How I learned About the Power of Rumor, Innuendo, and Downright Lies”, by Scipio

I don’t know why I said it. It wasn’t premeditated. I had not thought of it before. The idea had never entered my mind. It just popped out of my mouth that day.

I was standing with Keith and Butch at the top of the second-floor stairs on the south side of Lincolnton high school. The second floor was where all the senior and junior homerooms were, so it was a central place to meet and then go to our respective homerooms when the bell rang to start school.

We gathered there every morning and frequently someone would join us asking what we did last week and/or if they could go with us the upcoming weekend. There was a small group of “regulars” who went with us. But there was always new blood who had heard of us and wanted to tagalong. We especially welcomed all the girls who asked to go with us, and it almost always resulted in occasional smooching. Just smooching.

The “We” in paragraph three above was the Chuckwagon Gang, at least that’s what we called ourselves because that was the name Randy gave his car. Since Randy was the only one with a car, Randy ruled. The Chuckwagon was a 1953 faded green Chevy station wagon. It looked like a motorized Oklahoma schooner without a canvas top. The old Chevy had rusted out quarter panels all around that Randy insisted made the car more aerodynamic. We knew it wasn’t true, but we embraced it as a kind of untrue truth that was part of the Chuckwagon’s mystique.  1950s autos had large diameter steering wheels similar to the steering wheels on big rig eighteen wheelers today. The gearshift lever for the Chuckwagon was mounted on the steering column to the right. It made shifting gears in this Detroit bomb a bit cumbersome. One day Randy broke off the transmission shifter trying to speed shift. Don’t ask me why Randy was trying to speed shift at 1953 Chevy wagon, just accept it as part of the aura of the car.

When Randy broke the gearshift lever, he didn’t have enough money to buy another one so Randy’s genius mind took over and he found a DIY solution. He took the bolt action off his 22-caliber rifle and it slipped right into the indention in the steering wheel column recently vacated by the gear shifting lever. It was a perfect fit. It worked! However, it was a bit awkward to shift gears for two reasons. One, it was only three inches long which made the distance between the gears extremely close when shifting. Besides you had to put your whole right hand on the bolt to get it to move. Remember what I said about the incredibly large diameter steering wheels 1953 Chevy ‘s has? Well, to reach the gearshift, I mean the rifle bolt, you had to lean forward almost touching dash. It took some practice to do it while driving down the road. If you’re seeing this word picture I’m trying to paint, you will realize that if my right ear is almost touching the dash, then I’m now looking out the left side window not the windshield. Yes, to shift gears you had to temporarily take you eyes off the traffic in front of you.  We had several near collisions sometimes, so it wasn’t unreasonable to think Randy crashed the Chuckwagon.

Randy wasn’t at the top of the stairs this particular school day, and his absence is The Story I am about to tell you.

So the three of us; myself, Keith and Butch were standing chatting when Julie Armstrong came bouncing up and said, “Hey, everybody, where is Randy? That’s when it popped out of my mouth without hesitation I said, “Haven’t you heard? Randy was killed last night”. I lowered my head briefly and fiend remorse. I looked up at Julie, and expecting to see a smile and a “you’re kidding response “, instead I saw her in sheer shock and disbelief. Surprised, I looked at Keith and Butch and they had that “what?” look on their faces. They too were speechless for a moment. Julie asked, “How did it happen?” I said, “It was a car accident in Iron Station last night.”

She stood for a moment, and I swear I saw her rock back on her heels at the thought of it.  Then she turned and half ran down the hall disappearing into the crowd of students now filling the halls.

Keith and Butch looked at me astonished at what had just occurred, and Keith said “What made you say that?” I said, “I don’t know, but it just sure looks like she believed it.” We went back to our conversation, but Julie soon came back. This time she had Jerry Tolbert, the football team quarterback, with her. Terry had been with us on one of our Saturday night escapades and he knew the unexpected happening was the norm with us.

Jerry said, “Julie said you told her Randy Barnes was dead?” Now I was the one stunned. I couldn’t believe Julie actually believed the crazy story and now Jerry, one of the most popular kids in school, was on the cusp of believing it also.

I stood at that moment at the first significant crossroads in my life. I could have said, “No, it was just a cruel joke. I don’t know what made me say that? (Which is true BTW). I am sorry for causing such unwarranted concern. It was childish on my part, and I apologize for upsetting you.” On the other hand, I could’ve taken the fork in this road and milked it for all it’s worth. I chose to take to fork in the road and milk it. I had no idea the legs this lie would take and how fast and extensive it would fly in my little small town high school.

Meanwhile, Jerry’s eyes teared up.  Without saying a word, he turned and it looked like he half staggered down the hall into the now even thicker crowd of incoming students. Keith, Butch, and I looked at each other in incredulously. But this time I looked at them and their eyes told me they were no longer confused but wanted to be part of whatever I was doing.

The only thing is, I didn’t know what I was doing, or the legs The Story would take. But just as the thought had initially entered my head about The Story of Randy dying, another thought quickly came to my head. I thought why not strategically place ourselves around the school spreading the lie.

Back to The Story. So, I said “Keith, go down to the school bus entrance tell everyone coming in there that Randy is dead. Butch, you go down to the student parking lot entrance and start telling everyone coming in from there that Randy is dead. I realized I didn’t have the manpower to cover the other entrance where students who walked to school came in. I could only use the assets I had as productive as possible. So those coming in that entrance would have to depend on hearing The Story second hand from their friends coming in the bus and the car entrances. I was surprised to see how effective hearsay was as it spread throughout the school.

In a split second all this was happening, and in my haste and sending out my force multipliers I never thought about getting on the same page with the details of The Story. Since Julie and Jerry believed me without asking any specific questions, I assumed the rest of the students would do the same. That was a miscalculation, because most of the school didn’t know us that well and they weren’t about to take our word prima face value for it. They had questions. We had answers. Unfortunately, our answers weren’t the same.

It was fun making up details off the top of my head of Randy’s death. I never had so many students I only slightly knew be so interested in talking to me. I did my best to planted a scene of Randy coming home late last night dozing off on a sharp curve close to his house and running off the road hitting a giant oak tree, killing him instantly.

As I told my story I couldn’t get over the look on everyone’s faces as I spit out my grand lie again and again. It’s like they were all zombies having the same look Julie and Jerry had on their faces; disbelief, shock, tears swelling up, their brains trying to get their hands around what they had just heard.

Like I said, the other students had questions. The problem is our answers were different. The lie that Randy was dead was spot on with all three of us. Unfortunately, our three separate accounts of “how” it happened were vastly different.

I thought my explanation was realistic because there was a giant oak tree in a sharp curve near where Randy lived. Anyone living in that community was aware that at least one fatal wreck involving someone taking a curve too fast and hitting that tree. Besides, Jan and Dean’s song “Dead Man’s Curve” was popular at the time so it would be easy mentally placing Randy in that “Dead Man’s Curve” in their imagination instead of Jan.

But Butch was the one with the great imagination! Like me, he chose a location for the accident near Randy’s house that was also known to be dangerous. Randy’s house was on a side street that ran parallel to a railroad track. Back then there were no auto railroad crossing barricades like now. There was just a railroad crossing sign. Cross at your own risk. Of course, there had been accidents there, just like at the oak tree in the curve.  Like me, Butch was drawing attention to an event that had actually happened before and implying that is what happened to Randy.  Butch chose to have Randy’s car, the Chuckwagon cut in half as Randy tried to beat the train across the tracks. I couldn’t believe Butch would have Randy die so horribly!

Meanwhile, as you can imagine, Keith was telling a slightly different story. He did maintain the continuity of Randy dying the night before as I did in the original story. However, Keith’s story is that Randy was decapitated while rear-ending a stalled eighteen-wheeler because of the Chuckwagon’s faulty brakes. It is true the Chuckwagon had bad brakes, and some students who had ridden with us were aware of it. But that’s another story.

Soon the homeroom bell rang, and the three of us went to our respective homerooms thinking nothing of what we had just done other than a chuckle that it was funny. Little did I know that little lie had BIG legs. So, I was sitting in home room. Mrs. Smith had just taken roll when I saw Mr. Turner come to her door. Mrs. Smith went out in the hall to see him. Mr. Turner said something to Mrs. Smith that I could not hear. With a stern look Mrs. Smith turned and look straight at me and said “Scipio.”

All heads in the class turned and looked at me as I walked to the door. As I approached the door, I saw Keith and Butch standing beside Mr. Turner in the hall with the look on their faces that said, “We didn’t throw you under the bus, but we didn’t clear you either.” I knew I was in trouble, and I had to think fast.

Mr. Turner looked menacingly straight into my eyes and asked me point blank what I knew about The Story of Randy being dead. Mr. Turner was a big man, and I was kind of small, and at that time it was not unusual for teachers to hit male students.  So, there I stood. I couldn’t lie about the lie.  I couldn’t tell the truth about the lie or I would die. So, I did what any politician would do, I gave an answer that was technically correct but otherwise false. I said, “That’s what I heard.” and it was true, I heard “myself” say that Randy was dead. Bill Clinton would mimic me years later with the famous quote, “That depends on what “is” is”. Clinton got that from me by the way.

Mr. Turner looked at Mrs. Smith and said “I’ll find out about this; Randy is in my homeroom.” He turned and went two doors down the hall to his room. While he was gone Mrs. Smith did not say a word to us but glared at us as if to say, “This story better be true.” After a few minutes Mr. Turner returned with a concerned look on his face rather than the scowl he had before. He said, “Randy is not here! (As a point of explanation of the significance of Mr. Turner‘s discovery, back in those days an unexcused absence was an automatic one day suspension, three suspensions was permanent suspension so absences were not taken lightly.) Then Mr. Turner said, “I’ll go check with Mr. Kaiser “. Mr. Kaiser was the principal, and we called him “Chrome Dome“ because he was bald. Mr. Turner turned and went down the stairs to Mr. Kaiser’s office leaving us standing in the hall above his office.

I must explain something here. In those days the high school staff was very small and overloaded with work and there were no counselors in schools at the time therefore, the only person with the authority to pre-approve an absence was Mr. Kaiser. Mr. Kaiser took care of all personal matters involving students. Pre-approved absences that were not doctor related were rare if not unheard of. I personally never knew of anyone who ever got one except one person, Randy.

As it turned out Randy had gotten preapproval from Mr. Kaiser the day before, and that’s when Randy told us about his hastily planned trip to New York to see his father. His father did not live with Randy, his mom, and his younger brother and none of us had ever seen him.

So, what does all this have to do with The Story? Unknown to us Randy had only told the three of us he was going to skip school that day. He had mentioned it to no one else at school therefore the only persons at school who knew why Randy was not in school that day, and the reason, was us three and Chrome Dome. This fact becomes critical for The Story to continue as Mr. Turner had gone to Mr. Kaiser‘s office to see if he had granted Randy an excused absence.

It seems like only seconds had gone by before we saw Mr. Turner coming up the stairs. But when he turned on the last landing and faced us on the last leg of the stairs, I saw a look on his face I never seen before. It wasn’t red rage it was ashen white. He walked slowly toward us, looked at Mrs. Smith and said, “Mr. Kaiser is not here today. He is gone to a conference and no one in the office knows why Randy isn’t here.”

Unbelievable! The three of us did not know that either! I immediately knew there had been a stay of my execution and hopefully with the weekend coming up by next Monday this whole thing will have blown over.

Mr. Turner looked at us and told us to go back to our homerooms. He would talk to us later. As the three of us turned to go back to our respective homerooms we caught each other‘s eyes as the corners of our mouths curled up in a faint smile.

Through the next four classes and lunch everyone was talking about Randy’s demise. There were so many people who appeared to have more details of the event than I did. It was amazing how this thing morphed. Others had my story and were running with it. On the other hand I realized the potential trouble, I could be in, I started to change my story to say “that’s what I heard” rather than “did you hear?“. Following lunch and early in my biology class, Mr. Turner showed up at the classroom door and asked Mr. Rudisall, my biology teacher, to speak with me.

I went out in the hall, and just like the last time I found Keith and Butch standing there waiting. Mr. Turner‘s countenance had clearly changed since homeroom.  His body language had changed and his face screamed anger. He begins by saying, “We have contacted the highway patrol, the sheriff’s department, the city police, the hospital, and the morgue and there’s no report any teenager dying or fatal accident anywhere in the county yesterday or last night or this AM. Randy’s whereabouts is still unknown, and we have not been able to contact anyone who knows where he is. Calls to his home goes unanswered and we understand that Randy’s mom does not work outside the home. We do not know what has happened to Randy, or if indeed anything has happened to him.  The only thing we have concluded is that whatever this is all about you three had something to do with it, and if we can prove it, you are in big trouble. Now all three of you go back to class. “

I went back to biology class avoiding my classmates’ inquisitive eyes trying to ponder what just transpired in the hall. It appeared that the perfect storm of Randy AND Chrome Dome being absent had allowed the lie to flourish and spread. I no longer counted the minutes when the rumor would be exposed and a mark would be on my high school record that would follow me forever causing me to never get a good job. I knew that if nothing was discovered in the next 2 1/2 hours, the bell would ring and I would be off to my part-time job at the grocery store, and away from the clutches of school officials. I was feeling a little smug. A strong sense of having unwittingly challenged “the system“ and won swelled up inside me. I have no idea what was taught the rest of that Biology class, my mind was somewhere else. Confidence had replaced fear.

Yet, a kind of darkness came over me after school let out. On my way to work, I pondered how easy it was to start a rumor, even a baseless rumor, a shocking rumor that was widely believed even though common sense and a little research could’ve told anyone it couldn’t be true.

There was no Internet in those days, no social media, no 24-hour news cycle like today. The earliest news would be at 6 PM on WBTV in Charlotte and then again at 11 PM. Otherwise, you would have to wait until the next day’s newspaper. I wondered how many of my classmates would be watching the news or looking for tomorrow’s paper to read about Randy’s death? After all, a teenager’s death was rare in those days and certainly a headline story in a small town like Lincolnton, NC.  I felt sorry for the masses I had misled, but I figured perhaps I have been misled in a similar matter in the past myself by our leaders using the same rumors, innuendos, and boldface lies to manipulate. I gained a healthy fear of rumors that day.

Going to work in the grocery store I made a clean break in my thoughts of what had happened at school that day. I now thought it was funny. The fear of getting caught had passed. We had gotten away with it! I couldn’t believe I started it all with a little help from my friends. I put my store apron on, punched the clock, and moved to the front of the store where I worked as a bag boy.

The first customer that came up for me to check out and said, “Wasn’t that horrible about that high school student getting killed?” I froze. I looked the woman straight in the eyes and asked, “Where did you hear that? “She said, “They’re talking about it on the street downtown “. I thought to myself, oh no I have opened Pandora’s box. Now fear came running back with vengeance. My imagination ran wild, I had visions of the police hand cuffing me right there in the store hauling me off to jail humiliated, embarrassed, fearful. This after all was probably a crime of defamation. I was afraid to ask the woman about the details of the story she had heard. However, I was interested if she heard my version or Keith or Butch’s. I saw myself in jail dressed in black and white striped suit making a call home to my parents.

The rest of my shift was a blur until I checked out at 9 PM and went home. I was having second thoughts about what I had started. I stayed up late and watched the 11 O’clock news.  The headline story was the Senate just passed 98-2 the GULF OF TONKIN RESOLUTION.

Even to this day I don’t know why I said it. I never planned it. I had never thought of it. But I said it, and what I said started The Story. On that day I learned the power of rumor, innuendo, and downright lies.  That lesson served me well the rest of my life as I am able to see through so much BS people try to put out there because there’s no better way to spot BS than to be a BSr yourself.