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352 A Face to Meet the Faces Homewrecker Alison Pelegrin You’ll never see a diaper from me, whether I’m the baby’s daddy or not. Just like your sister Janelle—on the pill and suddenly knocked up. Giving it away, seducing me with sobs to cover for the river trash you’re shacking with. Go on. Go by your mama’s and grow the little brat on dumplings and venison gumbo. Oh, to be a flea on the wall of your life! I’d pay to pass through Killian again and count the jokers you collect with three in diapers and a job sweeping hair at The Gossip Shop. You’ll catch the breeze of a thousand big rigs, I bet, dragging those potluck kids across the tracks to meet their relatives—no better than a salesman with a suitcase full of junk. This time the truth is better than my fantasy— you sneaking home after a weekend spent pussyfooting on Trey’s pontoon boat to find your clothes in garbage bags and a vacant lot where our trailer used to be. Around you, crew cut kids circle on their bikes, all the while bolder as they pedal up the drive. It would have been easier to throw you out, but the prize for holding the harlot’s card is more than being oops-a-daisy pregnant. It’s stares that smack like sucker punches everywhere you go. It’s standstill time and backstab talk sweating you through 353 Not the Poet, Not Me errand trips to town. I hope you pass seasons peering through fingerprints on glass for the storm you know is coming and the man you know ain’t. Nothing but worries walking in your mind. Well, worries and the thought of me at the wheel steering our trailer down the red clay drive and across Tickfaw River, ringmaster leading the biggest elephant in the parade. People thought it was a tornado—sirens, and a double-wide speeding through the sky to land a new life in Ascension Parish. And really, where else could destiny deliver us? Come Friday, I’ll be sniffing out fresh meat at the Bingo Palace while you hook up with the first redneck to listen to your barstool lies. I’ll be swallowing the beekeeper’s smoke, feeding dogs off your grandmother’s dishes, bachelor again, and king of all, until I find me a new queen, keep her inside draping scarves over mismatched lamps. ...

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