• The Story of David Crowley: The Three Mistakes

    Date: April 29, 2009

    A new kid, the average, plain, manipulative teenager, came to his new high school, Pocahontas High, in Arkansas, moving from Los Angeles, California. His parents were divorced since he was seven so he lives with his mother. He disliked the fact of moving but his mother reassured him of a better year with new friends at school and a fresh start. David Jeremy Crowley was his name, short for his age, a freshman like you and I, and 15 years old. He had dirty blonde hair, but later dyed it black, hazel eyes that seem to glisten under light. He will experience a ride of his life that will begin harsh, then easy, and fall hard.
    September 14th, 1978…
    David got out of his mom’s red Honda Civic in blue jeans, with a chain at his hip, his favorite rock band tee shirt, Pink Floyd, a black leather jacket, black and red converses, and gray East Sport book bag. His mother, Violet Lauren Crowley, pale skin, ocean green eyes, and long blonde hair, blew a kiss at her son.
    “Bye, Honey. I wish you a happy day.”
    “Thanks, Mom…”
    “Don’t worry, you’ll find some new friends eventually. I love you and take care.”
    “Thanks… mom….Love you too…”
    He turned away to leave, shaking his head in disbelief of his mother’s words. Mrs. Crowley noticed he did not have his lunch with him and called him back to the car. Slowly, he walked back to the Honda Civic, took the bagged lunch from his mom’s hands slightly harsh. David sighed impatiently for her to leave, before taking his journey into Pocahontas High School. She waved at him and drove away, knowing he will have a wonderful day at school… with high hopes.
    David stopped at the entrance of his new school. The bell had already rung. He was already excused this first week until he knows his way around in the hallways without getting lost. His first class was Biology. Go figures… He trudged on to the polished wooden door, that had a long window on the left, and shyly knocked on it quietly, hoping no one had heard him knock.
    Page 1

    The teacher opened the door. She looked like a….beastly type person…She had brown hair that was put up into a bun, red glasses at the tip of her nose, and gray pants suit. Her eyes were icy blue. She also had a huge brown mole, presumably her beauty mark. It is hard not to look at it… Yuck! Oh God! Yellow pointy- like teeth! Yet, in spite of her appearance, her voice was gentle, a little rigid but good enough for David.
    The woman invited him inside to classroom with a toothy grin. He shivered, and walked inside. The class was big… about twenty- four students. There were cheerleaders, jocks, Goths, and another variety of students of the popularity chain. He bit his lip wondering if he will fit in. His teacher pats him on the back warmly.
    “Students, I would like for you to welcome our new classmate, Mr. David Jeremy Crowley.”
    They didn’t seem interested in him. He swallowed hard.
    “David, my name is Ms. Hartwell, pleased to have you here.”
    “Same here…,”he said bitterly.
    Ms. Hartwell cleared her throat as she pointed out an empty desk, in the back, between two large jocks from the football team. David stumbled to his desk, face blank. He sat down. Ms. Hartwell continued with the lesson she was teaching her class before he interrupted it. David’s eyes wondered back and forth to the jocks beside him on either side. The buff blonde, hazel eyed, football player on his right was jotting down something on his sheet of notebook paper, and then he folded it into a paper plane. David turned his attention to Ms. Hartwell, praying that these people won’t start something… The jock threw the paper plane at David, nearly poking his eye out. David opened to plane and read the contents:

    Hey Loser! You are in the LOSER SEAT! HA HA! You’re mine!

    Drew Darton Dalton
    #82
    David looked back at Drew, who threw another plane at him. This time it had hit his forehead. It read:
    If you rat on me, you are going DOWN, DOWN, DOWN! MEGA LOSER
    Page 2


    David gulped and sunk in his chair wishing the bell would ring sooner! HE only had five…..four….three…two...one. He left the classroom before anyone else could.
    A few weeks later… October 31, 1978- Halloween
    Kids from ninth to 12th grade were dressed for Halloween for a party David didn’t know about or was invited to because they constantly pick on him everyday after another since he got there. No one wanted to be around. When he turns his back to people, they would laugh and jeer, or push him down. It was the same torture everyday. He lied to his mother about having a great day at school, and he loves it there so it wouldn’t worry her, and it would save his skin from getting kicked by Drew.
    He sat at lunch silently picking at his Halloween like food display. He had finally pushed it away with remorse, and hid his face in his black jacket.
    “Hey, Jelly bag. There’s something we want to tell yah!”
    David looked up to see it was Drew Dalton, who dressed like a zombie, was walking toward him with his friends, Brad Pyburn, Llyod Caston, Collen Star, and Bryan Culp. Brad was the brunette in the group, # 52 in the football team, and had blue eyes, which stuns all the girls. Llyod is the curly haired red head with dark eyes that turns gray in sunlight and is # 46 on the team. Collen is the short one in the group, with very feathery blonde hair and icy blue eyes, and the perfect smile, # 66 on the team. Bryan has light brown skin, dark brown hair and eyes, and is # 96 on the football varsity team. David panicked and motioned to leave.
    “Sit down!”
    David froze and sat down again. God, help me!
    “We came over here to tell you to hang out with us. You will be popular like us, and then you can go to the party,” Drew slyly said.
    “Really?”
    “Like DUH! Meet us behind the school. We have a beginner’s pack with us, and it’s all yours!”
    “A beginner’s pack?”
    “It’s a surprise… just skip this period that is coming in uh….”
    “Two minutes?”
    “Yeah two minutes.”
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    “And skip? I can’t, I’ll get into trou-“
    “So what! Do you want to be popular or not?”
    David stood puzzling.
    “Well… if you don’t want to be cool…”
    The jocks turned to leave. David hesitated before saying something about going to his untimely doom.
    “Hey guys, wait up! I’ll go…”
    (Mistake number 1)
    “Ah! Davis.”
    “David.”
    “Close enough loser! Welcome to Club Popularity…,” Drew sighed, “remembers to come David or you will be sorry!”
    “I will, dude.”
    “That’s my boy!”
    The jocks cheered and patted David on the back. The bell rung and it was show time! The students poured out the cafeteria, the football players disappeared amongst the many rushing to class. David stood thinking if this was such a good idea. The choice of being bullied for not going was an option, but nothing he would take right now. This is a new opportunity for him and he’s going to take what is given to him head on!
    The late bell rang, and David, who was so determined to not be bullied because of his mistake of so what stupidity of not attending, which is actually simply dumb for going, in his case, went on to the meeting place behind the school. The guys were on the ground, sitting in a circle with plastic bags and wrappers beside them. David was curious to what the world they were doing over there, so he, pity the fool, went over to them.
    “Hey, I’m here…”
    “Sit right here, Dave,” Drew said, beckoning David to sit by him. To David’s surprise they were smoking.
    “What? Why are you guys smoking?”
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    “Shut up! Do you want the teachers to find us?”
    “No but this is bad for your health, dude.”
    “Aw it won’t kill yah! Try it, you’ll like it. Everyone will be doing it at the party, and you don’t want to look like a sissy, do yah?”
    “No…”
    “Then try it, Chicken.”
    The jocks laughed and made chicken noises to make fun of poor David. They enticed him to take one puff from their beginner’s pack of cigarettes. Reluctantly, he took one.
    (Mistake Number 2)
    “That’s my man”, Drew Exclaimed, presenting the lighter to David. The poor boy let Drew light the cigarette for him and he put it in his mouth, afraid to breath.
    “C’mon! Inhale, not hold your breath!”
    David quickly inhaled the intoxicating smoke. He began to choke on it and he dropped the cigarette on the ground beside him. The jocks laughed hysterically.
    “First time wasn’t so bad, huh? You did okay, Amateur,” coughed out Drew.
    “Thanks,” David wheezed.
    “Hey kids! Stay where you are!”
    A teacher! The small group of jocks, and little David, scrammed out of sight, taking their supplies with them, when they had as much distance between them and the teacher, the jocks turned on David. The boy whimpered in fright. The jocks surrounded him, piercing him with wicked eyes.
    “How did the teacher find us, LOSER?” Drew asked, infuriated.
    “I don’t know, I-”
    “You told on us, didn’t you? I thought you were cool!”
    “I am cool guys! I didn’t do it!”
    “You will pay, mega chump!”

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    Drew pushed David down and walked away with his crew behind him, like “Satan”, himself, with his fallen angels of mere and definite evil! David got up, confused and frightened. He hurried on to a bathroom, where he can hide in until it is time for sixth period.
    The bell rung twenty minutes after he had went into hiding, like a refugee in the play about Anne Frank and her family and friends hiding away from the German Nazis, but in this case, Drew and the others are the enemy and he’s the one hidden from their existence until they finally find him and kill him! God, David thought, I am freakin’ toast! I don’t know what they’ll do to me! Maybe… I will be fine, I will avoid them any way I can! Yeah, and I won’t get beat up, or I can move to another country and they will never find me! That is perfect! Perfecto!
    He went to band class, well ran to band class, acting as a ninja along the way. The first ten minutes was fabulous, no worries, just peace and trinity… until Mrs. Macadame, the secretary who stares at people and picks her nose when she thinks no one is looking and disposes the deposits under her desk, reported there’s a fire outside of the west wing, and the report from the teacher that caught sighting of Drew Dalton, Brad Pyburn, Llyod Caston, Collen Star, and Bryan Culp, but nothing about me... As I was saying about the woman’s desk before I go on, if you look under there, caution not to touch the nasty deposits or, by rumor, it will eat though your skin like acid because they are so old and ugh! However, if you stomach is weak, I advise you not to look under there at your own risk.
    Every student evacuated the building to the front of the school, gathering in groups talking with wide eyes. The five jocks were outside, waiting patiently for David. All the teachers were preoccupied with the fire emergency, than supervising the students, the weak and the deadly. The five football members marched up to David. The students watched as the group approached the poor ninth grade kid, looking at him menacingly angry.
    Brad and Bryan secured David’s shoulders on either side. Drew cracked his knuckles in a threatening fashion and said, “Now class,” announcing to the onlookers imitating his English teacher Mrs. Cassandra Pitt, “there is a lesson to be learned today. Never snitch on Drew Dalton and his crew! David will be the lesson!”
    Drew turned to David and asked, “Where do you want it? In your face or in your gut?”
    “Not my face! Please not my face!”
    “I think the face will be just fine, loser! Goodnight!”
    Page 6



    Drew pulled his fist back and punched the unfortunate David in the face, knocking three teeth out his mouth and a shiner (black eye). He fell on the ground when Brad and Bryan had released him. He laid there, waiting for Drew and his friends to leave, like a human playing dead during the presence of a wild and completely mad bear! They spat at him, the disgrace of the world, and walked away to go home.
    Mindlessly, David, beaten and broken, trudged to his mother’s room and grabbed his solution to his problems, and traveled to the bathroom and closed the door behind him, which he kept unlocked. He took out a pen and paper from under the counter and wrote blankly:
    Dear Mother,
    I couldn’t take the bullying at school, not the guilt of me smoking when I swore to oath to you that I wouldn’t… I can’t live the rest of my life getting beat up and humiliated. I didn’t want you worry about me… I love you and will always love you mom. I am sorry for this. It wasn’t your fault…
    Your son,
    David Jeremy Crowley
    He set the piece of paper on his chest with a pin, then groped his solution, his mom’s revolver, seven inch, and put it to his head, intrepid. He held his breath and closed his eyes, then pulled the trigger.
    (Mistake number 3)
    Mrs. Crowley came home. She expected to see her son downstairs as always getting dinner ready as promised, but he was there. She called for him, but no answer came to her from him.
    “Maybe he’s asleep or in the bathroom taking a shower…”
    She ran up the stairs and walked down the hallway to bedroom decorated with band posters, and junk she wanted to get rid of for the past three months… and the pet snake he had in a glass cage, a corn snake he named Lord Arcadian the first, then named the food for the snake: Drew Dalton, Brad Pyburn, Llyod Caston, Collen Star, and Bryan Culp.
    “Where is he? Ugh! This room is so unorganized… my little David is just like Logan, my husband…”
    She half ran down the hall to the bathroom and knocked. She opened the door and saw her son lying on his back, bleeding on the right side of his head. His mother grabbed him up. She couldn’t believe her eyes and the violent sound of silence until she read the suicide note. In anger, the woman balled up the paper and threw it out the window, along with the revolver she had also picked up. Mrs. Crowley shook her head, “My baby…”
    Page 7

    Mrs. Violet Lauren Crowley later died of heartbreak two months after her son’s death and vengeance. The bullies, that caused him to commit suicide, was tried and prosecuted. They were sent to confinement for several years, until further notice, for using illegal and inappropriate school conduct.


    This is the lesson and a fictional story. David Jeremy Crowley, fifteen just like you and I gave into peer pressure and was tortured by bullies. He gave in and ended his life. All it takes is three mistakes.














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