When bad things happen to white people, part 43: the suburbs are scary

Like many false assumptions the United States has about itself, I’m guessing the stereotype of the suburban ideal grew to mythic proportions in the 1950s.

But even then writers such as John Cheever noticed the weird shit going on out there, too. Lately it ain’t exactly been Lake Wobegone out my way, despite the visit from Garrison Keillor to beautiful downtown Elgin.

For instance...

A couple Sundays ago a relative newcomer to one of those endless overpriced vinyl-sided subdivisions killed himself and his young son, allegedly because he was distraught over his impending divorce.

A weekend ago, an old-fashioned late night rumble took place, allegedly between factions from two high schools, which wasn’t exactly the case, as a lot of those apparently involved came from other places. And quite a few of the participants were at least two years out of high school.

Note to kids: if you are 20 and still hanging out with high school kids, it’s time to rethink things, big time. Note to kids showing up to a brawl: these days it is quite likely someone may have a very powerful gun or arsenal of
automatic weapons.

In this case, though, the weapons of choice were old school: beer bottles, two-by-fours, crowbars and the like.

One guy, 20, got killed, his skull bashed in with a bat or some other blunt force object.

Of course, this is nothing new, but for that someone died who apparently wasn’t involved in a gang. TV and certain newspapers love it when bad things happen to white people, because it’s just not supposed to happen to them, I guess.

But I’ve lived out in the Fox Valley long enough to know that there’s always been a bully subculture and a strange underbelly. Even back when I was in high school, there were jock assholes, some bold enough to physically bully teachers they knew they could.

The odd thing was the prison-like mentality was more prevalent at the so-called good high school than the “bad” one where I wound up graduating. With less snobs and I-am-better-than-you bullies, the school that was supposed to be so bad was in fact easier to navigate, friendly.

I bring this up because the brawl with the murder apparently stemmed from a feud that started between kids from two well-to-do areas.

In fact, a joke going around is kids from the one school, Saint Charles North, tried to get their butlers and gardeners to do their fighting for them.

Saint Charles, a very wealthy suburb, has the problems money can buy. It’s been reported that for a town its size it has a problem with heroin. Thrill seeker head to Chicago on the train, get off in Oak Park and hop the El train to the hood to buy drugs.

More than a year ago, a kid at Saint Charles North allegedly beat the crap out of another kid simply because the victim wore a pink shirt. The beater was homophobic and was calling the pink shirt names, which I am guessing included fag and cocksucker and all those witty word high school kids like to use.

The kid who wound up getting hurt mouthed back to the thug, which is what led to the beating.

At the other high school, Burlington Central, a group of wrestlers is alleged to have ganged up on another wrestler, and the beating may have included sexual humiliation/assault.

Newspapers can tell you all about bond issues and test scores, but talking to students and teachers to find out what’s going on in the hallways is far down the list of things they typically cover. I’m guessing if you go to a high school things like this don’t come as that big a surprise to you.

And by now, the aftermath has become a ritual -- the weeping teens, the TV cameras, the front page stories and interviews with family members. The teens lawyering up and clamming up. Though, teens being teens, and everybody working a media angle these days, that won’t last long I bet.

I’ll be surprised it doesn’t wind up as a Law and Order episode.

Maybe they can combine it with story of the punk-asses who were paying bums to fight and posting this form of snuff porn on the Internet. Only the twist could be some bum sobers up, takes to making money buying beer for suburban teens, then when he makes his drops he spreads rumors that lead to fights.

He tapes the fights which he sells on his Web site.

It makes about as much sense as what really happened.