Hick (23 page)

See, here’s how it is:

There’s the look-back way where you could think about that old house in Palmyra and want to pull the planks out the floorboards or rip your hair out in clumps, fist by fist. You could stare backwards and want to tear your eyes out their sockets and the skin off your bones, inch by inch. You could shake your knuckles at the sky. You could get mad and say, I don’t got nothing. You could get stuck. Watch yourself. Watch yourself. Be careful. Just watch.

You could get mad and say why me why me, you could play that song over and over till you’re blue in the face. You could scream at the sun to give you your dad back. You could plant yourself square in the mud and drop your head down and never ever ever come back again. Or you could do like Glenda. You could do like Glenda and put a quarter in the jukebox and say, I’m gonna get myself a new song. I’m not looking back playing that same old song no more. I ain’t gonna spend my life staring at my socks, slouching to
a chorus of mighta coulda shoulda woulda. No sir. I’m gonna get myself a new song called I’m gonna make something. it’s gonna be a hit. I’m gonna grab the dirt and make something and you just wait, you just wait. I’m gonna grab the dirt and make something and make it go boom.

Boom.

I must thank my brother, Charles de Portes, more than anyone, as he’s the only one who actually believed in me and supported me all of these years, when most people had written me off as a sort of glorified degenerate. Of course, a close second is my amazing mom, Nancy Brazie-Kuhnel, who succeeded in giving me, somehow, one of these so-called “hearts.” If it hadn’t been for you, mom, I would’ve taken my rightful place as the second female serial killer of all time. Third runner-up thank you goes to Brad Kluck, who has essentially been feeding and watering me for the past decade. I wouldn’t have made it without the gourmet meals, the dumb skits and the vodka I have forever been stealing from you. Now, very special thanks to Sally Van Haitsma and Fred Ramey. You two made this novel happen, undeniably. Also, I must thank my father, Alejandro Portes, Eulalia Portes, Arlene and Chuck Brazie, Lisa Portes, Patricia Portes, Doug Kuhnel, Nancy and Bobby Kuhnel, Carlos Murillo, Jenna Curtis, Jane King, Super A, Mira Crisp, Melinda Hill, Natasha Leggero, Trevor Kaufman, Stuart Gibson, Virginia Savage, Mac Talkington, Julie Castiglia, Caitlin Hamilton Summie, Megan U. Beatie, Michael Faella, Jim Thomas, Michael Solano, Courtney Holt and Mitchell Frank. Ok, there’s some nice couples who’ve taken care of me in my time of woe: Eliot and Alessa Angle, Eric and Abigail Wald. Life-savers. God bless you. And, of course, Simon Eldon-Edington, Carty Talkington, Duncan Trussell, Niels Alpert, Alex Vendler and Silas Weir Mitchell. Thank you.