WEBVTT

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And this is more of a medium
length one called "The First."

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And the title goes right into
the first line, the first.

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"The First."

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And I think only
farm I ever visited

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was somewhere in Virginia.

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My sister and I went with
our nurse who was not

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a medical nurse since
we were not sick,

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but a governess, though
we didn't use that term

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in those days in America.

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She, Nursie, was a thin
woman, on the gaunt side even,

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with salt and pepper hair that
gave off a steel-like glint.

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One noticed her
hair particularly,

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since it thudded to her
waist and was perennially

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gripped by a rubber band.

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Imagine thick dark
eyebrows, a faint mustache,

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and knobby red hands, and
you've got the picture.

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The farmhouse was an enormous
plantation style home,

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all white, with a wraparound
front porch replete with wicker

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rocking chairs and cats.

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The people who
lived there had been

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former employers of Nursie, and
they called her Miss Delgurcio.

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There was a mother and a father,
the former tall and blond

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with a brusque, stately manner,
and the latter an almost

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invisible presence among us.

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So absorbed was he in the
daily newspaper and his cigar,

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except for the occasions on
which he admitted a disgusting

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series of hacking coughs.

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These were the days before
obsessive TV watching.

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And I remember playing a
game on the living room rug.

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I think the game
must have been Clue,

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because there was a
silver-colored candlestick

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and a tiny bottle of
poison with an X on it.

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I remember initially
losing to my sister

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and the boy of the house,
which humiliated me.

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My sister, younger,
prettier, unafraid of dogs.

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The boy of the house, dog
lover, sandy-haired, freckled.

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I had fallen in love with
him almost immediately,

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but it was my sister he favored.

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His dog, also favoring
my sister, at one point

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decided to bite me.

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I remember the pattern on the
rug, big faded, pink flowers,

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and a green vine threaded
clumsily along the stems.

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I remember the dinner table
with its heavy silver cutlery

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and the bedroom with
its twin canopy beds.

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Those beds belong to Mrs. and
her sister, Nursie told us,

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and it was a special
honor to sleep in them.

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This was the first time
I'd been bitten by a dog,

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though since then it has
happened a multitude of times,

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countless times, and I have
made peace with the fact

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that when dogs spot me
their mouths begin to water

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and they become enraged.

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The cow that required milking
was brown and white, like a cow

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from a storybook.

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I had such a book
at my own home,

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in my own room,
wherever that was.

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That farm cow is called
Deb, and her udders

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dragged almost to the
floor of the barn, which

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was covered in tan hay.

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I stood outside the
wooden door, one

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of those half doors
with the top half

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open to reveal Deb
and her milkers.

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First the boy Joe,
then my sister,

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who boldly reached
under the cow body

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and grabbed a fierce hold of
one appendage after an udder.

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Ha, ha.

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She, my sister, was wearing
plaid Bermuda shorts

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and a white cotton blouse.

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At that moment, if
asked to picture

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my home, wherever it was, I
would picture a child's drawing

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of a tiny house on a
vast dark background,

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because that gives
you the feel of it.

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My real home was
nothing like that,

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but my idea of home at the time
was primitive and unformed,

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as if my mind could
not quite reconcile

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the desolate notion of home
along with its actual imprint

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on memory.

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The notion of home
for me has always

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been difficult and lonely,
whereas my real home had

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been complex and bountiful,
with no smoke rising

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from the single chimney
and no dark, empty windows.

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After the cow was milked,
we were each given a tin

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cup of warm milk, which
I did not care for.

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My sister's eyes were bright.

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The boy Joe looked
down at her fondly.

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The dog, who would eventually
bite me, was nuzzling her leg.

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Outside, the sun was like
a child's drawing of a sun,

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with rays shooting
out in a circle.

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There was a fence
and a field of cattle

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who were routinely slaughtered
for the evening meal.

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Steak, every night steak,
blood red and sizzling,

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then cold with the fat
congealing in a thin film

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across the top.

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We were all given steak knives,
very sharp, with little teeth.

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Nursie cut our steak
for us, tiny pieces,

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as those you would
feed to a kitten.

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I felt as though I
were eating my kitten,

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the kitten I did not own
and did not long for.

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We had been playing Clue.

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I was conscious of my
long, hideous face,

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my flat, dark hair, of the
way my pajamas bunched up

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when I sat, and the
absurd unfortunate design

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on those pajamas, which
was of chickens and eggs.

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What could be more embarrassing?

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Miss Scarlet in the
library with the gun

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I guessed, and I was right.

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Joe shrugged unhappily, but
my sister, never a good sport,

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overturned the board, spraying
the players and the cards

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and the weapons across
the pattered rug.

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That is when the dog bit my
arm right through the pajama

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sleeve.

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After that I was even
less popular than before.

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The boy and my sister
went off by themselves,

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and even Nursie seemed to
distance herself from me.

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I felt my life to be
on a downward slide.

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I sat beneath the white
canopy of my designated bed

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feeling sorry for
myself, tugging anxiously

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at the Band-Aid that covered
the tooth marks of the dog,

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and soaked up the
blood it had drawn.

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In the closet, I found a box
full of dried corn on the cobs

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marked Halloween and a box of
photographs marked vacations.

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I took two corns and a photo
of a man pushing a wheelbarrow,

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and a photo of a woman in
an apron wearing glasses

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that made her look blind.

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I put these things in the zipper
compartment of my suitcase

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along with a white bottle and
a box of silver thumbtacks.

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By now, everything
has undone itself.

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It has been revised
and reconfigured

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in that silly that
we call memory.

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In that ridiculous
thimble we call history,

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it has been repressed
then unearthed

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and made to look more
tragic, then made

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to appear happier,
all yellow, as

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if it had never occurred
except in morbid self-pitying

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imagination.

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The dog, the boy, my
sister, the nurse,

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all figures in a display I
affixed to the bulletin board

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in my study to remind
me of my vanishing.

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I have already lived many lives,
but this was one of the first.

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