I see him for the first time at our school’s welcome back assembly. Neil, Joe, and I
take up our usual posts in the back of the auditorium. I’m settling in, preparing to be
bored by longwinded sermons and dusty anthems. But then, miraculously, the sky opens and Carlos beams down, sinking gracefully into a vinyl seat up front, and I spend the next hour imagining I’m up there near him, him near me, wondering what that would be like. There’s an aura about him that sets him off from the rest. Passing in the halls,
clowning on the bus, high fiving at the caf. Adoring girls follow him around, but he pays
about as much attention to them as a boat to its wake.