If you’re cursed with a good memory, one of the odd things about getting older is you find yourself haunted by things you might not even have done.

Because of some music I was listening to the other day, I went into a stream-of-consciousness reverie that led me back to, of all places, Highland Elementary School in Columbia Heights, Minn., and to a classmate I didn’t even know very well.

Her name was Sue.  She was one of three or four kids in my school who were, for some reason, considered toxic.

With the exquisite cruelty of which even young children are capable, it was made known that Sue was somebody you didn’t even want to be seen talking to, much less befriending.  She was chubby and not very attractive, but looking past that I can’t for the life of me remember why she was considered such a pariah.  In fact, my dominant memory of her is that she was a rather sweet kid; of course, that impression comes from just being in the same room with her.  I talked to her only if it was necessary and when you’re in grammar school that doesn’t happen very often.

I avoided her, just like everybody else.  I don’t remember ever being overtly cruel to her, but neither do I remember ever making any effort to be nice.

That age must have been horrible for her.  I say that without condescension or pity, just a recognition of how deeply young, new knives cut.  I can imagine few things more heartbreaking than being at an age where you don’t even understand yourself – where you’re just starting to ask those kinds of questions – and being faced, every day, with the knowledge that people just don’t like you for murky reasons.

Bullying is a fashionable topic these days; I’m not sure I’d call what we all did to Sue bullying.  I guess it was, after a fashion, but it actually went deeper than that.  She wasn’t getting beaten up on the playground every day, at least not physically, but perhaps what we all did was worse.  It’s said the opposite of love is not hate but indifference and even if we just avoided her, in some ways that probably was worse than purposeful meanness.

Of course, I know nothing about her home life.  I hope she had good parents (hell, I hope she had great parents).  Another heartbreak in the memory is what it must have been like for her folks to know she was an outcast and there was nothing they could do about it.  I hope she got a lot of hugs.  If the situation at home was bad, I’m not even sure I’d want to know about it.

I knew other “losers,” even befriended one, but for some reason Sue really sticks with me.  I think what haunts and hurts is that looking back, I can’t find any explanation, anything she ever did or was, that made us treat her like that.  Not that that would justify it, but it would at least provide the cold comfort of explanation.

With the other pariahs – I remember two in particular – there was at least some explanation.  One was just kind of a whiny kid and the other had some pretty gnarly personal habits.  The price they paid was certainly out of proportion, but at least I can remember why we were mean to them.  Still can’t justify it, though.

One I befriended actually came into my life a little later, in junior high.  His name was Dick and he was a nerd right out of central casting.  By the time we became friends in eighth grade, his parents at least had stopped making him wear a flat-top, which in the 1970s was a ridicule magnet.  He had the high-water pants, the short-sleeve polyester shirts, the whole getup.  He was treated so badly that one of our English teachers even stopped class on a day he was gone to say something about it.

He also was one of the nicest kids I ever knew.  He seemingly didn’t have a mean bone in his body.  He was gentle (probably his biggest mistake) and had a ready, open smile.  We didn’t hang out together, but we spent time together in school and it was perhaps the first time I ever realized that the popular opinion of somebody can be wrong.  I even felt a little protective of him; I remember once, when one of the biggest hairballs in the school stole one of Dick’s chess pieces – the set, which he’d gotten from his grandmother, had sentimental value and he was distraught -- I pulled the kid aside and told him in no uncertain terms Dick better get it back.  I think he did.  I hope he did.

As we got older, we drifted out of each others’ orbits.  By high school, we had little if any contact.  It’s the way things go at that age.  In the years since, though, I’ve thought occasionally of Dick.  I hope he’s alive and happy; I’ll bet if he had kids, he was a great father.

But in some ways, my fondest hopes are for Sue.  I hope she’s happy and that she doesn’t have to think too much about how we, even those who did nothing intentional, tortured her as a child.  I’ve seen too much crap in my time to really believe that what goes around comes around.  But I hope the karmic wheel turned enough that she got some happiness out of life.

Got knows, she didn’t get much happiness out of childhood.