Nothing to Lose

I wasn’t in school the day Hunter Walkman rushed into the cafeteria and shot twenty-nine people, but my best friend Sarah Lee Douglas was. She saw the whole thing unfold through the glass lens of her ancient Nikon camera, as she hid under the water fountain in the corner.

Apparently, Hunter – an almost eighteen-year-old senior at the high school – came trotting into the school cafeteria at about 11:30, wearing a heavy black overcoat that hung down to his ankles like a cape. Sarah Lee remembers thinking that was odd, because although it was only April, the day was surprisingly sunny and warm.

But before she or anyone else really had time to think about his wardrobe choice, Hunter pulled out an enormous machine gun and started firing. Sarah Lee managed to dive off her seat and tuck herself out of sight beneath the leaky water fountain, but most of the other kids weren’t so lucky. Bullets flashed through the air, spinning like graceful ballerinas, almost invisible to the naked eye. All around the cafeteria, students tried to flee. Some screamed; some cried; some only made a quiet thud as they hit the linoleum, the life already gone from their bodies.

Sarah Lee recorded it all. I’ve seen the video. It’s shaky because her hands were trembling the whole time, but she still got it on tape, and in the end that was the main evidence proving Hunter Walkman’s guilt.

He was locked up three months ago, and since he killed twenty-one people and wounded another eight, he’ll be locked up for the rest of his life. That means every second Tuesday of the month for the rest of my life I’ll be sitting in a chair across from him, wishing that he wasn’t my older brother.

“Oh, Hunter, you wouldn’t believe how beautiful the azaleas in our front garden are! Such a gorgeous shade of blue…”

I cross my arms and shift my gaze to the wall. Like all the other walls in this prison, it’s made of two-inch thick concrete. Up at the top, near the ceiling, there’s a spider web of cracks that looks kind of like the Eiffel Tower if you squint your eyes really tight and stare at it for a while, like I do every time we visit.

This is the third time we’ve come to see Hunter in jail, and each time only gets worse. He talks to us about the weather, about animals, about sports – but as soon as the topic of the shooting comes up, he turns to stone. He refuses to say anything about it, and it drives my parents crazy. They want to know why. Everyone does. None of the investigators could figure out his motive: he was going to graduate in two months with a 3.7 GPA, he played lacrosse, he had a long-term girlfriend named Kelly…he seemed like a successful high school senior. So no one understands, and Hunter himself isn’t telling anytime soon.

“Jake, don’t you have anything to say to your older brother? It’s been a month since you’ve seen him. Surely you want to tell him about your lifeguard job, or the beach, or - ”

I silence my mother with a glare and turn back to the Eiffel Tower cracks. I begged her and my father to let me stay home today, but they insisted on my presence, so here I am with my criminal brother.

My mother sighs, a shaky sigh that means she’s gotten to the point of thinking about it too much, and now she’s going to ask Hunter about the shooting.

“Hunter, I can’t stand it anymore! Why, sweetheart, why on earth did you do it? That’s all I want to know! Why won’t you tell us?” She slams her hands on the table as she finishes her outburst, and tears sparkle in the corners of her eyes like tiny diamonds.

As I expected, Hunter’s gaze immediately turns cold, and his whole face tightens. My dad clutches my mom’s hand under the table, and they both watch him intently, hoping for the explanation they’ll never get.

I snort and almost turn away again, but something stops me. I keep staring at Hunter, and suddenly his eyes meet mine. I see a new emotion in them, something deep, dark, and sad, that wasn’t there before, and the sight of it stirs a long-forgotten memory inside me.

Last December, we’d stayed in a hotel while our roof was being replaced. Hunter and I had been forced to sleep in the same bed, and around two o’clock in the morning, when I was only half-awake, he had abruptly whispered in the dark.

“Jake, I know you’re probably fast asleep right now and can’t hear me, but I need to say it out loud anyway. My life is falling apart, even though it doesn’t look like it. Kelly cheated on me, the new lacrosse coach hates me, and the only way I can escape is through drugs and alcohol. I know they’re bad for you, but oh God, Jake, I can’t stop. They bring me relief.” Then he was silent for a moment. I said nothing. I thought I was dreaming. “Oh, Jake, I don’t think I can handle much more. Things keep getting worse. Soon I’ll have nothing to lose.”

Groggy and muddled with sleep, my mind struggled to make sense of what he was saying. Something about life falling apart, wasn’t it? Why was I possibly dreaming about my brother telling me that? Everyone knew his life was perfect. I myself wished mine was more like Hunter’s. Still, I supposed dreams could be nonsensical; I’d had a recurring one about a pineapple piloting a plane full of unicorns when I was nine. Now thinking of aircraft flown by animated fruit, I smiled and quickly drifted back into slumber as the exhaustion of junior year all-nighters returned.

Maybe only a minute later, maybe an hour, I was reawakened by a continuous, muffled noise nearby. In my half-sleep, I couldn’t register what it was – a cat? Someone hiccupping? No, it’s Hunter, the only alert part of my mind insisted, sounding exasperated with me despite only being a voice in my head. He’s crying.

I still thought I was dreaming, but even in a dream I would have been worried if my brother was crying. Hunter never cried. Maybe this was a continuation of my earlier dream. He’d been depressed about something in that one too, hadn’t he? I couldn’t grasp what the problem he’d been worried about was, but I would try to help. I slowly rolled onto my back, still struggling to organize my thoughts. “Hunter?” I whispered into the dark. “Hunter, what’s wrong?”

He sniffled and laughed shakily. “Oh, Jake, I thought you were asleep.”

I attempted to keep my fatigue from overwhelming me again. I knew it was a dream, but it seemed important that I talk to him. “I was. You woke me up. What’s wrong, Hunter?”

He was silent for a moment and then drew a long, raggedy breath. “My life is falling apart, Jake. Like I said earlier. Only – that’s not all of it. There’s something even worse.” He paused, and I could tell he was trying not to cry again. I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt as heavy as bricks, so instead I lifted my arm and began to feel around beside me, hoping to locate him. A second later his hand, damp with tears, seized mine, squeezing tightly. He hadn’t held my hand since we were in elementary school and I needed guidance crossing the street.

“I’m in huge trouble, Jake. I mean it. The new coach doesn’t just hate me because of my style of playing. He hates me most for what happened last week.” He stopped and took another deep breath. “A few guys on the team found a girl behind the bleachers after practice. She was drunk I think, or out of it for one reason or another. They brought her back to the locker room – and, oh God, Jake, they started raping her. She was barely conscious and couldn’t stop them, so I tried to. I swear to God I did. I told them to stop, and then I went up and tried to shove them off her – and that’s when Coach came in.”

His voice was raspy as he struggled to stay in control. Still groggy, still laying there with my eyes closed, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This was awful, even for a dream. I squeezed his hand, prompting him to continue.

He sniffled. “Coach assumed I was raping her too. I tried to tell him the truth, but he wouldn’t listen. And the other boys blamed me for getting them caught, so they said I was involved too. Do you know what that means, Jake? It means I’m going to be expelled. The only reason no one knows yet is because the coach wanted to talk to the girl and her parents first. He wanted to write an official report. He’s going to report it on Monday.” His hand was shaking now just as his voice was. “And then I’ll be expelled. Don’t you see, Jake? That means I can’t go to college. It doesn’t matter that I’m good at lacrosse, or smart, or anything. No university will accept me anymore. And that’s not all. I’m probably going to jail, Jake. My life is ruined.”

I was still half-asleep, but I finally managed to wrest my eyes open, blinking a few times to reduce the heavy, gluey feeling of my eyelids. It was almost completely dark, but I could see the outline of my brother’s head to my left; he was sitting up. Something about his silhouette was unsettling, sending a chill down my spine. “Maybe you won’t go to jail,” I murmured.

“Maybe not, but even so, I’ll be a registered felon for the rest of my life. A registered sex offender. And no one will employ me once they see that.” He pulled his hand out of mine, and his breathing became faster, angrier. When he next spoke, his voice was hard, bitter, a vicious tone I’d never before heard come out of my brother’s mouth.

“My life is ruined. It’s ruined because of something I never even did. I tried to tell the truth, but coach didn’t listen. No one listened. I was trying to help. I was trying to save that girl. But that doesn’t matter now. Of course it doesn’t. I can’t go to college, I might go to jail, but the truth doesn’t even matter. I’ll never be able to get a decent job, my classmates will never talk to me again, but it doesn’t even matter that I didn’t do anything. I’m earning the same punishment as they are. My life is completely falling apart because of something I didn’t do.”

He stopped, his breathing ragged and fast, and I was sure he was exhausted just from telling me everything. Silence, except for his sharp inhales, fell for what seemed like forever, and before I knew it I was starting to drift off. Somewhere deep down I knew I shouldn’t go back to sleep, knew I should do something about what Hunter had revealed, because even for a dream what he’d said was terrifying. But I hadn’t slept well in months, and I couldn’t help it; my eyes sank shut, and my mind began to shut down, slowing down my whirlwind of thoughts to a mere breeze.

I was almost fully asleep again when Hunter spoke. “Jake? Please don’t tell anyone what I said to you. In fact, forget everything I said.” His voice was quiet now, fragile and delicate, like it might break at any second. “It doesn’t concern you, alright? I’ll take care of it myself. If I’m going to jail, I’ll make it worth it. At this point, I’ve got nothing to lose.”

My groggy brain didn’t completely process the meaning of his words; something about what he was saying stirred concern and fear within me, made my blood run cold, but I couldn’t determine why, or even the significance of his decision. “I won’t tell anyone,” I murmured, my voice blurred and thick with sleep. “Why would I tell anyone about a dream?”

I felt him shift his weight, knew he was lying down beside me again. He patted my shoulder as if to comfort me. “You’re right; this is just a bad dream.” His voice was low, soothing, lulled me closer to slumber. “Why would real me ever say anything like what I just told you? Of course this is a dream. Now go back to sleep, Jake.”

After that he rolled over and was quiet. I felt slightly confused, but now I had permission to give in to the waves of exhaustion that had been lapping at my mind, and I needed no other excuse. It was a matter of seconds before I drifted off into a deep sleep. In the morning, I remembered nothing of my supposed dream the night before, or if I did it was only fragments: the sound of crying, whispers in the dark, someone murmuring about a ruined life. It’s only now, seeing that dangerous, terrible look in Hunter’s gaze, that the memory has surfaced.

And so I finally speak. Sitting here in the prison, recalling the truth about my brother’s life, I speak. “I know why he did it,” I say, talking to my parents but keeping my eyes locked on Hunter.

I register their shock, feel them staring at me, but all I see is the dark, swirling pain in my brother’s eyes, the pain he hid for so long. “He did it because he had nothing to lose.”