Roger.

There was a kid in my 8th grade gym class named Roger. On the first day of class, I tried to say something to him, but other students quickly informed that I shouldn't be talking to him. He was the lowest of the low, the variety of scumbag that no decent person would ever allow themselves to be seen socializing with.

Roger was a masturbator.

My friend Lew claims to have actually seen Roger doing the deed, while another guy I knew in junior high claims to have made it up just for the sheer hell of it. In truth, I think most of the anti-Roger stigma was related to his status as a really poor kid, rather than his supposed indecent proclivities. He always gave off an awful stench, and I used to believe it was because he was so poor he couldn't shower, which I now think is fairly unlikely. People called him a "dirty" and he had no friends, so his uncleanliness was probably the result of a sad case of self-fulfilling prophecy. People called him "Roger Doger, dick massager," but they probably wouldn't have been his friend even if he hadn't been caught getting the job done in the restroom.

There was this other kid in my gym class named Matt. He dressed, in the mid 90s, like he had stepped out of an after school special from the late 70s. It was intentional, though, and everybody thought he was cool as hell. Kids would gather around this guy in the locker room after class, listening to him tell these drug stories, always looking really bored so everybody would know just how awesome he was. One time we listened with rapt admiration as he told us about his VW bug, the trunk of which was stuffed with "one hundred kilos of rock cocaine, bro."

One day our class went outside, and the teacher left all the boys in a field, unsupervised, to play flag football while the girls ran around in circles. Roger, not wanting to bother, decided to sit the game out. Matt immediately went up to Roger and started yelling and cussing, inches from his face, telling him he had to play. He was doing the fighting dance that so many adolescent boys do, puffing up his chest and trying to look intimidating. Roger just stood there, quiet and uncertain, but unwilling to play football with a bunch of people who didn't like him. Everybody cheered Matt on, hoping the fighting dance would bear fruit. When he was finished verbally abusing Roger, he punched him the face and walked away. Roger stood there, his face a mixture of anger and humiliation, while the rest of the boys congratulated Matt on a job well done.

"I get vicious when I do shit like that!" he bragged, beaming.

After class, Roger made the mistake of leaving the padlock on his locker unlocked while he took a shower. One of the vultures took it and put it on top of a paper towel dispenser. When he got back to his locker, he asked where it was. Everybody just made fun of him and pretended they didn't know where it was.

When the bell rang and it was time to move to the next class, I gathered my things slowly. Everybody scurried out, leaving just Roger and myself.

"It's on top of the paper towel dispenser," I told him.

"What?"

"Your lock. They put it on the paper towel dispenser."

Not wanting to risk my name any more than I already was, I left as quickly as I could. The act I had committed was probably enough to get me blacklisted.

Matt disappeared that year. I later heard he had had a drug overdose and was almost dead, or was in jail. Neither story would be a surprise. Roger dropped out of school as soon as he could and was never heard from again.

UPDATE: Lew just wrote up his story, and apparently Roger is now a convicted child molester.