I still have no idea who that red-haired eighth grader was, but she impacted my life in ways she couldn’t possibly fathom.
Picture it: metro Atlanta, circa 1997. I’m a fresh-faced sixth grader getting used to the rigors of junior high. Middle school, being that terrible, awkward time in life when you experience all the newfound joys of puberty, wasn’t exactly the easiest transition for me. It was especially tough since I went to a school that was about 50 percent lower class white sociopaths, 40 percent lower class black sociopaths and 10 percent really stuck-up rich white kids who got the shaft during the last county rezonings. There weren’t a lot of cliques on campus, but of the few that were, what intrigued me most was how the groups seemed to exist sans the grade level boundaries. If you were a sixth grade jock, you hung out with the …