Limner

One of the most shameful things I have ever done in my life was to betray one of my best friends in Junior High School to a bunch of petty bullies who also were my friends. I resisted becoming a bully to K at first, but I gave in eventually, and I bullied him like the others. This senseless vindictiveness must have gone on for a few months, and then one day I called up K and said I was sorry. K said “Apology accepted!” quite triumphantly, and the next day K made it amply clear that he had scored some kind of magnificent moral victory over me – because I had apologized. I wasn’t really that angry over this, at first I was shocked, then more sad than anything else. I couldn’t blame him, but I thought there was more of an underlying friendship. We eventually became cordial towards one another, but distant, distant. He never totally forgave me. When I illustrated the yearbook for our final year in Junior High, he also cleverly insulted me by writing in a credit under a photo of me drawing, it said I was a talented “Limner”. Years later I discovered a Limner is an ill-trained or self-taught illustrator who creates crude and awkward two-dimensional work -- mostly on tavern signs. They generally remain anonymous. Nice one K. I’ve kept the label of Limner in your honor, or as some kind of penance, for whatever it is worth.