Their lights were on and they were sitting down to supper, Jenny and her sister and brother and parents. Jenny’s fat dog came sniffing up to the boy in the bushes, wagging its tail. The boy stood and undid his pants. He aimed his stream at the dog’s head. The dog flinched, then barked, and the boy ran, stumbling—fumbling his parts and snaps—putting himself away as he went.

He lost his way back. He stood in the woods while the dark came down. He dropped his knife and never found it.

THE THIN BOY

His grandmother was very old and his mother was sick from her life, so they sat tethered in a blue spell on the sofa. The thin boy lay on the floor between them while the television jumped and shouted.

His grandmother’s legs were turned to stone and his mother’s were rapidly hardening. When the boy felt the stiff cold creeping, he sprang up and ran out the door.

He ran up the hills and down the dells of the farmer’s pasture—the heads of the farmer’s cows all rising to consider him. He ran along the road that went into town one way and away from it the other. He ran in the woods along the river. While he waited for the other boys to come home or come outside, he ran ’round and ’round their houses and ringed the grass limp.

THE BOYS

They sat on floors together moving their men. They beat the hard little bodies against each other until one of them broke.

Then the thin boy found a box of his mother’s women. The men came molded in their clothes—their skin rigid, their hair all of a piece—but the women were strippable and their skin was prickable and their hair was grippable. The women were large—giants. Next to them, the men looked shrunken and strange with tiny, pinched faces and ineffectual little hands.

The boys cut and burned the women’s hair and yanked off arms and legs. They gave a blond one to a dog. They buried the ugly ones behind the rabbit hutch and kept the pretty ones for torture and rescue plots.

THE WOODS

Its low-hanging branches stalled them. Its brambles clung to their shirts. It lay rotted logs in their way. It tore strands from their socks. It drew their blood. It drank their piss. It ate their shit. It hid the light of day. It hid the stars at night. It hid the path to town. It looked very similar from one place to the next.

THE FATHER

From the window over his kitchen sink, he watched the thin boy run and remembered what fast felt like. He had a bad leg and a general stiffening of his blood. His temperament had soured. His lugubrious days slogged on.

His boyhood mornings had been sharp and bright. They’d woken him like a poke. He would pack a sandwich and run to the woods. He’d stay all day. Home was no place to be. He watched the ducks and deer and squirrels and songbirds. He wanted to touch them all—so he brought his rifle. His breath was steady and his aim was true. Afterward, he kneeled and laid a hand on the warm body until it cooled. The bodies taught him the important things of life.