David's Friend

"And this," says Brian, waving an unclenched yet unweilding hand in my direction, "is David's friend."

The kids all nod and give signs of moderate acceptance to the virus in the cohesive bondage of sixth grade boys trying too hard to be men. I am the New Kid. I am David's friend. One of them, whose name I do not know, continues to stare at me. No, that's not right: stare through me. I am instantly charmed by his ability to sort out the hundreds of personas piled on him, his ability to pick out one kid among a baker's dozen and try to understand what he thinks. Especially when he's the New Kid.

"So you're David's friend." he says, as he steps forward. The rest of the boys have begun to separate into tightly-knit cliques for purposes unknown to any, discussions for no one else to hear. Todd couldn't make it to the game today. I hope we don't get stuck with Harold on our team again. David's friend is supposed to be pretty smart. The speaking begins, and the kids begin to filter into the vacant lot, some of them trying on a glove, some already slamming a worn baseball repeatedly into the scratchy surface of the brown mitt.

The boy's name is Peter, and we shake hands. It is the first time I have ever shook hands with anyone within two years of my age, and actually meant the warm greeting it implied. Peter is a few inches shorter than me, but is not graphically aware of it. Or at least he does not let on that he is aware of it. His precocious head is topped with an unkept nest of firey auburn fuzz, held in place by a grease-stained Mets cap that is almost as blatantly red as his hair. His smile is comforting; his smile knows all.

He dusts off his hands onto the thighs of his blue jeans, sending coughs of dirt into the air.

"Yeah, I've known David since.. oh.. kindergarten, I think."

"Hum." he grunts. The mention of kindergarten has dislodged his thoughts. Nobody likes to be reminded of a time when memories were still being developed, a time containing events that are scattered across the brain like seeds in a beanfield, each one trying to sprout more meaning than the next. Meaning and purpose. Anything before the first grade was without purpose. I mean, you didn't even have your own desk.

"Yeah, David gets around a lot. He tell you about the games?"

"Yeah, but I don't usually hang out with this crowd."

He grins sheepishly.

"Don't sweat it. Most of these guys have shit for brains anyway. You really in ELP?"

"Yeah." I scrape my right foot into the soft soil below it. ELP. The whiz kids. The geniuses. The future of tomorrow. The social outcasts.

"I had a chance to get into that once." He casts a gaze towards a distant patch of weeds. I believe he is pondering third base.

"Really?"

"Yeah, my mom was all shits and giggles. Babbling about what a smart boy I was, how wonderful it is to have such a great kid. You get that too?"

"All the time." That was the truth.

"Can't stand it anymore."

"Yeah, but how come you didn't go in?"

He pivots invitingly on his left heel, and we begin to make our slow progress to home plate, a small piece of white cardboard baking in the September sun.

"Dunno." he shrugs "Just didn't feel like it, I guess."

I gape. My brow creases. Then I hold my composure.

"Whaddya mean?"

"Jeez, I dunno, all that lofty crap about being the future, the kids of tomorrow, all of those special projects, the lectures, the higher classes, all that crap, it's like I wouldn't feel like a kid anymore."

I felt a dull ache at the top of my chest. I have never heard a kid use the word 'kid' before. I grunt, clearing my throat, and Peter unleashes his bat from the loop in his belt. Lousiville slugger. Hardcut cured. Keep the signature to the sky. He speaks again.

"It's like my mom and my dad, they want me to be something special. Something different. Why should I be different? So I can listen to some jerk-off tell me how I'm the 'child of tomorrow'? I'm not anything special, I don't wanna be. I'm not the child of tomorrow, I'm just a fucking kid."

He knocks the dust from his sun-bleached Keds with the tip of his hardcut cured bat. David is on the pitcher's mound, a small circle of rope in the center of a vacant lot. I am David's friend. Everyone knows me as David's friend. David makes his favorite ball pop up and down, tossing it in and out of his hand. He winds up. Peter takes the batter's stance.

I take six slow backward steps.

Just a fucking kid.

I stare at Peter in a new kind of wonder and amazement. He has a grip on reality almost as firm as the one he has on his Lousiville slugger. It's oblivity sticks in my throat: David isn't Mickey Mantle. Peter isn't John F. Kennedy.

I'm not Albert Einstien.

I'm just a fucking kid.

My friend David hurls a vicious curve ball through the quiet September air.