Transformation

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Transformation

Hope of escaping the stifling heat of our first Virginia summer sent my brother and me deep into a pine forest just across the street from our new home. Hidden in the interior we found a creek inhabited by frogs, snakes, freshwater eels, and crawdads. Following the languidly moving water along the stream bed for a quarter of a mile, we arrived at a miniature canyon. Flowing into the narrow mouth of the canyon caused the water to move faster. Tumbling and splashing it filled shallow hollows in the rocks along the sides of the shallow canyon. Trapped in these pools, the water transformed from frenetic to calm in the blink of an eye as though under a magic spell. A rusted saw blade half-buried in silt sent the water leaping into the air as though it were alive and excited about the journey it was on. As we explored, a cloud burst let go a torrent of warm summer rain. While my brother scurried for cover, I became entranced with catching the raindrops dripping from my eyelashes with my tongue. The short-lived storm passed quickly and we got back to exploring.

Catching bugs, we placed them on leaves and set them into the swiftest part of the current: a race to determine whose boat would move the fastest. We ran laughing and shouting beside the water's edge as our captained vessels bobbed and bounced on the current, giving each other an occasional unexpected shove hoping to knock our opponent off balance, forcing them to into the deeper water: knowing soaked shoes guaranteed a scolding and extra chores. If a bug captain was flung off its vessel or sank in one of the miniature whirlpools, we'd holler “Man overboard,” at the top of our lungs, experiencing an incredible feeling of freedom because there were no ears to hear us and no one to say "don't shout!"

It was at the creek I learned the important truths: nothing stays the same and nothing is as it appears to be. Tadpoles metamorphose into frogs and caterpillars spin silvery shrouds about themselves, to emerge as emerald and azure creatures who scorn the earth where they had once crawled, to make alliances with the air. Winged jewels with long, curled antenna, they would land on me and I would feel special until I remembered them in their original form: the caterpillars I thought ugly and had no desire to touch. I do not know exactly when I learned their transformation changed, not just them, but also me. The truths I was discovering in a world seen, excited me, but also felt somehow threatening.

One event in a single day can change everything in life. For me that day contained an act so cruel it destroyed my sense of safety and separated me from the closeness I had shared with my brother. The day started no differently than any of our previous visits to the creek with one exception: Colton came along. Colton was my brother's newest friend who was four years older than my brother and a year older than me. I knew my mother would not have approve of his going with us had she known and said so to my brother, but gave in when he offered me a dollar if I didn't tell. Colton wanted to hunt snakes, so we walked in the creek turning over rocks where they might hide. Colton was the first to spot the remains of the broken beer bottles and whispered something in my brother's ear. Then both began to pick up the pieces of the shattered bottles. I had no desire to handle broken glass but I was curious about what they were doing and why. After laying all of the glass they collected in a small pile, Colton dug a large hole at the edge of the creek. When he finished, he and my brother placed all of the pieces of glass in the bottom. Stepping closer I could see the shards were positioned upright. Colton and my brother turned and walked away from me without a word. Startled at this turn of events, I considered heading home, but curiosity won out and so I waited. My brother, holding a big, green frog, was the first to return. Before I could ask him any questions, Colton arrived. With no discussion they placed the frog in the pit, its soft underbelly resting on the razor-like pieces of glass. My brother held the amphibian in place as Colton picked up a stone twice its size and placed it on the frog's back. The world stopped as the very air was saturated with the frog's pain. As I stared at my brother it felt as though I were looking through waves of intense heat reflecting from a sun-baked roof and as I continued to stare, my sometimes funny, sometimes pesky brother became revealed as a hideous creature.

That night I lay in bed unable to sleep, afraid my failure to stop what I witnessed somehow made me a part of their cruelty. At ten years of age I experienced what biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham would write about nearly 40 years later: that the human male was inherently violent by evolutionary legacy, and in my mind I set myself apart, making all men different and so never to be trusted. Twenty five years later I would run into a classmate from Virginia and learn that Colton took his father's automatic sidearm to his graduation ceremony, where he shot and killed five classmates before turning the gun on himself.