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Show Why We Cry Butch and Fenn Stories 107 "What'd you say?" "I want to make the All Stars." Fenn says this as if he's reading from the Bible. He really means it. I've never heard him say he wanted anything besides food all summer long. We stare at Fenn. Butch stares and I stare and Tiny stares up from the geothermal pit. Fenn mounts his bike, throws the bat across the handlebars and starts out, turning once to say back to us where we haven't moved: "That's all I want." 4 Butch wants to go over to the schoolyard. His bike's a hazard, so we leave it against the fence where it leans forward on that small front wheel as if it is feeding, and I ride him double all the way between the small gate and up the slope to the tricky bars. He doesn't say much all the way over, just sits still on the crossbar straining forward. His head smells a little like tar. His sister Karen and five or six other kids are winging around on the bars. Karen can do six, seven loops and then a real rangey Dead Man's Fall, landing on her feet. We sit on the bike rack and watch her. I can't understand girls at all, and I guess it starts there at about age nine when they begin doing those circus things on the tricky bars. I couldn't do a Dead Man's Fall if it were an accident. |