ABSTRACT
We didn't repeat that particular experience, but we did become friends. Bill wasn't the most intellectual sort of person-he ended up repeating third grade-but since he was the nearest kid my age in the neighborhood, we spent a good deal of the following summer together. I remember roaming the hills behind his house, finding a female coyote and kits, and having pissing contests at the edge of a small cliff. It wasn't until two years later, when Bill "testified" to some of his christian friends that I had been "saved" (and was therefore an okay person to associate with)-and then asked me, "Isn't that right, Scott?"-and I refused to back him up, that he and I sort of drifted apart. Later that year, for reasons that are quite obscure to me, we actually got in a physical fistfight--only the second time I had ever fought someone-and visited the principal's office together. (He told me later, in penitent tones, that he "forgave" me.) The next year, he and Wade were transferred to a private christian school up the road (where my parents threatened to send me as well-I told them,"Uh-uh, no way, not a chance in hell. I'll run away if you do"), and I don't think I ever saw him again. I still wonder if he remembers that delightful little midsummer night's dream, though. Or, for that matter, if Wade remembers. I would love to hear their respective versions of that night's events.
