Payne © copyright 2006 by C.D. Payne JUNE SATURDAY, June 18 – My cousin Tyler Twisp is visiting Grandma Wescott and me in her dreary singlewide trailer deep in the lonely wastes of Nevada. Tyler loves everything about Winnemucca, just as I, conversely, despise every aspect of my hometown. Of course, he is an immense jock who eats his own weight in grub every three days. Whereas I am a picky-eater flyweight with intellectual and cultural aspirations. Hard to believe my sinewy cousin is only 15, while I–a mere shadow in his wake–will be 16 in December. Strictly speaking, I may in fact be his uncle, since he’s the son of my half-sister Joanie. But since it would be silly to have a nephew twice one’s size, we prefer to regard each other as cousins.
Nevada prides itself on being the emptiest state in the nation. For example, Winnemucca is situated 165 miles east of Reno and 353 miles west of Salt Lake City. In between stretches a forbidding expanse of barren rock and scrawny sagebrush.
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