Jo Ann Beard

I went to visit Grandma and Ralph for a week right after having learned how to whistle. I whistled at all times, with dedication and complete concentration. When I was asked a question I whistled the answer, I whistled along with people as they talked, I whistled the answer while I worked, I whistled while I played. Eventually they made a rule that whistling was forbidden in their house.

You have to be going really fast for this trick, over seventy miles an hour. Both of us recline our seats all the way down, I do the gas pedal with my left foot and hold the steering wheel steady with my left hand while Eric climbs into the back seat. I move over the gear shift and slide into his seat while he climbs over my reclined seat back into the passenger side. It’s not exactly that smooth, of course, there is a lot of swerving and hollering that goes along with it. We settle in and bring our seat backs into position and open a can of malt liquor.

Hal’s body has become lumpy, with protrusions of wadded stuffing in some spots and absolutely nothing in others. My mother tries to fix him each morning by squeezing him like a tube of toothpaste, forcing the stuffing from his lower body into his upper body. A gritty, sandlike substance is coming through his pores. He’s still smiling. Hal and I are the only ones who don’t care about personal appearances.

“She tried to give him a bath,” my mother tells my aunt, who is holding Hal and looking at him through the bottoms of her bifocals. They’re trying to figure out if he can be given a torso transplant. My aunt runs her thumb over his bald spot.

“The paint’s wearing off his head,” she says definitively. “Throw him out and get her a new one.” Thus spake Bernice.