ALASKA: Why would someone hurt Walter?

Throwing stones, gas caps, and hand grenades--and unexpected kindness

Clunk! I heard the impact. My husband Andy saw it land with a bounce and looked up. “Hey!” he yelled. “Someone threw a rock at our truck!” His voice was alarmed. Having just found a parking spot, our lighthearted and carefree evening out had already taken a wrong turn.

Walter, our DIY-built big yellow adventure truck and tiny home on wheels

I came around the corner of Walter, our big yellow adventure truck, just as Andy picked up the projectile from the pavement. The stone was about the size of my fist.

My eyes were wide. “What the . . .?” I followed his gaze to a group of kids playing on the lawn between us and the lively crowd gathered outside a small live music venue. “Was it one of those kids?”

“I think so. The one in the red jacket was running away when I looked up.” He turned his attention back to our beloved home on wheels. “Fortunately, it hit the bumper. I don’t see any damage.”

I kept my eyes on the kid in the red jacket. He was bigger than the other kids, a head taller and stocky of build. He appeared to be a young teenager, likely several years older than the others. He stood in the midst of them, but as an outsider—none of the younger kids’ conversations or games seemed to directly involve him.

With our radar locked on the biggest target, we walked slowly toward the group of kids, which was between us and our destination of the concert. Several other kids glanced up at our approach, but not him. His eyes were elsewhere—anywhere but on us. We continued past the kids on our way to where the adults were gathered to sip beverages, listen to the band, and dance. But then we stopped and turned back to see what he might do. Sure enough, unaware of our surveillance, he left the group and began to meander back up toward Walter. He stooped down near a tree, found another rock, and threw it. This time he missed.

“HEY!” Andy yelled again. We marched back to confront him. The other children stopped and stared. “Why are you throwing rocks at our truck?”

He averted his eyes and said nothing.

“I’m talking to you. We saw you throwing rocks at our truck. What are you thinking?”

The other kids began to mumble and argue amongst themselves.

• We don’t know him.

• Yes, we do! He’s been playing with us.

• No, we don’t. We just met him, like, ten minutes ago. He doesn’t go to our school. We don’t even know his name.

The younger kids wanted to be clear they were not involved in any way. Throwing rocks at cars is serious.

We focused on the boy in the red coat, peppering him with questions. He glanced at us with a nervous smile but still said nothing. He looked around at the other kids, but they continued to distance themselves from him, both physically and verbally.

“Why did you throw rocks at our truck?” we demanded.

Finally, he stammered, “I-I don’t know.” His awkward smile continued and his eyes roamed.

“Do you think it’s ok to throw rocks at vehicles?”

Nothing.

“Why did you do it? Did you think it would be funny? What do you have to say about this?”

Minimal eye contact. Awkward smiling. Scanning for an exit.

We were beginning to wonder if the teen was neurodivergent. “We need to speak to an adult about this, not a child. Are your folks here? Who are you here with?”

The boy said nothing but swept his gaze toward the adults gathered at the music venue.

Another child piped up. “I think his mom is over there.”

“Is that true? Is your mom here? You need to take us to her. Let’s go talk to your mom.”

No response.

Andy and I stood in the center of the tense group of curious children. The red jacket boy was the bullseye in the center.

“You either need to take us to your mom, or—if your mom’s not here—you need to leave the park and go home. We are not going away until one of those things happens. We go talk to your mom together, or you leave.”

All of us awaited his response. A full minute ticked by. Our feet remained anchored to the ground.

“Ok,” he finally said softly. “I’ll take you to my mom.” He looked defeated. “She’s not gonna be happy.”

The boy’s mother must have spotted us—two unfamiliar adults walking across the open grassy area with her son—because she emerged from the crowd and asked who we were and what was going on.

We briefly explained what had happened.

Like a scene from a Tom and Jerry cartoon, her eyes bugged out and her jaw dropped open.

“You did WHAT? You threw ROCKS at their TRUCK?”

The boy squirmed.

Her line of questioning continued, sounding very much like ours had, just moments before. Getting very little response from him, her words changed from questions to rapid-fire statements.

“You are in a lot of trouble. This is not acceptable behavior. You cannot throw rocks at vehicles. There will be consequences to pay.”

Satisfied that a responsible adult was now in charge of the situation, we assured the mother that there wasn’t any damage, and we were ok with walking away.

“Ok, that’s very nice of you,” she replied to us. Then she turned to her son. “What do you have to say to these people? At least tell them you’re sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled quickly, then looked away.

Andy told the boy we forgive him and won’t hold it against him or stay angry about it. Then he admonished him to never do anything like that again.

The mother still appeared flabbergasted as we turned to go in search of a beverage and a place to sit and salvage the rest of the evening.

After we were settled and sipping, we scanned the crowd again and found mother and son right where we’d left them. Even from a distance, we could feel the scene. Her face was uncomfortably close to his, her posture rigid, her gesturing large and demanding. He squirmed, shoulders slumped, frequently wiping at his eyes with the backs of his hands. A few minutes later, we looked again and found the boy in the red jacket sitting in a canvas camp chair alone, looking none too pleased. We spotted his mother along the fringes of the crowd, chatting with another adult—both of them shaking their heads and appearing to reach for things unseen with their hands, perhaps in frustration or disbelief, or both.

The band played on. A high-spirited country western outfit, their infectious sound drew half a dozen couples out to the bark chip dance floor. The rest of us watched from tables, some with built-in firepits to ward off the growing evening chill. Sunset doesn’t occur here until after 11 PM this time of year, only a few weeks before solstice. But the warmth of midday fades quickly this far north, and it was already 9:30.

Sitting at a patio table in the Land of the Midnight Sun, listening to a band

Occasionally, we checked to see if we could still find the boy and his mother. He was consistently parked in the chair to which he had apparently been assigned, arms folded across his pubescent chest. She rotated around the edges of the scene, chatting with this person and that. Neither mother nor son looked relaxed. Most likely, this evening was ending quite differently than either of them had anticipated.

Although Andy and I were trying to make the best of it, the outing had veered from our expectations, too. We tried to relax and enjoy the scene, but the tension still hung in the air between us, despite the frothy amber diminishing from the glasses before us and the jovial mood increasing all around us.

Finally, we addressed our unease aloud, leaning in to speak over the vocals, guitars, and drums.

I was concerned for the boy, for the mindset of this person well on his way to adulthood who still tries to “play” with children and, in his lonely frustration, slipped away from the youngsters to instead throw rocks at a big yellow truck. Twice. Why? What is going on in his brain? What is not going on in his brain that should be? Where is this headed for him?

Andy was concerned for the mother. She looked frustrated, too, and perhaps felt just as isolated. Does she have a partner to share the load? Is this kind of antisocial behavior common for her son? How is she handling this situation, particularly if it is ongoing?

Andy recalled his own brief stint of vandalism as a child. When it happened, he was perhaps nine or ten years old, younger than the boy in the red jacket. On more than one occasion as he and his childhood buddy had walked through a shopping center parking lot on their way home from school, they stopped to remove gas caps from parked vehicles, chucking them into the nearby concrete river drainage channel. In their minds, it was some kind of war game; they were detaching grenades from their housings and launching them into foxholes behind enemy lines. One afternoon, after hearing multiple complaints from disgruntled shoppers, a security guard lay in wait in his own sort of battle posture. He ambushed the boys, caught them red-handed, and chased them down. It was in that moment, in the custody of a walkie-talkie wielding security guard pumped full of adrenaline, that Andy’s fuzzy little-boy-brain snapped into reality. Like a set of blurry binoculars suddenly coming into crisp focus, he had realized:

This was not an innocent prank. They had stolen other people’s property. It had just been a mindless game, flipping open the little doors on the sides of the cars, unscrewing the caps, pretending to bite off the pins, then hurling the “hand grenades” into the distance. But it was wrong, and they were in big trouble.

“Would you say that was a life-changing experience for you?” I asked Andy, my kind-hearted and wholesome husband, now nearly fifty years removed from his childhood spree of lawlessness.

“Oh, absolutely.” He nodded grimly. “It was the moment of awareness for me—the sudden understanding that my actions impacted other people. It was the realization that I wasn’t just an extension of my parents. I was my own person, and along my own pathway, I could choose—on my own—to do good or bad. And there would be consequences either way.” Then he added, “I hope that’s the case for this young man.”

Andy wanted to go talk to the boy’s mother. He wanted to tell her of his own experience with the hope it would somehow encourage her. Foolish boys can learn and grow.

I suggested he leave it alone. That woman was already having a rough night. She didn’t need some strange man approaching her again, this time with a bizarre childhood story of flinging gas caps in the mall parking lot.

But a grown man gets to make his own decisions. And my husband learned long ago from his not-so-innocent little game of hand grenades that his actions can impact others—for good or bad. He set off to find the mom.

I glanced toward them several times. Although the scene was too loud for me to hear any of their conversation, I could see them clearly in profile. They talked for a few moments, her face intense, then she slowly softened and began dabbing at her eyes, nodding frequently at whatever it was he was saying. Andy’s face was doing that calm and understanding, kind and encouraging thing he does so well.

Returning to our table with the cozy propane fire, Andy picked up his glass and took a sip of what remained.

“It was the right thing to do.” He smiled, then sighed and told me about their conversation.

Although her son functions well enough that he doesn’t necessarily stand out in a crowd, he is indeed autistic—struggling with social cues, communication, and impulse control. As a single mom raising him on her own, she is increasingly exhausted, frustrated, and fearful. And as he enters his teen years, his growing stature and changing hormones, combined with his poor decision-making skills, are causing more—and bigger—problems. She doesn’t know yet what he is capable of learning, of growing beyond. She feels so alone, so unprepared for an uncertain future.

Andy had the opportunity to validate her feelings and encourage her, something she desperately needed. She hadn’t expected kindness from the traveler whose truck her son had attacked with rocks moments before. The strong facade which she struggles to maintain melted away like the late spring snow on the Chugach Mountains.

Having been the recipient of it many times over the years, I know the feeling. Unexpected kindness can undo a person who is already feeling lost and vulnerable.

How much of the responsibility for his actions lies on her shoulders, and how much belongs solely to him? How much can—or should—parents separate themselves from the actions of their children?

I hope and pray that weary mom encounters more grace along the perilous journey ahead.

Be gentle with the mamas, friends.

Be gentle with the boys in the red jackets.

Let the one with the flawless kids cast the first stone.

Until next week,

Sherry

P.S. If I could write multiple stories in one week, I would tell you more about meeting Kaye, a Wasilla grandmother of ten who started driving “Baby Grand” racecars three years ago. She was frightened at first but by the end of her first season, she finally completed a race without getting lapped—a huge victory. When we met her in the pit area of the Alaska Raceway after Friday night’s race, she had just scored a 4th place finish—her second time this season cracking the top 5—and she was flying high. As she put away her gear and loaded her car into the trailer, she opened up a Tupperware and offered us some of her homemade chocolate chip cookies. Seriously, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.