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Show Blue Run/43 the glass, playground sand in his shoes and the pretty black ladies laughed out loud at us and avoided the mummy at all costs, even though he was the museum's showcase piece-the big deal why tickets cost sixty-five cents A light was fixed up above the little boy's head, or what looked like a head though it surely could not have been that anymore. Here were jars where organs and intestines were stored, a little dog whip and staff. We'd hold hands and just stand there looking, Joey asking other-worldy questions "What does he dream of?" "I don't know, Joe." "Can he leave if he wants?" "I don't think so " "Does mummy boy have a daddy? Where's his daddy?" This was a Tuesday, the heat outside too much to take. Little black boys and pigtailed girls wandered in and out of the mummy room. "I don't know." "What does his daddy look like?" "He's tall," I said. "And he has strong arms for hugging." "Is that postman my daddy?" It's never what you expect that gets you. Never. When you get right down to it-who am I? And who is mv daddy? And just who are my people? Isn't that what we're asking all our lives? Somebody tell me who I am, goddamnit, because something's not right here, I'm missing information. I'd been wrong not to tell Joey about Buddy and all the Arizona Washers I'd have to come clean, to open up and let it all out, Buddy, Arizona, dwarf Davey and the see-saw trailer, eating dog-just come clean for my boy, shoot straight. And I knew that I wouldn't. |