Forgive me, Leonard Peacock

TWENTY-SEVEN

There’s part of me—deep down inside—that feels the need to make a confession here, especially before I go through with my plan and therefore will not be able to make any sort of statement ever again.

A few months after we went to the Green Day concert, Asher spent the weekend with his uncle Dan fishing somewhere in rural Pennsylvania—I think it might have been the Poconos. He loved his uncle Dan, who was tall and confident and funny and drove a cool truck and was always taking Asher places—like to the movies and car races and even hunting. Uncle Dan seemed like the kind of uncle every kid dreams of having. I remember liking him immediately when we first met. He really seemed like a great guy, which makes it all the worse.[60]

But when Asher came back from this particular fishing trip—something wasn’t right.

We had this project for school we were working on—about ancient civilizations—and we had picked the Incas. We were putting the finishing touches on a miniature Machu Picchu at his house the Sunday night after he returned from fishing with Uncle Dan. I remember Asher wouldn’t look me in the eye and kept saying “Nothing!” way too loud every time I asked if anything was wrong. Finally he said, “If you ask me what’s wrong one more time, I’m going to beat the shit out of you.” He stared at me—like he wanted to kill me and was capable of doing it too.

I didn’t say anything as we finished creating our Machu Picchu. We had built the skeleton out of LEGOs, had used real sod for the grass, and had been making little cube-shaped papier-mâché buildings for weeks. In my memory, the project looks magnificent—like I’d never made something so beautiful before or since. And Asher had been really proud of it just the week before—excited even. But just as I put the final bit of paint on the last structure, Asher started to smash the project with his fists.

“What are you doing?” I yelled, because we had spent weeks on it.

He just kept punching and smashing, sending down fists from above like some cruel boy-god.

It was so fucking awful to watch—not just because he was ruining all of our hard work, but because I could clearly see he was coming undone.

I tried to grab him and he punched me in the face hard—giving me a black eye.

Then he just started to cry in this really violent way.

His mother came in and saw what was going on. She said, “What happened?”

I stood there with my mouth open as she tried to hug Asher, but he just ran right by her and into his room.

I’d never been so confused.

I couldn’t even explain what had happened to my parents, because I had no idea.

You’d think they would have called Mrs. Beal and asked a bunch of questions, but I don’t think they did, and I remember my dad saying, “Boys fight at that age. Just part of growing up,” to Linda, who was more concerned with how ugly my black eye appeared than the reason for Asher’s freak-out.

Asher didn’t come to school for a few days, and then he just showed up at my house late one afternoon and said, “Can we talk?”

“Sure,” I said.

My dad and Linda weren’t home. We went up into my room and he started pacing like a caged animal. I had never seen him pace like that before.

“I’m sorry I fucked up our project,” he said.

“It’s okay.” I didn’t really care about failing or anything like that, but what he had done to me definitely wasn’t okay, and I knew it.

Why did I say it was okay?

I should have said, “Why the hell did you punch me? What the fuck is wrong with you?” But I didn’t.

I wish I had.

Maybe if I had gotten angry . . .

“Something happened on the fishing trip,” he said.

He looked at me in this crazy way.

He looked so desperate.

But then he broke eye contact, said, “Never mind. I have to go,” and walked out of my room.

I was so confused that I let him walk away without saying a word. I know now that I should have chased him, asked again what was wrong, promised to help him, or—at the very least—I should have told someone that Asher was acting weird, but I was afraid of that desperate look. I didn’t want Asher to punch me again—and I was just a kid.

How was I supposed to know what to do?

The next day, Asher returned to school and really appeared to be okay. For a while everything seemed to go back to normal. Our teacher even let us redo our Machu Picchu model for three-quarters credit, which we accomplished in half the time it took us to build the original.

But then Asher started picking fights with kids at school who were small and quiet.

He started to make fun of me during lunch periods—saying crazy weird stuff like he caught me jerking off to a picture of his mom, or that I tried to grab his dick in the locker room—and he was always trying to trip me in the halls and pushing me into lockers.

I didn’t like it at all, but I didn’t say anything.

Why?

I should have said something—not just to stick up for myself, but because I think Asher wanted me to save him.

Like maybe he wanted me to make it stop the whole time and on some subconscious level he was pushing me to get so fucking angry that I would finally tell the adults in our lives that he needed help. I wonder now if all of what happened afterward—the bullying and then the really bad shit—was his way of punishing me for failing to protect him.

When I finally stood up for myself—when he stopped with me—I knew there would be others.

What if I had the power to save both of us—all of us—all along?

I need to take care of what I should have taken care of a long time ago.

I need to make it stop permanently.