CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

To look at David Westwood’s sketchbook is to gaze down the barrel of a mind poised on the edge of destruction. A disturbing journey through an emotional volcano of what would spill over on that sweltering day in July. It is also a rare glimpse of what we are about to encounter in our new generation—the angry teenager. The murderous youth.

 

DAVID SAT UP IN HIS JAIL CELL and read Fennecker’s most recent essay in horror. He wasn’t feeling well. His head swirled, and he felt constantly rushed, though there was nowhere to go. How did he get my sketchbook? he wondered, before he remembered he’d left his knapsack behind when he ran from Darryl Knight’s party. The night he’d punched Phil Massa and was chased by his friends. That was the night before everything else. His sketchbook, of all the private things in his possession, was riddled with every bad, rebellious, perverse, cruel, and primitive thought he’d ever had. Every interesting turn of phrase he heard. He had wanted it that way. Wanted to pour himself out uncensored, both with the brush and the pen. He’d never dreamed it would be read, especially not under these circumstances. Barry would lose his mind, this was certain.

 

“One day we’ll pay for how we treat the weak,” he writes in one entry. “And America will choke on its own capitalist gluttony.” “Do everything your impulses tell you to do, you’ll regret the things you didn’t do when you get older,” he states in another.

 

David scanned the middle paragraphs frantically.

 

Can a boy this young still have years left for redemption? . . . David Westwood isolated himself from his peers—and then he set to the task of isolating himself from God.

 

David recoiled from the words. He didn’t consider himself a godly person—that was true. But had he cast God away? Did he really make a conscious decision to force God out of his life? That line about American gluttony? A publicity stunt in waiting. He remembered writing that down hoping one day it would cause a media stir when he was famous. The way John Lennon said the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. It was a plant, but it made David suddenly wonder if he hadn’t written it with more seriousness than intended. Is it possible to be sincere even while being insincere? He didn’t know anymore. That’s how it is with these people, these writers, he thought, they start making you think that they know you better than you know yourself.

The article went on. A cold sensation flooded David’s mind, like an ice cube inserted at the base of his skull, dripping slowly. He was a cautionary tale, it said. He was unwholesome, adhering to destructive philosophies. He didn’t look a person in the eyes. He didn’t hold his hand over his heart and recite the Pledge. He had no base in religious faith, and was in the “fringe minority.”

David tugged at his hair. All these conclusions from a sketchbook, he thought. The smarmy enthusiasm of classmates. He glanced back at the final paragraph.

 

When I see him in the courtroom, I don’t know how I’ll fight the urge to yell across to him: “It didn’t have to be this way for you!” But I know he’ll probably not hear me. By his writing and behavior—his poor attempt at art excluded—he seems beyond reason. He seems to resent all that is fine. He is angry at times, brutally sarcastic at others. Antisocial. And he’s a sober warning to us all. Don’t let his legacy reproduce in our town.

 

David let the paper drop from his hands. He felt like he couldn’t swallow. It was as if he’d been sleepwalking for fifteen years, and then awakened to all the horrible things he’d done, said, written, and believed. He wanted to reject all of what Fennecker wrote. He was not that person. But all of this was out there, outside the walls of his cell. Guards were reading it. His classmates were reading it. His parents and neighbors. Julia too. Beads of sweat formed on his brow. He hadn’t eaten a solid meal in weeks. His head throbbed, and he suddenly couldn’t breathe. Dragging himself up from the bed, he pressed his face against the cold bars. They felt good on his hot face and he leaned there for a few minutes. He still couldn’t catch his breath.

“Help,” he moaned weakly. “Someone help!” His eyes turned toward the back of his head, and now his body pulled away from his control. He seized, dropped to the floor with a thud, and let out a guttural noise. It was another call for help, but he knew his mouth couldn’t form the word correctly. The throbbing in his temples grew louder. He heard a loud buzz and then his cell door sliding open. Boots clapped on the floor around him. A hand grasped his arm.

“Pick him up, we’ll take him to the infirmary,” one of the guards said.

“No,” said the other, “bring the doc here. He could be faking this whole thing . . . Lay still, Westwood!”