad but secret crush on a pretty classmate named Tammy Meeks. She was shy, petite, well-dressed, soft and quiet, and on the rare occasion when she would look his direction, her big brown eyes would drown him, and he would look away as if he had glanced into the piercing rays of the sun. Riley was careful to never sit in front of her in class, and though it was rare for her to utter a word to anyone, he didn't mind and took innocent pleasure in the simple rhythm of her breathing as it soothed and warmed him. When a teacher would call on her to answer a question, she would blush on cue -- and he would blush right along with her bearing witness to both their acute social anxieties -- and would cheer and celebrate in silence when she answered the question right. Once she missed school for an entire week, and Riley's overactive imagination concocted an array of off-beat fantasies explaining her absence. Maybe she had been kidnapped, or perhaps was lying in a ditch somewhere bleeding to death. (It turned out that she had gone on a surprise Vermont ski vacation with her family). If the teacher assigned Tammy a male partner for some sort of class project, the rush of jealousy would cause his teeth to clench and his fists to stiffen. And on those days when the teacher droned on, and the weather was warm, and an enticing spring breeze whirled through the classroom, he would stare from behind at the gentle curve of her cheek and imagine the two of them walking together on the spongy carpet of needles in the old pine forest behind the city park. Here, he would share his innermost thoughts, and she would always be smiling and laughing. And in his daydream, he wouldn't dare look away but would instead stare with power and confidence into her cavernous brown eyes. She would always smile, close her eyes and lay her sweet head upon his chest.

  Though he wasn't sure if she knew his name.

  It was unimaginable to Riley that anyone could find any flaw with Tammy whatsoever -- in his mind, she was perfect in every way. But Tammy's innocent childhood had been pillaged by the evil Yvonne Tannen -- a bully of epic proportions even by eighth grade middle school standards. Yvonne was tall, blonde, and wore a faded army jacket that up close smelled of mildew, cigarettes, sloth and decay, and who sported big, bony shoulders wider than those of most boys her age. The sane, observant children knew to stay out of her way, but it didn't stop her from preying upon the weak and defenseless just the same. And that year in eighth grade, poor sweet Tammy, as innocent as a grazing gazelle on the savannah, became tasty fresh meat for the school's most dominant and hungry lioness.

  It all began with juvenile nasty name calling, such as: "Hey, loser..." "Hey, pig..." "Hey, slut..." and worse, and the negative attention escalated every day. Each time Yvonne, with chest pumped out and shoulders back, would strut past Tammy's desk, Tammy's books would be victimized and fall, and loose papers would flutter down to her feet. Yvonne would grin and circle, but Tammy never looked up, instead, she would blush, the corners of her lips would turn down and with steadfast determination, she would stare at her desk waiting for the torment of the moment to end. All eyes in the room would fix on the two, including Riley's, whose gaze was firm and whose head was bursting with heat and fire. He swore he could feel and see the waves of fear emanate from Tammy's body, and he wanted to absorb them for her like a telepathic sponge. Riley fantasized about making a chivalrous charge and pounding the snot out of Yvonne in front of everyone, slaying the dragon, but Riley had never struck anyone in anger, and wasn't sure how to go about it. And he had to accept that Yvonne was much more powerful than he was, and the mere thought of the humiliation that would ensue from being beaten-up by a girl was more than anything he could endure. So day after day, Tammy would absorb the punishment and pain alone, and Riley, too immature, too much of a coward and too ill-equipped to help would watch within his own self-imposed torture chamber from across the room.

  Yet despite his own fear, he felt compelled to do something, there was no one else, so Riley appointed himself Tammy's secret, private sentinel. He stalked Yvonne and studied her tendencies, memorized her class schedule, remembered where she liked to hang out, the amount of time it took to get to her locker, the amount of time she spent in the lavatory, and the length of time it took to eat her lunch. He wrote ample remarks, filled a notebook with observations, and discovered that Yvonne would terrorize Tammy eighty percent of the time during three critical moments of the school day -- at second lunch, then during Mrs. Beckmeir's anarchic honors English class, and finally at dismissal, when the girls walked past the rows of buses on their way home. Riley then went about creating diversions as each of these key moments would come up. As the girls reached the buses on Monday, Riley pushed his buddy Donnie into a bus monitor sending the monitor's hot coffee spewing across both Yvonne and Tammy, resulting in an innocent and befuddled Donnie getting one day's detention. On Tuesday, when Yvonne started to approach Tammy in English class, he persuaded his friend Anthony to belch the first few lines of Hamlet's famous Act 3 soliloquy, which annoyed Mrs. Beckmeir but was guaranteed to keep her attention:

  "To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune....blaaaaaatch."

  And then on Wednesday, Riley saw Yvonne heading for Tammy at lunch and read on her face an intense and rabid determination. He was in the process of paying for several ice cream sandwiches from Agnes the lunch lady and was going to give them away free to create a scene, guaranteed to attract Yvonne, but Agnes interfered.

  "Sorry Mr. Lynch, you are allowed to have just one ice cream sandwich per day." Agnes said.

  "But these aren't for me, they're for my friends."

  "Then let your friends come up and buy them themselves. The school nutrition policy says you can have one. It's not healthy. You will get fat."

  Now short on time, Riley paid for one and headed for the girls, but realized he wouldn't make it. To his right on the wall was the red school fire alarm and before he could think about what he was doing, he pulled it and ran. The deafening alarm screamed through the lunchroom, and everyone jumped up, stuffed a last bite of sandwich in their mouths, and headed for the exit doors as they had been drilled so many times before. For Riley, it was a pure, selfless act of love and bravery well out of his character. Following the fire drill, after the fine men of the Boston Fire Department had declared the building safe and drove away in their bright red trucks, every known troublemaker in the school was called down to Principal Leonard's office one at a time. Mild-mannered Riley was not included on the guest list, and it became evident that no one in the school suspected him. Riley never knew it, but Yvonne had been called to the office first, claimed to be an eyewitness, and fingered Riley as the culprit. Principal Leonard laughed. Riley? Not likely. The principal's inquest was a complete failure. The interrogation netted no suspect. No one was ever accused or punished for pulling the false alarm that day. Tammy was saved from the bully's wrath one more time.

  Riley was never late to class, or ever missed a day of school -- except once. His mother had brought him to the dentist that morning, and then hopped the bus to the mall to run a few quick errands where they enjoyed a rare one-on-one lunch together without interference from his six brothers and sisters. Riley's mom, Sarah Lynch, worked two jobs and raised her seven children by herself, her husband Seamus Lynch had disappeared from family life before Riley was born. Riley walked into class feeling pretty special that day, and couldn't wait to tell his friends about his morning and all the wonderful reasons why he was late.

/>   Mrs. Wanda Beckmeir was South Boston Middle School's grouchy old, polyester-clad English teacher. Her classroom was disheveled and always too hot, forever warmed by the collective trapped exhales of hundreds of bored pre-teens, but always accented with a subtle whiff from whatever packaged, high calorie snack food was hidden in the top drawer of her desk that day. Decades old posters covered the walls of her classroom, many torn or falling, and all were yellowed and faded. The room was always loud and discipline non-existent. Students learned it was a lot like recess, except it was right before recess.

  When he marched with confidence through the classroom door that day, he stopped cold in paralyzed terror.

  The class of twenty or so boys and girls of Mrs. Beckmeir's English class stood in a circle, chanting, "Hit her again harder, hit her again (clap) (clap)... Hit her again harder, hit her again (clap, clap)."

  Riley realized he had not been there that morning to protect Tammy.

  Tammy lay on her back on the floor with Yvonne sitting on her chest; Yvonne's knees were holding down Tammy's arms and Yvonne was pounding her with a right fist, then a left fist across her bloodied face. Tammy was screaming in horror, and her legs were kicking in all directions sending one of her black patent leather shoes high in the air and toward the door. Riley found he had forgotten how to breathe or speak, and his legs wouldn't move. The beating lasted seconds though for Riley and Tammy, time had stopped dead making it feel like hours. From out of nowhere two teachers charged into the room. Mrs. Beckmeir had felt overwhelmed when the fight started, and darted out to get Mr. Aronson from the math class across the hall to provide reinforcement. Mr. Aronson, who also served as the assistant football coach, utilized the efficiency of his burly frame and grabbed Yvonne by the back of her grubby, stinking army jacket, lifting the big girl up with one hand and dragging her out of the room, arms flailing. Yvonne swore like a midshipman as she passed through the door and disappeared up the hall.

  Mrs. Beckmeir cradled Tammy's bludgeoned face in her arms. A gory design of blood, snot, spit and tears painted the front of the teacher's yellow cardigan and overstuffed blue polyester pants, and Tammy gasped for air and wailed. The once unruly flash mob of eighth grade cowards now stood silent. A shrill Mrs. Beckmeir barked at them.

  "Everyone, get to your seats! Immediately! Now! Oh my dear Tammy, let's get you down to the nurse and get you cleaned up, honey."

  The minute Tammy and Mrs. Beckmeir left, the class burst into loud conversation all at once as everyone started chattering on cue.

  "Holy shit, Riley, did you see that? Where the hell were you? You almost missed it, that was un-freakin'-believable." Anthony said as if it was the most exciting moment he had ever witnessed.

  "I had a dentist appointment," Riley explained, heart racing, still trying to catch his breath and trying not to cry or vomit. "My mom just dropped me off. Does anyone know how it started?"

  "Tammy got destroyed!," Donnie chimed in, "I'm glad Yvonne likes me, she is friggin insane. Tammy is a whack-job anyway, I'm guessing she deserved it. I don't know what she did to Yvonne, but it must have been something good. Tammy just sits there and never says anything to anybody; I wonder what she's hiding? She's just weird."

  "Yea, Tammy's weird and gross," Riley said to his own astonishment. He had failed to protect her, his guilt ran deep, and he knew that because of the great impenetrable and immature caste system of middle school society, he could never admit fondness for someone now so ugly, unfeminine and humiliated. Tammy was now beneath him. It was an unwritten rule that to retain one's stature at the top, one must look down upon the dirty, strange outcasts below and work hard to keep them there.

  When the bell rang and the classroom emptied, Riley fell back and was the last to leave. He retrieved Tammy's missing shoe placing it on her desk with both hands like the laying of a wreath on a fallen serviceman's open grave.

  The very next day, Yvonne was back in class being the same rotten, evil kid she had always been as if the fight never happened, bullying others at random, auditioning new, fresh victims. Outside the classroom window, Riley caught a brief glimpse of the Meeks' family van with Tammy strapped into the front seat, arriving on school grounds. Within the hour, the van was gone. Riley and his friends surmised that there were some intense meetings happening with Principal Leonard and Tammy's mom and dad at that very moment. They were right. Part of Riley never wanted to see her again and hoped she would just disappear, while in his heart, he craved her presence, her essence, her being, and her every breath.

  Riley stayed after school that day along with Anthony and Donnie to attend the middle school baseball game against cross town rival Roxbury. The three boys didn't care much for baseball, but it was an excuse to hang out and fool around and avoid homework -- plus Mr. Aronson always gave extra credit to athletic boosters. The fight between Yvonne and Tammy was already fading from the collective memories of most of the class, replaced by new fights and melodrama, and was taking its place among the great stories of middle school lore, but not for Riley. Riley stood at his locker depressed and teeming in anger. He was angry at himself for not being there; he was angry at the evil creature Yvonne for the senseless violence she had unleashed; he was angry at Tammy for not saying anything or fighting back; but most of all, he was angry at Tammy for shattering all the fanciful daydreams and fantasies that gave him hope for true love.

  From his locker, he could hear Mr. Aronson and Principal Leonard talking through the thin walls of the English room.

  "We need to separate the Tannen girl from the Meeks girl," Principal Leonard began.

  "That crazy Tannen kid is NOT coming into my room," Aronson shot back. "I already have my hands full with the other two animals you sent me last month. I don't have to take her. And I'm not taking the Meeks kid either. I am too crowded."

  "Look Bob, we can't leave them together. If anything else happens, it's my ass. I spent an hour with the Meeks' lawyer this morning. We have to keep this girl safe."

  "Why don't you just tell Wanda to control her own damn class? We have watched Yvonne bully Tammy all month. Wanda is afraid of Yvonne's fucked-up parents; you know that -- so she won't even look at her never mind reprimand her. That's where the real problem is. We have all watched Tammy get abused. It's Wanda's responsibility to do her job, why is it always mine to do it for her?" And Mr. Aronson stormed past Riley and back across the hall.

  A cold wave of realization came over Riley.

  They knew.

  They knew all along. They knew Tammy was being victimized, dissected like a jigsaw puzzle piece by piece, and they watched from their selfish perches as those pieces were shredded and cast into the wind, each along with a little piece of Tammy's soul lost forever. They knew what Yvonne was doing to her every step of the way -- and they didn't care... not one bit. They watched and let it happen. It didn't matter to any of them. The bastards.

  By the end of the week, Tammy returned to sit in her usual seat, her face still swollen, her once soft pink cheeks replaced by lifeless gray bruises from Yvonne's vicious assault, on display for all the world to see. Yvonne sat in the back of the room. Riley tried not to look at either of the girls again.

  After eighth grade, Riley and his classmates graduated on to South Boston High School, though not Tammy. That summer, the Meeks family moved away. He would never be able to forget her.

  CHAPTER THREE