“It was an advantage!” I said, half-shouting. My response was
instinctive. It was like hearing a phrase from a catchy song: I couldn’t
stop myself from reciting the next line. Charles looked at me
skeptically, as if asking me to reconcile that with what I’d said only
moments before.
“Well, I’m angry,” he said. “Even if you aren’t.”
I said nothing. I’d never heard anyone criticize my father except
Shawn, and I wasn’t able to respond to it. I wanted to tell Charles
about the Illuminati, but the words belonged to my father, and even in
my mind they sounded awkward, rehearsed. I was ashamed at my
inability to take possession of them. I believed then—and part of me
will always believe—that my father’s words ought to be my own.
—EVERY NIGHT FOR A MONTH, when I came in from the junkyard, I’d spend
an hour scrubbing grime from my fingernails and dirt from my ears.
I’d brush the tangles from my hair and clumsily apply makeup. I’d rub
handfuls of lotion into the pads of my fingers to soften the calluses,
just in case that was the night Charles touched them.
When he finally did, it was early evening and we were in his jeep,
driving to his house to watch a movie. We were just coming parallel to
Fivemile Creek when he reached across the gearshift and rested his
hand on mine. His hand was warm and I wanted to take it, but instead
I jerked away as if I’d been burned. The response was involuntary, and
I wished immediately that I could take it back. It happened again when
he tried a second time. My body convulsed, yielding to a strange,
potent instinct.
The instinct passed through me in the form of a word, a bold lyric,
strong, declarative. The word was not new. It had been with me for a
while now, hushed, motionless, as if asleep, in some remote corner of
memory. By touching me Charles had awakened it, and it throbbed
with life.
I shoved my hands under my knees and leaned into the window. I
couldn’t let him near me—not that night, and not any night for months
—without shuddering as that word, my word, ripped its way into
remembrance. Whore.
We arrived at his house. Charles turned on the TV and settled onto