I never had the connection with Marvie my friends did. That bothered me, because they all said he was a ‘good guy,’ an easy going guy, the kind of guy anyone could get along with. I began to smile and say ‘hi’ whenever our paths crossed in the hallway, sat at his table at lunch and asked him what he’d done over the summer. He seemed amused at my interest, but was polite, said he’d worked in his father’s carnival as he did every summer, barking, punching tickets, operating the rides. His father was too busy managing the business to spend much time with him, so the other ‘carnies’ had taken him under their wing, made him a part of their ‘family.’ When I asked what that was like, Marvie smiled. He said it was a continual party of drugs and alcohol and good music, all of which caused him to forget everything he’d done the night before. He’d wake up shivering and curled into a ball in a backlot in a town he couldn’t remember the name of with dew and puke and alcohol on his clothes and not remembering how he got there, but fun, all of it was fun. “And this.” He flipped open his wallet and showed me hundreds of dollars worth of bills inside. “Holy crap!” My own wallet had never contained more than a few dollars in my entire life! He laughed. “Plus, I get laid every night. You ever been laid, Brad?” I hadn’t. He laughed again and snapped his wallet shut. We were sixth graders. I stopped trying to get to know Marvie after that. He was an oddity, someone who made me uncomfortable, and I avoided him whenever possible. Several years out of school, I picked up a newspaper and read they’d finally caught the person who’d been raping and murdering elderly women around the area. It was Marvie. He’d cut a deal with the prosecutor, agreed to plead guilty to everything if he’d spare him the death penalty. I thought about him recently, found his mugshot on the Internet, a blank face revealing little more than petulant boredom. When his judgement was handed down, some had argued he was guilty of more than anyone knew, but Marvie refused to talk about the matter anymore. I related the whole story to my wife recently, and she frowned. “Why would you tell me something like that?” She was right of course. Some things are better left unturned, things like disgust and anger and sorrow. Marvie and I were never more than acquaintances, and I doubt it would’ve mattered to either of us if we were.