happened. Even though it doesn’t really have to do with Mick and the monument, it’s part of how I came to live in Bolton the way I did so it’s important.
Mick says Bolton is a microcosm of the world, and I looked it up and it means a smaller version of the rest of the world, and I guess he’s right.
If you look at the center of Bolton there is thecity part, with Nicherson’s grocery store where the sidewalks are cracked and all the ants come out of the cracks, and Hillary’s hardware store and the dime store and two gas stations and three bars and two churches—just like a small big city.
Bolton is the county seat and so in the middle of the town there is a large grass area and an old courthouse with a flagpole and big old black cannon out front with a bunch of round balls welded in a pile. I know they’re welded because I tried to get one loose and they didn’t move. On the flagpole is the United States flag and just below it the Kansas flag, and every morning Sarah Widmerk, who is the court clerk, comes down the steps and raises the two flags and looks up at them in the morning light and then walks back up the stairs and goes to clerking.
Out around the middle part of town there are the houses where all the town people live, like Emma and Fred and me, and outside that there is another ring of houses where people who work for the other town people live, like GarretEmerson, who works for Fred at the elevator and has about thirty-seven kids.
Out there, in that outer ring, most of the people don’t have a lot of money so they have big gardens. Some of them keep goats and chickens and that was the problem.
Something about animals gets me. I don’t know why, but maybe it’s that we couldn’t play with animals at the orphanage. So when I see an animal, a dog or cat or a horse or a goat or even a chicken, I want to touch it and play with it, and even now when I’m thirteen going on fifty-like Mick told me—I’m the same. I’ve just got to touch them.
But Emma and Fred can’t have animals because Emma gets all swollen and bleeds out her nose from the animal hair, so I would sometimes go out to the outer ring of houses and pet goats and dogs and chickens, and one day out there I saw Python.
Of course he didn’t have a name then.
He was just a big, scruffy dog with his ribs sticking out and curly tight hair all over his body, and you could tell he was starving. I hadn’t seenhim around and don’t know where he came from. The first time I saw him I was standing in front of the Seversons’ yard, and there was a loud noise from their chicken coop in back of the house. When I ran around—Mrs. Severson came out of the back door of the house with a baseball bat at the same time—I saw this dog come barreling out of the door of the coop with a chicken in his mouth. He looked at me, then up at Mrs. Severson with the bat, and took off. He cleared the fence around the coop like he had wings, and while he was flying he swallowed the chicken.
Whole.
And that was how I came to name him. The year before Emma and Fred had taken me to the county fair. There was a side show with some animals in it, and in one glass case they had a big python.
“Ten feet long, big around as a man’s leg and alive—see it on the inside!” the man yelled. Fred took me in while Emma tried to throw nickels on some glass plates, although they kept sliding off.
And it was all pretty tacky except that the snake was real, and in the case with the snake they had a chicken.
The chicken looked like it had been in there eight or nine years. It was half bald and walked around pecking at things, now and then pecking at the snake which lay back in a corner. I asked a man wearing dirty clothes and picking his nose what the chicken was for.
“Snake food,” he said. “What did you think?”
Well it didn’t look to me like the snake was ever going to move, let alone eat a chicken, and we turned to leave. Just then the snake’s head came
Mick says Bolton is a microcosm of the world, and I looked it up and it means a smaller version of the rest of the world, and I guess he’s right.
If you look at the center of Bolton there is thecity part, with Nicherson’s grocery store where the sidewalks are cracked and all the ants come out of the cracks, and Hillary’s hardware store and the dime store and two gas stations and three bars and two churches—just like a small big city.
Bolton is the county seat and so in the middle of the town there is a large grass area and an old courthouse with a flagpole and big old black cannon out front with a bunch of round balls welded in a pile. I know they’re welded because I tried to get one loose and they didn’t move. On the flagpole is the United States flag and just below it the Kansas flag, and every morning Sarah Widmerk, who is the court clerk, comes down the steps and raises the two flags and looks up at them in the morning light and then walks back up the stairs and goes to clerking.
Out around the middle part of town there are the houses where all the town people live, like Emma and Fred and me, and outside that there is another ring of houses where people who work for the other town people live, like GarretEmerson, who works for Fred at the elevator and has about thirty-seven kids.
Out there, in that outer ring, most of the people don’t have a lot of money so they have big gardens. Some of them keep goats and chickens and that was the problem.
Something about animals gets me. I don’t know why, but maybe it’s that we couldn’t play with animals at the orphanage. So when I see an animal, a dog or cat or a horse or a goat or even a chicken, I want to touch it and play with it, and even now when I’m thirteen going on fifty-like Mick told me—I’m the same. I’ve just got to touch them.
But Emma and Fred can’t have animals because Emma gets all swollen and bleeds out her nose from the animal hair, so I would sometimes go out to the outer ring of houses and pet goats and dogs and chickens, and one day out there I saw Python.
Of course he didn’t have a name then.
He was just a big, scruffy dog with his ribs sticking out and curly tight hair all over his body, and you could tell he was starving. I hadn’t seenhim around and don’t know where he came from. The first time I saw him I was standing in front of the Seversons’ yard, and there was a loud noise from their chicken coop in back of the house. When I ran around—Mrs. Severson came out of the back door of the house with a baseball bat at the same time—I saw this dog come barreling out of the door of the coop with a chicken in his mouth. He looked at me, then up at Mrs. Severson with the bat, and took off. He cleared the fence around the coop like he had wings, and while he was flying he swallowed the chicken.
Whole.
And that was how I came to name him. The year before Emma and Fred had taken me to the county fair. There was a side show with some animals in it, and in one glass case they had a big python.
“Ten feet long, big around as a man’s leg and alive—see it on the inside!” the man yelled. Fred took me in while Emma tried to throw nickels on some glass plates, although they kept sliding off.
And it was all pretty tacky except that the snake was real, and in the case with the snake they had a chicken.
The chicken looked like it had been in there eight or nine years. It was half bald and walked around pecking at things, now and then pecking at the snake which lay back in a corner. I asked a man wearing dirty clothes and picking his nose what the chicken was for.
“Snake food,” he said. “What did you think?”
Well it didn’t look to me like the snake was ever going to move, let alone eat a chicken, and we turned to leave. Just then the snake’s head came
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