LUDIC LOG

Two weeks after the tragic shootings at Lieutenant Junior Grade Surfer "The Octopus" McGrady's Water World, a community attempts to come to grips with such an enormous crime.

Perhaps more cutting than the loss, the shock and the long and slow process of recover is the presence of so many questions -- most unanswered, some perhaps unanswerable. Who was Jerrold Melnichek, the 16-year-old gunman who turned this aquatic-themed surburban theme park into a killing field? How did he work his wicked mischief in view of not one, but six highly trained private security guards? Why did some escape the waterpark unharmed -- why where they spared while others were not? Why did no one see this coming? And most importantly of all, why did he do it? What dark drive possessed him to wake up one Sunday morning and take the No. 38 Express Bus to Water World, murder 18 of his fellow funseekers and 5 Silly Seamen, and return home on the No. 38 Twilighter Bus? Police, psychologists, criminologists, friends and family of victims and villain alike all search for answers, seemingly in vain.

An early lead in the case proved to be a dead end. "After we brought him in, the first thing we did was search his room," explains Lt. Peter Ready, the lead investigator in the Melnichek case. "There was no smoking gun right away -- he didn't keep a journal, own a black trenchcoat, or have an Italian surname. But when we checked out the living room and found the PlayStation, we thought it was going to be an open-and-shut case." Much to the frustration of police, however, Jerrold Melnichek owned no first-person shooters, war sims, or fighting games of any kind. "He had PaRappa the Rapper 2, and a couple of sports games. But what, a kid's gonna kill 23 people because he can't get Jason Kidd to average more than ten assists per game in NBA Y3K? Unlikely," says Lt. Ready. "His folks said he just got the thing, and he mostly used it for watching DVDs. The only game he even had saved was NASCAR Thunder. I have more violent games than that on my cell phone."

Combing throught Melnichek's entertainment choices proved even more fruitless. His small DVD collection consisted mostly of Friends episodes and a handful of Farrelly Brothers comedies, and his choices in music were frustratingly bland and MOR-centered. Three full CD racks yielded not a single album of gangsta rap, European industrial goth, or shock-metal. "Culturally speaking, the kid was pure vanilla," notes Dr. Margaret Helspeth, a psychologist specializing in adolescence issues. "He had Michael Bolton, Janet Jackson, Randy Travis. I mean, that sort of thing makes you want to kill yourself, maybe, but not other people. Other than Michael Bolton himself, who sadly was not at the water park that day." A closet full of blue jeans, pocket tees and off-brand sneakers provided no further clues, and even the sex angle proved elusive. "He had a girlfriend," explains his mother, Cynthia Melnichek. "One time I caught him watching a dirty video, but it was just one of those 'Girls Gone Wild' things. That's tame even by my standards."

Jerrold Melnichek's friends describe a sociable, friendly young man who mixed with other people. Not especially popular in school, he was, perplexingly, not especially unpopular either. "He wasn't one of those quiet loners who kept to himself, mostly," says Melnichek's chem lab partner Tim Yancey. "Not like, say, Billy Steffan. If that guy flipped out and wasted a lot of people, I wouldn't be surprised at all. But Jerrold -- I mean, he was nothing special, you know? He was on the debate team, for Christ's sake." Teachers point out that he was an average student who was generally indifferent to athletics, got along well with students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, and ate in the cafeteria three days out of the week. "Somebody at school was saying he was a Satanist," notes fellow student Kelly Uriquidez, "but that was a different kid." "You mean Billy Steffan, right?" inquires Yancey. "Right, that guy," a desperate Uriquidez, struggling to make sense of his life so marred by violence. "That guy is totally fucked up."

Investigators, under community pressure, began to follow any lead they could think of. The history cache on the Melnichek's home computer revealed that Jerrold had been a prolific internet poster, so experts were brought in to cull his web writings for any clue of what might have triggered the massacre. Disappointment followed when it was discovered that the majority of his online time was spent getting homework tips and posting on a message board for model airplane enthusiasts. Though not an avid reader, Jerrold's library files were combed through by detectives, who still came up empty-handed. "No Catcher in the Rye, no Blood and Guts in High School, not even that Stephen King book where the kid wastes his teacher," admits Lt. Ready. "He didn't own a basketball or a diary, let alone The Basketball Diaries. We asked his parents if maybe he listened to Pearl Jam or Ozzy -- no dice. We're really clutching at straws here."

Even the method of the murders leaves the community with no easy scapegoat. "We thought at least we could blame the thing on how easy it is to get a gun, but he didn't even have a butcher knife. He was just grabbing people's ankles in the Tropical SunSplash pool area until they drowned," explains Gary Stilson, manager of Lieutenant Junior Grade Surfer "The Octopus" McGrady's Water World. "It was really busy that day -- the main pool is always super-crowded on holiday weekends -- and we didn't really notice anything out of the ordinary. I mean, it looks like people are just diving for pennies or whatever, untill you get like a dozen or so bodies floating around."

A town devastated; two dozen lives lost; a popular community fun center no longer a place of mirth, family enjoyment and harmless chlorinated horseplay. In a quiet cell in the county lock-up, a monster sits silent, only occasionally asking if he can go to the bathroom or if the latest issue of R/C Model Aircraft Enthusiast is out yet. And a country asks: how?

And also, why?