I manage to wind my way around the side street and come up near her at the storefronts.  There’s a bench there, and I buy a soda and pretend to relax.  In fact I’m observing her closely as she looks into a store window. ​         I count the ways she is unique here.  She doesn’t wear clothes or shoes.  She has no friends or acquaintances.  She’s the only Ama.  Her skin is dark, and theirs is pale.  And there’s something else about her -- I don’t want to use the word “savage”,

Today would be Thanksgiving Day in the United States but of course it was no special day here.  In town I was able to make out a poster announcing a town meeting tonight and I decided to go. ​         There was a town council of five older people and they were hearing public comment on what sounded like -- a “tourist pier”?  A man in a suit, evidently an outsider, explained the project and took questions.  My sense was that the townspeople would be happy to attract any kind o

Third period was math, a class Brigid was in, and what was more, her assigned seat was near the front.  Rod was in the back, one row over.  He could pay better attention here, because his skin coverage calculations had gotten him to like math, at least a little.  They were on algebra now, doing problems on the board for Mr. Gianelli.           Rod was lucky.  Brigid’s desk-chair was not quite in line with the others so he got a good look at the side of her that stuck out.  Sh

30.    We climbed up the ladder to the top of the plant and I immediately saw that there was still over a foot of snow up there.  It went up to her knees.  She helped me heft the loops up and we worked quietly together separating the wires, my overcoat and shirt and gloves next to her bare shoulders and bare breasts and bare hands, my pants next to her bare legs, my boots and thermal socks next to her freezing bare feet buried in the snow.  I worried about her getting frostbi

“Damn!” Maurice says, jumping to his left, hindered by his heavy boots, once again unable to catch the moist ping pong ball.  He picks it up off the cold ground and flips it to Sandy.  “That was some curve!” ​         “She’s left-handed, so it’s a screwball,” Tom points out.  As Sandy rinses the gritty ball in the bucket she flips another one to Patty.  With her left hand Patty pops it into her vagina.  In her other hand is a slice of pizza and she takes another bite.  The di

Brigid, Brigid...  How could he show his love for her in this crisis? He felt helpless, standing out in the hall with the suffering majorette trapped in that closet.  He decided to be heroic.  To hell with the band, it’s Brigid’s welfare first.  She could not emerge as she was.  He would give her his jacket, which would serve to cover her nipples.  Then he would go out with her, and she could act sick with the jacket draped over her, and he’d tell Sarge that Brigid was ill an