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Show Cardboard Sky-4 My grandfather found Emily's gold tooth before I did. The day I brought her home, he took me aside in the kitchen. "A gold tooth?" he said. "What? Where? Who?" I said. "You sound like a comedian," he said. "An Abbott and Costello. Emily. The second molar from the back, on the bottom left side. Gold. What kind of a girl has a gold tooth today? Be careful, Samuel." 3 We make smog so we'll all feel better about living in California. Without it Los Angeles would be paradise, and no one I know has enough character to live in paradise. The smokier the air, the worse people feel and the better they can tolerate life. I never saw Harrison so happy as when he had his broken leg. When Emily was pregnant and throwing up every morning she smiled all the time. Chester Gunn of the University of Kansas English Department has her now, under that enormous flat, yellow, mid-continental moon. My ex-student writes me that Chester drives a green International Scout and keeps a Gatorade jar full of Martinis under the driver's seat. He has a beard, and clumps of dark hair curl out of his ears; last year he taught a course on baseball novels. He is a wide-bellied muscular man; when he tops |