a little-b betrayal or two

a long time ago i was a ten-year-old kid and i was going to new york with my family in a t w a airplane and we were going to spend a few days on the island of manhattan

and i had a next-door neighbor friend named david hilyard or it might have been hillyard and we hung out together a lot and i told him about the trip and in a combination of bigshot-itis and a genuine wish to somehow have him enjoy the trip too i told him i would buy him a souvenir

next thing you know there i was at the u n building which looked like a giant glassy cereal box and in the gift shop they had a ballpoint pen with the u n insignia on it

and i bought it for david but here’s the thing i never gave it to him

and in fact i avoided him all the way up to when he and his family moved away

and though i don’t know exactly why i betrayed him that way I do know it wasn’t because i wanted to keep the pen

my guess is i was messed up psychologically and there was a weird mental membrane blocking me and not only did i betray david but also the self i could have been had i more gumption

so I now unburden myself s little by saying i’m sorry not only to david wherever he is

but to little gary as well