Home Truths: A Deep East Texas Memory

Contents

Contents AUTHOR'S NOTE ........................................................ Ix I What You're Named Is What You Are .............................. I 2 God's Hospital ........................................................ 4 3 The War In Texas ..................................................... 9 4 The Cat and Dog Picture Shows ................................... 18 5 The Calves of Dolly Roberts's Legs ................................ 23 6 The Brass Knucks In Mama's Dresser.............................. 26 7 What Reading Smelled Like ....................................... 30 8 The Fall from Grace ................................................. 34 9 A Talent for the Lie ................................................. 38 10 The Water We Had to Drink ........................................ 40 II Washed In the Blood ............................................... 43 12 What We Hunted .................................................... 51 13 Take, Eat, This Is My Body ......................................... 55 14 Kissing Linda Smith and Loving Jannls Jones .................. 59 15 Leaving for Marshall Hall ........................................... 61 16 Who Is a Cajun and Who Is a Negro? .............................. 66 17 Wanting Some Tongue, Too ....................................... 74 18 Burning the Sofa My Sister Slept On ............................. 80 19 Arriving Late at Nederland High ................................. 83 20 The Way Louisiana Girls Smelled ................................. 87 21 Margaret, I Could Have Been a Good Abe Lincoln for you ..... 89 22 Multiple Choice Questions ......................................... 92 23 A Need for Relief ................................................... 95 24 A Change of MaJor ................................................ 100 25 Licking Down My Lunch In Fayetteville ......................... 103 26 A Foreign Student In illinois ..................................... 107 27 Not the Thing, But the Thing about the Thing ................. 110 28 Fugitive at Vanderbilt ............................................. 112 29 A Fortunate Fall .................................................... 117 30 As Kool-Ald Is from Gin ............................................ 122 31 Women Writing about Women Writing about Women ......... 131 32 Cousin Joseph Winston Tells the Truth ......................... 134 33 From Honey Island to Menard Chapel ........................... 147 ABOUTTHEAlJfHOR .................................................. 150 ...