Fear and Shock Shadow Father and Son

JONESBORO, Ark. —  Larry Russell told his 11-year-old son, Cody, to be brave, to be a big boy. But it was a tough sell for the father, considering his own sunken eyes and trembling voice.

“He’s doing a lot better than I am,” Larry admitted, reaching out and giving Cody a good hard squeeze, as if he didn’t dare let the boy get out of embracing range for more than a split second.

Along with this whole scared-to-death town, Larry and Cody learned Tuesday that a split second is all it takes for everything you love most in the world to vanish.

When classes resumed Thursday morning at Westside Middle School--not 48 hours after a mass shooting that left five dead and 10 wounded--Cody and his father were among the limited number of parents and students who chose to fight past the media, past the fear, past the white ribbons fluttering furiously in the stiff breeze, and go up that long school walkway, past the sign that reads “Westside Warriors.”

There was talk at first that Westside might be closed all week. But grief counselors urged school officials to open the doors and let things get back to normal, as if “normal” weren’t another casualty of the sniper fire aimed at the campus. And two students, ages 11 and 13, are accused of being the shooters.

For Larry and Cody Russell, the first day back was even more abnormal, and doubly difficult, because their brick house is directly behind the school. “People are saying, ‘How could this happen in my backyard?’ ” said Larry. “But I say, dadgum it, this was my backyard. My property abuts the school property.”

Besides their physical proximity to the tragedy, Larry and Cody also were emotionally closer to it than most. Cody had known the four slain girls since kindergarten, and one of the suspects attended Cody’s recent birthday party.

Above all, 32-year-old Shannon Wright, who died saving a child’s life, was Cody’s homeroom teacher, and her loss hit the boy in a way he doesn’t yet have the vocabulary to describe.

“It was kind of spooky,” he said of returning to Wright’s room, “not having her there.”

“She was so full of life when we went up there and met her in the fall,” Larry said. “So excited to be starting a new school year. When we walked in the door, she put her arms around Cody and said, ‘We’re going to have so much fun this year!’ ”

Few of Wright’s students were the same on the first day back to school, Cody reported. To help them sort through complicated emotions, counselors curtailed classwork, canceled recess and instead had students make careful charts, rating their anger, sadness, fear and confusion on scales of 1 to 10.

After classes let out, Larry and Cody walked home, down the dirt road that connects Westside and their house. They stood outside for a time and talked about the strange day, Cody showing his emotion chart to his father, explaining what the numbers mean.

“So 1 means not a lot?” Larry asked, frowning. “And 10 is a whole lot?” Cody nodded.

“And you put down a 5 for ‘anger?’ ” Larry asked, folding and unfolding the paper chart with fingers blackened from his job detailing cars.

Again, Cody nodded.

“And under ‘sad,’ you put a 10?”

“That means I’m real sad,” Cody said.

Sad is the town’s collective state of mind. Almost every church marquee and store sign bears a somber prayer or lament. Light poles, oaks and car antennas sport white ribbons, symbols of solidarity with victims and survivors.

When a windstorm blew into northeast Arkansas late Thursday, it made the ribbons all tremble, like the unsteady parents who insisted on personally escorting their children back to Westside, leaving most yellow school buses rolling to and from the school eerily empty.

School officials wouldn’t say exactly how many students attended classes, but many were obviously kept home by parents still recovering from the same nightmare that Larry endured--the frantic midday phone call from someone sputtering something about a shooting up at the school.

“I thought one child had shot another child,” Larry said. “Then I ran up there and saw all these kids shot, laying around everywhere. I was running around looking at all their faces, the poor little kids--I’m just glad my son didn’t have to see that sight, because I’m having a real problem with it.”

By the time Larry arrived, Cody was safe in the gym, on the other side of the building from where the shooting took place. But Larry didn’t know that, and no one could tell him.

“Where’s Cody?” he asked everyone, breathless. “Where is my boy!”

If they answered, he couldn’t hear. In fact, he couldn’t hear the screams, the ambulance sirens or the anguished wails of parents getting the worst news of all. It was as if he was moving underwater, and the only sound he heard was the thump of his own heart.

Finally, some children saw him and began pointing.

“He’s over there,” they said. “Cody’s in the gym.”

“My heart fell out of my chest,” Larry said. “I seen he was OK, and I just grabbed him and hugged him. He was in shock, and he began throwing up. He told me, the first words out of his mouth was, ‘Dad, Natalie Brooks is dead.’ ”

Also killed were Stephanie Johnson, 12, Paige Ann Herring, 12, and Britthney Varner, 11, classmates of Cody’s since his first-ever day of school.

“Poor little ol’ Paige Herring,” Larry said. “I knew her father since back before I was married. I feel so bad for him. But that little Natalie Brooks. I can’t get her face out of my mind. I just can’t get rid of her.”

So vivid is Natalie in Larry’s thoughts--her guileless smile, her bright eyes--that he hasn’t slept since her death. No one in the Russell house has. Cody and his 7-year-old brother become frightened the minute darkness falls, so the whole family usually huddles in one big bed together.

Equally sad for them is the thought of 11-year-old Andrew Golden and 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson, who are accused of donning camouflage outfits and firing 27 times from a wooded area off the school grounds.

(In the interest of privacy, The Times normally does not name minors suspected of a crime. But in the Jonesboro case, some family members and many witnesses have identified the minors publicly, resulting in widespread dissemination of their names.)

Unlike the five lives that have been cut short, said the Russells and many other residents, the two boys’ lives, and the lives of their parents, will now drag on interminably, ruined by the tragedy.

Scott Johnson, father of Mitchell, told reporters outside the school Thursday that his son was “remorseful” and that the boy is not a “monster.” Grandparents of the younger Golden, however, told TV reporters that their grandson was bullied by the older boy into participating in the shooting.

“I don’t know what came over him,” Larry said of the 11-year-old Golden, who was in the Russell household not long ago, eating birthday cake, playing games. “He came from good parents. They’re not drinkers. They’re not dope users. They’re Christian people, that’s what haunts me.”

What haunts him most, however, what haunts him so much that he mentions it last of all and in a halting whisper, is how helpless he felt when he came upon the ghastly scene at Westside. A well-built man, with burly arms and a broad set of laborer’s shoulders, Larry is not accustomed to feeling frail.

“I was helpless,” he said, ashamed. “I couldn’t do nothing. I was in shock.”

And still is, judging from the dazed way he gazes at his son.

Larry wasn’t going to send Cody back to school. Maybe ever. But the other night, he and his wife attended a grief counseling session in the gym. Listening to one counselor talk, he felt as if his life depended on vaulting past the fear.

Throughout Thursday morning, Larry had appointments around town, which he managed to keep. But he couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t help watching the clock and wondering how Cody was.

Finally, it was past noon, time to go to school and show Cody that everything was OK, that his father was there, that they were going to be fine.

“Dad,” Cody pleaded, “if we could just turn back time, we could stop this from happening.”

“I know,” Larry said, groping for words to explain the irrevocability of time and the concrete quality of consequences. “But we can’t. We would if we could, but we can’t.”

Larry has thought about moving his family far away and never looking back.

“At times I feel like crawling into a corner and bawling. At other times, I feel angry and want to take it out on somebody.”

But that’s letting evil win out, and what kind of example is that to set for a son who looks to you for lessons in bravery?

So the Russells will stay, trying with the rest of this deeply religious community to stare down the demons unleashed this week. And Larry will try to monitor his son’s heart, as it’s revealed on his chart, which isn’t all that complicated but seemed almost too sad Thursday for a father to comprehend.

“So then,” Larry said, unfolding the chart again, “this 4 here under ‘scared’ means that you’re not all that scared?”

“But this 2 under ‘happy’--that’s real low.”

“Well,” Larry said, his voice as strong as it had been all day, “we need to get that number higher.”