Keeping Up Appearances

It only occurred to me today that the kid's name was probably Nathaniel. Everyone just called him "Nat". I saw his name hundreds of times as we went through junior and senior high together, but it is has taken me more than thirty years to piece that little puzzle together. There wasn't a lot of discussion about it, mind you, but it doesn't seem nearly as odd as it did back in seventh grade.
Nat played trumpet. He wasn't very good. He was comfortably ensconced in third chair with no real designs on moving up. He played the notes and kept the beat. Whatever talent he had he kept to himself. He approached athletics in much the same way. He wrestled "B" mat, and never looked to jump up or down a weight class, or to wrestle for a chance on "A" mat. He came, he practiced, he won a match or two, and the season was over. He may have had the same motivation a lot of us did: Get your picture in the yearbook.
They don't pass out letters for participating in extracurricular activities in junior high. Sometimes you got a certificate. They were fancier in the days before desktop publishing. Sometimes there was an end of season pizza party, but mostly the currency was the number of times you got your name and picture in the yearbook.
Nat and I were both on the eighth grade middleweight football team. We were too big and slow for the lightweights, and had none of the muscle necessary to work out with the heavyweights. That year there was enough of us to put together our own division. I didn't go out for football in seventh grade, preferring instead to be overwhelmed by all things adolescent. I'm pretty sure that was true for Nat as well. I suspected this was the case as we were walking back to the locker room after the second day of practice, he wondered aloud about "when will we be getting our costumes?"
By the time ninth grade rolled around, Nat had drifted away from athletics, preferring the company of the burgeoning stoner crowd. He stuck with band, and held down third chair for one more year before giving it up completely. I didn't see him often in high school, but we were always borderline friendly. He had his buddies on Cancer Hill, and I was hanging out in the Band Room. In my junior year, I was on four separate pages of the yearbook. Nat was only pictured once. As a senior I appeared in five different places. Nat had disappeared completely. Maybe he missed picture day. Or maybe his costume hadn't come yet.