"What's wrong, Omar?" said Mr. Brady, an eighth grade English teacher.

     Everybody thought Brady was a pretty nice guy. He didn't shout at kids or tell them to take off their hats or pull up their pants and never told anyone to shut up. If he wanted a kid to stop talking, Mr. Brady would just pat him or her on the shoulder and go on with what he was saying.

     When Omar did not respond to Mr. Brady, or even look over at him, Mr. Brady said, "Son, what do you need?"

     Miss Riordan, the school nurse, whose father was the head priest at St. Tim's, handed a red blanket to Mr. Brady.

     "You must be cold, Omar," he said.

     The late bell rang. I could see that Bronko Schulz was holding something behind his back that looked like a tire iron.

     Mr. Brady walked up to Omar and draped the blanket around his shoulders. Brady did not attempt to take the rifle away from Omar but he put one arm around him and together they walked into the school, followed closely by Bronko Schulz and the other teachers. Nobody said anything to the kids, so we just went back to playing tag and touch football.

     I can still see Omar Buell and Mr. Brady walking in the schoolyard with Omar wrapped in a red blanket carrying the deer rifle. I never saw Omar Buell again but a couple of weeks after the incident Jimmy Groat said that his mother told him Omar had an incurable condition so he had to be locked up in an institution with other incurable nut cases.

     The other day I read an article in the newspaper about a Liberian rebel leader who made his men march into battle completely naked carrying only their guns in order to frighten the enemy. He claimed to have been responsible for the deaths of more than 20,000 people, and said that before a fight he made a human sacrifice to the devil, usually killing a child and plucking out the heart, which was divided into pieces for his men to eat.

     "Did your mother say what they call Omar's condition?" I asked Jimmy.

     "She don't know," he said. "Maybe she just made up the part about him being put away in an institution to make me behave better."