Our Guys by Bernard Lefkowitz

¶ … Guys by Lefkowitz

Response to Chapter 2 ("Secrets") of Our Guys by Bernard Lefkowitz

The most accurate way I can describe my response to Chapter 2, "Secrets," within the book Our Guys by Bernard Lefkowitz (1997), is that, first, it gave me the willies to visualize, and imagine the primitive cruelties that privileged, supposedly civilized teenagers are capable of, and, second, that it gave me a sense of outrage.

Chapter 2 starts off with the demographics and residential history of Glen Ridge, an ironic setting for the crimes committed against Leslie. And that irony in fact makes the deeds all the more disgusting and appalling.

After reading about the gang rape of Leslie by this group of over-rated, malevolent, and immature high school jocks, my reaction was to feel incensed that this supposedly genteel and extremely civil community could host such crimes - but then it all made perfect sense: all too often, those raised in such a cliquish; overly-sheltered; chummy, clubby environment, where they are never held accountable for misdeeds or forced to atone for them, continue believing, on into adolescence and adulthood, that society's rules and limits simply do not apply to them.

As I read through Chapter 2, it also reminded me of the worst aspects my own school experiences, seeing other kids harassed; not wanting to join the popular groups because they seemed silly, and yet being incredibly, unceasingly, self-conscious. For many kids, but especially slow or handicapped ones like Leslie, the teen years are such a pitiless time in general, in so many ways. Throughout this chapter I kept feeling increasingly sorry for Leslie, who suffered the derision of other kids and put up with it so they might like her.

The chapter also underscored for me of how cruel and non-reflective young people, especially in peer groups, can be, unless taught otherwise. Kevin, Kyle, Chris and the others seemed never to have been held accountable for any of the destructive or illegal things they had done at school and elsewhere; so they must have believed that they would get away, similarly, with the gang rape of Leslie.

This group of teenagers reminded me a little bit of the group of boys marooned together on an island in William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies; like the boys on that island, the isolation and togetherness of the Glen Ridge high school jocks brings out the worst and most barbaric in all of them.

Glen Ridges's prized, more athletic than average but otherwise unexceptional teenage jocks, when all together in their tightly-knit peer group, want more than anything to impress each other, at any cost.

It broke my heart visualizing Leslie at the various stages of her life in Glen Ridge, at age five; at age seven; at age 11 or 12, when she was first molested by Michael Barone. This chapter also reminded me of how often that relatively privileged people, with these spoiled, overly-entitled jocks being an example, despite a veneer of outer civility, believe that rules and laws actually do not apply to them. They believe, as this group of young men did, that if they break the law they will be entitled to get away with it, since they are "special." All too often, moreover, that is exactly what happens. The main feeling that I have from reading Chapter 2, then, and from reading this whole book, is one of enormous indignation and outrage.

This case of these young men of Glen Ridge reminded me in some respects of the murder by the then-teenaged Michael Skakel (the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy's widow's nephew), of a girl in his own upper-crust New England neighborhood. After that killing Michael Skakel was protected by his wealthy family, for years, following his murder of this girl with a golf club when he was 15 years old. And the wealth and privilege of the family made it entirely possible for Michael's crime to be covered up. Only as a result of his own bragging to someone, as an adult, about how he had gotten away with murder because of his family connections, was Michael Skakel ever brought to justice for this crime. People like this are sometimes so arrogant that they feel they can even brag about committing crimes and remain scot-free, while poorer people, sometimes even those who did not commit crimes, go to prison for lack of a pricey defense in court.

This chapter made me feels angry about the sharp divisions among privileged and more ordinary citizens, when it comes to criminal justice. The successful Glen Ridge parents of these teenaged miscreants were always almost militantly determined, even long before Leslie was raped by their sons, to deny, deflect, hide, and obfuscate their children's misdeeds - at school, at the country club they nearly ruined, on the playing field, and elsewhere.