The Boys of My Youth Read Online Free Page A

me. That deer had legs like canes, feet like Dixie cups.
    Wendell pats my knee, grinning. “Settle down,” she says. “It didn’t
hit
us. We’re safe.” She likes excitement as long as her car doesn’t get hurt. I light a cigarette, begin dirtying up her ashtray,
     and mess with the tape until our favorite song comes on again. We’re back up to eighty on the narrow highway, daring the ignorant
     to take a step onto the asphalt. This is Illinois, a land of lumbering raccoons, snake-tailed possums, and flatoutrunning bunnies, all trying to cross the road. The interior of the car smells like leather and evergreen trees, the moon peers
     through the roof, and Wendell drives with one finger.
    “Hey, how’s my hair?” she asks suddenly. Her eyes are clear brown, her cheekbones are high and delicate, brushed with pink,
     her lips aren’t too big or too little. She’s wearing my shirt. A clump of hair has pushed itself forward in the excitement.
     It looks like a small, startled hand rising from the back of her head.
    I make an okay sign, thumb and forefinger. The music is deafening.
    Back in the cluster of trees, the deer moves into position again and the willows run their fingers along the ground. The corn
     whispers encouragement to itself. In the bar up ahead waitresses slam sloe-gin fizzes down on wet tables and men point pool
     cues at each other in the early stages of drunkenness. The singer in the three-man band whispers
test
into the microphone and rolls his eyes at the feedback. The sound guy jumps up from a table full of ladies and heads over
     to turn knobs.
    We crunch over the parking lot gravel and wait for our song to finish.
I’m over my head, but it sure feels nice
. The bar is low and windowless, with patched siding and a kicked-in door; the lot is full of muscle cars and pickups. A man
     and a woman burst through the door and stand negotiating who will drive. He’s got the keys but she looks fiercer. In the blinking
     neon our faces are malarial and buttery. As the song winds down, the drama in front of us ends. He throws the keys at her
     as hard as he can but she jumps nimbly out of the way and picks them up with a handful of gravel, begins pelting his back
     as he weaves into the darkness.
    Wendell turns to me with a grin, a question on her lips. Before she can ask I reach over and press her excited hair back down.

    Their house has a face on it, two windows with the shades half down, a brown slot of a door, and a glaring mouthful of railing
     with a few pickets missing. Pink geraniums grow like earrings on either side of the porch. It’s August and the grass is golden
     and spiky against our ankles, the geraniums smell like dust. A row of hollyhocks stands out by the road, the flowers are upside-down
     ladies, red, maroon, and dried-up brown. An exploded raccoon is abuzz over on the far side of the highway and crows are dropping
     down from time to time to sort among the pieces. On either side of the house, fields fall away, rolling and baking in the
     heat.
    The sisters are sitting on the stoop shelling peas, talking overtop of each other. My mother says mayonnaise goes bad in two
     hours in the hot sun and my aunt says bullshit. They’ve just driven out to the fields and left the lunches for the hired men.
     They argue energetically about this, until the rooster walks up and my aunt carries her bowl in the house to finish the discussion
     through the screen door. She and the rooster hate each other.
    “He thinks you’re a chicken,” my mother explains. “You have to show him you won’t put up with it.” She picks up a stick, threatens
     the rooster with it, and he backs off, pretends to peck the yard. My aunt comes back out.
    The front of her head is in curlers, the brush kind that hurt, and she keeps testing her hair to see if it’s done. She has
     on a smock with big pockets and pedal pushers. Her feet are bare, one reason why the rooster is scaring her so much. My mother
     doesn’t