The Social Contract

The First Draft

After school, Abraham and I went to the Waiting Area to plot. The Waiting Area was this big classroom down by the gyms filled with colorful, squishy futons where the kindergarteners took their naps, and happy posters, and weird looking educational toys, and every board game in the world. It smelled terminally of lemon disinfectant and peanut butter crackers, and I"d never seen it less than packed. I spent a lot of time there when I was little.

Dunmore Elementary was big enough that the parents had to pick us up in shifts; as an Aden County kid I partook in the short but critical social scene that emerged every day from 2:55PM to 3:15PM in the Waiting Area. Some kids hated the waiting but I always thought it was nice to have a few minutes to sit back, play a mindless game and process the events of the day.

"Let"s write the contract in JAB code," Abraham suggested. "That way, no one will be able to steal it and see what it says."

"I don"t know your dumb code," I said. "I wouldn"t be able to see what it said."

"Well, I"ll write it then," said Abraham, "and then I can teach you."

"No."

He shrugged. "You say that a lot, you know?"

Here"s what we came up with in the end:

We, Abraham Foellenger and Tyler Freimann, promise to come to each other"s aid in the following situations:

– Someone is hurting one of us, like punching or kicking or wrestling that"s not fun wrestling or anything like that.

– Public teasing that goes on longer than three minutes or the high sign is made, whichever comes first. (The high sign is calling the teaser a "duckbutt" because that"s a pretty good insult anyway.)

– Classroom discussions where Mr. LaFevre is trying to make us look stupid.

– One of us forgot or lost something and needs to borrow it, and the other person has enough of that thing.

– Tyler can stay in Abraham"s tunnel if he promises to let him read.

– And Abraham can come in Tyler"s tree house sometimes, but he has to ask.

First preference is given to allies in all trading situations. Favors negotiable by giving in trade one of Tyler"s four car erasers. We each start out with two starting now. A really big favor might be worth more than one eraser. If you don"t have any erasers left you have to do something worth erasers to get them back!

That"s all for now. Sincerely,

Abraham Foellenger

Tyler Freimann

"That was kind of fun," I admitted when we had both signed. "I think maybe I"ll be a lawyer when I grow up and make contracts for people all day."

Abraham had the grace not to point out he"d done all the hard work. "Yeah, that would be a fun job. Well I have to go to band practice now."

"Okay," I said. "I"ll talk to you the next time I need a favor then?"

"X-D-R," he agreed.

Shortly after Abraham had gone, Ross, who was also an Aden county resident, looked up from his book. "Want to play checkers?" he asked, as was our usual custom.

"Sure," I agreed, pleased. Ross lost to me frequently and easily at almost every competitive game.

"I had a new idea for how to do checkers," he told me. "What if we made them fight sometimes? Like, instead of jumping over each other all the time, they could fight for the square and see who got it."

"No," I said.

"Why not?"

"It just wouldn"t be checkers."

He c****d his head to one side, said "I ... I guess that"s true," and said no more about it.

I had been afraid Ross would side with Tim and Nathan on the matter of our microfeud, or would object to my new alliance with Abraham, but he genuinely didn"t seem to care. He may not have even noticed; he was simple like that. And while he"d shouted "Popup" with the rest that morning, laughing at the novelty of a joke he didn"t get, there was no real malice involved and he showed all signs of having forgotten the matter immediately.

As I double-jumped Ross"s king, I considered asking Abraham to add him to our alliance. But before I could decide how to phrase the question, I realized a kid like Ross didn"t need any protection. He was so chill he completely flew under everyone"s radar. And amazingly, when I was with him, I didn"t act like a popup ad at all.

Ten minutes later I made my way downstairs with the others. My mother pulled up in her ancient Honda and I hopped in.

"How was your day?" she asked, and make no mistake, the question was loaded.

"Fine," I responded in the proud tradition of reticent young males everywhere.

"Did you get your math test back yet?"

"No." (Yes.)

"Anything else happen?"

"It was fine."

"How fine?" she countered, and I knew I would have to do better. Best to skate over the homework slip burning a hole in my backpack and the recess spent in a tunnel with the class pariah; instead I used the open-endedness of the question to its full advantage. "I made an ally!"

"An ally? What do you mean?" she asked. I think she must have been torn between finding my antics cute and worrying they would turn out to be abnormal enough to impede ordinary social progress.

"I signed this contract with Abraham," I elaborated. "We agreed to help each other whenever we asked and stuff. I"m totally set now!"

Mom smiled very carefully. "Well that"s nice, honey, but I hope you"re still friends with Tim and Ross and Nathan, too. As they always say, "Make new friends, but keep the old"!"

I opened my mouth to explain about Abraham not being my friend but stopped short, knowing I"d find the conversation both fruitless and embarrassing. As to Tim, I was still unsure. He didn"t seem to miss me after our recess apart. It wasn"t like I could just ask him what his problem was, was it? So until he came around I was stuck in limbo.

Now that I look back on it, my mom probably thought I had joined a gang. She always seemed to think the worst of me.