You can call someone a faggot bastard or you can call someone a developing frontal lobe or you can call someone a little fucking moron but I am against name-calling. I am not a developing frontal lobe. I am not a faggot bastard. I am not a little fucking moron. I am a kid and I am powerful and I am Friend of Snake. It was just we never had people over. That was a whole main part of it.

I mean we’d be driving down the road and we’d wave at every single person and at the gas station we’d trade Mike duck eggs for maple syrup and after it snowed Bexley’s uncle would plow our driveway, and Frank’s kids would smile at me in the IGA parking lot, and we’d stop at the mill sometimes for flour, but that was as close as we ever got. We’d wave at our neighbors on the road and I’d say why can’t they come spend the night? And Mama K would laugh and Mama L would say, Piglet, they probably want to spend the night in their own bed just like you like to spend the night in your own bed. So I would feel like a fucking moron ’cause spend the night is not really what I meant, what I really meant was like eat dinner with us or go exploring or have a campfire, but they never did. The only person who would ever come over was Rudy, even though Rudy was a royal pain in the ass.

Rudy asked me if I wished I had a dad but this is what I wished:

To live where no one knew me, to watch television and have it where even on a rainy day, you could turn on the light at night and not just have a candle. And where my women weren’t snapping at each other all the time and trying to figure out what we were going to eat and sometimes it was gross. Plus they thought everyone was either a little fucking moron or a big fucking moron and I was like wait a minute those people haven’t even had the chance to see how much they totally love us.

What I’m saying is that when that girl came over I wanted to show her my skills. I wanted to show her how prepared we were. I mean for anything. I was proud. And when she took me with her I was brave.