Dear Y,

Here is an email.

A bit of back story:

Last weekend I had dinner with D, a kid I knew from elementary

school. He was the boy in my class who threw the sleepover parties my mom

threatened to forbid me from attending. At these parties, his father abandoned himself

to a six-pack and us to our own devices. Though fun, we eventually outgrew

the prepubescent demonstrations of masculinity of which these parties consisted:

pausing R-rated movies when there were naked girls on the screen, swearing

while playing violent videogames, etc. D ceased having them and, nowhere

near as exciting as his parties, retreated into the background of our social

scene.

He was about as much of an acquaintance as one could be in a school of

thirty-six. I have not seen him since freshman year, when he dropped out of

high school.

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