Thursday, Jun. 05, 2003 - 3:09 pm
Um... I'm sorry.
This relationship just isn't working for me.
I'm at www.dailypreciousness.org now. So change that bookmark.
Roland Garros volunteered for us during Summer Soccer Quest 2002. At first, Roland worked well with his fellow Bittorrent systems volunteers and with everyone here at PSX. His attitude was friendly and outgoing. He always had a knock-knock joke to share. But after a few weeks, it was as if a dark cloud came over his heart. His behavior worsened. I was concerned. Was it something at home that was driving him to act this way? I thought I caught the scent of abuse when his domineering father dropped him of one day. The gigantic man was sweaty and wore a wife-beater muscle shirt. It suited him. He had a boom in his voice that made Roland slouch down and cower. Whatever it was, Roland’s personality morphed from genial to genuinely ugly in the next few weeks.
Roland argued pointedly with other volunteers several times in early June. Once he ordered a pizza and asked staff to help him pay for it. (I guess he hadn’t figured up the tax and tip.) They resented the strong body odor that he exuded. Other volunteers did not feel comfortable working with him. I had to schedule them at other times. I spoke with Roland about the disagreements that he had with other volunteers and he assured me that he would improve his behavior. “If they mess with me, I’ll cut them open,” he told me. I could just picture him with a broken beer bottle, brandishing it at the shocked teenage girls that worked with him.
In late June, a female volunteer claimed that Roland violently threatened her with scissors. I spoke with Roland about this and he indicated that it was a misunderstanding. I told him that he needed to work on cooperating with his fellow Bittorrent systems volunteers and made sure that his work area was clear of sharp objects. I altered Roland’s schedule so that I would be working the same dates and times he would, since PSX engineers and PSX assistants did not want to work the same hours as Roland.
During the last weeks of Summer Quest, Roland did not come in during his assigned work shifts and I was not able to have a final evaluation conference with him. He did not give me written notice that he would not be able to come in during those last weeks.
A month later, police found his body out in the woods near the library. Half of his flesh had been torn off... probably by wolves or other scavengers. I wonder what brought him up into those woods. What lured him into those dark summer woods, where the air was thick with gnat clouds and the sharp smell of pine and poplar? I don’t know. Maybe no one will ever know.
