Hey Zuce

I was the school’s devout Christian. Everybody knew it, but I never missed an opportunity to remind them. I set goals almost daily to do something outwardly Christian to show everybody just how strong my faith was. Oh, I was humble about it, at least outwardly, but on the inside I was proud. When it came down to it all my "good deeds" were self-centered. They fed my ego. That all changed the second semester of my senior year at Oakside High School when I had the privilege to befriend the most incredible kid I have ever known.

It was the first day of the new semester and my PE teacher Mrs. Thorton had a special announcement. A new kid would be joining our class. It’s important to understand the Oakside senior class was a mere 40 odd students strong so a new student was actually a big deal. Immediately there were excited whispers among the students. "Is he cute? . . . I bet it’s not a he it’s probably a she, and compared to the rest of the girls at this school she must be hot! . . . No, it’s going to be a he and he will be a football all-star that will finally end our loosing streak." Mass disappointment overcame the crowd as the teacher continued the new kid’s introduction. His name was Christopher Zuce. He was a "special" student. He had Down’s Syndrome, and we were all going to treat him with "the utmost of respect that every human being deserves." Then we finally got to see him. He was particularly chubby, to put it nicely, and his face was deformed in such a way that gave him a permanent scowl. With his first words "H-helloo Ca-lass" it was obvious that his speech was stuttered and slurred.

I knew right off the bat that most people were going to do their best to ignore him. With an obvious exception in the case of Luke Idifer and his clonies (I liked to call them that because they were always trying to make themselves the best clone of Luke they could be). They were going to have some fun with the retarded kid. I couldn’t have been happier. I hadn’t done anything publicly Christian for at least a week, being busy with finals and all, and Chris was the perfect subject. I was going to befriend this pitiful "child of God" that nobody else would have anything to do with. I was going to sacrifice my precious time to get to know him, make him feel welcome, and express God’s equal love for all people, even different people. Certainly, implying that I had the same love. I did not yet know anything of sacrifice and love.

I was on a roll. Chris really seemed to enjoy the opportunity to socialize with somebody who actually seemed interested in him. By the end of the hour I had introduced myself, learned such things as where he used to live and what his old school was like, and explained to him the meaning of my WWJD bracelet. To my utter delight Chris actually seemed interested in this Jesus guy. The next day I brought him the entire New Testament and told him to read the first four books: Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John, to find out more about Jesus. I even invited him to church. I couldn’t believe how well this was going.

The next day Chris came back spewing about what he had read last night (which was only about the first three chapters) and how much he looked forward to church. It was amazing how, despite that ugly scowl, I could actually tell he was excited. It was later that day after school that Chris had his first run in with Luke. We were walking out the side door and Luke was standing in a circle of his clonies. From 50 meters away I caught Luke’s sinister smirk. More than anything else, I hated that smirk.

"Hey Zuce! You’re the new kid, right? I don’t think we’ve met yet, come on over here, I have something to welcome you to our school." Luke’s voice was impressively kind. He would have fooled anybody who didn’t know better.

"Yeah! It’s Eeegg-selent! *snicker* Your going to love it! No Yolk!" cracked one of Luke’s clonies, apparently pleased with himself.

I was right there, I could have stopped him, but I thought I’d wait for a more dramatic rescue. We were on school grounds; Luke wasn’t going to anything too outrageous. Chris hurried over to Luke and his clonies to claim his prize. I can’t imagine it was what he expected. He got a slightly cracked egg down his pants that broke open with the wedgie. Chris’s face turned beet red, his scowl became even more defined, and he started spitting undeterminable threats. This didn’t do anything but make the gang laugh at and mock him. Which made Chris’s face redder, scowl uglier, spit more frequent and threats more muttered. Then he raised his fist to punch at the nearest clonie. That’s when I finally stepped in.

"Whoa! Chris! Catch your breath! These kids aren’t worth wasting your energy. Remember what I told you about WWJD? What would Jesus do? Well Jesus would walk away from this, that’s what Jesus would do…...Here I want you to have this."

I handed him my WWJD bracelet. He reached for it and looked up at me apologetically. Apologetically! It had only been three days and already he had that much trust in me. It was too good to be true!

This was our relationship for about the next 5-6 weeks. I spent PE pretending I was interested in him when in reality I was only interested in looking like I was interested in him. I was smart enough to actually listen as to not get in trouble for not knowing something I should have. I learned that he was very poor and that, for some reason that he obviously didn’t understand, he didn’t qualify for any kind of financial aid. "Special money for the people who need it most" he called it. All he knew was that his mother cried about it sometimes. He didn’t have a father. Now, I wasn’t heartless. I honestly did start to feel sorry for him. Pretending to be interested turned into actually being interested. He was still a tool to enhance my ego, but he also became somebody I truthfully considered my friend. As well as somebody I looked out for. I stopped waiting for "a more dramatic rescue." I stressed the WWJD thing over that time period. It really seemed to stick with him. I look back now and can that see the way he took to it really was remarkable. If I didn’t think so highly of my own walk in faith I could have actually learned some things from him.

On Friday March 5th, 2003 everything changed. It was almost 7:00 when the phone rang. I know because prime time was just about to start, and I was getting ready to relax after a particularly busy day. It was Chris. He had left his bible in his locker on accident and didn’t want to go the entire weekend without it. His mom was at work and he needed me to pick him up and take him to school. I was slightly irritated, but I decided to pick him up anyway. When we got to the school I stayed outside as he ran in to get his bible. I didn’t feel like moving so I sat on the bench just outside the doors. I waited there for an exceptionally long time. It was particularly cold, and I didn’t have a jacket. The freezing air stabbed at my skin like a million needles penetrating through to the center of my bones. I was just getting up to wait in the warmth of my car when I heard the piercing cry.

I rushed into the school to investigate. The main hallway was black. Other than a light at the front door, the only light in the school was at the other end of the hallway where it peaked out of the girl’s bathroom. Just then Luke and 4 of his clonies sprinted out of the bathroom. So that’s where the scream came from…immature perverts I thought to myself. They disappeared into the darkness momentarily until emerging into the light at my end of the hall. They didn’t seem to notice me as they brushed past. One even collided into my shoulder; his sweat drenched shirt whipped against my arm. Their faces were as white as this paper. I turned around to watch them race out the door. The entryway light must have caught it just right because it was the quick flash that drew my eyes to the knife. I saw blood. Oh God I thought what just happened here? I took off towards the bathroom, brain spinning. Our school is not big, and the full length of that hallway couldn’t have been more than 50 meters long, but that run through the shadow seemed like an eternity. A sharp chill ran down my spine. At that moment I was colder than I ever had been outside. Hysterical, heaving sobs began to echo into the empty hall. The wailing of a ghost! Then a thunderous pounding resounded in my ears. It’s chasing me! Slowly I realized that the cries were coming from the bathroom and the pounding was my heart.

Finally, I emerged into the light. At my feet a trail of blood droplets led into the bathroom. I followed in to find Rachel, Luke’s girlfriend. There she sat against the wall hugging her knees, her clothes rustled and cheeks tear-stained…not a drop of blood on her. The trail of blood went right passed her, the droplets closer and closer to each other till they formed a solid, dark-red line leading to the shadowy corner beneath the sink. Curled up as to stay completely hidden in the shadow laid Chris, a pool of blood amassing beneath his gut. I fell onto my knees before him landing in the thick, sticky blood. The sink above him dripped loudly, each splash counting down the seconds he had left to live. I knelt there blankly listening to the dripping. The interval between each drop seemed to take progressively longer. The only thing that mattered to me at that moment was that the dripping did not stop.

"He-he stabbed him!" broke Rachel hysterically, "He came in and his buddies grabbed me and he started to…started to…I screamed…as loud as I could….and then he came in (she pointed to Chris) and screamed something and tried to throw them off and then they all turned on him and started pushing him down and he kept getting up and muttering WWJD or something again and again and then he screamed ‘Hey Zuce!’ and…and…and then he stabbed him!"

It was as if I awoke from a dream. I was sweating now; hot and clammy like the dream I just awoke from was of much tossing and turning under a heavy blanket. Fiery Rage welled up inside me. Chris was a thousand times the man Luke was! How dare he do such a thing! He will pay! Then horror overcame me. Was Chris dead? He couldn’t be! No way! He’s so young! It can’t be his time yet!

There was a loud yelp behind me. Mrs. Thorton rushed in front of me, kneeling in front of Chris. You can’t have him Angel of Death I screamed loudly inside my head. Then she was gone. The next thing I remember is the blaring sirens repeating incessantly in sync with the flashing lights as Chris was carried off into the ambulance on a stretcher.

It was past noon when I woke up the next day. When I finally gathered myself and remembered what had happened the night before I got dressed and left for the hospital. His mother was already there. She wasn’t crying, but by the dried tears you could tell that she had been. When she saw me she thanked me for being the only "true" friend her son ever had and then burst into tears. I cried too. She was wrong. I was no "true" friend, and it stung. We both sat there and cried until the nurse came out and told us that we could see him, but he wasn’t conscience. His mom knelt down beside him and clenched his hand. I just stood there staring. Many people showed up with cards or flowers. Rachel was one of them. Besides Chris’s mom and me she stayed the longest. The nurse made us leave around 6:00. She said she’d call us as soon as he was conscience and stable enough to have guests.

Sunday morning I woke up, set the cordless phone next to my chair, turned on the television, and blankly stared at the TV screen the entire day waiting for a phone call. Nothing happened. Monday, as soon as school was over, I rushed home to check the voice mail. There was one message. It was from Ms. Zuce. She sounded upset. After uncovering something in her records the hospital had declined any more financial aid after Friday the 12th. She wouldn’t tell me what it was they found, and I never did find out. Anyway, she didn’t know why she was worried. She had a very strong case to sue Luke or his family for the money to pay for the medical expenses.

About an hour later I finally got a call from the hospital. I lived closer to the hospital than Ms. Zuce did so I arrived there first. When she arrived we went into the room to see Chris. He was awake. After a while we eventually got around to the topic of suing Luke. To both our surprise Chris was dead set against it.

"No! WWJD! Remember? What would Jesus do? Jesus forgave me for my baddest sins, and you said to do what Jesus would do. I want to forgive Luke like Jesus forgave me. Please don’t sue him. Please. WWJD."

To my astonishment Ms. Zuce actually agreed to Chris’s wishes. I guess she understood exactly how much Chris wanted it to be that way and decided to grant him his wish. I think she still had hope that she would be able to raise money somehow.

Life slowed to a crawl the next few days. By Thursday Ms. Zuce had received a sizable collection but it wasn’t yet enough. After Friday they were going to cut all medical assistance that wasn’t paid for. She was becoming desperate and reconsidering her decision not to sue. I didn’t blame her. Amazingly she still decided to hold true to her promise to Chris to not sue though it was obvious it tore at her. It was probably the hardest decision she ever stuck to. I think it had something to do with the way Chris said "please." It seemed to say, "this is the one thing I want most, to show Luke the mercy of Jesus Christ. You can’t take this away from me. If it means I die than I die. It would be torture to allow me to live if you had to sue."

Friday seemed slower then all the days of the past week rolled into one. It was Chris’s last day of paid medical assistance and we didn’t know what we were going to do. To make things worse towards the end of the day I heard rumors that Luke, who, by the way, had been expelled from school, personally received a percentage of his grandmother’s small fortune in her will after she died just recently. It would be more than enough to pay for Chris’s medical treatment. Just the thought of the possibility of this being true infuriated me so much that I stormed out of the school, skipping my last period class to find out if this was true.

I sped over to Luke’s house. When I got there I stumbled up to his front door and than pounded on it as hard as I could until he opened it. As soon as it was cracked open I forced my body through the door to get inside. I had been building up pressure ever since I heard the rumor…and then I exploded.

"IS IT TRUE!"

He had an unnervingly sinister smirk spread across his face.

"Is what true?"

"THE MONEY! YOU HAVE THE MONEY DON"T YOU!"

"Money?"

"HE COULD HAVE SUED YOU FOR TEN TIMES THE MONEY IT’LL TAKE TO PAY FOR HIS LIFE SUPPORT!"

"But he didn’t, is that my fault?"

"YOU PUT HIM IN THE HOSPITAL. YOU OWE HIM THIS MUCH!"

"I don’t owe him anything."

Then I punched him in the face, blood spilled out of his nose. I couldn’t stand that smirk any longer. It may not have been the right thing to do. It sure wasn’t what Jesus would have done, but it felt good. For the moment at least. Luke put his hand up to wipe the blood. As hard as he tried to look "disappointed," he couldn’t hide his smirk.

"Some Christian you are. You should really learn to control that temper. Aren’t you guys supposed to be non-violent?"

Then I was reminded of everything Chris had done to show Luke Jesus' love and forgiveness. I just blew it. Out of desperation I cried one last attempt to at least get the money to save Chris’s life.

"YOU REALIZE HE NEEDS THAT MONEY TO LIVE! IF HE DIES THEN ITS MURDER AND IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW MUCH HE INSISTED ON NOT SUEING YOU!"

"I’m still a minor and I never intended to kill him. I’ll take my chances. Besides he’s just a retard anyway."

Rage built back up inside me. I stormed out before I did anything else I’d regret.

Chris died the next day. A nurse snuck into his room to give him some medicine despite the established rule that Chris wasn’t going to get anymore. The nurse didn’t realize that Chris was severely allergic to the medicine she gave him. He had a violent allergic reaction and was pronounced dead two hours later. The nurse took all the blame for Chris’s death, and Luke completely and undeservedly avoided any consequences.

Never again have I looked at Jesus’ sacrifice the same way I had before I met Chris. Jesus had always been just a character in the Bible who "made the ultimate sacrifice to save us from our sins even though we didn’t deserve it because he loved us so." The thing is he was God incarnated and lived 2000 years ago. There was nothing to relate to. But Chris’s sacrifice was real to me. I could now fully appreciate the love it took to completely forgive somebody who doesn’t deserve it at his own expense. I have long since stopped being mad at Luke. How could I? He’s a subject of unmerited grace just like me. All I have left for him is pity because the grace he received wasn’t eternal.