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ways. He used to make me laugh until I was hurting. His dementia only endeared him to me even more, and I believe I inherited almost all of my sense of humor from him. Some say that’s not a good thing.
    When he saw me sitting on the Big Wheel, he cocked his head to the side and studied me like a bird of ill intent before asking, “Want a push?” I had my reservations when I saw the look of glee on his face, but I couldn’t very well give up a free ride—after all, there’s no telling when another would come along. I reluctantly nodded my head, and a grin spread across his face, full of teeth that seemed far too large and numerous. My father could be cleaned up to look presentable for the camera, but on an average day he could have been a stand-in for Jack Nicholson in The Shining . Sometimes he could just make a face and it scared me so bad that I’d begin screaming hysterically for my mother. And nothing delighted him more. He lay on the floor laughing so hard that he lost all control of himself. I inherited that laugh. Believe it or not, I miss those days. Perhaps I Damien Echols
    4
    became addicted to my very own terror at an early age, which is why I chose a Stephen King novel over the works of Proust, Camus, or Dickens any day.
    At any rate, give me a push is exactly what he did. My father always became a legend for his physical strength among those who knew him. He grabbed the back of the Big Wheel, and with all his might sent me hurtling straight down the hill on which we stood. The tree covered hill. How I avoided every tree on the hill is a mystery to me. I was going so fast that everything I passed was a blur, and the momentum made it impossible for me to steer. I did the only thing I could do—scream like a banshee and try to keep from pissing myself. Even over my screaming I could hear my father’s roaring, insane laughter. I shot across the highway at the bottom of the hill and gradually came to a stop on the other side, by which time my mother and grandmother had both ran out onto the front porch to see what was happening. My mother began screaming at my father, who was doubled over from laughter, about how he was going to kill me. When they made their way down to me and my mother was certain that I was okay other than shaky legs and a heart that was beating like a humming bird, my father asked, “Want to do it again?” This time my head nodding was enthusiastic, and he began pushing me back up to the top of the hill in order to do it once more.
    II
    My memory really starts to come together once I started school. I can still remember every teacher I ever had, from kindergarten through high school My mother and father moved to an apartment complex called Mayfair. We had an upstairs apartment in a long line of identical doors. When I went out to play, the only way I could find my way back home was to peek in every window until I saw familiar furnishings. My grandmother also moved into an apartment in the complex, one row behind us. This was the year I started kindergarten, and I remember it well.
    Mayfair was in a rundown section of town, although not nearly as rundown as it later became. We were in the worst school district in the city, and on the first day I saw that I was one of only two white kids in the entire class. The other was my best friend Tommy, who also lived in Mayfair. Our teacher was a skinny black woman named Donaldson, and I’d be hard-pressed to find a more hateful adult. She wasn’t as bad to the girls, but seemed to harbor an intense hatred for all male children. I honestly don’t know how she ever became a teacher, as she seemed to spend all her time racking her brain to come up with new and innova-tive forms of punishment.
    I was very quiet at this age, almost to the point of being invisible. I managed to avoid her wrath most of the time, but twice she noticed me. Once, for a reason I never understood, a girl told her that I had my eyes open during naptime. Every day after