Truth Cannot Be Stolen

I sat curbside on the corner of a dead-end road in San Antonio. How'd I get there? Florida, Panama, small town. Something as absurd as a last minute decision to take up door-to-door sales equals a lifetime record of soliciting. I prayed to avoid arrest. Some of us drop-out for drugs--some of us drop-out to work. My hands are older than my peers. They've been used.

Jeremy pushed me downhill in Panama. I waved at Pudgy as I passed. I've been waving ever since. Good little Air-Force brat gone A.W.O.L.

Adopted, and we're off into the village.

They held me down. They cut my hair. Mom thought hundreds of braids and seashells were beautiful. To them it was strange, and I was stranger. I cursed my mother until college.

Suddenly, the seven-year itch leaves me three months in Maplewood. I hope he's still scratching. I hope he gets crabs.