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Show Adam and I never got along well; the night I threw the hammer at him he ducked and Jacob stepped between us, but although we quickly cooled off nothing was solved. We Skinners are a moody difficult people, even Carlo, the youngest and smartest one, the genius in the family. Even my dreamy big brother Jacob has an awkward disposition sometimes. I left home that same night, when I was seventeen. In quick succession I joined the Army, came out again, got married, divorced, went East and fell in love, came back without the girl, held one job after another, lived where I pleased. When that quick succession was over I discovered that I was twenty-seven years old and still a kid at heart. It's a shame that things that take so long to happen seem, when you look back on them, to have gone by in a flash. "What are we going to do when we get to Oregon?" Morgan said. I looked out the window instead of answering. A hard, dark-blue sky pushed down on us from above, nearly black enough for stars. To the south was Los Angeles, to the north foggy Eureka, Crescent City, at last Oregon. On the other side of the plane, where I couldn't see it, was Fort Ord, where on another beautiful spring day I had been discharged from the Army. A soft shower had soaked me to the roots where I stood outside the main gate waiting for the bus into Monterey, then the sun had come out, the day had turned blue. Lucky man, |