Hide and Seek

and they were fools, and after a while all I could bring to them was

anger.

At the time I didn't even know what I was mad about, but I knew it

wasn't working. So I found myself the job at the yard and then a

little two-room apartment over Brody's Hardware on Main Street, and I'd

stop by the house whenever I could stand it, which wasn't often.

Every now and then I'd wonder why I didn't get out entirely. The

answer was the one I gave Casey. Inertia. A tired life breeds tired

decisions, sometimes none at all. I was lazy. Demoralized. Always

had been.

Then Casey.

And it was wonderful to see her thumb her nose at us; it was a

pleasure. I'd always been too much a part of the town to really do it

right. You needed to be an outsider for that, or at least you needed

one to show you how. Someone with no worries about reputations,

someone whose father didn't drink with the mayor and half the cops in

town, someone with no stake.

Even if I hadn't wanted her, I might have gone along for the ride.

But I did want her. As I sat in the bar that day, she was just about

all I wanted. Everything else looked kind of puny and small. It was

only lust, but it had very big teeth.

What I'm trying to say here is that she got me started moving toward a

lot of things, things I'd been avoiding for a longtime. And I've never

regretted that part of it for a minute. And I've never looked back.

Today, that part's still good.

Some of it, though.

Some of it was horrible.

And I'd better get into that right now, so I can set myself to thinking

about it, getting it right. Otherwise the rest will make no sense to

anybody, and I know there was a kind of sense to it, almost an

inevitability, as though what happened was sure to happen given what we

were together and what the town had become. It's a hard connection to

make but I've got to make it. And maybe then I can just go on.

4- *