Paul Crenshaw recalls being young and afraid in post-Gulf War America, a time when he owned guns and read a lot of Stephen King. He subtly recounts being able to relate to Charlie Decker, the murderous protagonist in King’s Rage. At about the same time, Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy,” a song about a boy who shoots himself in front of his English class, plays in heavy rotation on MTV. Crenshaw recounts the litany of broken boys who, inspired by the fictional Decker, acted out their own versions of Rage in real life with horrific consequences, and tries to understand why.
I wonder if all of those young men thought the world would always be this way. If they thought there was no way out.
I think of how some men turn to books for an escape when the world outside the windows gets to be too much.
How some men turn to music.
How some men turn to guns.
How many people struggle with their mental health.
How most discussions of guns in America focus solely on men, even though more than 6,500 women in this country die each year from gun violence.
How many men harbor secrets so dark, they must seem like the end of the world.
How there is so much ugliness in the world that it ruins us, breaks us, hardens us to the point where we have to make the world even uglier.
More picks about gun violence
After All This
“When twenty first graders were slaughtered and the country responded without a national gun-buyback program, national red-flag laws, universal background checks, a national wait period, a gun registry, an assault-weapons ban . . . we became complicit.”
Every Day I Worry My Kids Will Be Killed at School
“’Will I be okay?’ my children ask me as the mass shootings in America continue. None of us like my answer.”
The Club No School Principal Wants to Join
“Each of these principals led a school traumatized by a shooting. Now they’re finding a way forward through a unique support group—an unlucky club—where they talk about recovery, courage, and healing.”
