OUTDOOR ED

I probably shouldn't be writing this. I probably shouldn't be telling you this. But I am. Sometimes, as humans, we do bad things. Sometimes it's an act that society may deem as wrong or bad. Sometimes it's an act that one knows down into their core is wrong, whatever the excuse may be for committing said act. And sometimes, dear friends, when one goes unpunished for their actions, the lack of punishment can be far worse than any actual punishment the person might have received. The memory carries such weight. It can haunt a person. Every day. Numerous times a day. Up until their dying day. Like an invisible noose made out of the worlds heaviest metal. Constantly tugging. Constantly being weighed down. Constantly being strangled. That's the truth. Whether you tend to agree or not. So, I'm not sure if what follows serves as a story or as a confession. You decide. But please, in your decision, let there be no judgment. Because after all, yet he without sin cast the first stone. Was that Pinnochio? Or Joan of Arc? I can't seem to remember. Anywhoo.

It was a bit after my 14th birthday. I was an 8th grader at Arthur E Wright middle school in the San Fernando Valley of what was referred to as Los Angeles, California. But it was far from what an out of towner might think of as LA. It was The Valley, for Christ's sake. Rolling green hills. Montana like crystal blue skies. Horse communities filled with people that had money and dreamed of being a cowboy or living something as close to the life of a cowboy someday. Suburbia. Suburbia that had the constant lingering smell of horse manure somewhere within it. So constant that the mind forgot sometimes.

The kids and parents, I guess, called it AE Wright. It was a fine school. Nestled across from the rolling, sprawling hills that were technically owned by Paramount Ranch, a large plot of land that was bought by Paramount Pictures and William Hertz in 1953 as a shooting location for the many Westerns that were being filmed at the time under the umbrella that was Paramount Pictures. The school lay on the right side of Las Virgenes Rd. as you were making your way from Calabasas, Hidden Hills, or Agoura Hills and Westlake to Malibu Canyon and the beautiful upscale beach communities that lay beyond, all along the majestic Pacific Coast Highway which runs from San Juan Capistrano in Southern California to Mendocino County in Northern California.

Most of the underclassmen at my middle school, the sixth and seventh graders, couldn't wait to become eighth graders. Isn't that a funny thing about us human beings? When we are young and full of life, we desire to be older and more adult, yet as we grow older and begin to see a horizon line for our mortal existence, we desire to be young again, we hold on tight to anything that will revert us back to a childlike state when we were still filled with youth and winning the battle against that impossible opponent that is time itself.

One of the big reasons that us kids looked forward to eighth grade was a school sponsored trip just up the road to the fringes of Malibu Canyon that everyone referred to as Outdoor Ed. Outdoor Ed was a 3 day, 2 night excursion into the woods in an effort to learn more about nature. Plants, ecological systems of the area, hiking trails, basic survival in nature, and also a chance to bond, outside of school, with our classmates and teachers. We slept in bunk beds, about 15 to 20 kids per cabin, separated into girls and boys of course. It was a great time and quite a bit of fun, despite the somewhat boring point to the whole thing. After all, a 14 year old child has much much more on their minds than hiking and learning about nature. All I thought about at the time was girls, wrestling, and how many points Michael Jordan would score on any particular night.

On the final night of Outdoor Ed, they split us into groups of around 5 or 6 people with a teacher as the leader of each group to perform a skit that each group came up with. We were to take about 15 minutes to brainstorm on a skit and then perform said skit. Lit by campfires, there was a small outdoor stage where we would perform each skit that the groups had come up with. Once our group had worked out what we were going to do, we were placed on a list for all the groups on which group would perform in what order. We were near the end of the list so I had about 45 minutes to an hour to kill time and watch my fellow classmates perform. I had to go to the bathroom and the cabins, which were a bit of a walk away from the outdoor stage, were most likely locked. So instead of the comfort of a bathroom, I opted for nature instead. After all, this was a nature retreat, wasn't it? I walked into the woods a bit away from the stage. Close enough that I could see the light of the campfires light up the stage and cast shadows on the surrounding trees but far enough that the onstage banter of my classmates was inaudible to my teenage ears.

So there I was, urinating on a bed of twigs and pine cones, when I saw something strange. Off into the distance, about 25 yards ahead into the woods, I saw the back of a man who was somewhat bent over. Somewhat bent over and struggling with something. He was wearing what looked like a dark blue jumpsuit. Something a mechanic might might wear. You might expect to see an oval white patch on the left side of his chest with the name Paul or Johnny or Steve written out in red or navy cursive lettering. The campfires were a bit too far away to cast any light onto the scene I was seeing, so the moon must have been full or close to full that night, casting its ominous white light onto this scene below. Now that I think of it, this story seems even creepier now that I'm remembering it was all cast in a moonlit glow.

So this blue jumpsuited shadow figure kept struggling and struggling and turning from right to left, left to right, right to left. And then I realized what I was seeing. The blue jumpsuited stranger was strangling something or someone with a yet unseen object for strangulation. I immediately stopped urinating. Without knowing why, and honestly, remembering it now, I was moving like in a ghost dream, cloudy and obscured images in my way, and my brain was running on a sort of autopilot. Actions without preceeding thoughts of said actions.

I headed into the woods, towards the struggling stranger with no thought of what I was doing. But doing it with enough sense to remain near silent. Being 14, I was like a ninja when it came to walking quietly. All those nights sneaking out my bedroom window to meet friends in Hidden Hills, our gated community, at all hours of the blackened, star filled night.

I don't know what I thought I was going to do or actually what I could do. I guess I wanted a closer look and then would decide what exactly I would do. And luckily, I had a wood whiddling class earlier that day, so I just so happened to have a Swiss Army knife in my pocket. There was a thump-like sound up ahead. The blue clad stranger ahead had thrown down his victim. I could see clearly now. It was the body of a boy that lay at the strangers feet. It was crumpled and not moving. Not breathing. The boys jeans and light yellow tee shirt unmoving in the white dim glow of the moon above. I put my hand into my pocket and flicked open the longest blade on the Swiss Army knife. It was probably 3 to four inches long. Not incredibly sharp. But sharp enough. The next minute I have memories of. But it seems like memories that another person should have. It doesn't seem like me. Not me at all.

I made my way behind "the mechanic" who was now down to his knees over the lifeless body of a child. A child whose face I could not see, but a child who was in my class and most likely a friend to me. Without even a seconds worth of thought, I brought the blade up and jabbed it, with strength and purpose, into the right side of the mechanics neck. Over and over, harder and harder with each right-left swing of the miniscule blade in my small teenage hand. By the third jab of the knife in his throat, I must have hit his carotid artery. A waterfall of blood splashed and spewed from his throat and neck, like a fiesta of liquid being sprayed into the silent and once tranquil wooded Southern California night sky. He did not scream. He tried, I believe, but it only came out as gurgling. Sad, strained, and pathetic gurgling. The amount of blood pouring down his windpipe and consequently into his throat made it near impossible for him to speak. I might have even hit his voice box with the Swiss made blade that was now partially bent to the left from the many instances of steel to skin, sinews, and flesh covered bone that had just taken place.

I ran. Into the night. And back to the stage where my group was. I said nothing. I said nothing to anyone. No one noticed the minute tiny drops of another man's blood on my pants or the deep red, almost black stains at the bottom of the arms of my tattered Iron Maiden shirt that I had purchased with my grandmother at a tee shirt store next to The Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Blvd when I was 8 or 9 years old. Sometimes I think most people just float through life, not really paying close attention to anything specific. Sheep. Sheep that are half asleep or just half blind. I played the part, though. The part of a man with a secret. A secret that he can never tell. I had left both of those bodies in those woods. There was no cleanup. I don't know how or why no one ever found them. My only guess would be that the natural wildlife, the natural predators in the area, took care of it. Coyotes, mountain lions, and the occasional bear were all common to the area. It would be the following Monday that the missing persons signs were all over town. Blake Soloman. 14 years old missing. Blue eyes. Blond hair. Last seen at a school sponsored retreat. Reward for any information that leads to the arrest or conviction of a suspect. No reward would ever be given. No suspect ever found. Blake and the stranger would somehow end up just simply lost to time. Gone without a question. Without a reason. Like a hole had opened and swallowed them whole. But I knew. I knew that somewhere in those woods there were two sets of human chest and ribcage bones, flesh mostly removed and picked clean and that somewhere close to that horrific scene there was a pack of coyotes, licking their blood stained lips and cleaning their blood stained paws. Or some brown bear with a full stomach of human flesh, content and full and growling at the mid day sun that seemed unmoving at times. Unmoving and always watching. Watching from above at the silly things that we creatures on Earth are doing and are capable of doing. Lucky for me somehow. But I never said a word. Think what you will of me, but this is the first time I've spoken or written of it. It's strange what one remembers sometimes. Or what one tends to write. And there is the fact that this is being posted to a public forum. So I assume there will be red and blue flashing police lights in my future. And questions. So many questions. I don't have all the answers, friends. But I can be honest about what I did now. I feel it was justified. Justified for a child murderer. Doesn't anyone who ends the life of a child deserve to die? I certainly thought so, that many years ago, in those woods. Those woods that robbed me of any innocence that I had left at that age. So please, hold no judgment. Let he without sin cast the first stone. Was that Pinnochio? Or was it Joan of Arc? I honestly can't remember.