Boys Become Men

Once, when I was a young I played by a creek. I was with my friend Todd who, as I look back, was not much of a friend. There were many ducks and ducklings playing along side us, enjoying the sunshine and the water. Todd picked up a stone and threw it at a duck. He missed and threw more stones. Seeing him I threw stones as well. We missed all our throws. I did not want to hit a duck or hurt a duck. I did it because Todd was doing it and he was the type of friend who would call me wuss or weak or scared or dumb and tell me to go home if I did not do what he wanted me to do. There was also, I am ashamed to admit, a perverse pleasure I found in throwing stones at ducks, the anticipation of one of them being hurt or killed and I would be the one that caused it. Even so I do not think I actually tried to hit the ducks with my stones. Maybe that is selective memory but I do not think so.

Todd and I threw stones for some time. The ducks were not scared away which puzzled me. Eventually, inevitably, one of Todd's stones found it's mark breaking the neck of a large brown female duck. We stopped immediately, asking each other if it was dead. It floated to the shore, neck bent at an impossible angle. We stood over it staring.

Her eyes were glazed and the water running off her feathers made her look as if she wept. She closed then opened her eyes slowly and repeatedly. There was blood, how much I do not know, it mingled with her wet brown feathers. I had no doubt that she would die, I had no doubt she would suffer until her death.

The bottom dropped out of my world and I was sick. I did not feel powerful as part of me, I think, expected. I felt cruel and was disgusted by my cruelty. I turned on Todd berating him for what he had done. Asking him how he could do such a thing, he calmly reminded me of my compliance and I was shamed. We walked home in silence and never spoke of that day or that tortured duck.

Boys can be cruel and often are. They must learn compassion. If they do not they may become cruel men. And cruel men are fearsome things of little use save destruction.