Race never really came up between Gary and me. But when it did, it was like we were sitting in a really bad fart and didn’t want to acknowledge it. The thing was that I envied Gary. I envied his turban. I envied his brownness. I figured it was his brownness, his turban, that allowed him to be so popular. He stood out. But not in the way that I stood out: my weakness on display for everyone. People just naturally avoided and despised me like a Band-Aid in the pool. I liked being friends with Gary, I liked being around his brownness, I liked that his brownness was now associated with me. But we
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