The Book of Fred by Abby Bardi

Author:Abby Bardi
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Atria Books

THE BOOK OF ROY

When I first met Mary Fred, I thought, “That is one strange little chick.” She didn't look like she was from this century. She dressed in these funky brown clothes all the time and wore her hair in those little ponytails girls wore back in pioneer days, or in weird braids that seemed to come from inside her head. She looked like she should have been riding on the front of a covered wagon somewhere just past Kansas, or in a spaceship, or both.

I thought Alice was totally insane to bring some new person into our wretched little lives, but I didn't tell her that that's what I love about her. When we were kids, she was always bringing home cats with missing legs, or dying birds that we would have to bury in the backyard, or when she got older, boys with crossed eyes, or withered arms, or idiots like that exhusband of hers who was obviously just looking for someone to revere him while he grew up to be someone who did not appreciate reverence. I would never say any of this to Alice—all I would say to her is Al, you're nuts. Which she is. But she is also a good person, and a good sister, and secretly I admire that, though I slime everything over with sarcasm, everything.

So the whole deal with the Little Chick seemed to be moreof the same, business as usual for Alice. That's how I came to think of her, as the Little Chick, though I never called her that to her face. Sometimes I called her M.F., like Heather did, because it cracked me up that she didn't know that it stood for Motherfucker, a word she'd probably never heard in her life and wouldn't understand if she did hear it. Hell, I don't think I understand it either. I mean, what is that word about? Please. I heard it a lot when I was six years old and the tough guys in the third grade used to chase me home every day and try to knock my books on the ground. Most of the time I waited for Alice to walk with me because she was bigger than they were, and when she saw them, she would give them her most reproachful look, the kind of look that shoots hideous remorse into the heart of every man. I always hated it when she used it on me, like her eyes were saying, Oh, Roy, I had such high hopes for you, even when her mouth was telling me it was okay, whatever it was I did this time.

Well, the Little Chick was an imposition in my life, I have to say. I was used to going out and doing my thing all day, whatever my thing happened to be at that time, and coming home and finding my niece Puffin on the couch, staring at the tube, incapable of speech, which suited me fine. Sometimes I would sit with her for a while and just collect myself.

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