On a city bus to school, he was the only one of his classmates listening to a man going on about why children should be vigorously taught what’s right from an early age.  Society cannot be slapped together, he was saying, it has to be built.  All things that last have to be built, and the mind is the first thing to build.  He, at whom the man had looked once, was on the verge of agreeing when the man’s friend next to him said, You’re focused on what gets put into the head; I pay more attention to what comes out the arse, to what a person leaves behind.  Is it toxic or is it fertilizer is what I ask.  You calling me fertilizer, the first man asked.  Only ‘cause you’re my friend, the friend said.  Yes, yes, the first man repeated, and laughed, and then started on sports — which even he, then still a boy, came to see was fertilizer for their friendship.