The girls who had tormented me in high school had fallen, hard, from their pedestals. The cheerleader goddesses were Wal-Mart moms, wearing enough eyeliner and dark shadow to supply a Goth nightclub for a month.

A hoodlumish mob of Democrats attacked a rival speaker at Smithfield, and the Republican chairman telegraphed Governor Russell for troops, a request with which he complied.

A longer me—my shadow—walked before me, bending its back and drooping its arms, and angularizing its elongated legs like drowsy compasses.

“I will never forgive myself if I am compelled to holler copper on anybody whatsoever,” Fatso says, “but,” he says, “of course I will do so as a last resort to prevent Gregorio from marrying Betty Lou. ...”