24
The English Language
I slipped out the back and strolled home, where I soaked a big rectangle of lawn so as to soften it and dig out the latest dandelion assault from the Andersons. When the older sister came out and ragged on me for my latest story, which referred to Roger as a horsehide magician and said he aired the orb for a threebagger, I only smiled and said I was grateful for her interest.
“I don’t know what you imagine you’ll ever do for a living,” she said, “but let me tell you: writing isn’t it. A word to the wise.”
I thanked her for the advice and promised to keep it in mind.
She snorted. She said she didn’t see much evidence of my being aware of anybody except my own stupid self. She said that Mother and Daddy were worried about how I’d changed and that it broke their hearts to know the sort of smutty magazines I brought home and the filthy stories I wrote about myself and my own cousin! My cousin! Did I understand what I was talking about? And did I think they don’t know what goes on in their own home? Did I take them for utter fools? No, they were well aware of what I was up to and were disgusted by it and ashamed.
I let her blow, and when she was done, I said coolly, “There is no such magazine and no such story.” I looked her unblinking straight in the eye and said it without a tremor of a doubt.
“You’re not even very good at lying,” she said.
“You’ll have to be more specific. I’m sorry, I don’t follow you at all.”
“L-i-e. Know what it means?” She gave me a little shove.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I smiled sympathetically at her, as if she had gone mad and was drooling.
“The English language! That’s what! Listen, jerkhead—I’m on to you. Okay? I read your story, the whole disgusting thing about having sex with your own cousin! My gosh. Does the word incest mean anything to you? Do you ever even glance at your Bible? Is there no limit to how low your mind goes? Is there?”
“Jerkhead—is that a Biblical term?”
She was poking me in the shoulder, pushing, her voice a little shrieky. “You are about to be exposed for the slimy person you really are,” she said, “and all the old ladies who dote on you are going to get a mighty big shock. I hope Grandma and Aunt Eva don’t find out. It’d kill the both of them.”
I asked her if the story she referred to was the same story Miss Lewis had shown to me last week. The story about swimmers.
That threw her for a moment. She faltered—and I came in with the uppercut. I said, “Miss Lewis asked me if I thought you wrote it.”
“You liar.”
“I looked at the story and said I was about ninety percent certain you couldn’t possibly have written it. I mean there was a lot of stuff about kissing that you wouldn’t know the first thing about. And what good would it do you if you did know? Kissing requires two people and there is never going to be anyone who cares to do it with you. You know it and I know it. If you want to know why, ask me sometime and I’ll try to explain it to you. It’s your personality.”
And I turned and walked away. She fumed at me about what a monster I was and how I wouldn’t get away with it, and I returned to work on the lawn.
Grandpa looked down, speechless. Jesus had gone back inside to talk to somebody. With the ground wet, those dandelions came up lickety-split, roots and all, and into a bucket, dead soldiers. Mrs. Anderson called out to ask what I was doing. I said I was digging worms. She said, Oh.