The Castos all look alike. Skinny, freckled, straw-haired. Joyce’s is the color of broom sage, dried out by some heat in her head. She walks the halls of the junior high with a clipboard of ruffled papers, transistor radio beating in her hand. Daddy is a fire-and-brimstone preacher at a church out the dirt road. Music is the work of a devil that licks at her legs. She stands, radio pressed to her face, lips working. Undah the boardwalk, down by the sea ee ee ye eh eh, Ona blanket with my baybeh’s where I’ll be. She walks into class fumbling to turn it off. Stays close to the wall and watches the cement floor. She never talks to the country kids. The town kids never talk to her. The gym teacher finds out she is pregnant. Yes, she confesses, It was my brother. He’s went off to the mills. She disappears from school but comes back a month later, having had it in a bloody way. She rolled up a horse blanket and walked to the field. Daddy thundering I won’t lay eyes on your sin and big brother in Youngstown, holding a thing that burns orange fire.
