eight,” I said.
“Nitrites,” said Timothy. He was gripping his head between his palms, one on the chin and one on top, and bending it from side to side until you could heara little pop. I began to understand about the unbalanced homeostasis.
“We eat mainly soybean products here,” Fei said. “We’re just starting a soy-milk collective. A house requirement is that each person spend at least seven hours a week straining curd.”
“Straining curd,” I said. I wanted to say, Flaming nurd. Raining turds. It isn’t raining turds, you know, it’s raining violets.
“Yes,” Fei went on in this abnormally calm voice that made me want to throw a pillow at her. “I guess the child…”
“Turtle,” I said.
“I guess Turtle would be exempt. But we would have to make adjustments for that in the kitchen quota….”
I had trouble concentrating. La-Isha kept narrowing her eyes and trying to get Fei’s attention. I remembered Mrs. Hoge with her shakes, always looking like she was secretly saying, “Don’t do it” to somebody behind you.
“So tell us about you,” Fei said eventually. I snapped out of my daydreams, feeling like a kid in school that’s just been called on. “What kind of a space are you envisioning for yourself?” she wanted to know. Those were her actual words.
“Oh, Turtle and I are flex,” I said. “Right now we’re staying downtown at the Republic. I jockeyed fried food at the Burger Derby for a while, but I got fired.”
La-Isha went kind of stiff on that one. I imagined all the little elephants on her shift getting stung through the heart with a tiny stun gun. Timothy wastrying to get Turtle’s attention by making faces, so far with no luck.
“Usually little kids are into faces,” he informed me. “She seems kind of spaced out.”
“She makes up her own mind about what she’s into.”
“She sure has a lot of hair,” he said. “How old is she?”
“Eighteen months,” I said. It was a wild guess.
“She looks very Indian.”
“Native American,” Fei corrected him. “She does. Is her father Native American?”
“Her great-great-grandpa was full-blooded Cherokee,” I said. “On my side. Cherokee skips a generation, like red hair. Didn’t you know that?”
The second house on my agenda turned out to be right across the park from Jesus Is Lord’s. It belonged to Lou Ann Ruiz.
Within ten minutes Lou Ann and I were in the kitchen drinking diet Pepsi and splitting our gussets laughing about homeostasis and bean turds. We had already established that our hometowns in Kentucky were separated by only two counties, and that we had both been to the exact same Bob Seger concert at the Kentucky State Fair my senior year.
“So then what happened?” Lou Ann had tears in her eyes. I hadn’t really meant to put them down, they seemed like basically good kids, but it just got funnier as it went along.
“Nothing happened. In their own way, they were so polite it was pathetic. I mean, it was plain as daythey thought Turtle was a dimwit and I was from some part of Mars where they don’t have indoor bathrooms, but they just kept on asking things like would I like some alfalfa tea?” I had finally told them no thanks, that we’d just run along and envision ourselves in some other space.
Lou Ann showed me the rest of the house except for her room, where the baby was asleep. Turtle and I would have our own room, plus the screened-in back porch if we wanted it. She said it was great to sleep out there in the summer. We had to whisper around the house so we wouldn’t wake the baby.
“He was just born in January,” Lou Ann said when we were back in the kitchen. “How old’s yours?”
“To tell you the truth, I don’t even know. She’s adopted.”
“Well, didn’t they tell you all that stuff when you adopted her? Didn’t she come with a birth certificate or something?”
“It wasn’t an official adoption. Somebody just kind of gave her to me.”
“You
“Nitrites,” said Timothy. He was gripping his head between his palms, one on the chin and one on top, and bending it from side to side until you could heara little pop. I began to understand about the unbalanced homeostasis.
“We eat mainly soybean products here,” Fei said. “We’re just starting a soy-milk collective. A house requirement is that each person spend at least seven hours a week straining curd.”
“Straining curd,” I said. I wanted to say, Flaming nurd. Raining turds. It isn’t raining turds, you know, it’s raining violets.
“Yes,” Fei went on in this abnormally calm voice that made me want to throw a pillow at her. “I guess the child…”
“Turtle,” I said.
“I guess Turtle would be exempt. But we would have to make adjustments for that in the kitchen quota….”
I had trouble concentrating. La-Isha kept narrowing her eyes and trying to get Fei’s attention. I remembered Mrs. Hoge with her shakes, always looking like she was secretly saying, “Don’t do it” to somebody behind you.
“So tell us about you,” Fei said eventually. I snapped out of my daydreams, feeling like a kid in school that’s just been called on. “What kind of a space are you envisioning for yourself?” she wanted to know. Those were her actual words.
“Oh, Turtle and I are flex,” I said. “Right now we’re staying downtown at the Republic. I jockeyed fried food at the Burger Derby for a while, but I got fired.”
La-Isha went kind of stiff on that one. I imagined all the little elephants on her shift getting stung through the heart with a tiny stun gun. Timothy wastrying to get Turtle’s attention by making faces, so far with no luck.
“Usually little kids are into faces,” he informed me. “She seems kind of spaced out.”
“She makes up her own mind about what she’s into.”
“She sure has a lot of hair,” he said. “How old is she?”
“Eighteen months,” I said. It was a wild guess.
“She looks very Indian.”
“Native American,” Fei corrected him. “She does. Is her father Native American?”
“Her great-great-grandpa was full-blooded Cherokee,” I said. “On my side. Cherokee skips a generation, like red hair. Didn’t you know that?”
The second house on my agenda turned out to be right across the park from Jesus Is Lord’s. It belonged to Lou Ann Ruiz.
Within ten minutes Lou Ann and I were in the kitchen drinking diet Pepsi and splitting our gussets laughing about homeostasis and bean turds. We had already established that our hometowns in Kentucky were separated by only two counties, and that we had both been to the exact same Bob Seger concert at the Kentucky State Fair my senior year.
“So then what happened?” Lou Ann had tears in her eyes. I hadn’t really meant to put them down, they seemed like basically good kids, but it just got funnier as it went along.
“Nothing happened. In their own way, they were so polite it was pathetic. I mean, it was plain as daythey thought Turtle was a dimwit and I was from some part of Mars where they don’t have indoor bathrooms, but they just kept on asking things like would I like some alfalfa tea?” I had finally told them no thanks, that we’d just run along and envision ourselves in some other space.
Lou Ann showed me the rest of the house except for her room, where the baby was asleep. Turtle and I would have our own room, plus the screened-in back porch if we wanted it. She said it was great to sleep out there in the summer. We had to whisper around the house so we wouldn’t wake the baby.
“He was just born in January,” Lou Ann said when we were back in the kitchen. “How old’s yours?”
“To tell you the truth, I don’t even know. She’s adopted.”
“Well, didn’t they tell you all that stuff when you adopted her? Didn’t she come with a birth certificate or something?”
“It wasn’t an official adoption. Somebody just kind of gave her to me.”
“You
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