Blue Shoes - August 27, 2010

Blue shoes for his attitude
sober and resigned
Blues shoes for what he hid
on the floor of a deep ocean
Blue shoes for his sadness
so plain on his face
Blue shoes for the time
I stood by and watched
Blue shoes for when we were
the ones that painted him blue.

"Hey, Luzerman! Shouldn't your last name be Loserman! Wimp!" "Hey, Loserman! Your shoes are untied!" He always looked down. Even when he knew that it was always a lie, always something to get him. WHAM! He fell on the ground face first and rubbed the spot where someone had freshly kicked him. "You think you're so smart, Loserman? Getting me busted by Ms. Rustts?" That was Kenny, the school's biggest and toughest bully. He always picked on him. And it always seemed to get more brutal everyday. Kenny kicked him a few more times. "Huh? You think so, right? Yeah, you're a smart guy all right!" Then all his friends found this their cue to start pulling him back up and shoving him around saying, "Yeah, you're a smart guy!" "Smarty pants, Loserman!" Me? I watched of course. No one messed with Kenny. I was too scared to get hurt. Now I realize I was just a plain coward. But that's all behind me now. Anyway, all of this would keep going on until Mr. Watson would break it up and bring Luzerman to the nurse. The rest of us would then stop watching, the short episode cut short by a commercial break. We knew it would start up again and we would be there. Watching. At lunch, Luzerman was abused some more. Then after school. Then on the way to school. Then in school until Mr. Watson broke it up and brought him to the nurse's office. Later on, we would have these assemblies where our principal, Mr. Kayter, would tell us that standing by and watching while a bully bullied someone made us just as guilty as the bullies. We would listen with half an ear wondering when our eventful TV program would be on. You could say our eyes were so fixed on the TV screen that we didn't realize the effect it did on our eyes. We were blinded by our fear and cowardice.
None of us wanted Kenny and his lackeys on our backs and some of us even tried joining them by teasing Loserman...I'm sorry, I meant Luzerman. I know I took some time to continue there. Some times I just feel so guilty when I remember-Well anyway, suddenly, Luzerman would stop showing up. Then the day he came back, he was in this new getup-all black. He wore black eyeliner and wore chains on his pants. Even that didn't stop Kenny from attacking him. The only difference was that Luzerman would wear his bruises proudly and instead of trying to hide his limp from recent beatings, he stopped trying to. His always perfect 100% dropped to Fs so low that he might have had to repeat the grade. Well, he would have if-so one day, Luzerman just snaps and brings a wicked sharp knife to school and pulls it out when Kenny appraoches him. At this Kenny and his buddies back away a little but they still taunt Luzerman. "Hey, Luzerman! You gonna use that knife? Of course not, wimp!" "Hey, Luzerman, you think you're gonna kill us with that thing? We're still gonna haunt you!" Then, Mr. Watson arrived and grabbed Luzerman by the shoulder this time and I see Luzerman wince, probably from earlier beatings, but Mr. Watson doesn't notice. Instead he says, "You're in a lot of trouble, young man," and brings him to the principal's office. From then on, Kenny and his buds only got bolder and followed Luzerman to his house and followed him on the weekends when he walked his dog (I know because Kenny would say that no matter where he went they would always be there and Kenny's goons would start bragging about it) and of course, beat him up. After a while, I started wondering why Luzerman didn't try to transfer schools or at least get a teacher to stand by him everyday or try to tell the principal about Kenny going as far as attacking him in his neighborhood. That was when I started to blame Luzerman. It was Luzerman's fault that he was getting beaten up so badly everyday and it wasn't any of my concern. I even tried to tease him once and do what everyone was starting to do. All he did was look at me with those big brown sad lost puppy eyes and said, "Death." After that I avoided him and went back to being a mesmerized spectator.
It happened so fast, though, and changed so much so fast when it happened. When what happened hit me, I felt the full force of it and everything started happening all at once. The day when the intercom in homeroom crackled to life and the principal said in a grave voice, "Yesterday, a note was on Martin Luzerman's desk at his home next to his body on his bed. Dead, because..." there the principal caught and I thought that he might be trying not to cry. "Because he took his own life. The suicide note said, "Life was death to me and I hope to find life in my death.' I hope that this all te'ches the school a lesson about being silent and standing by. If you speak up you can make a difference before it's too late. Let's have a moment of silence in honor of Martin Luzerman whose death should teach us to take bullying more seriously at this school." In that moment of stunned silence, I realized what we had done and I started to hate myself for it when I remembered that it was Kenny who had beaten Luzerman up. Kenny that I should blame. I felt a surge of rage at this and once the moment of silence was over, I knew what I had to do. The principal gave one last message before the bell dismissed us to our second period. "Kenny Tyler, report to the office please."
I moved fast and the minute I saw Kenny, I took the front of his shirt and slammed him into a locker. "You think you're so smart, don't you, Kenny? Drove a kid to his own death? You're the one we should call wimp or Loserman even!" I shook him some more. "Don't you get it? You killed him, idiot! You killed Luzerman! You're a flat-out murderer, Kenny!" Then I realized it. I wasn't going to solve anything by shaking Kenny and telling him he killed somebody. Not when he looked so freaked out and wore an expression that I hadn't seen before: fear. Not when I saw that his eyes were empty and he only cared about his own filthy self. I shoved him one more time and ran. I ran to the nearest exit. I ran onto the sidewalk. I ran until I couldn't run anymore. I slumped down on the nearest bench and cried while a lady waiting for her bus was looking at me strangely but offered me a tissue. I said no thanks and soon her bus pulled up and she was gone. I'm the only bloody murderer here, I thought. I could've done something, but I didn't. Coward, I thought. I wiped away my tears and stood up. But that's going to change, I thought. From now on, I'll stand up for anyone being bullied and I'll fight to get bullies once and for all before it's too late. All I needed now was a way to remember Martin Luzerman by as a symbol of my promise. A nearby shoe store was displaying its newest collection and I knew what I had to do.
The next week when I was back in school, I came wearing blue shoes and found out that Kenny Tyler and most of his main lackeys had been expelled and many others suspended. I was a new person. I wasn't afraid to have my voice heard and I was more confident. I had my eyes set on becoming a politician so that I could voice my opinions and have people vote for me so I could make them happen. But most of all, I wore blue shoes everyday for the rest of my life (well, I bought new ones when my feet grew). I wore them through college at Harvad Law School, through my political ascension and to becoming a school board member and speaking out against bullying. To this day I still wear blue shoes and through speeches at may different schools (including my old one) I explain to the students why I always wear them and urge on by-standers to stop being by-standers because of my testimony. I will always remember my promise that day to Martin Luzerman, who thought that no one cared whether he lived or died, that no one will never end up feeling the way he did ever again.

Blue shoes for the times
that were a shame
Blue shoes for the change
I bring today
Blue shoes for the one
whose attitude was
tired and defeated
Blue shoes for the one
I stood by and watched die
Blue shoes for the one
I turned my back on.

-Lady Stormparade