has become something of an origin myth, my designated fun fact. I have told the story so many times that the details of my original memory have become inaccessible, transformed from a real experience into a rote narrative. I don’t remember what I told my mom to get her to drive me there, or how I scrounged up the courage to be antagonistic with strangers when I could barely stand up to my middle-school bullies, whose bland, derivative cruelty still managed to make me hate myself.
