A_Suicide_at_Twelve

A Suicide at Twelve: 'Why, Steve'"* By Richard E. Meyer He lived to be almost thirteen. Walnut eyes. Brown thatch. Boy Scout. Altar boy. He grew up in white, middle-class America. He played football, and he played baseball. His mother, father, two brothers, and sister loved him. On the fourth day of the eleventh month of his twelfth year, a sunny afternoon in suburban Cincinnati, he walked down his favorite trail in the woods behind his house, climbed a tree, knotted a rope, and hanged himself. Why, Steve' In the past year, at least 210 others as young as Steve Dailey killed themselves in the United States. Reported suicides among the very young have more than doubled in twenty years. Even adjusted for population growth, the rate has climbed. The story of Steve Dailey, all-American boy, is an American tragedy: a story about the good life and the possibilities it offers for hidden pressure, subtle loneliness, quiet frustration-- and unanswered questions. Why, Steve' Steven Dailey was born July 30, 1961, in the Cincinnati suburb of Clifton. One month after his first birthday, his parents, Sue and Charles Dailey, presented him with a brother, Mike. The two boys would become good friends. When Steve was two or a little older, Grandpa Rafton, in charge of the tailors at MacGregor, the sporting goods company which made uniforms for the Cincinnati Reds, presented Steve and Mike with baseball uniforms of their own, cut in the Reds' own patterns from the Reds' own cloth. Steve's had pitcher Jimmy O'Toole's old number, 31, sewn on the back. Almost from the day he was married, Charles Dailey worked with Boy Scouts, first as an assistant scoutmaster for a year, then as a scoutmaster for five. When Steve and Mike were still toddlers, he took them along to Scout meetings. One night, he told a meeting of Scout parents: "You know, these boys are growing up awfully fast. If you're ever going to get to know your sons, you better get to know them now--because soon they're going to be at an age when you can't really get to know them." In the second grade, Steve entered St. Catherine's School, in the parish where the baileys had moved in the suburb of Westwood. His father became a volunteer football coach in St. Catherine's growing athletic program. Steve Dailey was big enough to play second level, or "pony," football. But he got paired in practice against a youngster everybody called Mugsy. "After Mugsy kind of tore him up a few times, he decided that maybe he ought to play 'bandits' a year and kind of find out what it's all about first,'' his father remembers. "Bandits" are the beginners. "That kinda bugged the devil out * Richard E. Meyer, "A Suicide at Twelve: `Why. Steve''' " Reprinted by permission of Associated Press. 242 PART THREE: ESSAY DEVELOPMENT of me," Steve's father says. Charles Dailey thinks he probably told his son he was disappointed. "But Steve says, 'Well, I just don't want to play "pony" ball. I'm just not good enough.' And it was probably a good choice on his part. But that was at the stage when I really wanted him to be the best football player in the world, you know. And I wanted him to be better." Steve preferred quieter pursuits. He started a stamp collection. At seven, he caught his first fish--a little bluegill he tugged from the lake at Houston Woods State Park on a camping trip with his family. In 1969, when he was eight years old, Steve joined the Cub Scouts. He advanced to Webelos, where he met Dan Carella, who would become his assistant scoutmaster. Just before becoming a full-fledged Boy Scout, Steve was given Cub Scouting's highest award, the Arrow of Light. Steve was graduated from the "bandits" after a year of learning the fundamentals of football. He played "pony" football for two years. But he was a large boy, and he found himself paired off against Mugsy again. Charles Dailey resigned himself: "Steve didn't mind getting knocked down, getting blocked out and all that kind of stuff; but he just did not have the-what'--the killer instinct." In school, Steve got B's and C's. He received his First Communion, was confirmed, and learned how to serve Mass. He was a faithful altar boy who kept his serving appointment on holidays and vacations. But he wasn't above draining the last few drops of altar wine--or clowning with the incense in the vestry. By 1972, when he was eleven, Steve was well on his way toward his most important goal: to become an Eagle Scout. He worked at it steadily. By now his father was a Scout commissioner. He went along with Steve and his troop on most of their hikes and campouts. And he counseled Steve on five of the dozen merit badges he earned. "Steve went after the merit badges that took a little more brains and thought," says Dan Carella. "He was sensitive--not a rough kid. He wasn't a real loner, but he wasn't outgoing as much as some of the other kids. He liked to be with the older boys and the grown-ups. But there were a lot of older boys and younger ones, and he was in-between. That's one of the reasons he had no real close buddies. I can't really remember ever seeing him with any close buddy." At home, Steve and Mike started a beer-can collection. Steve learned to play chess. He read Hardy Boy mysteries. He got a new ten-speed bicycle for Christmas. And he went on a month-long camping trip to California with the whole family: Mike, sister Kay, and a new Dailey, his smallest brother, Jamie. Everybody visited Disneyland. Back home, Sue and Charles Dailey noticed something--Mike was always outside playing baseball with the kids in the neighborhood. Steve preferred . being alone. He worked on Scout projects or watched color television. His father thought it was because the other kids made up street rules for their game--and Steve insisted on playing by the correct rules. WRITING THE ESSAY 243 By now Steve's father was athletic director at St. Catherine's. Steve worked long hours at fund-raising for the Dads' Club, which sponsored the parish teams. He took over the popcorn concession at basketball tournaments. "He'd get upset when I'd suggest he take a break and try to get some other kid to replace him so he could go watch the games," says Jay Deakin, past president of the Dads' Club. During the 1972 - 1973 school year, Steve played "pee-wee" football, one level above "pony." So did Mugsy. "Steve always fought him off, but he'd get beat all the time," his father says. "There'd be nights when Steve'd say, 'Oh, he really wiped me out!' " "It didn't frighten Steve to get hit," says coach Ray Bertran. "However, some boys, they go out and they look to hit the other kid. He wasn't that way. In 'pee-wee' I guess he was the biggest kid, but he just wasn't that aggressive." Steve wasn't on the starting team. But one October evening, he came home from practice smiling. "What happened'" asked his father. "Boy, I really wiped him out tonight. I really got him." Steve meant Mugsy. It was probably the only time that ever happened, Charles Dailey says. "Steve never missed a Scout r,~..Peting. He added up the requirements to become an Eagle, allotted himself so much time to accomplish each, and put himself on a rigid schedule. _"Steve was really good at Scouting," says Charles Dailey, "and I really had a lot of pride in that." Steve set his heart on a trip to the Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, and started working at Scout projects to earn his way. He planned to work at a Scout car wash. And he never missed a Scout paper drive. But he didn't go in for Scout roughhousing or free-for-alls. "Steve had sort of soft feelings," remembers Carella. "He was a very personal boy. He stuck up for the guys who were being picked on. During the district camporee in Mt. Airy Forest, there were a couple of kids who--well, they weren't mamma's boys, but they just didn't know how to handle themselves. A lot of the boys preferred to tent with other kids. But Steve said, 'Well, I'll go with them. " Last fall, Steve's father told him he had to play a fall sport. "I was thinking in terms of football," says Charles Dailey. But St. Catherine's had started soccer. Steve said he'd rather play that. "He was aggressive on the soccer team," says football coach George Kugler. Dan Carella describes him as "a good soccer player." But soccer was not the prestige sport at St. Catherine's. "Football at St. Catherine's is king," says Bill Coffey, a history teacher. Carella discounts any attempt by Charles Dailey to pressure his son to play football. But he adds: "There probably was some pressure in the situation. His father is athletic director. The situation says, 'Hey, how come you're not playing, Steve'' " 244 PART THREE: ESSAY DEVELOPMENT To make enough money to go to the Philmont Scout Ranch, Steve wanted a summer job. His father arranged for the job with a company that shares space in the Cardinal Engineering Building, where he works as a civil engineer. But he didn't tell Steve about the arrangement. Better, he thought, to have Steve ask--and think he got the job himself. Lump in his throat, Steve accompanied his father to the Cardinal Building one morning in April. Fortified by a cup of chocolate milk and a donut from a bakery along the way, Steve marched in--and came out with a job making catalogs and cleaning up for 75 cents an hour starting when school let out this summer. "Boy, he was a king then," Charles Dailey remembers. Steve also got a newspaper route, with the weekly Press, which circulates in Westwood. That money would go toward Philmont. And he made arrangements with Aunt Beth McGinnis to mow her lawn for two dollars whenever it needed it. That would go toward Philmont, too. In his own way, Steve Dailey was shy. When his mother went from room to room at night to check on her brood, she always got a kiss from Mike, a kiss from Kay, and a kiss from Jamie. But never from Steve. Kissing embarrassed him. His mother always thought: "Well, he'll come to me when he's ready." On Mother's Day, Sunday, May 12, her children brought Sue Dailey breakfast in bed. Steve presented her with a terrarium he'd made in Scouts. And he put his arms around her and kissed her. By now, though, school wasn't going entirely well. Steve wasn't doing his homework for language ,I arts. That was Margaret Linahan's class. And Steve was getting a D. "In content subjects, like science and social studies, I suppose he could take his own path. But in English grammar there is only one way to go," Mrs. Linahan smiles. "As long as I'm your teacher." She told Sue and Charles Dailey their son's grades were falling. - "Hey, is something bothering you'" Steve's father asked him. "No," Steve said.. "Hey, you know, if you fail anything you're going to be grounded in the yard the whole summer." In Bill Coffey's history class, Steve slipped from an A to a B or B-plus. Coffey was one of his favorites. He, in turn, appreciated Steve's sense of humor. "In the last few weeks, he didn't talk as much," Coffey remembers. "He didn't participate. And his dry wit was no longer as present." Steve paid a sentimental visit to Sister Marie Russell's fourth-grade classroom. "I wondered why he was not with his class," she recalls, eyes puzzled behind her glasses. "Why was he wandering in the hall' And why was he by himself' You'd think a twelve-year-old would be with the boys." Though Steve was never what Bill Coffey calls "Joe Popularity," he was well-liked--and he was good friends with-Ted Hutchinson, for instance, and Rick Flannery. But Charles Dailey was unaware that Steve had any close friends. He never went to any of his friends' houses to play--and never invited any of them to his house to play. WRITING THE ESSAY 245 With spring came baseball, and a peak of activity in the Dailey household. "We would have to fix a pot of stew, where you could keep heating it up when people would come in and out, or chili, or something like that," Sue remembers. Her husband says: "Sometimes we'd just eat, and then the person that wasn't here, he'd have to warm up the stuff that was left." Steve played on an intermediate-ability team. He was a starter. But manager Ray Kendrick says, "I'm not sure he really liked sports, at least not baseball. He wasn't that enthusiastic about it. ..." But now Charles Dailey headed in his spare time an athletic organization at St. Catherine's that totaled 110 coaches, almost all of them fathers who had volunteered. Four football teams ... fourteen baseball teams . . . ten basketball teams ... track . . . soccer . . . softball . . . volleyball . . . kickball. The parish sports budget totaled $11,491. Steve's father says, "This year I think he wanted to play soccer again. But I told him that there wasn't any way, because in high school, well, he's just not going to be a soccer man ... because he's plain too big, and never was real fast. I still had the hopes that this year he would finally find out, with the size and all on his side, that he would become more aggressive." Steve Dailey, twelve years old, stood 5 feet, 5 inches, and weighed 140 pounds. "Steve, you ready for football'" coach George Kugler asked him. "You ought to play. Get some fundamentals. You're gonna be a big kid. You can make tackle." Ted Hutchinson remembers Steve Dailey saying: "My dad wants me to play football, but I'd rather play soccer." Two weeks before the end of school, Bill Coffey asked him: "Steve, you gonna play football'" "Yeah, I guess I have to," he shrugged. "My Dad wants me to lose 10 pounds because of the weight limit." Steve put himself on another schedule, this time with weights. Across the top of a piece of notebook paper he marked places for the dates of each day until fall. Beneath that, he charted sit-ups, bench presses, snatches, lifts, push-ups, windmills, jumping jacks; he measured an oval in his backyard with a tape and started running laps. Affectionately, Charles Dailey teased him about being a "big lop"--the nickname he'd been given when he'd grown to be 6 feet 2 inches, as a young man. But Mike told him Steve didn't like it. And he stopped. On Sunday, May 26, Steve helped haul stones and build a form for the concrete foundation to a utility shed-workshop his father was putting up behind the house. He hurt his back and missed school on Monday. He missed baseball practice, too. And that was the second time--the first had been a short while before when he'd had to stay at home with Kay and Jamie while his mother took Mike to the doctor. 246 PART THREE: ESSAY DEVELOPMENT "Then he didn't show up for one of our games," says Ray Kendrick, the baseball manager. Charles Dailey thinks it was a make-up game. "I started someone else in his place," Kendrick says. That week, smiling, Steve told Sister Marie Russell about his summer job. But he didn't dress up for Roaring Twenties Day in Bill Coffey's history class. Ted Hutchinson remembers: "He just sat there." And that week, Coffey remembers, he discussed Japanese hara-kiri in class. He recalls no reaction from Steve. On Saturday, June 1, Steve's father took him to a Scout show. He bought Steve a souvenir patch. That evening Steve worked on his personal management merit badge, for which he drew up a budget. It set a fixed amount aside each month for the trip to Philmont. After dinner, he tried to show his family photo slides of Philmont, but the projector bulb blew out. On Sunday, June 2, Steve helped clean the family camper for a Scout canoe trip the coming weekend. He wire-brushed the rust from its wheels and painted them white. On Monday, June 3, he rode his bicycle in front of his house and hit a hole in the pavement. It pitched him over the handlebars. A neighbor was sure he'd been hurt, but he got up, looked around to be certain nobody had seen him and got back on his bike. One of its pedals was bent. On Tuesday, June 4, two days, the end of school, Sue Dailey volunteered to staple the PTA bulletin together at St. Catherine's. She met Steve in the hall on his way to history. He called out, "Hi, Mom." Margaret Linahan kept him after school to finish an assignment. When he got done, he found that Aunt Beth had already left. She was to have picked him up and taken him to her house so he could earn more Philmont money mowing the lawn. But she had biscuits in the oven and couldn't wait. Steve walked home. He called his father at work: "I just want to tell you that Monday I wrecked my bike." "Oh' Did you get hurt'" "Yeah, I hurt my hand, and you know, it's pretty sore. I think I might have broken it." Charles Dailey didn't think it was all that bad, or his son would have mentioned it before. He and Steve talked about the bicycle. Steve's father remembers saying, without raising his voice: "We'll take a look at it, and if you broke it that means you're going to have to pay for it." "You know, I can't play ball, so I don't want to go to practice," Steve said. "Well, you know, I think you ought to go, because you've missed here a few times, and if you're going to be part of the team you've got to go to practices, too." "Well, I'm not gonna take my glove." "I think that you ought to take the glove and all and just go on up." Steve handed the telephone receiver to his mother, and she hung it up. WRITING THE ESSAY 247 Steve walked out the back door. He had tears in his eyes. He went to the garage, found the rope, carried it down the trail to a dead tree in the woods. His father found his body the next morning. The baseball glove was nearby. The terrible ifs accumulated: Dan Carella: "If he'd come to me...." Sister Marie Russell: "Oh, if only I would have known, I would have gone out of my way to get him and really talk to him. ...." Margaret Linahan: "If I wouldn't have kept him after school...." Beth McGinnis: "If I would have just waited for him...." Sue Dailey: "If I'd have only said he didn't have to go to baseball practice. . . ." Charles Dailey: "If I had gone back there [to the woods that night], he might have been able to keep his weight off the rope for a period of time, or something like that, and, you know, you could have helped him. ..." Steve's father says a police officer friend told him the rope wasn't tied, but only looped, around the tree limb. He believes his son didn't intend to die--but that the rope had held accidentally. "Yet I don't question the fact that he got the rope and he went back there and he had tied the rope around his neck. You know,. I just can't believe that Steve would really do that. Except that he had to have done it, I guess." Other police officers and county coroner Philip Holman determined that the fastening around the tree limb was secure enough to rule out an accident. They declared Steve a suicide. "Not infrequently, suicides are caused by intense anger or frustration," says Dr. Fedor Hagenauer, a pediatric psychiatrist at the University of Cincinnati. "Because this anger or frustration is addressed at people who are very important, children have a lot of guilty feelings about them. And then, because of the guilty feelings, and because the anger or frustration has to come out in some way, they might try to take it out on themselves ... even with a token gesture, or going through the motions ... maybe with a fantasy that they'll be rescued at the last minute ... and they'll do it thinking, 'Everybody will see how unhappy I am and they'll learn and give in to what I'm unhappy about.' " It would have been impossible, he said, to predict Steve's fate. The Rev. James Conway, who celebrated Requiem Mass at St. Catherine's, doesn't think Steve was morally responsible for his death. During the Mass, Boy Scouts presented gifts to God symbolizing Steve's life. At Mike's suggestion, one was a soccer ball.