by Steven Weissman Nerds are boring, down with nerds! Gray Day was a weirdo, or what we might call an outsider these days (but certainly not back in the eighth and ninth grades). I had only two or three friends, and he was one of the best. How fondly I remember him. When he would sleep over at my house, he never took off his sneakers. Not even at bedtime. Gray gave up his afternoon paper route for the morning one, which paid better, even though he had to start taking Vivrin to do so. Having to get up so early made him sleepy the rest of the time, so he also began drinking coffee through the day at this point.

His house smelled like a hundred cats lived there. The Day's had a couple of dogs, too, although I suspect the whole family was allergic. They all went around with watery eyes and running noses, I'm sure they had no idea how ripe the place was. He was a real sports fanatic. (As a comic-book collector, I did consider sports fans to be "out of it". Wotta world!) He'd listen to and call in the talk shows on KNBR ("the sports leader") radio at night, watch all the games on TV, and even go to the Giants and 49er games when he could--often by himself, since few of us were as interested. One sport we could all appreciate was A.W.A. wrestling. We'd watch the matches every week at his smelly house until Gray grew bored and suspicious of the sport's legitimacy. When he moved on to the "purer" roller derby, I became more suspicious of him. He was the horniest kid I knew, though never had a girlfriend--nor even any action--in all the time I knew him (which was not all that uncommon, I guess, at that time). Personal hygiene, terrible manners, Red Man chewing tobacco, etc., probably had something to do with it. Gray did have a subscription to Playboy, though, paid for with his paper route money, so his parents couldn't say anything about it (!?). I also remember a time he had one of those Spectators (a popular swinger's newspaper), and called several of the escort services advertising in the back. He was honest with them: he had money (that morning route!), would they "fuck a 14 year old"? The curtain of our friendship drew to a close shortly after New Year's Eve, 9th Grade. At the suggestion of the Jack In The Box night manager, we left a passed out Gray Day (trusty flask of J.D. at his side) waiting for the ambulance and stomach pump that would certainly follow. He proposed to many beautiful ladies that night, many in front of their dates; it was a little scary. Following the New Year's episode, Gray's parents requested a meeting with all the mothers and fathers of the boys in attendance (there were three, maybe four of us?) to discuss the problems we young men were obviously having. I don't think anybody went to such a meeting. I doubt they had the heart to tell his folks (much less face the ugly truth themselves) that Gray was, indeed, our leader.