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that was. our father.



Learning to Fall: on his ranch.
Gill stepped in behind Dad, nudging Dad a little bit as he squeezed his fat, hairy behind past the washer and dryer where Terry and me were holed up. He smelled like the inside of an old car filled with beer and rotting strawberries. It was gross and right in my face.

"Why are wee all een zee house?" Gill is stupid. He looks funny and smells bad and the worst part of it is he thinks he's "God's gift to women" as Momma says. He stood there half in the back porch and half in the kitchen in a strap tee-shirt and really short, shorts--like the kind Jillian wears and calls hot pants. You could see his butt cheeks spilling out the bottom of 'em all covered in thick black hair matted down and checkered from the lawn chair he had been sitting in.

"We were just getting ready to go back outside, Szheel-bair dah-ling." Momma loved to act like she was a foreigner. She walked over to Dad and kissed him, lifting her leg up and wrapping one arm around his neck. She didn't just kiss him, she kissed him like she was out of oxygen and he was a cylinder full of air. Dad turned red in the face and grabbed her and kissed her back and it was sort of felt like we should all get out of there and let them alone, maybe pull down the shades on our way out.

Terry pinched me hard and low on the back, where it hurt the most and whispered, "he should poke her on his ranch, not on mine, if he's gonna' poke her."

Then he kinda' yelled, "Poke her, already!" That's when I twisted those pinching, bony little fingers hard and led him crying out the door.

I think I broke his little finger.








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that was. our father.




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