A bird.
And Daniel had said, “What kind of bird is carrying a hockey puck, Jack?”
And my son said: “A strong one.”
He told them about Jack cheating at Monopoly and insisting with total conviction that it was not cheating because “the bank has insurance.”
He told them about the first day of ninth grade, when Theo had a panic attack in a boys’ bathroom at ten-forty in the morning, and Jack sat down on that disgusting floor outside the stall and talked to him for twenty-five minutes about absolutely nothing, pretending the two of them were skipping class on purpose.
I did not know that story. I have thought about that story probably two hundred times since. My son was fourteen years old and he sat on a bathroom floor for twenty-five minutes so his friend wouldn’t have to be in there alone.
Then He Got Quiet and Said the Thing About Everybody Calling Jack Brave
