I don't remember how I started thinking about this, but I was thinking about a boy who went to school with me all through grammar school. By the end of eighth grade he was such a deliquent, it wouldn't surprise me if he has been in jail a few times by now. He really was just a rotten kid.
Anyway, this particular boy had to have some learning disabilities. I refuse to believe he was that slow without there being some kind of underlying cause. But either it wasn't diagnosed, or diagnosed too late, or his parents didn't put the effort in, or he didn't put the effort in, because he could barely read aloud when we were in eighth grade. Maybe that contributed to him being such a rotten, mean, coniving little punk. Maybe he was just destined to be an arse. Who knows.
But I know that he wasn't always that way. Because in 2nd grade, we were desk partners. Well, we each had our own desk, but they were pushed up against each other in pairs of twos. And you would trade homework with your partner and we would correct them in class (such a terrible way to do things, your classmates shouldn't correct your work! But I suppose they figured we would just change our own answers). And I remember how he would proudly pass his paper to me and tell me that he knew it was all right because his babysitter had checked it for him and he just knew he was going to get 100%. And he'd be right. Either his babysitter did it for him, or she really did help him, but he seemed to acutally know what he was talking about on those days. For some reason, even at the age of 7, that would make me sad. Because as early as second grade, he was showing signs of being a bad kid, and I knew he could be better. When we would be reading and he'd quietly ask me how to pronounce a certain word, or what another word meant, I knew that he actually cared. I'd help him with lots of different stuff - maybe that is why we were desk partners, maybe that was by design. Maybe if someone could have reached him earlier, maybe if he had different friends, maybe if he never went to Sacred Heart, things could have been different. Sometimes there are too many maybe's in life.
But soon enough we switched seats and I was someone else's desk partner and we probably never talked again. He and I went down very different paths, or as different as you can get in a grade with 5o people broken up into 2 classes. I haven't seen him since 1995, and I can't really say I minded that. I don't miss the punk little 14 year old pain in the neck, but I do feel sad for the little boy who was my desk partner. I know I was only 7 and it wasn't my job, but I wish I had been able to help him a little more.
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