“YOU JUST TRY to find something that interests them,” says the phys ed teacher, a man named Arnie Cooper, an aging African American man. He’s tall and well-built, age adding a few inches to his midsection, but you can still see the remnants of an athlete—the high hurdles, from what I’ve heard, and what I’ve seen in glass cases near the gym, in framed photos on the walls. Born and raised in Bridgehampton—“south of Main Street,” he is quick to say—state champion in the high hurdles in 1978, a member of the US Olympic team that didn’t compete in the 1980 games in Moscow because of the US boycott.
Behind us, the south grounds of the school are littered with multicolored foam archery targets, the bull’s-eye yellow, the next ring orange, then powder blue and black. Half of the fourth graders are missing the target altogether, the rubber-suction-cupped arrows sailing in the air and falling harmlessly to the grass.
“Hard to get kids to run around and play anymore,” the teacher says. “They got their faces buried in those phones and contraptions. That’s all I did when I was a kid. I always remember running.” He gestures to an older student out on the yard, some kind of teacher’s assistant. “Brendan, I’m gonna be a few minutes, okay?”
Coop, as he demands everyone call him, walks with a limp these days, the years of clearing hurdles and pounding his feet having taken a toll. “I was running okay in my thirties, though,” he tells me as we walk along the yard. “And I was definitely running okay the day of the shooting.”
He stops and gestures toward the back door of the school. “I was in the gym shooting hoops when I heard the screaming,” he says. “At first, it didn’t mean anything to me. Just kids shouting, y’know? But then it did. I think it was … hearing an adult voice. Some of the parents walk the little kids up to the school. When I heard a parent yelling, I knew something was wrong. So I came out that door.”
“And what did you do?” I ask.
“Well, soon as I came out—I mean, it was all wrong. There were kids lying on the ground, there were parents covering up their kids, people were scattering like cockroaches, y’know what I mean? I’m thinking, These kids have been shot. I mean, really shot. With bullets. But there wasn’t really any blood I could see, so it was confusing.” He stops, puts his hands on his hips, shakes his head. “Man, it had been a long time since I was that scared.”
“So you—”
“So someone was pointing over by the east side of the school, and someone was saying, ‘He went that way, he went that way,’ and someone else was saying, ‘He’s dressed as Spider-Man, he’s Spider-Man,’ so I started running around the side of the school toward the front, toward Main Street, looking for Spider-Man.”
We start following that same route, walking east and then turning north, moving along the immaculately landscaped grass and trees, toward the paved drive off Main Street.
“I practically ran right into the street,” he says. “I didn’t know where he was.” I follow him until we’re standing just along the curb on Main Street.
He gestures to his right, down the street to the east. “That’s where I found him,” he says. “Right next to Small Potato.”
A little shack of a nursery stand, painted red with white supports, covered in chicken wire, empty this time of year, its quaint green sign proclaiming it the OLDEST FARM STAND IN THE HAMPTONS. I bought my Christmas tree here after Thanksgiving.
“Back then, they were selling pumpkins,” he says. “But they’d pretty much packed up by then. There wasn’t anyone there. But Noah, he was sitting on a bench just past the nursery, in a Spider-Man costume with the head part removed. He wasn’t moving. He was wearing headphones. He looked—I mean, I know how this sounds—but he looked like he was waiting for a bus.”
“Well—was the rifle nearby?”
He raises his shoulders. “I didn’t see it. They found it later. He tossed it in the bushes behind him. I just told him he had to come with me, and I gripped him pretty tight and hauled him back toward the school, but he didn’t resist me. He didn’t fight. All he said was ‘What did I do?’”
What did I do? “So,” I say, “this kid shoots a couple dozen people with a BB air rifle, runs around to the front of the school, and sits down on a bench like he’s … like he’s waiting for a bus. Like nothing’s wrong.”
Coop shakes his head, laughs in agreement. “I know. I hear what you’re saying. I figure it’s one of two things.”
I turn and face him.
“Either he didn’t do anything wrong,” he says, “or he’s one cold-blooded son of a bitch. The kind who doesn’t feel anything. Who could slice someone open while he’s smiling at them, and then look you in the eye and deny it. You know what I mean?”
“I think maybe I do,” I say. I drop my eyes and nod slowly. “I think maybe I do.”
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