He once drank thirteen half-pint cartons of milk in a single twenty-minute lunch period. Another boy tried to match him the next day but ended up getting sick all over his tray. I never saw anyone beat him at arm wrestling, not even his older brother. Which stunned me: that you could beat your older brother at anything. He wore a stonewashed jean jacket, parted his short brown hair sharply on the left, and tucked his T-shirts into his jeans. He was fast and strong and two years ahead of me in elementary school. When his family first moved to town, he and his little sister sat in the same seat on the bus, and he held her hand. I sat in the seat in front of them. After a time I turned around and said hi.