Bad Boy: A Memoir

Viola and Geraldine left home in 1949, leaving Myers with more time to think about how to navigate life and put the values he was learning into practice: "But there was something else going on, and that was the idea that while I wanted to be good—and my idea of being good was a very tolerant one—I also wanted to be like other kids so I would have friends" (66). By this point, however, both Myers’s athletic ability and his reading skills had outstripped those of other children his age, causing him to feel increasingly isolated.

Nevertheless, Myers was looking forward to his twelfth birthday; Florence had forgiven him for lying about the beating, and had promised him a party, a glove, and a bat as rewards for his success in school. The day of his birthday, however, Myers learned that his uncle, Lee, had been mugged and killed the previous night. Both the funeral and the drive home were strange experiences for Myers, who saw his adult relatives crying and then watched passers-by going about their daily life, unaware of Lee's death.

Lee's death deeply affected Herbert; he returned from the morgue "wild-eyed and nearly incoherent” and, in the weeks and months that followed, sunk into a state of depression (70).