Give a Boy a Gun Read Online Free PDF Page A

business. You see this guy, and he just sneers at you and says, “Hey, faggot.” Thingis, to him it’s nothing. Two seconds later he’s probably forgotten he even said it. But it’s burned in your brain. It’s a permanent scar. A week later you’re still asking yourself, why’d he have to do that? Why’d he have to pick you? Does everyone think you’re a faggot? Maybe you are a faggot and you don’t even know it.
    It’s like torture. You know “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me”? It’s a load of crap. A stick stops hurting after a few minutes. Names last a long time.
    â€”Ryan Clancy
    I was talking with Brendan in the hall, and Sam Flach came by and gave him just the slightest nudge. The sort of harmless thing that must happen a thousand times a day in a crowded school like ours. At first I thoughtBrendan overreacted. Making a fist, muttering under his breath. I stupidly said, “Oh, come on, Brendan, it wasn’t that bad, just a little push.” Brendan looked back at me with such hurt in his eyes. He said, “No, Ms. Bender, its not ‘just’ a little push, not when it happens every day.” Even then I didn’t take it that seriously. But now I think I understand. What if it really was constant, unrelenting torment? A little bit of salt doesn’t bother your skin. But that same small amount in an open wound can really, really sting.
    â€” Beth Bender

    â€œI went to three [high schools], and in none of [them] did I for a moment feel safe. High school was terrifying, and it was the casual cruelty of the popular kids that made it hell.”
    â€”a posting on the Internet

    It wasn’t just in the halls. It was everywhere. Once, in gym, we were out in the field a couple of days after a big rain. The grass had pretty much dried, but there were still a few puddles. Next thing I know, [Sam] Flach and [Paul] Burns push me down. Each one grabs a leg, and they drag me through a couple of muddy puddles. I’m drenched with grimy water and smeared with mud, and Bosco comes over, and I swear he’s having areally hard time not grinning. He tells Flach and Burns to let go and tells me to go clean up. And that was it. I mean, it was almost like he was giving those guys a license to do it again anytime they liked.
    â€”Ryan Clancy
    Everyone thinks about suicide when they’re a teenager. At least, almost everyone I know. It’s just, like, something really crappy happens and you’re in this horrible pain, and what’s the point? Gary loved that old Queen song, the one they sang in the car in Wayne’s World . You know, where the singer says he shot someone in the head and his life is ruined, but nothing really matters anyway. I mean, don’t take this the wrong way and think you’ve made some big discovery. He didn’t do what he did because of some stupid song.
    â€”Allison Findley
    Lots of kids’ll say they want to kill themselves at one point or another, but Gary would reallygo into detail about it. I remember he once got into this whole thing about hanging himself from the flagpole in front of the school. So you’d get to school the next morning, and instead of the flag, there’d be Gary. The thing of it was he couldn’t figure out how to do it. Like, how would he get up there? He thought maybe a really long extension ladder would do the trick. I figured it was just typical Gary stuff, but a couple of days later we were leaving school, and he actually took off his backpack and tried to shimmy up the flagpole. Of course he couldn’t. But it really hit me: Two days later and he’s still thinking about it.
    â€”Ryan Clancy

    The presence of a gun in the home increases the risk of suicide fivefold.

    I can’t begin to count how many times on a Saturday around noon I’d knock on Gary’s door and find him still in bed, wide awake, simply