AT FIRST ALL WE HAD growing was a potted plant that Ellen had brought over and put in the window. But it didn’t get enough sun and the air was too heavy for it and after a bird shit on it, God knows how at that angle, we had to pick off all the splattered leaves because we couldn’t clean the leaves without breaking them. Jack was pissed off and so was Ellen when she came back over and saw what was left of the plant.

“Why did you two pigs have to eat it?” she asked us.

“We didn’t eat it,” I said. “We were just trying to save it.”

“Save it!” she said. “How can you save a plant by pulling off the leaves? Just tell me that.”

I was going to tell her about how the bird had shit on the leaves but Jack got to her before me. He was sitting on the floor in his underwear. He had been sitting there like that most of the day, doing nothing, and I knew he was just as pissed off over the thing as Ellen was. “Don’t make such a big deal out of it,” he told her. “It wasn’t grass or anything important. It was just a stupid plant.”

“I raised that plant in my own bathroom from just some seeds,” said Ellen. “And you two pigs had to go and eat it.”

“You’re a real mother,” said Jack. “You’re such a mother you ought to sell soap on television.”

“Come on and cool it now,” I told Jack. Ellen was my piece and I knew that once he got to going good they would be at it all afternoon. She was my piece and I had to protect her. I went over to the window and threw the plant downstairs. But then Ellen got pissed at me too and stalked out the door, that long brown hair trailing behind her in the breeze she made.

“What a real cool head you’ve got there,” said Jack, as Ellen was slamming the door. “She’s uptight and it wasn’t even grass. Just a lousy pile of leaves.”

“You don’t understand her,” I said.

“You don’t either,” said Jack.