Quin's dad did not like me, he thought I was in the wrong social
class for his son to be associating with if he was going to be
popular and successful. He would actually tell Quin really hurtful
things about me while I was standing right there in the room. He
would say something like ,”You should get better friends because no
one likes Nate, he is a Poo-Poo head.”. He would even do it in a
funny voice so the other kids would laugh. I thought it was really
mean then but now I think that a guy in his middle thirties trying to
drive off an undesirable friend by calling him a Poo-Poo head is
really sad. But he wanted so badly to be cool and he wanted his kids
to be cool and I was not cool and that drove him to do petty things.
Soon after he started his propaganda campaign in earnest, Quin
started telling me he was too busy or he didn't feel like playing.
One time he actually told me that he didn't want to play with me
because his dad said I wasn't cool. Even then, I tried a few more
times because we had been good friends for two years but we never
played again. They moved to a nicer town the next year and I only saw
Quin a few more times. Well, his dad's plan worked and Quin was not
tainted by association with a scroungy nerd. The only problem was
that it worked too well and he started hanging out with the coolest
crowd of all, the party crowd. He got big into that scene and died in
an accident while under the influence. I didn't go to the funeral but
I have visited the memorial tree they planted by a local pond.
