Kathryn Eastburn

Kathmandu

For the past few weeks, I was privileged to travel to Kathmandu, Nepal, for the wedding of my Nepalese son, Subodh, and his longtime love, Sabina. Subodh came to the U.S. to attend college in 1998, and lived with my family for nearly four and a half years. He's a very important part of our lives, and now I've finally met his family in Nepal. The dispatches pasted below are email letters sent to family during my journey. Enjoy. Namaste.

Dec. 4, 2009

Dearest ones:

It is early morning on day four in Kathmandu. The trip here was not as difficult as I imagined. Doha airport was quite comfortable and the flight to Kathmandu from there was full of cheerful Nepalis, trekkers, and Sherpas, all straining for first glimpse of the Himalayas. They appeared out the right-side windows, jagged and white against blue sky, looking small and far away. Then I realized the white patches at what seemed to be the base were not fields of snow but clouds. And as we drew nearer, still flying at 37,000 feet, the peaks looked nearly as high as our plane. We were still 200 miles away.

Kathmandu is the wildest, most complicated place I've ever visited. The city is in the throes of so much change and turmoil — constant and uneasy changes in government, a population that has doubled in ten years — and yet, ancient cultures and traditions remain at its core. I am staying in city center in a lovely, spacious rooftop apartment, hosted by Subodh's Aunt Prava, a formidable businesswoman who has spent the week so far abstaining from eating in her home as she is in an "impure" state, observing the mourning ritual for her husband's deceased uncle. Her son Akshay and his American wife Jenara reside in the apartment above hers and live as modern ex-pats, thus my ready and functional internet access.

Traffic here is insanely congested with thousands of motorcycles and tiny Suzuki taxis competing for road space with Kathmandu Tuk-Tuks (rattly three-wheeled vans), and buses of every shape and size. They all belch black exhaust and tend to ignore any marked lines on the road. There are no traffic signals, and yet, no collisions since I've been here. Unmarked roads tend to wind and climb across districts with no planned intersections or destination. When I ride with Subodh from one place to another, we inevitably end up on curvy alleyways, racing over potholes and crumbling pavement to the back of somewhere. Needless to say, I have not ventured out into the city on my own.

I have spent most of my time with Subodh's family, observing intricate wedding preparations. Everywhere I go, I am ushered to the seat of honor, offered tea, and refused the right to help with anything. I have met aunts, cousins, the revered grandmother, future in-laws, and countless friends, all of whom have been so incredibly kind and genuinely hospitable that I feel some of their grace rubbing off on me. The traditional greeting here — hands in prayer, "Namaste," lowered eyes — is offered hundreds of times a day and feels, each time, as fresh as the last.

The wedding preparations included preparing vast numbers of trays of gifts to be presented to Sabina, the bride-to-be, in a ceremony we attended last night at her home. Subodh and his parents are not allowed to mingle with her before the actual ceremony, so the aunts and cousins act as emissaries and I was allowed to go along as an honorary family member. A female Newari priest (their ethnic group, their particular form of Buddhism) performed all the rites of blessing on the gifts, and that ceremony culminated in the presentation of the wedding sari, exquisite swirls of red and gold, to Sabina. She then left the room and all of us to wait and see whether she changed into it or returned in the sari she was wearing before. A few minutes later she descended the stairs in her wedding sari, her arms laden with bangle bracelets, a gold amulet hanging over her forehead. She was indescribably beautiful.

Each day scores of people swirl throughout the house setting up tents, cooking massive pots of daal and curry, cleaning, conversing, and planning, and the atmosphere is inevitably cheerful and calm. :Yesterday the family learned that the reception will have to be rescheduled as the Maoists have called a general strike for the day it was originally planned. In spite of having already invited some 1,000 guests, the plans were changed, voices were not raised in anger or frustration, and the whole incident quickly became fodder for jokes.

In the midst of this riot of activity, a woman arrives twice a day to massage Subodh's sister Sukriti and her newborn baby boy (30 days today) with mustard oil. They retreat to the rooftop where mother and son are massaged in the sun and left to warm. Sukriti has returned to her mother's household, per Newari tradition, for a month of care. She wears only soft, warm fabrics, loosely draped, and the baby is snugly wrapped in blankets and a soft cotton diaper covers his uncircumcised loins. No pins. No sticky tabs. Every morning he receives a ritual face wash with breast milk. There is no emphasis on infant stimulation, only on comfort and serenity. He is passed from the arms of his mother to one loving aunt or grandmother to another with no fuss, one arm supporting him below, the other crossed over, hands joining in the middle. To hold him with both hands cupped beneath with no protection above, I'm told, is a bad omen.

Today we will visit Kathmandu's Durbar Square (the historic city center) and temples in Patan to the south of the city. I will think of all of you as I soak up the swirl of history, culture, and humanity surrounding me.

I love you all.



Dec. 6, 2009

Dearest ones:

Yesterday the Maoists unexpectedly called a strike, and bustling Kathmandu came to a near stand-still. From the balcony where I send emails, above a busy street, the only sounds below were human voices and bicycle bells. The news explained that the banda was to protest the government's expulsion of thousands of squatters from the national forest — a group of what they call "landless" people here, our homeless, supported by the Maoists. The action is against the government, but all of Kathmandu's transportation (buses, taxis, motorcycles) and all businesses, except those on alleyways, are stopped.

For me it was a break from sightseeing. The previous day had been an orgy of temples, as we'd rented a car and visited the historic (durbar) squares of Patan and Bakhtapur, both near Kathmandu. So much beauty and history was hard to comprehend in a day, but the sights were marvelous: magnificent stone work from the 12th and 13th centuries, ancient royal palaces, classical Newari architecture with its intricately carved wooden doors and windows, idols and gods surrounded by piles of marigolds, and the gorgeous Nepali people at ease in a sacred place. Here the men walk hand in hand, the women with their elbows entwined. Little kids scamper up and down the massive temple steps and sit astride the stone elephants and lions that guard them.

At sunset on that day, our driver took us to Boudanath Stupa, the largest Buddhist stupa in this part of the world, the one with the seeing eyes most often depicted in photos of Kathmandu. Rumors claim that a bone of Gautama Buddha rests inside. I pictured it on a hillside somewhere outside the city, but the massive square where it sits is surrounded by busy streets and commerce. Once inside the square, the atmosphere is simultaneously festive and worshipful. We entered the sweeping crowd of Tibetan Buddhist monks, Nepalis, and tourists, slowly walking clockwise and occasionally reaching out to spin one of the thousands of brass prayer wheels around the perimeter. As the sky darkened and the seeing eyes withdrew from our sight, thousands of ghee candles began to sparkle across the square. I didn't even know what I had experienced, but I was filled with lightness when we left.

Yesterday, we walked first to a nearby oasis called The Garden of Dreams, the recently restored grounds of a former Rana general's palace, then to Subodh's house. We saw a small group of protesters sitting stone-faced, wrapped in red Maoist flags, in the middle of the street. Further down, we saw a group of school boys squatting on the curb, resting from a mid-day game of street soccer on one of Kathmandu's busiest streets. A friend taunted them in jest, chanting anti-Maoist slogans and lobbing rocks at them, smiling broadly. I found throughout the day that whatever inconvenience the strike caused, it was met with a mix of frustration and good humor.

At Subodh's, we packed the masala bags, gifts that he will present to guests from Sabina's side at his wedding ceremony. Our small assembly line of Ganga didi (Subodh's aunt), brother-in-law Amrit, Subodh, and I stuffed cinnamon bark, dates, walnuts, pistachios, dried coconut, cloves, cardamom pods, chewing gum, chocolate bars, and digestive candies into 150 pouches. Walking back to my host's apartment after dinner, we looked up and saw the stars. The daily two-hour power blackout, in concert with a day free of belching engines and dust roused by spinning wheels, had washed the sky black.

Today, I will read a little, shop a little, and do whatever Subodh needs or wants me to do on the last day before his wedding ceremony. The bride's family's ceremony and groom's family's ceremony are held separately, hers in the morning and his in the afternoon. It will, no doubt, be another day of wonders.

I send you love,



Dec. 10. 2009

Wedding day (Dec. 8) started at around 9 a.m. and didn’t end until 9 that night. Because of the transportation strikes called by the Maoists, Subodh’s family had to change their original date for his ceremony and the date of his reception. This involved having the invitations reprinted and hand delivering them all. The rearrangement put his ceremony on the same date as hers — Sabina’s in the morning, Subodh’s in the early evening, each at their respective family home.

That morning, motorcycles, taxis, and private cars rolled in by the dozens, loaded with men in western suits and women in pink, maroon, orange, and red saris emblazoned with marvelous gold embroidery and beads. Women whose husbands had passed away wore blue. My host, Prava, had wrapped me early that morning in an exquisite fuchsia creation. I felt like a girl playing dress-up. Walking wasn’t so difficult. Reaching, kneeling, squatting, and standing from a sitting position were more problematic. I have newfound respect for all the women in Nepal who stoop, clean, cook, sell their wares, and do all manner of work in saris, still the predominant national dress for women. (Catching on quickly are Indian kurtha serals, loose-fitting tunics over blousy pants, also in bright prints, and the godforsaken American blue jean among younger girls.)

At Subodh’s, I sit in the living room among a flock of pink swans, their elegant fingers carefully wrapping wedding gifts in sheets of bright cellophane. One holds the wrapping in place and the other applies the tiniest piece of tape. It would be a waste to use the entire roll. One carefully handled gift is a piece of gold brocade that will be draped across the roof of the bride and groom’s car when Subodh and Sabina return from her house to his, to indicate that the bride is present.

We all participate in a brief blessing ceremony and receive tikka, a red paste of rice and dye powder, a dollop placed on our foreheads, enhanced with a flourish of silver glitter.

Our entourage loads into cars and busses and piles onto motorcycles for the cross town trek to Sabina’s home. We are only slightly delayed by a rickety three-wheeled cart parked in the alley, piled to overflowing with fresh vegetables. A chorus of honks alerts the cart’s porter, a skinny, snaggle-toothed, hunchbacked old man who rushes out and, with the strength of a small horse, maneuvers his load to the side so that we can pass.

It’s now past noon and we were scheduled to leave at 10:30 a.m. No one cares. This is wryly referred to as Nepali time.

A wreck, the first I’ve seen in a week, causes a massive traffic jam. We are stuck behind a big Bolero SUV with a red window decal that reads “Om shanti shanti om.” A bright orange billboard extols the modern conveniences of Siddhartha Bank. Along this section of sidewalk, an area thick with travel agencies, are signs for Buddha Air, Yeti Air (the yeti is the mythical Nepalese “Bigfoot”), and Shangri-La Air. Motorcycles zip and weave past our car and all the other paralyzed four-wheel vehicles. A woman in a red sari, her black hair and gold bangles gleaming, her marketing bag wedged between her hip and the driver’s back, sits side saddle on the back of a Honda that sweeps past us.

On these streets, the swarm of humanity encompasses every imaginable type of person and activity. Laundry women scrub, dogs sleep, street merchants peddle, children play, executives strut, shoppers stroll, young Communists brood, grannies hobble home from temple, vehicles honk and belch black smoke, and down the middle of the street, a sleepy-eyed cow weaves through traffic.

We arrive at Sabina’s where strings of blinking colored lights have been hung, interwoven with garlands of paper flowers, across the courtyard. We watch the ceremony from the steps above the courtyard—Subodh and Sabina seated on red cushions, her cousin (the equivalent of a maid of honor) there to guide her in protocol and keep her elaborate adornments in place; the priest chanting over oil lamps, bowls of curd, trays of marigold and poinsettia blossoms; Sabina’s mother and aunt and uncle busily keeping things moving; Subodh’s father and brother-in-law and cousin making sure that all of his family’s offerings have been made and are in place; and various others wandering in and out to get a better look or snap a photo. The only music is the constant tinny chime of cell phones ringing. No call goes unanswered.

The ceremony resumes with many ritual presentations of food, flowers, and religious artifacts. Bride and groom drape one another’s necks with flower garlands, heavy neck pieces of dried grass, and gold necklaces. They exchange rings. Loved ones call out when the spirit moves them. Solemnity has no place here.

Subodh joins us as we break for lunch—rice and daal, vegetable and meat curries, roti, greens, chutneys—on the roof, up seven narrow stairways, while Sabina stays behind to receive gifts. Subodh’s uncle, the well-known sitar player, waxes philosophic over life and youth and old age. “They are the rising sun,” he says, gesturing toward Subodh’s friends, young scholars and entrepreneurs. “We are the setting sun. Nobody worships the setting sun, only the rising sun.” He has toured in the U.S. and observes that Americans have everything. But, he urges, patting his heart, “here you are poor. Our poorest have nothing, but here,” a finger to the heart, “they are rich.” He concludes that in a better world, the world of tomorrow, a 50-50 compromise would work best for all.

We retreat downstairs and I am ushered to a chair in the living room where the television is tuned to overwrought Indian soap operas. The women flutter about me, offering tea. “Please. Sit. You must be tired.” They have worked for days staging this event and I have done nothing but watch.

We leave Sabina’s, ritually, of course. Sabina’s uncle takes Subodh by the hand and arm and marches him three times around the wedding car, hired for the day, before he can enter it with his bride. We trek back across the streets of Kathmandu to Subodh’s house where bride and groom are greeted ritually. Water is sprinkled on the path leading from the car. Subodh’s mother, Siddhi, extends the handle end of a silver spoon to Sabina, and gently pulls her through the gate into her home.

Upstairs, on the roof terrace, Subodh’s family’s ceremony begins. Subodh’s relatives greet the bride, one by one. She bows to each, deeply to elders, and passes them a packet of beetul nuts while they slip her cash through namaste hands. The men of his family are all seated on floor cushions, in a line next to the bride and groom. They are served rice beer, hard-boiled egg, smoked fish, and little piles of ceremonial food on plates woven from palm leaves. A small mountain of food is placed before the bride and groom and they pinch a portion of each item (traditionally there are 84), bless it, and set it aside for the gods. The priest chants. Caterers serve the guests trays of snacks and glasses of orange Fanta and Coca-Cola. Everyone talks and laughs. The men peck at their cell phones. Finally someone whispers to me, “Here is the most important part of the ceremony.”

Subodh’s father stands behind his son and his bride. He takes Subodh’s arm and drapes it across Sabina’s shoulder. He take Sabina’s arm and places it across Subodh’s shoulder. Then he pulls their heads together in a sideways nod and showers their black hair with gold marigold petals. Everyone claps. The bride, who has remained serene and sober all day, is beaming.

The daily power outage hits just as everyone is descending the stairs for dinner, but this is a party and—hooray!— there is a generator. The lights flicker, then shine. A cheer goes up. The banquet table is overflowing. An auntie catches sight of me and ushers me to a chair.

“Please. Sit. You must be tired.”

My love to all of you.


Dec. 15, 2009

Hello all:

I've just returned to Kathmandu from Pokhara, a quiet little mountain town, bordering a glassy lake, with views of the Annapurna Range of the Himalayas.

Since I arrived in Kathmandu, Subodh has insisted I leave the city and see the "real" Nepal.

"This is not Nepal," he says, gesturing out the taxi window at the throngs of people, cars, buses, bicycles, and motorcycles, the dust and smoke and noise. When he left for the U.S. in 1998, Kathmandu was a different place, prior to the prominence of the Maoist movement, the massacre of the royal family resulting in rotating governments and political uncertainty, civil war in the rural districts, and a massive influx of internally displaced and rural poor into Kathmandu. The population has more than doubled in a decade, and the infrastructure hasn't kept up.

At this moment, the process of forming a new and inclusive government for a fledgling egalitarian democracy creeps forward—one step forward, two steps back. Today, UN officials will arrive to supervise the release of more than 4,000 child soldiers recruited by the Maoists, one of many conditions in the tenuous peace accord. At the same time, the Maoists have declared three independent states in the hinterlands, ethnically based, with leaders appointed by party officials, raising the shackles of the sitting parties in Kathmandu who are urging a slower turnover of national power.

Everywhere, people struggle and are afraid: the upper caste, landed, and wealthy with their mistrust of the Maoists and the near certainty of losing their way of life; the poor to feed and shelter themselves, educate their children, and stay out of the political fray.

In Pokhara, I walked and walked and walked on the footpaths bordering the lake, past garden restaurants, small farms, and women doing laundry at water's edge. Past cows out grazing on the narrow strip of grass bordering the water. Past fresh fruit stands and school kids walking arm in arm. Past short, moon-faced Tibetan refugees squatting roadside, peddling their wares—necklaces, earrings, singing bowls—to inquisitive American college students. Past terraced rice fields and kitchen gardens jammed with mature cauliflower, ready to pick.

My planned overnight stay turned into two nights when I arrived at the Pokhara airport yesterday to find that my 3 p.m. plane was delayed and possibly cancelled. It's the weather, the Nepali ticket agent politely explained, but the sun was shining in Pokhara and, according to Subodh, in Kathmandu as well. Air traffic, the ticket agent kindly explained thirty minutes later. It's the prime minister, the growing crowd of stranded passengers growled after an hour. He's shut down the entire airport in Kathmandu for his arrival from India! The prime minister explanation seemed most likely. Just two days before, returning from the village of Nagarkot with my host, Prava, we were crunched in a massive traffic jam upon return to Kathmandu. As our car inched forward on the rocky shoulder of the road, an entourage of police and military vehicles came into view, blocking off all lanes of traffic in both directions. "Look, it's the prime minister," Prava said, pointing to a black limousine flanked by at least twenty vehicles and hundreds of armed guards. Inside the limo, a middle-aged man in a Nepali hat stared placidly at the book in his lap.

So I returned to Hotel Tulsi, my Pokhara retreat, a lazy little place with a garden of rhododendron and poinsettia in bloom, pots of marigolds and chrysanthemums lining winding slate walkways, and trellised archways heavy with greenery. At the rooftop restaurant, I am the only dinner customer, so I take my whiskey nightcap on the darkened terrace with a view of the stars and emotive strains of a local band belting out "Hotel California" pulsing from a nearby nightclub.

This morning I caught the first flight back, delayed only 45 minutes by fog. The view from 12,000 feet was staggering. Deep blue knife-edged mountain peaks cut through the layer of clouds below, and to my left, the glittering snow pack of the Himalayas. Villages, connected by winding dirt roads on impossible slopes, appeared as we began to descend. Then, suddenly, a bowl of haze and the plunge into Kathmandu. Patient Subodh waiting with a hired car.

I have discovered that Nepal is a web of contrasts, and that every human life here is entangled in that web, including mine.

Much love,

Kathryn

Memorial Day

This essay was written for public radio KRCC-FM's "The Big Something," published at www.thebigsomething.org.

(Theodore Kang Eastburn, Iraq 2005, flying in a Black Hawk helicopter.)

No Comfort
Remembering My Son, My Soldier

By Kathryn Eastburn

My son Ted was a soldier.

He was a brother, a son, a cousin, a nephew, and a grandson. He was a fisherman, a movie aficionado, an emergency medical technician, a practical joker, and a loyal friend. But foremost, he was a soldier.

It is sometimes hard for me to understand how or from where Ted’s military mindset evolved, given that he grew up in a non-military family with few apparent military influences. It seemed inborn, as inevitable as breathing.

He was born in Korea and adopted at seven months. His first American home was a small cottage in Colorado Springs across the street from a brick firehouse. He loved sitting in the small square patch of grass beyond the front porch, listening as the fire alarm split the air, watching as the shiny red truck backed into the street, and shrieking as the massive engine offended the peace of a quiet afternoon with its deafening diesel roar and window-rattling siren.

His first word was fire truck (pronounced “pie-tuck”).

Teddy was a Lego master, constructing elaborate helicopters (”hockingtockers”) and tanks. In one of my favorite photos, taken when he was around age four, he proudly holds up to his father’s camera a fighter jet, constructed completely of cardboard. As he grew older, he played fireman, policeman, and finally and forever, soldier. He camped out in pup tents, perched a green beret atop his round head, ate MRI’s, and conjured imaginary enemies.

By middle school, his play had become a lifestyle. He shopped for clothes at the Army Surplus Store. He wore polished black combat boots. We lived then in a rambling old four-square Victorian with rooms on three floors, and when Ted moved his bedroom to the third floor, he set up an Army cot camouflaged by netting in a narrow V-shaped dormer. He slept there, surrounded by scratchy military issue wool blankets, for years.

Finally, at age 17, at the end of his junior year in high school, Ted enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves. I found no small amount of irony in the fact that he had to have a parental permission slip to do that. He attended basic training, finished high school, continued to train with his unit, and was deployed to Iraq. When he returned, he completed advanced training, switched units, and began to prepare for deployment to Afghanistan. But before he deployed for the second time, at age 22, he killed himself. A gunshot to the head.

I cannot write or say those words without a storm rumbling in my brain, a whirlwind of grief, sorrow, anger, guilt, and confusion. It has been nearly two years since Teddy left us, and the storm has not abated. We miss him more, not less, as Memorial Day approaches, as we face the second anniversary of his death, and what would have been his 25th birthday in September.

Ted was given full military honors at his memorial service. His buddies dressed him in uniform and guarded his body at the funeral home, then escorted him to the crematorium. On a stunningly bright and beautiful summer afternoon in Colorado, they stood at attention, their guns pointed skyward. His commanding officers praised his service. His commander commented: “Make no mistake. Ted Eastburn was a casualty of this war.” On the day of his memorial, he was promoted to corporal.

Our family banded together and faced the rest of our lives without him. We have held each other close and have tried to find ways to remember Teddy that do not hurt us more than we already hurt. I left Colorado and sought comfort near family in Galveston, Texas where Teddy grew up fishing with his cousin in the warm Gulf Coast waters.

There has been no comfort in reading and hearing about the rise in suicides among soldiers this year and every year since the U.S. invaded Iraq.

Army figures show that 2,100 soldiers attempted suicide in 2007, the year that my son succeeded. CBS News, with the aid of a detailed analysis by an epidemiologist, reports that veterans aged 20 to 24 who have served in the war on terror had the highest suicide rate among all veterans, and a rate estimated some two to four times higher than civilians from the same age group. Everyone agrees that the number of suicides among American soldiers has been dramatically on the rise over the past five years.

In recent months, top ranking military brass have addressed the urgency of the problem. Major General Mark Graham of Fort Carson has spoken openly about the deaths of his two sons — one an ROTC cadet by suicide in 2003, and one by an improvised explosive device in Iraq in 2004. “Both of my sons died fighting different battles,” said Graham.

Early intervention, better mental health care, and erasure of the stigma attached to needing help in the “can do” environment of the military have been topics widely discussed. The Army’s highest ranking psychiatrist, Brigadier General Dr. Loree K. Sutton, has urged that “seeking help is a sign of profound courage and strength.”

“Truly,” said Sutton, addressing a 2009 suicide prevention conference, “psychological and spiritual health are just as important for readiness as one’s physical health.”

This enlightened attitude and open communication is heartening, but it does not ease the knowledge that my son returned from Iraq and filled out a multiple-choice questionnaire aimed at measuring his psychological health. To every question he answered affirmatively that he was suffering no after effects. When we asked him he told us he was fine, though we could see from his sleep patterns and the level of suppressed rage he carried around that he was not. I suggested, as did his father, that he might see a therapist for what we perceived as depression. He couldn’t do that, he told us, because it would negatively impact his career.

So where does a parent, a wife, a brother, a sister, a loved one of a soldier who has committed suicide in the line of duty find comfort on Memorial Day?

There is no comfort in the fact of my son’s permanent absence or in the memory of the horrible way he died. But I find solace in remembering his dedication to being a soldier. I understand now that he truly wanted to be part of something larger than himself, and that he achieved that goal. I treasure the fact that he loved his country and that he was brave and daring and courageous. I will love forever his steadfastness and his unwavering devotion to his buddies.

I always tell my creative writing students that there are some things we are just not ready to write about, and Teddy’s death has been one of those subjects for me. His death has been the single most present determining factor in my life since the end of July 2007, and I have not yet digested it or synthesized it into anything I feel capable of expressing.

But when I began thinking of writing this piece, a remembrance for Memorial Day, I was blessed with dreams of Teddy. He rarely appears to me in dreams, but when he does it is as if I have been touched by a magical hand. I hold my breath and wake up trying to hold on to the dream.

In this dream, he appears at the kitchen counter. He is around age twelve. He is studying a map, his long fingers tracing lines on its surface. He wears a brown cotton T-shirt and military camo pants. The toes of his black combat boots are spit-shined. Atop his head, against his shiny black hair, a green beret is perched, tilted slightly to the side. He looks up, and then he is gone.

Kathryn Eastburn, formerly editor of the Colorado Springs Independent, is a freelance author, journalist, and teacher. Her books are Simon Says: A True Story of Boys, Guns and Murder (Da Capo Press, 2007) and A Sacred Feast: Reflections on Sacred Harp Singing and Dinner on the Ground (University of Nebraska Press, 2008). Her work has appeared in numerous regional and national publications, and she is a visiting professor at The Colorado College. She resides in Texas.

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The winter of our disconnection

Feb. 1, 2009

More than four months have passed since Hurricane Ike, and our daily life is still dominated by the storm and its aftermath.

Everything in Galveston depends upon Hurricane Ike. The city has begged and bargained with the federal government, the state, the University of Texas, private foundations, and anyone else out there with funds, for money to rebuild. Seventy-five percent of the homes on the island sustained significant damage and are in some state of repair or disrepair. Some neighborhoods are buzzing with construction crews and baby bulldozers, chainsaws and backhoes. Others stand eerily silent, bare skeletons of houses standing naked against the elements.

The city's biggest single employer, home to the state's oldest medical school program, the University of Texas Medical Branch,lost one-third of its employees, 3,000 workers, in a bloodless, one-week long dispensing of pink slips.

The city of Galveston's population is estimated to be as much as one-fourth smaller than it was on Sept. 11, 2008 - down from 56,000 to a little less than 40,000.

Hotel occupancy rates are up because the bulk of the city's poor and homeless, their federally subsidized housing lost to the storm, are living in hotels for as long as their vouchers last. There's no shortage of "Now Hiring" signs around the island for anyone wanting a minimum-wage job at a fast food restaurant or in housekeeping. Restaurants can't serve the hordes of diners who are taking their meals out because they have no kitchens - a large percentage of their employees left the island when the storm came and never returned.

Along the street curbs, rotting piles of debris represent the gutting of houses left to mold and rot. Some trees and lawns flourish with new green growth; other are still blackened by their sudden, shocking exposure to salt water floodings.

Yesterday I sat on my porch reading, and noticed a new, constant background noise — the whacking of hammers on roof shingles nearby and far away.

The brown pelicans have temporarily moved their nests elsewhere, awaiting new growth on the ravaged islands and peninsulas they normally call home.

Still, our days move forward. The sky and the ocean are as magnificent as ever. My dog and I have expanded our daily walk from 2 miles to three. Life is manageable here, and it is increasingly precious.

staying alive

In the early hours of Thursday, September 11, a few hours before Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas reluctantly ordered a mandatory evacuation of Galveston Island, my mother, our dog Ollie, and I pulled out of Galveston and headed north across sluggish bayous, through the shiny streets of sleeping suburban Houston, and headed west toward Brenham and a pet-friendly La Quinta Inn. We were fleeing Ike, the hurricane my brother-in-law assured us would be a killer if it passed directly over the island. It did and it was.

It's Saturday now and we're still hunkered down alongside my sister and brother-in-law and two dear friends, passing tedious hours, nibbling on popcorn, and hungrily scanning the television for images of our neighborhood. There's plenty of coverage of the drama of the storm, plenty of delirious reporters, glassy-eyed and thrilled by Ike's excesses. There are scant snippets of hope.

Our island has known more destruction and loss than most American places. Six-thousand Galvestonians lost their lives in the hurricane of 1900 that swept across the island and became the worst documented natural disaster in American history. Galveston Island is scarred and battered by centuries of storms and constant salt spray.

Galveston Island is also our gentle home, a place we love for its contradictions and its gifts. WE love the island's balmy winters, its damp mornings, the magnificent 19th century homes on the east end that date back to Galveston's heyday as a bustling port city. We love the diverse place that Galveston has become through time and adversity, a city where dingy neighborhood dive bars stand next to gingerbread-bedecked mansions, a city where rich and poor co-exist and rub elbows, seeking the comforts and thrills of island life whenever the opportunity arises. We love the island's abundant bird life, its hidden treasures, its creepy graveyards, its eccentricities and its laid-back sense of humor. We love that our daily newspaper's most popular column is the fishing roundup. We love walking on the Seawall at sunset.

Last night our island took one hell of a beating. Hurricane Ike whipped it with 100-plue miles per hour winds. The seas rose to the top of the seawall and spilled over into the street, then rose 12 more feet at the peak of the storm. The bay filled with sea water and poured into the streets on the island's north side. When daylight came this morning, television cameras documented what was swept away.

Two fishing piers that jutted out into the surf, marking the distance between 61st and 89 Streets are gone. Hundreds of cozy beach houses on the island's west end are gone. The Balinese Room, a notoriously sleazy and fascinating nightclub that teemed with bootleggers and card sharks through the jazz age, is gone. Gone too is the hideous orange Hooters that occupied Seawall Boulevard in recent years.

We sit and watch and wait for Mayor Thomas to tell us when we can return home to see what's left.

Stuck in the mild-mannered burg of Brenham, my radar is directed to Galveston, the barrier island city defined by its defiant history and its dogged persistence. I imagine a walk with Ollie on the seawall in the late afternoon, from 77th Street to the 89th Street pier. A man in working clothes pulls his truck over, grabs a fishing pole and drops a line in the calm surf. Off shore, pelicans surf the quiet sky, then dip and dive, rising to bob on a wave. Ollie sniffs a rusted streetlight pole and raises a leg. The sky is pink. A teenaged boy in baggy jeans sits on the seawall, feet dangling, mumbling into a cell phone, his eyes fixed on the horizon, across the sparkling sea.

It's scary to imagine the piles of debris at home, trees fallen on rooftops and across power lines, boats in the streets. It's hard to picture the town with no power, no hum of air conditioning units, no lights at night. It's unpleasant to conjure the snaking lines of traffic headed southward, creeping back toward home.

We will wait for word from Mayor Thomas, we'll make our way back, and we'll see what's there. Galveston will wait, Galveston will return, and so will we.

Catching Up

Time hasn't exactly flown since I last blogged here; it dissipated. Poof. Disappeared.

In early March, my sister Kim died of complications from Alzheimer's and Down Syndrome. At 55, Kim had led a full life and she died as purposefully and gently as she had lived. One day she stopped eating, and a few weeks later she stopped drinking. Then she passed away - in her own bed at home, without fear or dread.

Many kind people helped my mother, sister, and I care for her.  Many people who knew her and admired her came to her memorial service where we shared stories, ate muffins and remembered Kim.

I planted tomatoes and beans in the back yard, and filled an old aluminum boat with bulbs and flowers. Azaleas and gardenias bloomed; caladium leaves spiraled upward through the soft dirt and unfurled into waving pink, green and white flags, waving in the Gulf breezes.

Three months later, it's hot, full-blown summer.  This morning I rode my bike down the seawall. I saw packs of excited kids bobbing on boards at surf camp. I saw pale, flabby tourists, belly up in the sand. Gulls sailed over my head and I saw their shadows on the sidewalk in front of me. A leather-skinned drunk man stumbled across the heavily trafficked street, weaving and changing directions in mid-stride as cars whizzed past him. I criss-crossed through neighborhoods, toward home, past crepe myrtle and oleander in full bloom, past shaded yards with barking dogs, past alleyways and kids riding double on their bicycles.

In the back yard boat garden, stargazer lilies and star-shaped white jasmine exhaled their sweet scents.

Thursday, I'll head for Birmingham and the National Sacred Harp Singing Convention, to sing, eat, and sell and sign my book, A Sacred Feast (University of Nebraska Press). My singing buddy, Mr. Uel Freeman of Mobile, Alabama, wrote to say he would be there this year. He's 91 and has been singing Sacred Harp since he was twelve.

In July, I'll head for Colorado Springs and a block teaching creative writing at Colorado College, as well as a one-day seminar for the community. My current writing project, a novel, lives in my head and is slowly seeping onto the page.

Lives end, lives are interrupted, time dissipates, seasons change. I just keep pedaling in a straight line, slow and steady, enjoying the detours.

Reviews

Some of you have asked how Simon Says is being received. Here are eight newspaper reviews of the book.

Denver Post, Sunday, Jan. 20

Kids with killer instincts

A triple murder by teen boys in tiny Guffey asks the unanswerable: Why do children kill?

By Diane Hartman
Special to The Denver Post

How many of our children are armed? How many of them live secret lives while turning an innocent face to their parents and teachers?

Those questions cut close to the bone in a place where the Columbine killings stunned and horrified us. The murders outlined in Kathryn Eastburn's new book, "Simon Says," happened in Colorado one year and eight months later, enacted by normal-appearing youngsters who killed people close to them.

The prose wrapped around this true story is excellent, and Eastburn manages to keep tension acute while describing a four-year period, much of it involving the ponderous legal system. That's a tough chore with an audience more attuned to the seemingly quick solutions presented on "Law and Order."

A warning: Don't expect to come away with answers you can immediately apply to your family situation. It's like the aftermath of Columbine, when we fumbled with a list of possible culprits, wanting desperately to pin blame on someone or something.

Was it bad parenting? Cults? Drugs? Access to guns? A violent society? Romantic disappointment? You won't find absolute answers here. Only a mother's sad wish that her 16-year-old hadn't told the truth to police. He's now serving 60 years in the San Carlos correctional facility in Pueblo, locked down 23 hours a day.

Three grisly surprises

The killings happened in an unincorporated town two hours southwest of Colorado Springs, so small it has no official population count. Its name, Guffey, was misspelled by the state on the only sign leading into town, and any fame came from the citizens' whimsical habit of electing dogs and cats as mayors. Eastburn writes, "Guffey is nestled among the craggy, scrub-oak- and pine-strewn wilds of the Colorado Rockies. Mountain lions feast on deer in this country and men feast on solitude."

On New Year's Eve 2000, 15-year-old Tony Dutcher was camped on a rocky ledge about 400 yards above the trailer home of his grandparents, Carl and JoAnna Dutcher. He was in a dug-out fort, with low timber walls and covered by a plastic tarp, waiting for his former best friend Isaac Grimes to spend the night with him and celebrate the new year.

Three days later, when various family members became frantic that the Dutchers' phone wasn't being answered, a deputy was asked to drive out to the rural homestead in Park County and check on them.

Only a yipping dog answered his knock. Once inside, the officer found Carl, a Vietnam vet, sprawled in the narrow hallway, dead. JoAnna, who worked in a nearby town, was wedged against the bathtub, lying in a dried pool of blood. Shattered glass was everywhere; sunshine streamed in through bullet holes in the wall.

When more law enforcement officers arrived, the sheriff sent a deputy to check the little fort up the hill. Tony was face down in his sleeping bag, blood pooled and frozen around his head, which had almost been severed from his body. Another sleeping bag was rolled up nearby.

Eventually, Isaac Grimes was arrested for killing Tony. He and Jonathan Matheny had left their work at a fast- food restaurant and driven the 50 miles to Guffey, where Isaac slit Tony's throat and Jon shot JoAnna and Carl. Five weeks after their arrest, Simon Sue and Glen Urban, two other friends, were charged as accomplices.

The rest of the book focuses on piecing together what happened and why.

The arsenal was real

One perspective came from a schoolmate named Anthony Jacobs, a longtime friend of Glen Urban's who watched Urban get involved with a group called the OARA — the Operations and Reconnaissance Agents. He told the police that there was a link with Guyana, where Simon Sue's parents were from.

Simon told the group there might be a revolution in Guyana and he was organizing a militia to fight if needed. All this would seem like a silly kids fantasy game if an arsenal of weapons hadn't been involved, the boys hadn't felt genuinely threatened by Sue, and of course if the three murders hadn't been committed.

The police confiscated 36 guns at the Sues' main residence — including Uzis and AK-47s — then went to a workshop and found handguns and ammunition.

Sue, a few years older than the rest, had chosen boys who seemed needy to be part of his group. He told them about "the situation" in Guyana, and wove tales of how he had been trained in the jungles and promised they would be too.

He expected his tiny cadre to be physically fit, not take drugs and keep their rooms like military barracks. He talked about a bigger organization, one that would exact revenge on their families if they told anything. Nobody suspected what was going on; all the parents considered Sue personable, nice and respectful.

Later, the Grimeses found out that Isaac had vomited so frequently before and after the murder that the enamel had worn off his teeth. They knew that he had been troubled, but wrote that off to normal teenage angst.

They never dreamed that instead of going to chess club on Wednesday nights, Isaac was being trained as part of a "paramilitary organization" dreamed up by Sue and that he was learning to take apart and reassemble semiautomatic weapons and learning guerrilla fighting tactics.

The story plays out with myriad fascinating details, including the family backgrounds of the boys involved.

Eastburn covered the court proceedings for nearly three years as a journalist, and she takes you on almost every step of this gruesome, puzzling crime, including all the places along the way where someone could have done something to prevent this tragedy.

— Diane Hartman is a principal in the media relations firm Hartman & Brown.

The Santa Fe New Mexican (New Mexico)
March 2, 2008 Sunday

MORE MURDERS, MORE QUESTIONS

By Tom Clagett

This "true story of boys, guns and murder" recounts the bloody events of New Year's Eve 2000 outside Colorado Springs, Colo., about a year and half after the Columbine massacre, when 15-year-old Tony Dutcher and his grandparents were brutally murdered.
Weeks later, the killers were identified as Isaac Grimes, Jon Matheny and Simon Sue, the cult-style leader who ordered the deaths. These three were teenagers. They attended the same high school with Dutcher. Grimes and Dutcher had been best friends.

Kathryn Eastburn, a newspaper reporter who covered the court proceedings against the boys, tells this tragic tale with clarity and compassion. Her narrative, culled from official records, direct observation and interviews, is swift, compelling, and without a hint of sensationalism. This look at darkness, dysfunction, and human detritus needs no manufactured thrills.

In looking for answers, investigators uncovered a sinister web of lies as well as a surprising naiveté, and parents learned too late that there is a subtle evil, "an evil that didn't blink."

Eastburn relates some truly chilling moments. When a father says, "I don't know how you could have given into this," his son replies, "You don't know till it happens." At the sentencing of Grimes, the judge states, "He chose to do this É he deserves every nightmare he wakes up from." And there's Simon Sue's simple, unnerving assertion that "Everyone is equal at gunpoint."

There have been a number of books published about heinous murders. Some may wonder then, why tell another story of murder, of lives taken, of other lives destroyed?
With Simon Says, Eastburn reveals wounds that may never heal. There are also open questions, doubts about guilt and innocence, and the conflicting stories of the participants. We may never have the answers, but this predatory tale reminds us that there are monsters, and they are very human. That's reason enough to tell the story.

- Clagett is a Santa Fe writer.

Summit County Daily News, Breckenridge, CO

By MITCH HANKINS
Special to the Daily

There are those words and images etched onto our collective unconscious that we are unable to shake, no matter how hard we may try. The Zapruder film of JFK’s assassination, photos of Charles Manson’s eyes, the manner in which Truman Capote described the executions of Smith and Hickock in “In Cold Blood.” With the release of her new book, “Simon Says,” Colorado author Kathryn Eastburn has added to this canon, and aficionados of masterful true crime tales are the beneficiaries.

This is an intricate study of the triple homicide that jolted Park County into the new millennium as the bodies of the slain grandparents and a grandson were discovered on Jan. 1, 2000. As a reporter for the Colorado Springs Gazette at the time of the murders, Eastburn wrote of the crimes at the time that they occurred. With this book, however, she has been able to uncover the stories of the victims of this senseless rampage, their families, as well as the cadre of young killers and accomplices that carried out the act. In so doing, she has been able to peel away layers and layers of courtroom proceedings and psychological underpinnings to expose the complex personality of Simon Sue.

To her readers, Eastburn will introduce a powerful and awful character that will morph into the human automobile accident from whom they will be unable to look away. He is our worst nightmare, the quintessential bad seed ... he is what happens when parenting, society, and the norms of human behavior fail, and he lived next door to us all.

There is no need for people to create horror fiction when situations such as these exist in the real world and in real time, and just over Hoosier Pass. In the world of Simon Sue, Stephen King is superfluous.

Sociopath, psychopath, amoral genius, master manipulator, Sue has the capacity to alter the realities of experienced educators, attorneys, judges, and other professionals.

The malleable minds of his fellow high school students in Colorado Springs did not stand a snowball’s chance as they were drawn into his fantastic world of South American paramilitary mercenaries, weapons, money, and a total dearth of parental involvement.

He systematically recruited and subsequently, using the harshest of discipline, created and developed his followers who are willing to literally kill or be killed at his beck and call. He was Jim Jones in gym class, and there were plenty of takers when offered his Kool-Aid.

This is an amazing and totally riveting story of how easily people are willing to sacrifice their basic notions of good and evil and right and wrong, in order to please and appease what would appear to be the most insignificant of relationships. With imagery equal to that created by Golding in “The Lord of the Flies,” or Conrad in “Heart of Darkness,” Eastburn opens the door into this hidden and macabre underworld that existed under the nose of respectability in Colorado Springs.

Unfortunately, however, this is not imaginary. It is all too real. And far too near.

Vail Daily News, March 6, 2008

‘Simon Says’ read this

A chilling Colorado-based true-crime novel worth the read

By Charlie Owen

It’s a little easier to digest events like the Columbine murders when you’re watching the news report in a living room 500 miles away from the crime scene. But what if those murdering teenagers lived in your neighborhood, and the crime happened right next door to you? That would be pretty hard to swallow.

Author Kathryn Eastburn gives equal time to victims and killers alike in her book “Simon Says,” a real and gritty look at what happens when violence comes to a small town.

Eastburn — with smart and engaging writing — relates the tale of a young boy and his family murdered by people they knew and considered friends. In the rural neighborhood of Guffey, Colorado on New Year’s Eve 2001, fifteen-year-old Tony Dutcher was camping in a crude shelter on his grandparent’s property when all three were brutally murdered by Tony’s best friend Isaac Grimes, and another teenager, Jon Matheny. Tony’s throat was slit and his grandparents shot at close range. In the following police investigation and judicial hearings, the lives of the families involved and the killers themselves were tragically smashed to pieces by grief, guilt and more violence.

But most disturbing of all was the discovery that the plot to murder the Dutchers sprung from the mind of Simon Sue, a fellow student of Dutcher at Palmer High School. Sue lured Grimes, Matheny and another boy, Glen Urban, into joining OARA (Operations and Reconnaissance Agents), a covert group of soldiers-in-training that would fight crime and punish evil throughout the world. Only that was a lie, and Sue used his recruits to do his dirty work instead. Sue convinced his small following to steal weapons and give him money for OARA’s cause, brainwashing them with threats that if they didn’t do what he told them, he would kill them and their families. Out of fear for their own lives, Grimes and Matheny obeyed Sue’s orders to kill the Dutchers.

The kids aren’t alright

Eventually, the four boys were tried as adults. The only member to escape serious repercussions was Urban, who destroyed evidence of the crime but never took part in it. Sue, Grimes and Matheny all received near-life sentences.

Eastburn provides no answer to the question of why the murders had to happen, only a sad and limited view into Sue’s sociopathic mind.

A journalist for the Colorado Springs Independent at the time, Eastburn covered the trials of Grimes, Matheny, Urban and Sue for three years before writing “Simon Says.” She takes a deep look at why children kill, how mind-control is possible in the underdeveloped brains of America’s youth and the crushing affects that violent crime has on not only those who commit it, but on everyone in the community. Through recorded documents and interviews with the victim’s families and police involved in the investigation, Eastburn painstakingly pieces together the events, thoughts and emotions behind one of Colorado’s most violent and disturbing crimes. “Simon Says” doesn’t give the reader any hope in humanity, it just reveals the slight difference between humans and monsters.

- High Life Writer Charlie Owen can be reached at 748-2939 or cowen@vaildaily.com.

Galveston County Daily News

Peer pressure turns deadly in ‘Simon Says’

By Mark Lardas
Correspondent

On New Year’s Eve, at the end of the year 2000, three people were killed at an isolated rural home in central Colorado. One of the victims, a 15-year-old high school freshman, had had his throat slashed. His two grandparents were shot.

Sheriff’s officials, responding to the calls from relatives, discovered the murders four days later.

The grandfather, a gun dealer, kept his stock at his rural home. Yet the storeroom was still full. Suspicion fell on the three adult sons of the murdered man. All had criminal records. The one who lived closest — whose son was the youngest victim — was estranged from his father. It soon became apparent that he and his brothers were uninvolved.

Investigators soon focused their attention on a classmate of the murdered teen. This boy, Isaac Grimes, eventually confessed to the murder, but the story he told sounded like a bad thriller novel.

Grimes claimed to be part of a secret paramilitary militia. An older classmate, Simon Sue, who ordered the killings, headed Isaac’s cell. If Grimes had disobeyed Sue, Grimes would have been killed. Grimes expected that his confession would lead to his death, as well as that of his family. Grimes believed the organization had agents hidden everywhere, including Colorado law enforcement.

The militia proved the product of Sue’s fertile imagination. Through a combination of persuasiveness and charisma, Sue convinced Grimes and other teens to commit robberies and ultimately murder. The teens were convinced that their crimes were “missions” required by the secret organization.

“Simon Says,” by Kathryn Eastburn follows the story of the murders, the police investigation that followed and the resulting consequences. It pieces together how one teen convinced other teens, never previously in trouble, to commit felonies — including murder.

“Simon Says” is tautly written and is as exciting as a crime novel. The book is at its best when Eastburn shows how the murders affected the families of those involved, both the victims and the perpetrators.

Eastburn shows the unstinting efforts of the parents of the four teens charged in the murder to retrieve their sons’ lives. Much less attention and effort invested beforehand could have prevented the tragedy. But why many parents will not apply a fraction of the effort they are willing to spend to rescue their children to prevent them from needing rescue is a question this book — or any book — cannot answer.

Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, amateur historian and model-maker, lives in League City.

Copyright © 2008 The Galveston County Daily News

Aspen Times, January 26, 2008

‘Boys, guns and murder’ in Colorado Springs

by Naomi Havlen
Aspen Times Weekly

Readers of the genre known as “true crime” strike me as a certain breed of people. They are the readers who can’t seem to get enough details out of gritty, sometimes grisly, murder cases, and want to be walked through the case, one detail at a time, as though they were the investigators themselves.

If not for today’s 24-hour news channels and the exhaustive coverage of some high-profile murder cases, I might have read more “true crime” books. But I’ve always felt I knew enough about O.J. Simpson’s alleged murderous rampage in 1994, how JonBenet Ramsey ended up dead in her own home in 1996, and why Scott Peterson ended up on death row after the body of his pregnant wife, Laci, washed up on the shore of San Francisco Bay.

But when The Aspen Times was sent a copy of “Simon Says: A true story of boys, guns and murder,” I decided to read it. The book is about a triple homicide in a tiny Colorado town on New Year’s Eve 2000 that resulted in the arrest of three teenagers from Colorado Springs. Not only had I never heard of this particular crime, but the author, Kathryn Eastburn, was a reporter for the Colorado Springs Independent who covered the court proceedings for almost three years. As a former cops and courts reporter at The Aspen Times, I had covered one lengthy murder trial and I was curious how Eastburn turned her day job into a book.

Apparently she obtained transcripts and videotaped interviews between the suspects and police investigators, and of course, spent plenty of time herself in courtrooms and living rooms before and after the case was closed.

True crime books don’t tend to hold back any details; they delight in parceling out crime details to keep you reading. So without ruining any of those small details revealed in “Simon Says,” here’s a synopsis of the crime itself: Fifteen-year-old Tony Dutcher and his grandparents were found dead at the elder Dutchers’ home in the small town of Guffey, Colo., in early January 2001. They were killed on New Year’s Eve, but their bodies weren’t discovered for three days.

The investigation led to Tony Dutcher’s classmate and former friend, Isaac Grimes, who told police about being part of a secret organization led by his friend Simon Sue, who ordered Grimes and fellow student Jon Matheny to kill the Dutchers. Simon Sue further claims his paramilitary organization has ties to a group fighting in his native land of Guyana.

If your reaction at this point is “Huh?”, it probably should be. Eastburn does an impressive job of tying together the odd facts about this case as it limps along for three years.

Furthermore, the book contains relevant information about events before and after the murders that changed how the case was tried in the court of public opinion — the Columbine school shooting, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and the sweeping Hayman wildfire of 2002.

“Simon Says” moves slowly at times, reflecting the process of moving multiple suspects through our justice system. The book could have benefited from some additional editing. But Eastburn diligently follows the story to completion and questions how these teenage boys got tangled in a drama that ultimately led to three needless murders.

For fans of true crime, “Simon Says” fits the bill.

- nhavlen@aspentimes.com

Denver Rocky Mountain News, February 1, 2008

Inside a teen murder mastermind

By Karen Algeo Krizman, Special to the Rocky

Book in a nutshell: On New Year's Day 2001, 15-year-old Tony Dutcher and his grandparents, Carl and JoAnna, were killed at the elder Dutchers' house outside Colorado Springs. As if the slayings weren't shocking enough, police later arrested four of Tony's classmates at Palmer High School in the murders and uncovered an elaborate plot involving a cultlike figure and a secret paramilitary group.

Isaac Grimes confessed to killing Tony Dutcher, but police said his pal Jonathan Matheny killed the boy's grandparents. Another teen, Glen Urban, helped destroy their weapons. All of this was done under orders from a fourth teen, Simon Sue.

Police said that Sue, despite vacationing in Canada at the time of the murders, had orchestrated the whole thing to prove Grimes' loyalty. Sue had recruited Grimes and Matheny to be agents in his self-created group, OARA, which "stood ready to serve should a coup arise" against the government in Guyana, where his family was from. He gave his "recruits" weapons from his family's vast collection and trained them to be soldiers.

He also controlled their every move and threatened to kill the boys and their families if they should defy him. As a fellow student said, "When you looked into (Sue's) eyes, you knew he wasn't thinking about what everybody else was thinking about. He had something else on his mind. He was a badass like Macbeth was. He seemed OK in normal life, but he knew how far he would go to get what he wanted."

Best tidbit: While being trained by Sue to be a soldier of the OARA, "Isaac described being randomly kicked and punched, when he didn't expect it, and he described one particularly bizarre incident . . . in which he had been forced to eat sugary snack cakes, energy drinks, and soda syrup until he vomited, then was forced to eat the vomit and continue eating those foods."

Pros: The author weaves a gripping tale out of a complicated investigation and years of legal wrangling.

Cons: There's not much to dislike in this can't-put-down read, except for how disturbing the whole case is.

Final word: Just where were these kids' parents when they were stashing loaded assault rifles in their bedrooms?

© Rocky Mountain News

Colorado Springs Gazette, March 3, 2008

3 books detail bloody murders in region

By Bill Reed

... Not only is this longtime local journalist’s writing crisp and engaging, but she follows the twists and turns of the “Guffey murders” tale down several roads worth following.

The triple murder committed by fresh-faced Palmer High School students Isaac Grimes and Jon Matheny was intriguing and horrifying when it happened in 2001. But the heart of this story is everything that surrounds the crime: bullies, the teenage longing to belong and become a man, gun culture, family dynamics, and the ongoing destruction from the crime.

Eastburn has a knack for the telling detail, noting that before and after the murder Grimes vomited so often he wore the enamel off his teeth, and quoting from a prison letter in which he tells his parents about a spider outside his window he’s named Oliver.

Some of the most haunting passages concern the parents of the boys. There’s the cautionary tale of Grimes’ parents, who regret missing the subtle signs as things went terribly wrong in his life. And victim Tony Dutcher’s mom lost a husband to suicide, her son to murder, and later killed a man while driving the wrong way down Interstate 25.
The story is sad and gripping, and it feels as if it is being told by a neighbor.

- bill.reed@gazette.com

unsettling

Feb. 1

I'm sitting in the Houston airport in the early morning darkness, en route to Mount Vernon, Iowa, by way of Cedar Rapids. I'll teach for a month at tiny Cornell College in tiny Mount Vernon, a one-stoplight town I'm told with a population of four-thousand. I won't have a car and will walk everywhere I go for four weeks - a big change from big Texas where your car becomes as familiar to you as your feet.

It's my first trip to Iowa. Ever. Two days ago the high temperature in Cedar Rapids was 7 degrees and the low was 3.

I love unsettling. Already, at 6:30 a.m., the day looms uncertain. Flight to Dallas delayed. Connection will likely be missed. But I am untethered, disconnected, free to disappear into airport-world with few consequences.

Yesterday in Galveston the weather was stormy and gray. Huge gusts of wind blew down palm branches and a sudden downpour flooded the curbs. As I crested the hill onto Seawall Blvd., the sky parted above the wild sea and a flood of sunlight poured through the crack in the clouds. My heart cracked open at the same moment and I cried the whole way home - free-floating anxiety over all the unsettling of the last six months; grief for both Teddys who, had they still been alive and free, would have jumped in a truck and headed for the beach to surf as the north wind blew in, smoothing out the surf; and as always, inexplicable joy.

Unsettling reminds me that life is always in flux, always hazardous, always filled with possibility.

new year

The end of year holidays paralyzed me more than I realized. Though I have been on the move - traveling to Colorado Springs to teach for a month at Colorado College between Thanksgiving and Christmas, then back to Texas for Christmas and New Year's, then back to Colorado to promote Simon Says -  I have been unable to write about any of it.

Now on the other side of 2007, I realize that ending the year required all the emotional energy I could summon. My son Ted was not at the Thanksgiving table asking for more mashed potatoes. My sister Kim has declined mentally and physically to a point where the holidays are trying and challenging for her. My sister and brother-in-law Karen and Ted missed their Teddy more and more as November and December passed. My mother missed her grandsons, her brother and the other loved ones she lost in 2007.

But we walked through it. My children flew to Texas from points afar and joined us on Dec. 24. Ted and his son Isaac joined us on Dec. 27, and on Dec. 29, the five-month anniversary of Teddy's death, we gathered at sunset on Galveston Bay, read a poem in Teddy's memory and interred some of his ashes in the quiet water. We pulled tight and close and are still holding on for dear life.

It's January 9, 2008 now, and tonight I sign and read from Simon Says at Tattered Cover in Denver, one of the great remaining independent booksellers in the country. It is strange to have a lifelong dream come true at the same time that the loss of a son ends a lifetime of dreams. I'm grateful to all those who have read the book with open hearts and minds and to everyone who continues to share our love for Teddy, our grief and our connection.

Tomorrow I will return to my quiet apartment in Galveston and to the task of finding help to meet Kim's changing needs in the coming year. I'll walk Ollie on the beach and breathe the sea air, thinking of both Teddys, breathing in love and breathing out gratitude. Next month I travel to Iowa to teach at Cornell College, and I'll continue to do whatever is required to bring readers to Simon Says. If your book group is interested in a conference call meeting, please drop me an email. Meanwhile, I wish you comfort, joy, and peace in 2008. Hold on for dear life.

book jacket - a sacred feast

Imagine my joy at seeing this in my email inbox this morning. Final changes have been made to Simon Says over the last few weeks - press date is October 15; release date is January 1. The printed galleys look great.

And A Sacred Feast continues to move forward, a joyful little book that helps me remember the great gifts of song, food and fellowship.

Last night was cool enough to sleep with the windows open - the Gulf coast version of autumn = not unbearably hot. Songbirds are migrating through on their way to Mexico and Central America and the mornings are a riotous cacophony of bird song.

Next week I travel with all the Eastburns to Budapest for Aaron and Philip's 21st birthday. I'm told we are staying in a hotel that was once in a James Bond movie, albeit a Pierce Brosnan Bond. Life is indeed strange and wondrous.

Before and After

Last Wednesday, Sept. 26, would have been Teddy's twenty-third birthday. We remembered it by writing him letters and interring them in the water. My mother's letter and mine went into the Gulf of Mexico off a rock pier near the Flagship Hotel where he caught a whopper of a bull red fish in January. The surf was wild, the tide high, slapping and splattering against the rocks. The letters disappeared within seconds of hitting the water.

To the left of the pier, two water-slicked brown-skinned boys clung to their surfboards, black hair shining. I felt visited by Teddy and his cousin Ted who taught him to surf. My sister dropped her letter into the quiet waters of Galveston Bay, early in the morning, off the boat ramp where Teddy and his cousin often came puttering in long after dark, water- and adventure-soaked. That evening I felt gratitude for being in a place where my son was always happy, from early childhood to his last visit here. I saw the full moon emerge from behind a bank of clouds, and was pierced by the sorrow of prisoners, unable to see such a night. I thought of the prisons we create for ourselves, rendering us unable to send or receive love.

Yesterday I dug into the mountain of papers I've avoided since arriving here nearly a month ago. Bills to pay, letters to write, official life to re-enter. My eyes froze on a typed to-do list, dated the week before Ted's death — July 25, July 26, July 27, etc. — and I realized that I have no sense of reality pre-dating July 29. I can rattle off the things I did in March, April and May, but I can't remember the flesh-and-blood person who did those things. The truth about grief like this is that life is divided into before and after, with  the stark pulse of reality located precisely in the middle, at the moment when everything changed.

I flew to Denver on Friday for the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association's annual meeting and a cocktail hour session of book signing. I sat beside a murder-mystery writer from Plano, Texas whose ninth mystery in a series crosses over into sci-fi: a woman's family is abducted by aliens, he told interested booksellers, "and turns out, they're not from Mexico but from another planet." When I explained to booksellers that my book was nonfiction, the story of a group of Colorado Springs boys who believed they were part of a secret paramilitary organization with international ties, and ended up murdering three people, they looked at me as if I was from another planet. I discovered that many people are more comfortable on the terrain of imagined murder than the cold, hard place I've visited in Simon Says.

Last night I opened all the windows in my treetop apartment and half-slept to the tune of wind chimes. This morning, shrieks of ravenous birds split the air and I looked up to see a row of chubby sparrows sitting on the storm blinds, peeking into my bedroom window. I remembered who and where I was and got up to face the here and now.