In my mind Vicki and I stand in the doorway watching our father beg for a recording contract. I figure that, to keep from laughing, I will have to bite the inside of my cheeks. Blood will rise up in my throat that same bitter taste you get after absentmindedly holding a coat hanger in your mouth. Afterwards the record executive will take Vicki and me to lunch at a steak restaurant, where we will recount every moment of our father’s pathetic display. “You two are the goddamned salt of the fucking earth,” the executive might say, slicing into his twice-baked potato. "But that father of yours, Jesus Christ, what a. .

Then Vicki and I would touch hands under the table, hoping that he might come up with the perfect word. I had this all worked out in my mind.

In her second year of high school Vicki dropped out of the chorus because the teacher was an asshole.

“I’m still into music like you wouldn’t believe,” she said. “But that son of a bitch Yelverton can kiss my rosy red you-know-what if he thinks I’m going to stand in the back row and take part in his bullshit Glen Campbell medley. I don’t need that shit and I practically told him that right to his face. I just about said, 'I don’t need this bullshit.' I was going to say, 'Who the hick cares about some lonely asshole stringing up telephone lines?' I don’t need this kind of bullshit in my life because I’ve got a career to think about. Hell, Chug, I can write my own goddamned songs and you better believe I will.”