Tessie D

There was some sort of accident at Texas A&M yesterday. A bonfire collapse. It’s been all over the news.

In Texas, we have bonfires during Homecoming week. Everyone brings scrap lumber, trees, telephone polls, old wooden pallets–just about anything that’s wood adjacent that would burn–to someone’s field where the football players’ and cheerleaders’ parents pile it up, and then we all set it on fire that Wednesday evening after sunset. The band comes out and plays the school song and fight song. The cheerleaders, drill team, and football players dress up in their uniforms. Then we all just stand around and watch it burn. I went to our Homecoming bonfire during my sophomore year of high school. The smoke was thick and noxious. I got bronchitis from standing there breathing it in that I missed a week of school and never went back again.

I feel terrible for the students that were in the bonfire when it collapsed. If they are in there–still alive–it must be terrifyingly claustrophobic. If they aren’t in agony with thousands of pounds of old telephone poles lying on top of them.

I saw a dogpile once — the football players always ran onto the field if they won and jumped on top of each other in their pads and helmets. Everyone in the stands would swarm the field with them. One time, a cheerleader — Christy Mason — was standing too close to the boys, and someone knocked her into the dogpile. In a second, she was swallowed up in a sea of bodies, pushed to the bottom, and crushed under the weight. I stood there frozen, not knowing what to do. I’d seen the whole thing, but it didn’t look like anyone else had.

“Stop! Stop! Get up!” I yelled. If anyone heard me, they didn’t act like it. I was watching a horror film as more and more boys kept running and jumping onto the top of the pile. I kept screaming, but nobody was listening. They were too busy laughing and cheering, and most probably thought I was being stupid or weird.

Finally, I heard people shouting to “get up” and “move.” Christy crawled out from under the pile. Her face was pale, and her eyes were rimmed in dark mascara from crying. I’ve never forgotten the look on her face. She was petrified. She probably thought she was going to die. Six years later, I can remember her face and the shame that washed over me when I realized how little I’d been able to do to help her.

I wonder if that’s what it felt like yesterday in College Station. What it feels like even today. Knowing that there are people alone and scared in there, and there’s nothing you can do to help or change the outcome.