I generally try and keep peoples names out of my blog in case they
would rather not be implicated in my crimes against good sense. This
post is an exception because the girl is quite public and nationally
known for what happened to her. When we were divided up into our
groups they just did it in more or less a round robin fashion and
each student got placed randomly-ish. By that random grouping I was
placed with the sister of the girl I met at another camp across the
state and with a young lady named Yvette Rodier. She was beautiful,
smart and cool which made her the focus of lots of proto-masculine
showing off and wooing. Liberated by the knowledge that my new
girlfriend's sister was with us at every moment I was spared the
obligatory flirting that I was generally compelled to do by my
chemically sodden teenage brain. I was then free just to hang out
with and be friends with the rest of the girls there and that was
nice to have girls that were truly my friends that were not being
classed as family, friend-pre-conquest, friend-too-ugly, or - God
forbid – post-conquest-bridge-burned. After I hit puberty I think
those were the only categories that I had for women. I know it is
shallow and sad but if you have never been a teenage boy trying to
navigate the treacherous internal world foisted upon you by hormones
then pump your judgmental breaks. The kids in our group got to be
pretty good friends and spent free time as well as structured time
together. I will tell you a little more about some of our experiences
in prison and whatnot in the next post but what is important to know
here is that we were good friends and then camp ended and we went our
separate ways promising to always be friends and too always keep in
touch in the sincere and fervent manner of summer campers the world
over. As per the same tradition we didn't stay in touch. I saw her
one more time at a debate tournament and then I finished me senior
year, graduated, went to college and was coming home from classes
walking through the living room where my roommates had the news on
and heard her name out of the corner of my ear-balls and I stopped
and asked why she was on the news. They said her boyfriend and her
had been up at a lake and an escaped convict came up to them randomly
and shot her boyfriend to death and had shot her many times but she
was still alive. I was terrified for her, sick and sad. In those days
it was so hard to get additional information on a story and the
papers were not coming out with more info until the next day. I went
to my room and cried a little and prayed fervently that she would be
okay. I was too nervous to sleep very well but there was literally
nothing I could do to help so I walked around the streets until the
police told me to go hole about 2 in the morning. My girlfriend at
the time was in my first class in the morning and as we were going to
class I told her that a friend of mine was shot several times and was
in the hospital but I didn't know if she was going to be okay. She
waited for what she thought was enough time to be respectful of the
gravely injured woman to ask me if I had been dating her or if I had
a thing for her because I seemed more upset then I should be. I told
her to go to hell and left class and went home to sleep. Yvette lived
and now is a lawyer and victims rights advocate and I have never seen
her in person since.
