tank parked next to the armory. Ernie Goad appeared and began throwing
rocks at me and yelling that the Wallses should all leave Welch because
we were stinking it up so bad.
I threw a couple of rocks back and told him to leave me alone.
"Make me," Ernie said.
"I don't make garbage," I shouted. "I burn it." This was usually a
foolproof comeback, making up in scorn what it lacked in originality,
but on this occasion it backfired.
"Y'all Wallses don't burn garbage!" Ernie yelled back. "Y'all throw it in a
hole next to your house! You live in it!"
I tried to think of a comeback to his comeback, but my mind seized up
because what Ernie had said was true: We did live in garbage.
Ernie stuck his face in mine. "Garbage! You live in garbage 'cause you
are garbage!"
I shoved him good and hard, then turned to the other kids, hoping for
backup, but they were easing away and looking down, as if they were
ashamed to have been caught playing with a girl who had a garbage pit
next to her house. That Saturday, Brian and I were reading on the sofa
bed when one of the windowpanes shattered and a rock landed on the
floor. We ran to the door. Ernie and three of his friends were pedaling
their bikes up and down Little Hobart Street, whooping madly.
"Garbage! Garbage! Y'all are a bunch of garbage!"
Brian went out on the porch. One of the kids hurled another rock that hit
Brian in the head. He staggered back, then ran down the steps, but Ernie
and his friends pedaled away, shrieking. Brian came back up the stairs,
blood trickling down his cheek and onto his T-shirt and a pump knot