Jasper (This name has been changed, a youth at the time he cannot be identified) also had had a troubled youth. Affable and a natural leader he unfortunately had been in frequent scrapes with the law. One winter along he, along with various others, had broken into a local snowmobile dealer’s place four times, stealing and wrecking thousands of dollars worth of new machines. One of those incidents was the night before a court appearance for two others. He and I got along well, although I daresay he didn’t relish my appearances at his doorstep.
He had also been at the South Pit to party that night, drinking and getting high, not unlike the vast majority of the fifty or sixty people there. He and his group of friends were a little ways away from where Darren was with his friends. It wouldn’t have been hard to tell the two groups apart. Darren’s crowd was what could be described as “preppy”. Always sharply dressed, they had short groomed hair and trendy clothes. Jasper’s crowd, however, favoured black leather jackets, dark jeans, bandanas and long hair.
It’s funny what we decide is important enough in our life to fight over; you wouldn’t think that clothes should be.
There had already been several fights in the pit that evening by the time the early morning had rolled around. Darren had just finished beating up Jasper’s drunken brother, and they took him back to a car that they had arrived in. After smoking up in the car Jasper rummaged through the glove box and came up with a hunting knife, one with a seven-inch blade and put it in the inside pocket of his leather coat.
Getting out of the car, he then made the walk that would forever change lives, he walked directly to where Darren was. Darren, of course, flushed from the fighting immediately walked out and challenged him. In an instant it was over. Darren quickly over powered him, and pulled the leather coat over Jasper’s head. Jasper reached in, grabbed the knife and plunged it once into the centre of Darren’s chest. Darren sank to his knees, looked at a friend and said “F**k, he stabbed me” and collapsed on the ground.
Jasper took off running, his house was just across the highway, down a bush trail. He stopped when he met some girls he knew on the trail, told them of the stabbing and then, as if to emphasize the point, showed them the bloody knife and threw it into the bush. He headed home, the refuge most of us turn to when we’re scared and in trouble.
to be continued….
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3 responses
oooooo a cliffhanger! I’ll have to reread 1 & 2 both again when I’m off the pain meds..
(and hugs Clare- appreciate the good wishes)
I hear too many stories like this from my son. What a shame it is that most of the time, you only get to meet young people like this after something terrible has happened. I wonder if you can ever really save people from themselves?
It’s amazing how mundane these things seem. A fight over this or that, and then suddenly someone has a knife. A tragedy over unbelievable insignificance. And lives end.