I. The Horror of Jonestown.

I was sixteen years old, and just months into an emancipation that was all at once frightening, peaceful, and confusing. I had no idea what I was doing, but was determined to let experience be my teacher. After a few fits and starts in the foreign territory of Northern California, I found a decent job and a furnished apartment. I signed contracts and opened accounts – and was absolutely giddy when I received my first box of checks.

I had a charged-up kind of confidence that came from years of hopeful and escapist reading. I internalized positive thinking mantras, bootstrap philosophies, and self-informed destinies. Think it and be it. I had some scars, deep ones, but I was determined that they would fade — that as an adult, I would bury those crushed and diseased layers of childhood under so much happiness, love, and positivity that they would cease to exist in any real dimension, and become only distant memories.

Then, Guyana. Jonestown. A Utopian dream created especially for those disenfranchised or disenchanted by society – a dream that went terribly wrong – leaving over 900 people including 287 children, dead.

I didn’t really believe the news when it came blaring through my tiny black and white television. Adults die, but children – we bounce back. Adults are screwed up in a thousand ways, with their alcohol, their deceptions, and their rage, but children – we know, don’t we? We run, we escape, and when we can’t – we bounce back. We hold our thoughts and dreams in a special place they can’t touch. We make promises to ourselves, and take pleasure in every new inch added to our height. Soon, we will be grown-up. We will reach the magical age, and no one will harm us anymore.

I was so mad at the media. The newscasters wouldn’t shut-up, even after hours, about the dead Congressman and the camera man, their lives, and their families. It seemed to me that the media was pronouncing that these men, who lived professional, distinguished lives, deserved to be mourned while 900+ other people existed only as a sensational backdrop – nameless, faceless, without stories to tell, or families left behind. I needed to know: Who were they? What happened? Why? How? Did they try to run, did they struggle, did any children escape, did anyone, in a moment of revelation, scream for others to stop? How could one man, who originally led others in a quest for equality and harmony, lead them into murder and suicide?

287 children. Really dead. Not able to bounce back from the sickness of adults.

I used my bus money to buy every newspaper and magazine available, and became frustrated and obsessed with the story of Jonestown. The answers were sparse and shallow, and the children remained largely anonymous. Adult survivors who were interviewed still seemed blinded by a charismatic madman and a broken promise of Utopia. At sixteen, I found them selfish and weak, and despised them for fleeing into the woods without carrying so much as one defenseless child with them.

Jonestown was thousands of miles away from the Silicon Valley, where I, like thousands of others, spent my working hours in a sparkling clean factory filled with diodes, capacitors, and motherboards – cutting edge technologies meant to make life easier and more efficient. While the horror of Jonestown was being broadcast, cars stalled at their usual pace on crowded highways, people fought for parking space at the malls, and billboards and radio stations hawked their usual wares.

People made jokes about the “Kool-Aid drinkers” as if there really was no more to the story than a bunch of really stupid, worthless people who followed a delusional madman into a murderous pact. But there were bent and broken syringes, showing signs of struggle. Reports of parents screaming, children crying, and being forced to swallow. Tiny teeth marks on plastic syringes tell a story very few people had the heart or mind to tell.

They took the children first. 287 of them. Agents of Jones, for the most part, led them; a few parents. They led them to the podium like little lambs – and lions – to slaughter. It was a coldly calculated move, designed to make the bereaved parents easier to manage, more willing to let themselves be killed.

The dead and dying were placed out of sight, to painfully convulse to their deaths under the warm Guyana sun. They say it took about five minutes for their hearts, even the tiniest, to stop beating.

I grew up after Guyana. I changed, my dreams changed, and my thoughts shifted outward. My introverted nature turned itself inside out, and I began to demand answers for every unfairness, injustice, and act of cruelty I saw, experienced, or heard about. I became, to some, a hellion; a thorn. Others found my passion admirable, but “too much,” too “intense”. I was urged (and often warned) to be more diplomatic, to temper my tongue, and slow my thoughts.

I did / I didn’t. I tried / I failed. I burned hot and cold, got burnt, and burned myself out for months, even years, at a time. Often, I stepped up only to get shot down. Sometimes, I rallied back, fought harder than ever, and succeeded. There are never any easy choices in a life that’s determined to make a difference — no matter how small, limited, or ultimately inconsequential — that difference might be.

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