Cornered (2 page)

If you want to find the bullies, a good place to look is among the bullied. Most of what we learn as little ones comes through our
pores
. Back before language we absorb through all our senses. If we grow up experiencing domestic violence, even if it isn't aimed at us, we learn the ways of violence. Nothing exists without its opposite; if it feels awful to get bullied, it
feels
great
to bully. Once we're hardwired that way, it does very little good to try to send us the way of the peaceful warrior.

So maybe we should expand the terminology. It's too easy to look for bullying kids and try to stop them from being bullies. That usually results in making them more devious. Let's call it
meanness
. Let's call it
indecency
. And let's understand that it never starts with the kid.

I could make a case that we live in a bullying culture; that we're more interested in jumping on bad behavior than preventing it. We do it politically, philosophically, and personally. We like to find who's to blame and mete out the punishment, rather than
prevent
. We'd rather build prisons than therapy and trauma centers for families.

It's a systemic change we need.

The stories in this anthology have the power to get us talking about that change; the power to use our imaginations to create possibilities. My hope is that's how it will be used.

BY
R
HODA
B
ELLEZA

O
NCE IN A WHILE
, someone will ask what I was like in high school. “The same,” I always say—which is and isn't true, but that's the easiest answer to give. Easier, at least, than pouring my heart out right then and there. That would require a scary amount of self-awareness I've never been willing to muster.

I'm not exactly sure why that time is so hard to talk about; I suppose for me it would feel disingenuous to describe all that passion and excitement without also discussing the pain and vulnerability I felt as a teenager. I often felt powerless and suffered a chronic inability to speak up for myself—or for anyone really—as I watched certain injustices unfold before me. Say for instance, when I got called a “slut” walking past the senior quad, or that time a pair of slanted eyes—drawn in Sharpie—appeared on the hood of a friend's car. Even years later, just recalling moments like these make my heart beat faster and my face flush with shame. The feeling is so immediate it's like it is happening all over again, this endless moment of guilt and embarrassment stretched out be relived with every recollection, which leads me to suppress it. Bury it somewhere deep. And if one memory even dared to poke its head out? To
resurface after I'd exiled it to the far corners of my memory? I'd be there with a mallet, ready to pound it back down like it was a gopher in a carnival game.

I value stoicism (as well as my privacy), so to talk candidly about such a charged time is difficult. To even think about it is difficult. It demands I confront a whole lot of experiences and choices—scenarios where I've been victimized, and just as many where I'm the bully and I'm the conspirator by virtue of doing nothing. I'm not proud of this. Everyone has their tactics, and this was mine: to barrel straight past shame and embarrassment, onward and upward to more useful emotions, like denial and reticence. Who wants to stew in your own humiliation when you can claim cool indifference?

I only recently realized that this was a whole lot of effort for not a lot of payoff. This isn't a carnival game; it's my life. I hadn't beat anything or anyone, I'd only been carrying around the pain and merely reacting when a memory resurfaced. All the composure I'd prided myself on had been just the opposite: a testament to how little control I had over my own emotions and—by extension—my own destiny.
Screw that
, I thought. I couldn't be the only one; I wasn't alone. There are people to talk to and ways in which to work through the hurt, and until we realize that, we are divided.

This is all to say that before bullying was in the national spotlight—covered by various news outlets and compounded by social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter—we all had painful experiences that fundamentally changed us.
Everyone has been a victim and everyone has been an oppressor. It's part of our shared history as social, human beings.

Editing this anthology was a gift of perspective. When first put to the task, I asked my friends about their bullying experiences, and hearing their stories filled me with heartbreak and pride. On one hand I felt wronged on their behalf, and on the other hand impressed as to how they'd grown into such capable, caring individuals despite the adversity they faced. Learning these details seems instrumental to my understanding of who they are now—and it inspired me to turn the mirror on myself. It gave me the opportunity to remember a past transgression and infuse this otherwise dark memory with hope—seeing each experience as a marker from which I could measure not only how far I had come, but how much further I wanted to go.

Naturally, I reached out to my favorite authors who had a stake in the content—those who wrote books about the marginalized, the bullied, the other. Not only did I believe in their voices, but in the themes they wrote about, because each and every one captured that universal feeling of disempowerment so honestly and beautifully.

I envisioned the collection of stories would be a balance of both humor and seriousness, as well as despair and hope. This, I think, was achieved—though along the way I was surprised by a variance even I hadn't expected. Stories deeply grounded in gritty realism were placed next to supernatural tales of ghosts and afterworlds, yet all the themes seemed to converge
harmoniously: vengeance, redemption, shame, and empathy. Essentially, no matter how each story is delivered they all serve as guides to overcoming adversity.

My hope for the reader is that you find a piece of yourself in this collection of stories. Perhaps it will help you take pride in who you are, confront the choices (both good and bad) that you've made, and inspire you to continue developing creatively, emotionally, and spiritually. Maybe you'll reach out to people you love, ask them to listen, and be their support system as you learn how their experiences have shaped them. And if none of these things, then my hope above all else is that you come away having read a damn good story. Or fourteen damn good stories.

BY
K
IRSTEN
M
ILLER

STEP ONE
IS
surveillance. You make a lot of enemies in a job like this, and every week I get an e-mail from some jerk trying to settle a score. The phony requests are pretty easy to weed out, but you can't be too careful. That's why I investigate my new clients before I get started—even the ones who've sent the most heart-rending pleas.

The fifteen-year-old who's just exited St. Agnes on the other side of the street told me her name is Clea. I received an e-mail from her last night around ten. The picture she attached showed a younger Clea in an identical plaid uniform. She greeted the camera with a crooked, gap-tooth grin that made me want to reach through the computer screen and squeeze her. That girl is gone for good. No matter what happens in the next few days, she won't be coming back. Now Clea watches the ground as she walks. Her shoulders are hunched and her spine bent, as if she's anticipating an ambush. You can't fake true terror. This client is the real deal.

She's rushing away from her school toward the bus stop on the corner. I can tell she wants to run, but I understand why she won't. Running would draw unwanted attention. The
hunted quickly learn that it's better to blend in whenever possible. For a moment I'm confident that Clea's going to make her escape, but a pack of girls bursts through the front doors of St. Agnes. They stop on the sidewalk and scan the street. They're searching for Clea. One of the girls spots their quarry, and the chase begins.

I snap a few photos as they barrel past. Clea's descriptions have proven remarkably accurate. The girl called Kayla must be the one at the head of the pack. Mariah, Jordan, and Natalie are the kids at Kayla's heels. In the last two years, my clients have come in all shapes, sizes, and sorts. I've rescued geniuses, dunces, beauty queens, ugly ducklings, athletes, and geeks. But the bullies are always the same. They follow a leader—usually a kid with an average brain, above-average looks, sadistic tendencies, and an undeniable charisma. The leaders' lackeys tend to be depressingly ordinary. They're the sort who do their homework, mind their parents, and go to church every Sunday. Few adults would ever peg them as the kind of kids who'd torture their classmates for sport.

A bus pulls up to the corner of Ninety-Ninth Street and Lexington Avenue, and I watch Clea scamper on board. I imagine her sigh of relief when the doors close. And I know just how fast her heart sinks when the bus doesn't move. The driver has spotted the four high school girls sprinting in his direction. Now there's a fifth. When he opens the doors to let the girls in, I make sure I'm right behind them.

Clea's sitting on one of the benches near the driver. She has
her face buried in a geometry textbook. It's a useless shield. I've studied the same book, and I'm pretty sure it has killed far more people than it's saved. Two girls drop into the seats on either side of Clea. Kayla and the fourth crony stand with their shins pressed against their captive's knees. I brush past them and choose a spot in the middle of the bus. I know just how far away I'll need to be to fit all five girls in my camera's frame. As soon as the bus makes its first lurch forward, I pull out my phone and hit record.

I pretend to be texting, but the ruse is unnecessary. Since the day NEMESIS went live, no one has ever suspected that I might be the one who's behind it. Vigilantes aren't cute. They're angry bitches in black leather pants who curse, chain-smoke, and design their own dragon tattoos. Imagine the opposite, and you'll have a pretty clear picture of me. My mother says I'm dainty. My father still calls me Princess. I like my hair to look glossy and my nails to be polished. My clothes are expensive, and they're always perfectly pressed. I don't look like a vigilante, but I wouldn't pass for a victim, either. Not anymore.

I prefer to watch the camera screen instead of the action. It helps me keep an emotional distance. But it doesn't always prevent me from feeling ill. The first time I filmed a confrontation, I finally understood why everyone else looked away. It's hard to see a fellow human be destroyed. You find yourself needing to believe the victim earned her punishment. You want to think that an innocent girl would never be tortured, and that
the world couldn't possibly be so cruel. When I started my site, I used to ask my clients what made them targets. Most of the kids were a lot like Clea—they just didn't know.

Kayla has a filthy mouth and an impressive imagination. She's called Clea a pervert, a stalker, and a spy. Those are only the slurs I'm willing to repeat. She's accused Clea of watching her friends undress before gym class. This poor kid who's afraid to take her eyes off her textbook has been branded a peeping tom. It's so ridiculous—such an obvious lie—that I don't know whether to laugh or vomit. Then one of the lackeys slaps Clea's book to the ground, and the girl stares at the empty space left behind. Harassing a mute must not be much fun, so Kayla reaches over and yanks Clea's braid hard enough to uproot a few strands of hair. The girl yelps with pain, and her cry feeds the frenzy. The insults grow louder, until Kayla is shouting obscenities three inches from Clea's face. I've got it all on tape. It's among the most disturbing footage I've ever recorded.

• • •

STEP TWO is the calling card. Ordinarily I'd wait a few days and try to get a bit more on tape. But I'm not sure Clea can hold out that long. She said in the e-mail she's scared for her safety, and everything I've witnessed tells me she should be. When bullies begin to get physical, the situation will often escalate quickly. It's up to me to put an end to it. No one else will. The bus driver has been watching the whole scene in his
rearview mirror. He could have stopped the bus and forced Kayla and her friends to get off and walk. But he won't get involved. They never do. I'm sure this guy has a perfectly good reason for staying on the sidelines. I wish I could tell him where to shove his perfectly good reason.

Clea lives on One Hundred and Twenty-Seventh. We must be nearing her stop. I have enough footage to work with, so I slip my phone into my backpack and pull out my cards. I purchase blank business cards from Staples and stamp them with the NEMESIS logo—a single, unblinking eye. I used to add the name of my website as well. But I've been doing this for two years now, and every kid in New York knows the URL. Most people want their businesses to succeed, but I find it frustrating that mine has lasted so long. I used to hope that the more videos I posted, the fewer cases I'd have. In the beginning, I'd get six e-mails a month. Now I get twice that every day.

I head to the front of the bus and grab a pole just across the aisle from Kayla. I slip one card into her handbag and another into a backpack that belongs to the girl standing beside her. The bus stops and Clea pushes past her captors and hurls herself toward the exit. As the last two bullies brush against me on their way out the door, I deliver a card to each of them. Then I watch from the window as the four beasts stalk their victim. I silently pray for Clea's safety, but I won't intervene. My work demands anonymity. I can't risk blowing my cover for one kid when there are thousands more to be saved.