Never felt out of place the way you can be with people, schools, crowds, ratchety noise—the way it was when the state came to take me and put me in those places with those things and people. Had to fight sometimes. Had a big fight with a boy twice my size, beat me all to hell and gone, just for being different. He thought because I was down I was done, but I got up and clipped him with my thick mail-order boots, and he went to puking and left me alone after that. Still didn’t like it. Even when they opened my brain and put in good things. Taught me to read. The little school was in a hill town and had one old computer which I never got to use, or even learned how to use. Boy in the school said that he knew of a place where they had more, many computers, and they could play games on them and talk all over the world on them, but I wasn’t sure he was telling the truth; he also said he had an uncle who could dead-lift six hundred and ninety pounds with one hand, so believing him was a stretch.
