Reporters did not like where this was going. Then victim’s advocate Robin Finegan introduced the larger idea: kids felt as if their identities had been stolen. “Columbine” was the name of a tragedy now. Their school was a symbol of mass murder. They had been cast as bullies or snotty rich brats. “There comes a point where victims need to have ownership of their tragedy,” Finegan said. So far, the media owned the Columbine tragedy. That was about to change, the district said—or good luck getting your precious “Columbine returns” stories. Administrators outlined the gist of the ceremony.
“What’s the human chain for?” a reporter asked.
“To shield the students from you folk,” district spokesman Rick Kaufman said.
Most media would be excluded. A small pool would be escorted in. Reporters were incredulous. One print reporter? The White House didn’t limit its pool that tightly. Reporters for the big national papers huddled in the back of the room, discussing options to “lawyer up.”
The district wouldn’t back down, Kaufman said. In fact, the pool would come only with major concessions: no helicopters, no rooftop photographers, and no breach of school grounds. “If we can’t get agreement, then there’s no pool,” he said.
Try it, reporters threatened; it will backfire. “As long as parents understand that by saying no to everything, again it’s going to be a situation where we’re coming out of rocks and stuff in order to get sound and pictures,” a TV executive said. “And I wonder if the parents really understand, if they think they control us by just saying no, they’re really not; they’re forcing us to go in other directions.”
Kaufman said his back was to the wall. Angry parents had objected to any pool at all. “Parents and faculty, they have really hit the wall with you folks. They’re saying, ‘We’re done! Enough is enough.’”
Later that week, a compromise was reached. The pool was expanded slightly, and a “bullpen” was added within the shield, where interested students could approach cordoned-off reporters. The press agreed to all previous demands and two new ones: no kid would be approached on the way to school that morning, and no photographs of any of the injured survivors would be used. The kids finally felt a sense of victory.
Mr. D was excited about the rally. But he was also worried about the new kids. It was a principal’s thing—the incoming freshmen always commanded his thoughts this time of year. Kids would either assimilate quickly or spend four years struggling to fit in. The first two weeks were crucial.
Mr. D chose to combat the chasm by highlighting it. He met with the academic and sports teams and the student senate over the summer, and he gave every kid and every teacher the same mission: These kids will never understand you. They will never endure your pain, never bridge the gap between social classes that you did. So help them.
By and large, they went for it. Kids thought they were overwhelmed by their own struggle, but what they really needed was someone else to look out for. They had to salve a different sort of pain to comprehend how to heal their own.
Mr. D’s team brainstormed up a slew of activities to grease the transition. The wall tile project seemed like an easy one. For three years, kids had been painting four-inch ceramic tiles in art class. Five hundred had been plastered above the lockers to brighten the Columbine corridors. Fifteen hundred new tiles would be added before school resumed, representing the single most noticeable change to the interior. For one morning, kids could express their grief or hope or desires visually and abstractly, without the intervention of words that wouldn’t come.
Brian Fuselier didn’t want his parents standing in the human shield. “The more you do that, the more you make it unnatural,” he told his dad. Brian was doing OK with the trauma; he just wanted his life back, and his school back, the way it had been.
“That’s just not going to happen,” his father said.
Agent Fuselier took Monday morning off from the investigation to join the chain. Mimi stood beside him. By seven A.M. kids were streaming in with their parents. By 7:30, the shield was five hundred strong. It would grow much larger. The parents applauded each student’s arrival.
Most of the kids wore matching white T-shirts emblazoned with their rallying cry: WE ARE on the front and COLUMBINE on the back. Small contingents had opted for their own messages: YES, I BELIEVE IN GOD OR VICTORS NOT VICTIMS.
Frank DeAngelis took the microphone and a group of kids screamed, “We love you, Mr. D!”
He teared up at the welcome, then delivered a touching speech. “You may be feeling a little anxious,” he said. “But you need to know that you are not in this alone.”
The school’s American flags were raised from half-mast for the first time since April 20, symbolically ending the period of mourning. A ribbon across the entrance was cut, and Patrick Ireland led the student body in.
44. Bombs Are Hard
Eric was counting on a slow recovery. He was less concerned about killing hundreds of people on April 20 than about tormenting millions for years. His audience was the target. He wanted everyone to agonize: the student body, residents of Jeffco, the American public, the human race.
Eric amused himself with the idea of coming back as a ghost to haunt survivors. He would make noises to trigger flashbacks, and drive them all insane. Anticipation satiated Eric for months. Then it was time to act.
Senior year, just before Halloween, he began assembling his arsenal. Eric sat down in his room with a stack of fireworks, split each one down the side, and tapped the shiny black powder into a coffee can. Once he had a sufficient volume, he tipped the can and guided a fine little trickle into a carbon dioxide cartridge. He measured it out carefully, almost to the rim. Then he applied a wick, sealed it off, and set it aside. One cricket, ready for detonation. He was pleased with his work. He assembled nine more.
The pipe bombs required a lot more gunpowder, as well as a PVC pipe to house each one. Eric assembled four of those that day. The first three he designated the Alpha batch. Not bad, but he could do better. He set them aside and tried a different approach. He built just one bomb for the Beta batch. Better. Still room for improvement. That was enough for one day.
Eric drew up a chart to record his production data. He set up columns to log each batch by name, size, quantity, shrapnel content, and power load. Then he rated his work. Six of his eight batches would earn an “excellent” assessment. His worst performance was “O.K.”
The next day, Eric got right back to it, producing six more pipe bombs—the rest of the Beta batch. Later, he would create Charlie, Delta, Echo, and Foxtrot, using military lingo for all of the batches, except that soldiers use Bravo, not Beta.
Eric penned nearly a dozen new journal entries in the next two months. “I have a goal to destroy as much as possible,” he wrote, “so I must not be sidetracked by my feelings of sympathy, mercy, or any of that.”
It was a mark of Eric’s ruthlessness that he comprehended the pain and consciously fought the urge to spare it. “I will force myself to believe that everyone is just another monster from Doom,” he wrote. “I have to turn off my feelings.”