stopped struggling. “What happened to her? Is she okay?”
“She kind of collapsed. They took her to the hospital.”
“Oh, my God. Is she gonna be okay?”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“But what
happened?
” She started chewing on a pinkie nail. “Oh, man, her mom is gonna freak. Does Alan know?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so. I didn’t see him around here.”
“I gotta find him.…” She started looking around, then seemed to realize there was still something major happening at the epicenter
of the crowd. “What is going on over there, anyway?”
Damn.
“I…It’s Shaun.”
“Shaun?”
“Yeah.”
It was only one word, but apparently it was enough for her to get the drift that something was seriously wrong. She gave me
a look that was both confused and hostile, then blew past me and elbowed her way through the crowd. I was too short to see
what happened next, but I could hear it; for the second time in one morning, the tent city echoed with a young girl’s scream.
A S A REPORTER , I’ve been compared to a vulture more times than I care to count. Also a leech, and a vampire… and a parasite too.
All the aforementioned creatures prey on the misfortune of others; they can’t survive without somebody’s lifeblood to suck
or corpse to ravage.
Now, this certainly isn’t nice, but occasionally it’s true. Like the members of many other professions—doctors and cops are
the obvious ones—we journalists tend to do our best work when other people’s lives have gone all to hell.
Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of covering major tragedies, or minor ones, either. Being the stereotypical newshound
who sticks a tape recorder in the face of some woman who’s just lost her daughter in a plane crash and asking, “So how do
you feel?” makes me sick to my stomach.
Still, there’s no arguing with the fact that my life got a whole lot more interesting after poor Shaun Kirtz, as his hippie
mother would later put it, “crossed over to a friendlier realm.” Suddenly, I wasn’t just covering a music festival that had
gone off pretty much unchanged for the past dozen years; I was covering a music festival during which a teenage boy had—as
the rumor mill instantly reported—died from an overdose of some unspecified recreational substance.
I called Bill as soon as I was sure Lauren was okay. He made no particular pretense of being bummed out by the young man’s
demise. When I told him that Melissa had previously taken the guy’s photo, he was positively gleeful.
But to go back to what happened during the event itself: From the time the EMTs left with Cindy, it took the Jaspersburg cops
the better part of an hour to show up—and mere seconds to piss everybody off once they got there.
First they sniped at the firemen for letting the crowd get too close to the body; then they declared everything within a ten-yard
radius off-limits, which meant that about fifty people were forbidden from entering their own tents. I expected them to cordon
off the area with crime-scene tape, but apparently they didn’t have any—or if they did, nobody could find it. Eventually,
one of the volunteer firemen left, returning a few minutes later with a yellow roll that, when unfurled, turned out to say WET PAINT .
I tried to get some information out of the cops, but they weren’t in a talkative mood. One of them told me to back off until
the chief got there; he proved to be the charmer of the two, since the other told me to back off or get arrested.
“Arrested for what?” I said.
“I’ll think of something,” he said.
I backed off.
News of the death was spreading through the festival at light speed, the crowd getting bigger (and the cops more ornery) by
the minute. I was navigating my way through the sea of agitated humanity, not sure where exactly I was going, when I ran into
two other members of the Jaspersburg Eight: Billy Halpern and Dorrie
“She kind of collapsed. They took her to the hospital.”
“Oh, my God. Is she gonna be okay?”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“But what
happened?
” She started chewing on a pinkie nail. “Oh, man, her mom is gonna freak. Does Alan know?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so. I didn’t see him around here.”
“I gotta find him.…” She started looking around, then seemed to realize there was still something major happening at the epicenter
of the crowd. “What is going on over there, anyway?”
Damn.
“I…It’s Shaun.”
“Shaun?”
“Yeah.”
It was only one word, but apparently it was enough for her to get the drift that something was seriously wrong. She gave me
a look that was both confused and hostile, then blew past me and elbowed her way through the crowd. I was too short to see
what happened next, but I could hear it; for the second time in one morning, the tent city echoed with a young girl’s scream.
A S A REPORTER , I’ve been compared to a vulture more times than I care to count. Also a leech, and a vampire… and a parasite too.
All the aforementioned creatures prey on the misfortune of others; they can’t survive without somebody’s lifeblood to suck
or corpse to ravage.
Now, this certainly isn’t nice, but occasionally it’s true. Like the members of many other professions—doctors and cops are
the obvious ones—we journalists tend to do our best work when other people’s lives have gone all to hell.
Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of covering major tragedies, or minor ones, either. Being the stereotypical newshound
who sticks a tape recorder in the face of some woman who’s just lost her daughter in a plane crash and asking, “So how do
you feel?” makes me sick to my stomach.
Still, there’s no arguing with the fact that my life got a whole lot more interesting after poor Shaun Kirtz, as his hippie
mother would later put it, “crossed over to a friendlier realm.” Suddenly, I wasn’t just covering a music festival that had
gone off pretty much unchanged for the past dozen years; I was covering a music festival during which a teenage boy had—as
the rumor mill instantly reported—died from an overdose of some unspecified recreational substance.
I called Bill as soon as I was sure Lauren was okay. He made no particular pretense of being bummed out by the young man’s
demise. When I told him that Melissa had previously taken the guy’s photo, he was positively gleeful.
But to go back to what happened during the event itself: From the time the EMTs left with Cindy, it took the Jaspersburg cops
the better part of an hour to show up—and mere seconds to piss everybody off once they got there.
First they sniped at the firemen for letting the crowd get too close to the body; then they declared everything within a ten-yard
radius off-limits, which meant that about fifty people were forbidden from entering their own tents. I expected them to cordon
off the area with crime-scene tape, but apparently they didn’t have any—or if they did, nobody could find it. Eventually,
one of the volunteer firemen left, returning a few minutes later with a yellow roll that, when unfurled, turned out to say WET PAINT .
I tried to get some information out of the cops, but they weren’t in a talkative mood. One of them told me to back off until
the chief got there; he proved to be the charmer of the two, since the other told me to back off or get arrested.
“Arrested for what?” I said.
“I’ll think of something,” he said.
I backed off.
News of the death was spreading through the festival at light speed, the crowd getting bigger (and the cops more ornery) by
the minute. I was navigating my way through the sea of agitated humanity, not sure where exactly I was going, when I ran into
two other members of the Jaspersburg Eight: Billy Halpern and Dorrie
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