The kid gets my drift. Me and this kid, we’re buddying up. We’re having a real good time, me and this kid. I drain the beer, close my eyes, just thinking about stuff I buried long ago. When I open them the kid is still there. “Say, how old did you say you were?”
Of course, in this Job - He capitalised job, a biblical pun to emphasise his suffering - in this Job there are plenty of bad knockers, but that is something I have to cope with.
He left, and I popped open the computer. The screen flashed up, familiar and dreaded. Five words. The footprints of an idea I had been chasing for weeks.
A few days before my mother died, she said to me in a hoarse whisper, with sad resignation, "I don't trust, Dad," and unfortunately, she was right.
Kelle Groom (http://www.kellegroom.com) is the author of the memoir, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl (Free Press/Simon & Schuster 2011), which was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great Writers pick, as well as a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice selection, a Library Journal Best Memoir of 2011, a Barnes & Noble Book of the Month, an Oxford American Editor's Pick, and Oprah.com O Magazine selection.