Yonder Stands Your Orphan by Barry Hannah Page B

of trash, matchstick trees, shoe-dye water holes, on the cabinet where it had waited for the patients to enjoy. Then he slipped out the back, just about on the spot when nap time at Almost There was done.
    Much dither broke out on the discovery of the animals soon afterward. Melanie came in for her readings while it was going. She didn’t want this, but one of the elderly patients had already called the sheriff’s office by the time Melanie arrived. Dee Allison awoke without actually sleeping, as she often did. “Number one, Mrs. Wooten,” she told Melanie, “I have no idea who did this. But the sheriff is not going to come out about a case of smashed glass animals.”
    â€œOh I know. I’m embarrassed. He can’t be that bored. Who would even take the time to
do
this?”
    â€œI don’t know anybody who would even come here on purpose,” said Dee.
    But the sheriff did come out. He had a good build and short hair and, when he neglected to modulate his voice,did not sound even remotely southern. Delaware, maybe. He admitted he liked espresso very much and was pleased there was a machine here, along with very modern books on all subjects, weight loss, sexual improvement, racy novels. Bleden’s huge child-psychology tome
If They Were My Child
. The sheriff’s name was Facetto. He performed in plays with the Vicksburg Theater League and had never played a lawman, even when he was in college in Mexico. Dee Allison had not seen his television meditations on the law and the world on the evening news each Saturday night, but he did have a presence. They said he was New Breed, this young high sheriff of Issaquena County. He knew, or talked anyway, psychology and the demographics of crime.
    â€œThis is the work of a teenager who may be having early bursts of schizophrenia. Most likely. I’ll get prints, but it won’t lead anywhere, I’ll bet. The girl won’t even remember doing it, I’d guess. Tragic. We had a boy in a youth group when I was young, we all went to the circus, but he attacked the bedroom of our den mother and tore it to shreds. He didn’t know why, we surely didn’t, he’d been urged to go to the circus with us. He was quiet, tall, barely whispered. The attack was his language. I’ll never forget him. Dillon Brad.”
    â€œA girl? Why?” asked a man in a wheelchair. He had a deep crush on Melanie Wooten and was the angriest of all.
    â€œThe temperament. This was meant to inflict the most hurt on something delicate and painstaking and artful. A more feminine principle. If she had any intentions at all outside of fury. I think so. It took preparation.”
    Dee Allison was very attracted to the sheriff, who was thirty-six. When he slipped back and forth from southern to East Coast accent, she felt at home. She was good at her work that way. She spoke illiteracy and literacy, depending on the patient. They had all kinds at Onward now. EvenVietnamese, Cuban, Korean, Pakistani. The ones who first owned the tourist courts had gotten old right along with the rest. There were the few vicious hicks too, of course, who had never had a right day and intended to live until they found one. Facetto looked directly at Dee’s bosom and blinked in approval without being coarse. But he returned his look to the victim here, Melanie, and held up an uncrushed zebra figure, crystalline and delicate.
    â€œThis is art. It is precious, priceless. So we are talking sacrilege of a sort. There may be even religious overtones.”
    What an ass. Dee thought of another nasty T-shirt she had ripped off her son and scolded Harold for, which made him beg and beg forgiveness. He had not read it, bright white against black black. Medium-size. But it belonged on a bumper sticker.
If I Had Wanted to Hear an Asshole I Would Have Farted
. It seemed appropriate now.
    The ex-doctor Raymond was having tenderer moments with his wife, Mimi Suarez, and she was