But in truth Olinger had begun to slide from him before the move. Beginning in about the fifth grade, school would be full of chatter and gossip concerning weekend events that had excluded him—gatherings in somebody’s basement, or down at the quarry, or at the roller-skating rink at the Alton amusement park. There was a gang, and he was not in it. He had lost the trail that he had been following since the walks to kindergarten, and the summers spent at the Olinger playground, and the bicycle trips in a pack all over the town, with the knot of boys and girls he had known all their lives. Of the girls, some were prettier than others, with more spunk and energy, and of the boys, some had more of the magic ingredients—confidence, knowingness—that made for popularity, but the distinctions hadn’t mattered so much as they came to matter in seventh and eighth grades. By ninth grade, David almost felt he might as well live in the country, where he could read mystery novels all afternoon, and practice set-shots at a hoop his father had nailed to the barn wall for him, and hoe in the “organic” garden his mother had planted up past the shaggy orchard slope.

In the tenth grade he got his driver’s license, and access to the family car as it sat on the school lot. He found himself in the same orbit as Julia and Doris. There was an old hat factory in Schenktown, and though felt hats would soon fade from daily use in America, enough prosperity had been generated to afford Julia the use of a green Studebaker convertible and Doris that of a Willys station wagon, with all-steel sides instead of varnished wood, which was still a novelty in 1948. The cars liberated them not only from the school bus but from the high-school cafeteria. While most of the students walked home for lunch in the compact blocks of Olinger, and the others were dished up fried Spam or chicken à la king in the cafeteria line, Julia and Doris and David and some Schenktown boys like Wilbur Miller and Morris Hertzog drove up and down the Alton Pike in one or another of their cars, looking for the perfect hamburger. Luncheonette or diner food cost a few dimes more than cafeteria fare, but, just as David’s parents had agreed that the country high school wasn’t good enough for him, they provided the five-dollar weekly allowance for his non-cafeteria lunches. Looking back, he marvelled at their generosity and his selfishness: a teen-age predator, hungry for hamburgers, acceptance, and gasoline.