Juley’s mother thought it was weird that he only wanted to eat, add and read when he came home from school. But he was happiest when she gave him columns of numbers to total or took him to the library for more books. He was never eager to play sports with the neighborhood boys. He and his friend Aaron took exploratory hikes sometimes, in the scrubby foothills behind the junior high. They tried to spot exotic birds and to avoid the older boys with BB guns. They talked about candy and planned to build a fort.

They never saw any birds rarer than sea gulls and sparrows but they usually avoided the bands of hunting boys. One April day when they were eight, though, Steve Mankiovitz managed to wing Juley with a BB; the pellet struck his upper right arm and left a small circular bruise. Juley and Aaron spotted Steve as soon as they figured out what happened; he was just up the hill from them, crouched behind some manzanita with his mentor Keith. They ran away as fast as they could while Steve aimed his BB gun at their backs. On adrenaline-fueled feet they flew toward home. With adrenaline-honed eyes Aaron spotted the irregularity in the eroded cut-away cliff by which they raced, and pulled Juley behind screening bushes, and so they found their secret cave.

It wasn’t very deep and it wasn’t very tall, but it opened enough to swallow the two of them cozily, and it hid them behind its shrub-shrouded entrance. They took to using it for reading sessions, smuggling in Greek or Norse myths or the small books of Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling, ahead of their class. They couldn’t manage the big dictionary. Juley’s home was where they finally found “authority” and, after a fruitless search of the Js, the epithet Keith gave them in the fall: “gigolo.”

It seemed like Steve and Keith existed then only to pick on them. They lived one block over. They were older than Juley and Aaron but seemed socially less mature. Keith was Steve’s neighbor, he had red hair, and he always seemed to have a fresh idea about how to make someone miserable. Steve hung out with Keith because their mothers were friendly and Keith always had weapons. Firecrackers at least. Often a knife or his BB gun.

When Juley was in fifth grade a few memorable events occurred. First he retired from Sunday School. That happened when he asked his teacher who created God. His teacher didn’t know how to answer and tried to dispense with the question. “I don’t know” might have worked, but “God was always there” certainly didn’t. Juley protested. The teacher objected. Juley was removed from the room. He didn’t go back.

His parents tried to get him to return to Sunday School. They even threatened to stop his allowance. But he was adamant; he wouldn’t waste his time there. This was especially his position because of what happened to Aaron the very hour Juley was arguing with his Sunday School teacher.

Aaron’s family was Jewish like Juley’s but didn’t belong to a synagogue. Aaron didn’t go to Sunday School. He had always been free to hang out alone in their cave on Sunday mornings, and it’s where he chose to be that day. Unfortunately, he ran into Keith and Steve on his way there. If Juley had been with him, they would have been bothered and chased and maybe even nicked with a rock or a BB. Alone, Aaron was quickly caught.

It wasn’t like they tied him up or anything. The coercion was purely social. They suggested Aaron tag along with them, and he just didn’t feel able to refuse the invitation. He worried that they would hurt him if he declined.

They led him some distance away from the secret cave. Together the three boys made their way into a thicket of pepper trees and manzanita, careful about the sharp mahogany-colored twigs that whipped stabbingly at their bare calves. Keith and Steve took Aaron to a clearing in the middle of the scrub-forest, and there Keith exposed himself and rubbed his penis until it discharged a substance Aaron described to Juley as shiny clear jelly.

Aaron didn’t have to stay to watch. Later he felt a bit ashamed that he did remain. But at the time he was mesmerized and curious about what would happen. He was tingly and reluctant to move, let alone exit.