How I Regret the Time I Caused a Devastating Typhoon
Or maybe it wasn't just me.
Do you ever wonder if something you did lead to a future disaster? The butterfly effect is when small actions have long-reaching non-linear impacts. A well-known example is a butterfly flapping its wings and causing a typhoon.
Have you caused a typhoon? I may have.
I still wonder about the impact of something mean I did when I was a kid.
In third grade, the teacher told us that when distributing Valentines, we must give one to the person in front of, behind, and on either side of us a card. Her instructions put me off because I didn't want to give cards to any boys. In my nine-year-old mind, Valentine's cards only went to girls. Giving a boy one might get misconstrued that I liked him, leading to endless teasing, especially if the feeling wasn't reciprocal.
Since I sat on the aisle, my teacher's mandate meant I only had to give out three, and I would also receive three. But I didn't want to send one to Calvin (not his real name). As an only child, I did not understand boys, especially him. He creeped me out. Lots of boys had this effect on me with their runny noses and sweaty smell.
Calvin and I ignored each other and were happy with that arrangement.
Poor Calvin was lower on the social scale than I was. As one of the tallest girls in the class, I towered over his miniature frame. And there was something else. Something was off about Calvin besides his shirt always being half in and half out of his belt and not on purpose. His face had a perpetual look of surprise as he nervously smoothed his Dorothy Hamill haircut out of his eyes. Maybe his mother liked his curls and styled it longer, but he looked like he should be wearing barrettes in his hair.
I was never one to disobey teachers, but this time I did. No way was I sending a Valentine to a weirdo like Calvin.
When I opened his card, I was awash in anger and shame. I didn't want his cootie-filled Valentine. I wanted him to ignore the teacher's instruction so our universes never collided. Daggers flew from my eyes, but he pointed to the teacher and said, "She said we had to."
Flash forward thirty-five years later.
I hit Redners Market, an employee-owned grocery store, weekly. It wasn't fancy, but my wallet approved. It looked like a warehouse before Costco and Sam's Club became popular.
Some Redners' employees were on work release from the minimum-security prison across the street. I didn't know at the time, but Redners also employed felons with varying levels of criminal histories.
Surprises were frequent in the check-out lane.
The cashiers were spicy. They were tattooed rough-and-tumble pirates with magenta readers on the tips of their noses, who wreaked cigarette smoke and used salty language, which they would yell across the store to other employees. If you didn't want to have to explain what certain words meant, it was best to leave your children at home.
Once, I asked the cashier if she could put my groceries in paper bags placed inside plastic bags. These were the ones I preferred to reuse for my kitchen garbage can. Steam came out of her ears. Enraged at my request, the cashier handed me a pile of paper bags and told me I could do it myself when I got home.
Ok then.
I had gotten used to meandering through the aisles now that the kids were older, and I didn't have to rush home. At the meat case, I spotted a man in a white butcher's coat. I paid him no mind until he turned toward me with "Cal" and his last name embroidered in blue on the coat.
Was it?
Could it? I push my cart past, envisioning this gray-haired man as a child.
That face. That name. That was him.
I thought about the Valentine that I never sent. Would he remember me as that bitch who ruined the holiday of love for him forever? I was about to find out.
"Calvin?"
He looked at me blankly.
"It's me, Ilona, from Resso."
"Oh, yes, hi!" he smiled, his face flooding with recognition. He was a big man, taller than me now, not the whisp of a kid he once was.
We exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes. The members of the 1977 class from Resurrection of Our Lord School got together every five years without fail. We couldn't always find everyone, and I assumed Calvin's name had fallen through the cracks. I encouraged him to go to the next one.
He said he lived in our county, just himself and his wife.
"Yep, just me and my wife in our house," he repeated.
His words landed strangely. Our conversation dried up, and we said goodbye.
I felt relief. I didn't hear him whisper "bitch” as I wheeled my cart away.
Jump ahead to the spring of 2022.
I am working on organizing our 45th-grade school reunion. I remember my supermarket encounter with Calvin a few years ago and wanted to invite him. With each subsequent reunion, the internet makes it easier to find our missing classmates.
Calvin has an unusual last name, so there is probably only one of him. Google spits the unimaginable out.
Calvin has a record.
He is a lifetime member of Megan's List for aggravated indecent assault. An array of Calvin’s mug shots throughout the years appear in neat rows on the government site.
In one photo, he's smirking.
To better inform the public, the website lists his current address.
You do the crime. You do the time.
The debt was paid. But was it?
Megan’s List is for awareness and protecting children. Child molesters don’t magically become rehabilitated.
I debate what I should do. Do I tell my classmates what I found?
My thoughts swirl. No children are invited to our reunions.
I mentioned my findings to some classmates, but they already knew. None say to invite him.
I leave Calvin's name with the group of missing classmates, unfound and uninvited.
Had my radar been blinking already in third grade?
Or did I add to Calvin’s isolation as a child and contribute to the path he found himself on?
Maybe? Yes? No?
Do you ever wonder how your actions contribute to the butterfly effect? What do you think?
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That's quite a story, Ilona! And expertly told. My takeaway: sometimes, the wisest thing we can do is to allow the ambiguity of the past to help us be more mindful now and in the future.
Wow, what a story! Really enjoyed it!