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The Missouri Review

Nonfiction | March 01, 1989

Friends of a Stranger

Robert Pope

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In October of 1962, when I flipped my pale-blue jacket over my shoulder and walked to the bus stop, I was sixteen years old, and a great deal had already occurred to change my life. As I walked, I watched my brothers pedaling their unicycles down the street to the left, their bright scarves flying from their throats, unfurling flags of red and yellow. In a rain of leaves which picked up the colors of my brother’s scarves, I fel extremely peaceful, from the bus stop, I ran into Killer–his eyes nervous, scanning the sidewalk, the grass, the trees for the slightest movement, drawn now to a tumbling leaf, again to the high, flitting tail of a black squirrel which seemed to follow us with a high-strutting jump and jump.

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