Books are gentle companions. Usually. Except for that one time I was just about murdered by books. That was twenty years ago . . .***I didn't know what to do with my life. I had no prospects. I had an ... [+]
Originally published in Creative Nonfiction's Sunday Short Reads series
1It was 1983 and I was six years old, riding between my father and brother in my father's Oldsmobile, back when front seats stretched from door to door. My father drove, and my brother, who was nineteen, already grown, sat on the other side of me with his window down and his arm draped on the door, his elbow jutting out of the car a little. The wind tousled our hair. They both smoked, and spoke with their hands, though my father kept one hand on the steering wheel. The ashtray jutted out from the dash, and occasionally my knees bumped into it. The sky was gray with impending rain. My father tu