Because I didn’t have any other choice, that’s why. See, it was either the sow’s house or child protective custody, and frankly, I’d rather have my guts pulled out through my nose than spend another night in the ESC—that’s the Emergency Services Center, for those of you with nice, comfy homes. The sow pushed open the screen door with her dough-fat hand, and a smell like dirty scalp escaped from the house. I wasn’t surprised. I mean, let’s face it, there was a sagging blue chest of drawers leaning against the porch railing and an open bag of cat food spilling down the stairs. Chicken-and-liver pellets had gone crunch-crunch-crunch beneath my platform shoes as I’d kicked aside papers and books and bits and pieces of busted-up sewing machine on my way to her door. I’d even counted, like, seven pairs of identical white tennis shoes piled in a corner. Crazy! The social worker standing next to me tried to peer past the sow’s fleshy bulk into the house. I could tell he was unsure about leaving me here, didn’t like the look of the place.
