Immediately, I told Dave I didn't want to be in his gang anymore, and I hoped he wouldn't mind. I was really getting tired of standing along the sidelines watching the other gang members harass someone. Besides, Dave had annoyed me by telling me that my imaginary friend George wasn't real. I knew he wasn't real. That's what "imaginary" means. Duh. But he didn't have to rub my face in the fact that my best friend wasn't real.
To Dave's credit, I wasn't given a goodbye beating. A lot of gang leaders would have arranged one. Maybe he was too new to the business. Maybe by the time he was a teenager and more experienced he would have learned to incorporate those little finesses that define gangdom to the connoisseur. When he wasn't in jail.
Not being part of the dominant gang did mean that my lunch began to be stolen from me regularly. Not by the old gang members, Dave wouldn't allow that. But by other kids that would have stolen my lunch before but had been afraid of Dave's guys.
On the other hand, girls liked me more. I was independent. I went my own way. I didn't have to come running when Dave called. I could tie my own shoes.
Meanwhile, Kathy, the wife-to-be who was placed in second grade, got put in a different class that took a separate lunch time, so we now never saw each other at school. The move had something to do with her being a disciplinary case. I don't recall if she was put back into the other first grade class or what. My parents claimed they knew it was bound to happen -- that was why they didn't let me skip a grade. But I was a disciplinary problem, too!
Anyway, I was therefore lonely for female company. And, at that time, I had no abstract concept of faithfulness. I could be engaged to marry Kathy, that didn't mean I couldn't kiss and hug anybody else. I mean, it was just kissing and hugging. I wasn't marrying any of them. If they'd let me and I knew how, I could have had intercourse with them and it wouldn't have occurred to me that I was cheating on Kathy in any way. The only way I could violate a trust was to promise myself in marriage to another girl.
So I spent more and more time with the girls, getting to know them, and asking for kisses and hugs. Even after I told them I was promised in marriage to another, very few girls turned me down.
An unfortunate incident occurred. A new girl arrived who was gorgeous. I hit up on her at a recess. I got so wrapped up in flirting with her I didn't notice the first warning bell to end recess. By the time the second bell rang I was sucking her face and had a hand halfway up her thigh, and without looking around said, "That's just the warning, we still have five more minutes." Then, after what I thought was five minutes more, but was possibly closer to thirty, I peeled myself away and looked around expecting to see some other stranglers, but there were none.
I was late getting in from recess often, but never this late, and never with a disheveled girl in tow. When we tried to sneak into the classroom the teacher caught us, screamed liked she'd seen a nest of rats, and dragged us to the principal's office, who yelled at me more, threatening to call in my parents.Apparently they suspected us of fluid exchanges, we'd been so late. I didn't know what the hell they were going on about. I had done everything I could think of to do with her, and none of that was what they were on about, so I wasn't able to confess anything more.
Finally the principal calmed down and deposited us back in classroom. I felt terrible for having ruined my new friend's first day in the class by dragging her down to my level of delinquency.
The principal did call my parents and told them to talk to me. I had to face the same weird questions over again from them. It wasn't quite so bad, because they had trouble with the idea that I shouldn't be liking girls so much.
The result of it all was that I lay low for about two weeks and thought carefully about my previous behavior. I concluded after long deliberate consideration that I hadn't done anything wrong but that I should be more systematic in the future. I decided to see if I could kiss every girl in my first grade class by the end of the year without getting caught.
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