black and moved out with his mom and a brother or two. Don't know why they moved out. Needless to say suburban las vegas was quite different than what he was used to. He quickly became somewhat of a curiosity for most. The girls especially treated him like he was their pet. They were not romantically interested, he was to put it nicely, not even remotely good looking. But his mannerisms, accent, and reactions to things were entertaining to them. They would say, "say x, y, or z..." and then laugh at his accent. Dumb things like that. I always thought that part was more messed up than what I did. Anyway, needless to say, he spoke and acted in a way that made him stand out. He had a completely different world view and way of thinking than the rest of us. He had never seen mountains before, never gone camping, and we introduced him to a bunch of food and other activities like mexican food, ice skating, go carts, etc.

Anyway, we tried to include him in most everything we did even though he had difficulty fitting in. Part of the problem was that he wasn't particularly nice. Especially to us boys. Poor kid was probably having a really hard time, but all it felt like to us was always having to invite and hangout with a kid who just treated us all like dirt even though we included him in everything. Eventually my birthday party came and we were doing an activity that could only involve 12 people. I had one more spot to invite someone and it was down to this kid and one other who was a casual friend of mine. I went with the latter because the former was often so unpleasant to be around.

Anyway, I tried to keep the party hidden from him, but of course he heard about it. Never said a word about it to me and we had a fun party. The next day my mom sits me down on the coach and said that we needed to talk. She said that while we were gone from the house doing the activity, he had shown up on his bike and was riding around outside the house hoping to be invited in to the party. Unfortunately, at that moment there was no party to invite him into. By the time we got back to the house for presents and food, he had left. My mom took the opportunity to talk to me about race and things, but I hadn't chosen not to invite him because of race, I had chosen not to invite him because he was mean. A few months later he had his party and didn't invite me either so I took that as us being equal. He moved not long after that.

Looking back, I feel bad for that kid. He moved to basically another planet and didn't fit in at all with anyone. Even the other black kids at the school looked and acted completely different than him. Half the kids treated him like a curiosity and the other half only invited him to stuff because we had to. I wish I had invited him to my party. Who knows, could have made all the difference. Even though I really didn't mean anything by it and would have invited him if I had unlimited invitations, I still feel bad. I don't know what ever became of him, but I am sure he didn't have many good memories of his time out here and I was a part of that.