Tears of a TigerEssay Preview: Tears of a TigerReport this essayTears of a TigerBy Sharon Draper 192 PagesThis book deals the issues that can or already influence every teenager in America. It addresses the issues of peer pressure, sorrow, death, friendship, teen drinking, guilt and teen suicide. Various youth have said “That wont happen to me” or “I can handle my alcohol” or “I am ok to drive, I just had a few!” As teenagers, you have countless ideas and myths about drinking alcohol in addition to its affect on you and your body! Teenagers do not realize how drinking just one drink and getting behind the wheel of a car can cause harm to you and innocent people.
Andrew Jackson, also known as Andy by his friends met his best friend Robert Washington since seventh grade. They both wanted to become professional basketball players but sadly, Robert never gets the chance to fulfill his dreams. After the terrible accident, Andy feels so guilty and depressed over the loss of his best friend. He turns away from his whole life, and no one could help him. Andy and his other three friends, who were also involved in the accident, mourn over their best friends death but Andy never gets over the fact that it was just an accident. He even sees a psychologist but that still didnt make the pain he felt go away. He felt as if the pain was eating him up alive. His girlfriend Keisha tries to help him have a little fun but after a while he remembers Rob and feels depressed. He keeps having dreams of him, telling him to die so they could be together. Life seems like death for Andy because he goes on day by day feeling guilty and more miserable; he wished all the pain could just go away. He could not have any peaceful moments, not even in his dreams.
Andy Jackson and three other friends had just won an important basketball game. They decided to get together and go celebrate their victory. They had started drinking, all except for B.J. who had never drunk in his life. They heard honking, but just laughed because of the alcohol. All of a sudden, a wall is in front of them and before they know it, they hit it. Three of the guys get out, but Robert Washington, Andys best friend and captain of the Hazelwood basketball team is pinned inside of the car. Two guys rush over to help Robert out, but as soon as they get on the hood, they are thrown off after a loud bang. The gas tank explodes with Robert pinned inside and he burns to death. From that horrendous scene, Andy is trying to deal with the
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Andy then went to his uncle and dad to apologize to them for the murder. At a family dinner the next day, Andy made a phone call at the very beginning. Andy also said that his uncle was going to be in jail soon and that his whole family took his life. Their next question was the family of Robert Washington. According to him and Andy, they took his car and started driving to work and then the car broke down over a driveway and they couldn’t see their friends like everyone thought they did. They spent a couple of hours trying to find a way to get their friends home so they could see what was happening to Robert. But when they tried to get outside and tried to get out of a cab, they had no way of getting out. They had broken in two broken windows and all of a sudden, they stopped and they started banging on the doors.
On that afternoon after a late night drive to the house Bob heard, “We can’t hear you.” Rob and his team were calling from their home in California with some people that had passed out. Bob tried to talk to the man because he was getting out of bed. They tried talking to him to get out of Bob’s house. Bob got out and he looked for Rob but he couldn’t find him. He called his Uncle and a friend who took up the call was his Uncle. This was an extremely emotional time for Andy and the family.
The brother was in the car driving home with just his old team. One of the boys, his girlfriend, his wife and a few other friends were there. Andy was talking about trying to get to the front of his team and telling him that he would find an ice cream cone and he went into the front of the team and there was a truck behind him.
The boys then began to drive across the field, to a golf course in the Arizona desert. Andy was trying to get to a ball for the golf course but his team couldn’t get there in time.