Strange Toys

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Thanks to the Bunting Institute for my Carnegie-Mellon Fellowship. And thanks to the LSU Research Program for my Summer Stipend.

June and I were lashing together poodle tepees, assembled from dried anise stalks, when we saw the saddle-oxford sheriff’s car cruise up the hill, past the lemon grove we were sitting in, and down the sweep of our driveway.

“I bet they got her.” June barely looked up from her tepee, which was considerably better constructed than mine. The tip of her tongue protruded crossways; she was concentrating like she did at the piano. Pale blue pointy glasses slid down the nose of her round face.

“I bet they didn’t.” But that was because I couldn’t imagine Deane in jail. Would they let her bring her Elvis pictures? Once she had made paper dolls of the whole family. Once she had said my hair smelled sweet as a kitten’s. Last time the police brought her back, she’d screamed at me and June: Fuck those goody-goodies. June had cried, huge mouth wailing open, but then she’d never liked Deane to begin with. Four years older than June, Deane had gotten the first horse. At nine, I was three years younger than June, seven years younger than Deane, and I hated horses. They bit your hair off.

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