It’s funny how dramatic an impact five little words can have. “I love you so much” is a gem, but not exactly what I was thinking of. “It’s time to grow up” isn’t quite so sweet. “Get out of my life” is bitter indeed, but I am referring to the five words that single handedly killed my cousin. The pronouns like acid, the verbs like daggers. I am thinking of the phrase, “We can’t hold him here.”
Max was the child of my Aunt Dana and my Uncle Chris. He had a black stud through his bottom lip and auburn hair that frequently covered the majority of his face, but it wasn’t always like that. I like to remember him from when we were young. He had fiery red hair and a cheeky, smiling face speckled with freckles. Once, I pleaded for him to tell me what the “C” word was. And despite how funny it would be to see a four-year-old running around, referring to people as female genetalia, he didn’t. I remember how he held my head above the water in the pool when I couldn’t swim. I remember eating Bomb Pops under the abusive Jacksonville sun. And though I’m nearly grown now, sometimes I gaze down, almost surprised to see that the sweet mixture of red and blue sugar-water of my yesteryears no longer streaks across my forearm. But it isn’t here anymore, not that I can see, and neither is Max.
Max was a seemingly normal kid, perhaps a little tough on his younger siblings, but never displayed any behavior that seemed truly troubled. Adolescence, however, is a time of drastic change for any human being, and Max was no exception.
Puberty was his bitter catalyst. His behavior became more and more unpredictable. One day, catastrophe reared its ugly head, manifested as a shoving match with another seventh-grade boy on the school bus. Max punched the boy in the face. Little did he know, this crisp uppercut was destined to change his life forever. The parents pressed criminal charges against little Max, and he was plucked like a weed from his affluent, suburban school and transferred somewhere a little like prison, a little like school, and a little like Hell. This was the “jail school,” the school where juvenile delinquents and other undesirables of the Florida public school system came to marinate in their rage.
This “school” is somewhere like the place where Kiera Wilmot, a 16-year-old girl who built a science experiment and was instead charged with discharging weapons on school grounds, could have been sent. Here, Max met his new friends: the kid with schizophrenia who went on to kill himself, the kid who went on to bash his grandmother’s brains in with a guitar and take all of her money. That single punch was an EZ-Pass on a highway to self-destruction. Of course this wasn’t the only thing that contributed to Max’s downfall, but it certainly didn’t help.
By the time Max left this “alternative” school, his behavior had not improved. Diagnosed as bipolar, he was sent to a private therapeutic school where he would be able to address his behavioral problems while still receiving some sort of high school education. After receiving treatment for a year, Max came home to spend time with his family. He truly seemed better, but deep-seeded demons are by no means easily eradicated. Max stopped taking his medication. His problem was essentially that he felt too much, but the medication didn’t allow him to feel anything.
Dana and Chris did everything in their power to help, but Max was made of uranium, and every day was like waiting for the implosion. One day, in the living room, he sliced his arms open in front of his mother just to show her he was serious about his suicidal thoughts. I can only imagine the haunting trauma of watching your baby bleed out on the sofa. Max’s physical self survived that day, but not Max.
After all yelling and crying, Dana decided that Max needed to be admitted to the hospital. Upon pleading with the hospital to admit him involuntarily, they turned him away, deeming him neither a danger to himself nor others. “We can’t hold him here,” they said. It’s absolutely ludicrous to me that a bipolar who was clearly unstable and had recently tried to kill himself wouldn’t concern the hospital. But it didn’t, and the very next day, he drove home and hanged himself in the garage.
I promise there’s a point to all of this. I wrote this story not as a means of assigning blame to various parties, but as a plea for those parties involved to change their ways. Because no seventh grader should be whisked away from everything he knows and put in jail for roughhousing. Because no suicidal kid should be turned down at a hospital not for lack of reason, but lack of interest. Obviously, Max’s condition was his own cross to bear. This horrible story ends at the hospital, with a sterilized door slammed in Max and Dana’s faces. But, to some extent, it begins on the school bus.
Were it not for zero-tolerance policy in Florida public schools, Max could have, perhaps, received the treatment he needed and deserved. Zero-tolerance policies were largely put in place after the Columbine shooting of 1999, revamping school disciplinary policy across the nation with much more stringent rules. By taking such a strong stance on the issue of school security, schools hope to eradicate violence and drug abuse from their campuses. But by doing this, they condemn kids to a life of desperation who would have otherwise had a chance.
Frequently, kids who commit minor offenses are dealt with harshly. Recently, in Max‘s very home state of Florida, Kiera Wilmot was arrested for creating an explosion on school grounds. She faced potential criminal charges for mixing toilet cleaner and tin foil in a plastic bottle to observe the chemical reaction. The fact that an Honor Roll student could be put behind bars for a science experiment is scary; it represents a darker side of the Sunshine State.
Wilmot will not face charges, but not all are so lucky. Another student from Florida was suspended from his school because of an “incident” involving a gun. In this “incident”, however, the student who was suspended heroically wrestled a loaded firearm away from his classmate. Obviously, not judging these children on an individual scale is hurting them more than helping.
The moment we stop viewing students as individuals and start viewing them as pawns who can be plucked from wherever they are, moved around, and sacrificed for the “greater good” in our education systems is the moment we’ve failed. If these issues are not addressed with the attention and careful consideration that a life deserves, then I foresee a dark future United States schools, for tucked into Max’s tragedy lies a moral: that schools must address students on a case by case basis rather than adopting a zero-tolerance policy. Yes, it is easier to write off young offenders as future convicts, yet, when I see old photos of sweet, little Max, I can’t help but remember the complicated individual he was and mourn what could have been.