At around this time, the making of the movie The Misfits received a lot of attention, although it is rarely seen these days and would probably have been rather minor had it not been the fact that it was the last film for three of its stars—Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift and Marilyn Monroe. They all looked pretty ill on screen; the two men were dead before the film was released and MM soon after. The title had obvious appeal to my sort of person, but in fact referred to a bunch of stray horses of a type unsuitable for any purpose except offal, and therefore reflected the trio of aging cowboys who try to round them up. But when girlfriend-along-for-the-ride Monroe discovers the horses will be sold for dog meat, she tries to save them. A pretty sorrowful business all the way around, although you really had to live through the time to fully experience the tragedy of it all. The death of immortals is the saddest of all.

Around the school, everyone knew what had happened and there was general outrage. Myopic’s breach of the rules was unconscionable. Gangs threatened to take him out in dark alleys but none did. Perhaps all of them, even the toughest, feared that they might suffer my humiliation. To Myopic, this made no difference, and he sat hopelessly in class, as unloved and uncared about as before since no one could find a way to care less for him than they had previously. When you were as far down as he was, further down was impossible. At least he stopped staring at me after that.