Something has been on my mind lately.  It is something I think about often but upon returning to Florida it has been weighing on me a bit.  So today’s post is not lighthearted.   It is not knitting.  Feel free to pass it by.

I spent my junior high and high school years in Brevard county.  Heard of Cocoa Beach (i.e. where Jeanie and "Master" lived in I Dream of Jeanie)?  Well, that’s Brevard county.  I lived in Cocoa…. 12 miles inland from Cocoa Beach.  Cocoa was a (is a) blue collar town that would like to be this beachside community but it just isn’t.  The further inland you go the closer to the poverty line you get. 

I lived pretty far inland.

Now…. I despise returning to Brevard county.  I get a knot in the pit of my stomach every time I return.  My school experience was just horrible.   And I never overcame many of those feelings.  Instead, I learned to deal with them.  How?  By staying out of Brevard county!!!  My school bus riding wasn’t great either, especially in junior high but by high school I could tolerate that portion of my day quite well.  And I actually formed some relationships with folks that while I wouldn’t say we were the best of friends I would say that they were my friends and I was thankful to see them each day.

In our school district there were 2 neighborhoods both the furthest inland, both full of blue collar families and kids with not a lot of positive influences in their lives.  Some of us that were raised there got out.  Others only think they got out (they moved to another neighborhood in town).  And some of us just didn’t get out.

I was one of the lucky ones.  I got out.  I don’t know of many of us who did.  I remember Nick.  He was 2 years older than me and I remember he wanted to be a writer, a journalist.  Last I heard he was working for some news agency overseas in Europe.  And there was Kevin who I joked around with on the school bus.  I ran into him about 15 years ago at a movie theatre in Orlando.  He was with a guy that was obviously a romantic relationship.

My first thought…. Kevin is gay?

My second thought…. I am an idiot.  If I think back I should’ve known that all those years ago. 

So Kevin had gotten out, was living in Orlando and living a very different life than the one he lived way back when.

These 2 neighborhoods were filled with blue collar families, lots of redneck morality and ideals, lots of alcohol and a rampant teenage pregnancy rate.  One of the 2 neighorhoods had a name, Canaveral Groves, and the other did not.  The other was simply "those dirt streets out by the kennels".  That was where I lived.  On the middle street of those "dirt streets".

These 2 neighborhoods were only a mile or 2 apart as the crow flies but to drive between these neighborhoods took forever as you had to wind your way in and out of the orange groves along poorly maintained dirt streets, going alongside the canals and the river.  So the neighborhoods were not that far apart but at the same time were very far apart.  Regardless, the school system always had us on the same school bus.  All of these kids, from the outskirts… the far outskirts…. all on the same bus. 

So on this bus were the kids from my little nameless neighborhood and there was Kevin who always made me laugh.  There was Nick the writer who always seemed to be the voice of wisdom, the one to stay above the fray.  And there was the rest of us. 

One of the rest of us was a guy named Mark.  He was quiet but not in the withdrawn kind of way.  He was shy but he would have a conversation with you.  He didn’t gossip but he would laugh along with the latest joke, tall tale or stupid thing you did.  And he was my friend.  He was just this typical, rock n roller teenager wearing the cords, t shirt and the plaid flannel shirt over this t shirt instead of a jacket.   Just the usual teenager, rock n roller uniform.

And he was my friend.  He made me laugh.   He was kind.  We weren’t real close  but I considered him a friend.  And there were very, very few people that I considered a friend at that stage of my life.

Well, I graduated.  I got out.  I swore I’d never go back.  I did have to go back occasionally but each time I swore it was the last.

And life went on.

Then something occurred here in central Florida.  It was a notorious kind of thing.  An unspeakable thing.   The type of crime that is so horrid that the victim’s name is forever sealed in your memory.  We have that kind of crime here in our history.  The victim was an 11 year old boy.  He lived in Canaveral Groves.

When that crime occurred all those years ago I was glued to the T.V.  The little boy was missing.  Then he was found.  He was in a small box.  In the orange groves.  He had been sexually assaulted before he died.  And from that day forward if you mention the name Junny Rios-Martinez over 90% of Floridians will know exactly who you are talking about.

And then they arrested someone.  They arrested Mark.  I saw him on the news. I immediately knew it was him. 

Mark was sentenced to death.   

In the years that have followed I have thought about that little boy, I think about Mark, I think about what in the world led to this.  I often go over things in my head.  You always hear of folks saying that in hindsight they saw clues.  I saw none.  I was completely shocked.  Shocked to hear that he had just been released on a child rape conviction.  Shocked that he would kidnap a child.  Shocked over the brutality of the crime.

Shocked.

When I returned to Florida last month I learned that Mark’s death warrant had been signed.  He is scheduled to be executed on November 15.  He is appealing and asking that his execution be halted until the high court hears an appeal as to whether lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment.  But, barring any futher delays, his execution is imminent.

I have struggled for years over how I feel about all of this.  While I don’t want my former friend to die I do fully agree with his sentence.  I don’t like to think that he committed this crime but he all but confessed.  I just have never been able to reconcile the man I see on the news and the boy I knew on the school bus.  And today, this has been troubling me a lot. 

I feel guilty for being sad over his execution.  I feel like I’m about to mourn something that shouldn’t be mourned.  This inner conflist has disturbed me for years.  Well, today I was tossing this over and over in my mind.  Knit a bit, think a bit.  And I think I finally got it.

I am not disturbed over the possible death of Mark … the notorious killer.  My grief was long ago…. knowing that the Mark that I knew, the Mark that was my friend, is gone.  Very gone.   He has been gone for a very long time.  I was friends with a boy who grew up to commit an unspeakable act.  But I never knew the man he became.

I only knew that boy on the school bus.  And those feelings of sadness are for the boy, the friend.  The boy who is no more.