the blame game

A few weeks ago, in the town next to mine, an early morning stabbing at the local high school resulted in the death of a high school student. The alleged perpetrator was also a high school student. Because this community is one of the most affluent in the state, the local media played it up, with reporters on the scene, headlines above the fold, reports of the many community meetings that followed. I hear from an in-town nurse that these sorts of stabbings happen with some frequency in inner city schools; of course, they're not of interest to the greater Boston area and we never hear about them.

The community of the affected town erupted, some in sadness, some in narcissism, some in trying to lay blame. Because I swim at a pool in that town, I'm hearing a little more, that the teachers who were on the scene were and are devastated, that the finger pointing really doesn't add to the burden of regret and self doubt that the administration is already feeling.

But there was one detail in the story that brought back a story from my own past -- that many people had little bits of isolated information that together made a whole story before the fact. And it was only after the fact that the pieces were assembled into something that made sense.

I should say here that as with all these little nuggets of information, there's always a lot of "noise" -- as you work your way through the world, you hear many many tidbits about people, most of which you keep to yourself or pass off as a small "quirk". And there's no guarantee that if all the pieces were reported to someone in authority (or to a hotline or whatever) that anyone else would make sense of them, either, especially in the context of a larger collection of quirky tidbits about all the people in a given universe.

As I say, I speak from experience. About twenty years ago, when I worked for Digital, my largish group moved into its own two buildings across the street from each other. There we were all together, with a cafeteria in one building, so there was a lot of interaction, both in the hallways and at lunch time.

There was one man whom I got to know a little. I regret to say that I can't even remember his name. He was friendly and fun to talk to and a little "quirky" but that's what you get with software engineers. I didn't know him well, certainly not as well as some of my friends did, but I liked him and was happy whenever I saw him.

Apparently, he went on a business trip with some of his colleagues. While away, he talked a little about how worried he was that his wife was undergoing tests to see if she had cancer. Over the course of the trip, he started to unravel, enough so that our colleagues insisted that he go home and that he seek help through the company-sponsored therapy program with the euphemistic name Employee Assistance Program.

He went home, but instead of seeking help, he killed his wife, his adorable child, and himself, using bizarrely creative techniques with sharp objects for each one. (Ironic coda: the test results came back posthumously and were negative.)

I remember the therapeutic consultants who were brought in after the fact, to talk to us in groups and individually. I remember one particularly insensitive high-level manager who spoke of his religious beliefs about death. I remember the reporters greeting us outside the building -- "You just moved into this building, was the move stressful?" -- and thinking about what leaches they were ("if it bleeds, it leads"). I remember comforting some of my friends who knew this man better. I remember guiltily walking past his cube a few days after and trying to pretend I wasn't looking.

And I remember the stories that started to come out. As with the case from a few weeks ago, everyone had a tiny piece of information. It turned out that this man was obsessed with sharp objects. He carried multiple knives all the time. In those days, though, many people had a little knife on their person and no one thought much of it. A lot of people saw the utility of carrying a jack knife on their belt, for example. After all, the heritage of our company was in manufacturing and even software engineers saw the utility of having physical everyday tools easily available.

But this guy was really clever. He told my friend M that he had a pen that concealed a tiny exacto blade. He told another friend that he had a little jackknife and could loan it if there was ever a need, and so on. He didn't mention anything sharp to me at all; we typically talked about his family. He put everyone into a little ice cube tray and told them one piece of the story, so that we each had a few notes but no one had the whole essay.

And then the tragedy happened and there was a lot of comparing of the notes, and a lot of self blame. What if each person had "reported" this guy, as if there was someone to report to, as if anyone else would have done any better with the pieces? What would that have accomplished? There were so many strange things we learned about our colleagues, that none of what this guy said stood out in isolation. What he said didn't bother any of us because he managed to keep the little pieces just outside of "normal", weird, but not alarming.

When the most recent incident hit close enough to home that I noticed, I was reminded of this old story. I hope that those involved can find ways to forgive themselves, to ignore the destructive chatter, and perhaps to create something meaningful and worthwhile out of the tragedy and the ensuing responses.