During the spring of 1971 or 1972 a new boy moved in on the street next to ours. His name was Randy Kutch, and he was really cute. He had dark hair, a handsome face, and a swimming pool in his back yard. You might think that was a little shallow of me, (no pun intended) but something like that makes a difference to kids, especially if you live in the Arizona desert. In our neighborhood if you had a swimming pool you were automatically popular. Randy was my age, but my big brother Keith, and his friend Richard, quickly made friends with him so they had swimming privileges. Being shy, and a girl, I never did. In fact, looking back, I kind of doubt if any of the girls in our area did. At the time, though, I assumed everyone but me spent the summer in Randy’s back yard.
If I remember right, that year girl’s camp was scheduled over the Fourth of July weekend. We went up on Friday, the 2nd, and came home on Tuesday, the 6th. I never wanted to go to girl’s camp anyway, but that year I was especially unhappy because it meant I would miss being home on Sunday, the Fourth of July. Not that I was overly patriotic or anything, but the Fourth was also Dad’s birthday. I didn’t think I should have to miss it. He and Mom had other ideas. To them going to girl’s camp was about the same thing as going to Church. You just went. So I did.
Saturday morning one of the leaders in our cabin came to tell me I had a phone call at the main lodge. I was a little surprised, no one had ever called me while I was at girl’s camp, but I figured it was dad calling and it would give me a chance to tell him happy birthday. I was right, it was dad, but he wasn’t calling about his birthday.
Dad was the Bishop of our ward, which meant he was the ecclesiastical leader of everyone who lived in our neighborhood, including the Kutch ’s. Randy’s mom had called him earlier that morning with some horrifying news. Randy was dead. That morning Randy left early. When he didn’t come home Sister Kutch called her brother and he came over to help look for him. Eventually Randy’s uncle found him out in an orange grove, dying from a gun shot wound. Before he died Randy told his uncle that he had shot himself because he had no friends, no one even liked him, but he begged his uncle to help him because he really didn’t want to die. It was too late.
I remember feeling numb when dad gave me the news over the phone. I just couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. First that Randy was gone, but more that he could have thought he had no friends. If you had asked me who was the most popular guy in our neighborhood I would have said Randy Kutch. He was good-looking, he had a pool, and he had everything. But I guess Randy didn't know that.
We all thought Randy knew he was popular, but to him having people want to come over to your house to swim wasn’t the same thing as having people like you. His mom and dad had recently divorced, which I’m sure played a big part in how he felt about himself, but it also filled his mom with guilt since she thought it was her fault that Randy felt so alone. In the end, I suppose it was everyone’s fault. We never really saw Randy Kutch, the lonely kid who thought people came to his house just to go swimming, we saw the boy we supposed he was, and perhaps we were just a little bit jealous. He was a boy who had everything, or at least we thought so.
No comments:
Post a Comment