Because the first buffer is not a validity bitmap. Follow up work from ARROW-16756 **Reporter**: [Wes McKinney](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ARROW-16845) / @wesm #### Related issues: - [[C++] Improve array expression and kernel evaluation performance on small inputs](https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/20277) (relates to) <sub>**Note**: *This issue was originally created as [ARROW-16845](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ARROW-16845). Please see the [migration documentation](https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/14542) for further details.*</sub>