“Not my son. No, not my boy,” Nathaniel, the middle-aged father of four boys looked incredulous as he responded to the officer’s accusations. “Especially not my namesake, my first born.”
“I’m sorry to have to be the one to share it with you. Would you like to watch the video again?”
“Video, shit-de-oh. Anything can be faked these days. AI and all that spam.”
“Please sit down, the investigating officer has a few questions for you.”
Nathaniel took a seat while the officer remained standing. He looked up at him, “Did you know that Nate Junior is the captain of the football team? He has a tremendous life ahead of him as leader, as an athlete, as a success.”
The officer opened the door to the interrogation room and started to leave. “The other officer will be in shortly.”
Nathaniel stretched his hands out in front of his torso. They shook slightly with the shock. Barely audible, he said, “It can’t be true.” Then he settled back into the chair, slumped over, and broke down emotionally.
The following week, Nathaniel invited Nate Junior’s best friend over to dinner. Nathaniel and Nicole, his wife, had so many questions. They sent their three younger sons to their grandmother’s home for the evening so that they could talk to Dimon alone.
“Thank you for coming over for dinner. We have questions.”
“I hoped you could answer some of my questions,” Dimon looked confused. “My parents didn’t want me to come over, but I had to, for my own reasons.”
The conversation between Nate Junior’s best friend, and Nathaniel and Nicole was tense. There were subtle and direct accusations about being bad parents or a bad friend.
“You are the ones who sent him to that psych counsellor. Not me.”
Nathaniel looked confused. “What are you talking about?”
“About six months ago. Nate went to a counsellor and started taking pills to help his concentration. At least that’s what he said they were for.”
Nicole reached out to touch her husband’s hand. “The police found some pills in his locker at school.”
“I thought those were Tylenol. He was always pushing himself in training. I assumed he took Tylenol to help with any pain and physical stress.”
Nicole withdrew from Nathaniel. “The pills weren’t Tylenol?”
“What were they?” Both Nathaniel and Nicole directed their attention at Dimon.
“I don’t know. He told me that they were a prescription to help his concentration. Big tests at the end of the year and he wanted the highest scores. He said the drugs would help him.”
Nathaniel and Nicole had blank stares. They had no idea that their oldest son had seen a counsellor and had received a prescription. “Is this something the school provided?”
“No,” Dimon snipped. “He said you guys scheduled the appointment.”
“We didn’t.” Nathaniel looked at his wife, “Did the police tell you what the pills are?”
“No.” Nicole began to sob lightly. As she caught her breath and dabbled the corners of her eyes with a napkin, she admitted, “He has been more energetic for the past few months. I thought it was just excitement about the end of the school year.”
Nathaniel quizzed Dimon, “Do you know what the pills were?”
“No. But he told me that it was like a combination of testosterone and Adderall.”
“Did you notice any changes in him, that we might have missed?”
“Just teen stuff.”
“Like?”
“Like he paid more attention to girls than he did last Fall.”
“Sounds normal.”
“Exactly.”
“Dimon,” Nathaniel addressed concern for his son’s best friend. “Is there anything we can do to help you? It must have been terrible for you too. That video was shocking.”
“There’s a video?”
“The cops didn’t show you?”
“No. They just asked me questions about where I was that Saturday. If I spent time with Nate or not. I was away with my family. We went to the zoo. My younger sister needed to do a report on an exotic animal, she chose a Panda. So, we took her to the zoo. For research.”
“I am glad you were not involved.” Nathaniel stood up and removed the used dishes from the table. “Thank you for coming over. Let me drive you home now.”
As the months passed by, stories about the star athlete and student who snapped were spread throughout the community, state and nation. No one mentioned the drugs. Not the police, not Nate Junior’s defense.
“I want to know about the pills the police confiscated from Junior’s locker at school.” Nathaniel told the defense attorney. When he tried to ask his son about it, Nate Junior denied taking any pills. “There has to be a reasonable explanation.”
The defense attorney looked somber, wearing a calm frown as he spoke. “You should be happy that those drugs collect in the fat cells. Nate’s blood was clean, but his fat cells contained the same drug as the pills.
“So he lied to me. He was taking pills.”
“Indeed, he was.”
“Why hasn’t this been made public?”
“The prosecutor got a gag order from the judge. It seems there’s a complex explanation about the origin of this experimental drug. The pharmaceutical research center produced it. They deny knowledge about how it got out of the research facility.”
“But this will come out in the trial?”
“Yes. Don’t get your hopes up. The ‘drugs did it’ is not a defense.”
When Nathaniel senior visited his son in the adult detention facility, he confronted him about the drug. “Why did you do that? If you needed something, we could have scheduled an appointment for you and got you legitimate treatment. Did you tell the police about the dealer so that they can stop this from happening again?”
“Dad,” Nate Junior surprised his father with his answer. “The expectations were too much. You praised me. My younger brothers worshipped me. My friends at school thought that I could do nothing wrong. I wanted to continue to exceed your expectations. I didn’t want the praise to stop.”
“Well, you won’t be praised again for the rest of your life. You’ll be lucky to avoid the death penalty.”
Nate Junior began to cry. “Can you forgive me? It was just one mistake.”
“I’ll always love you Junior, but some mistakes can’t be forgiven.”
The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but people are tested by their praise.
Proverbs 27:21