The New York Times Magazine, Sunday, August 22, 1999

The Outsiders
whole school."
Neither does Andrew tell his parents. He believes they think he is popular. "If I
try to explain it to my parents," he says, "they'll say: 'Oh, but you have plenty of
friends.' Oh, I don't think so. They don't really get it." His outcast friends,
however, do.
One of them is Randy Tuck, a
5-foot-4-inch sophomore with a
thick head of hair and cheeks bright
red with acne. He rescued Andrew
from a "swirly" (two boys had him
ankle up, and headed for the toilet
bowl).
Randy moved from Alaska to New
Hampshire almost three years ago.
To his frustration, his classmates
called him Eskimo Boy. Art is his
solace, along with the occasional
cigarette. He loves to draw. He used
to sketch Ninja Turtles and now,
with the help of an art teacher, he's
studying anatomy. He associates Randy Tuck (pictured at home) sought refuge
among the freaks, who, he says, are "friendly, but
with the freaks during school mainly
not welcoming."
because they let him. He says,
"They are friendly, but not welcoming."
Classmates debate with Randy about his atheism, but he refuses to believe a God
could arrange a life as unlucky as his. Andrew blames himself. Randy says,
"Andrew's vulnerable and small and weak and R. takes advantage of that."
Randy utilizes "verbal bashing" as a defense, although he admits that its powers
don't prevent physical attack. R. surprised him one day in the hallway. He passed
Randy, then turned around and punched him in the spine. But Randy also notes
that R. can be funny. "When he's not in a bad mood, he can be very
entertaining."
Andrew says that the ostracizing "does build up inside. Sometimes you might get
really mad at something that doesn't matter a lot, kinda like the last straw." He
could understand the Columbine killers, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, if their
misery had shown no signs of ending, but Andrew remains an optimist. After all,
there are some people who have no friends. "Things are not going up really fast,
but they are getting better," he says. "I might have a week where they get worse,
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