A Common Pornography: A Memoir

The Manships

Another family in the neighborhood was the Manships. Carl and Kenny were the kids and they seemed really poor and depressed. Carl was my age and Kenny was a couple years younger. Their parents were old and mean. The dad always wore dirty overalls as if he farmed all day (maybe he did, I don’t know) and the mom was an apron-wearing biddy with varicose veins everywhere. I thought she had some kind of disease.

Their house was really small and dusty. They had a tiny front yard with a little grass, but their backyard was all hard dirt and dog shit. An old Ford truck from the forties or fifties sat near the alley with weeds growing around it. Matt and I would play games with Carl and Kenny sometimes, but we never hung out at their place, mainly because they had a crappy TV—an old black-and-white one that picked up only three channels. And the only snacks they had were hard candies that were all stuck together in a glass bowl.

If we were ever out playing somewhere, it would always have to be in the neighborhood, because Carl and Kenny’s dad would never leave his yard to look for them. He would only bark out their names in a voice that sounded like extra-chunky gravel. It would grow harsher, louder, and more curt with each call. If Carl and Kenny weren’t within shouting distance, we were pretty sure they’d get their dad’s belt.