She had
three dogs at home and they were all of the
large variety and the
perpetually sniffing and fumbling and slobbering demeanor. They
lived indoors and they
slept on the couches, and one of them would reach over and
rest his head on her lap and fall asleep as she watched cartoons
after school. He was
old enough not to stir when she fidgeted on the couch or got up for a snack. His name was
Walden.
I remember that she owned a
black turtleneck; not becoming on a girl of her age or mindset, but more importantly,
faded with multiple washings and
covered with Walden's hair. We could see that
other things were things were wrong, quite clearly, like her
wretched teeth and
broken hair, but we could have written her off for that alone. We were no longer young enough to
love unconditionally and would not learn to
fake it for many more years. We circled under the
jungle gym and did
dirty-word Mad Libs and primitive
Truth or Dare - though we were not then creative enough to make either interesting.
She
grew, eventually, into the
turtleneck; not that she took up
bad poetry and
cloves as an occupation like a lot of geeks do. She found a happy way of
existing with us without touching
any of us or saying any of the pretty things inside her.