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e blue rug he'd learned to pee on and he'd snap them around with his head -- really killing them -- his big marble eyes locked on the real target. It was like he was thinking: "This is you. You fucker. You fink."

Sometimes we spoke for him. "This is you, Prince. You fucker. You fink," I'd say when Steve pretended to bite Miss Tennessee's sister's monster Alsatian, and we would all laugh. There was always something Steve seemed to be thinking, and we were always saying it for him. When we ate breakfast in the living room, he'd get up on his hind legs to look at the fruit and toast laid out on the coffee table. It was creepy to look at, like maybe he really was a little man, weaving back and forth like a dancer. Miss Tennessee would nudge me with her foot to make sure I was watching.

"Look at the little man," she'd whisper. "He's going: Where's mine? Where's my toast." And I'd say: "I don't see why you guys get all the fruit and toast when you're both already so big. Look at me. I'm tiny."

Steve would catch on that we were talking about him and he'd run around the table and I'd play with him a little, batting him back and forth while he growled and snapped.

"Look," Miss Tennessee would say. "He's going: You're not so tough. You're not so tough." And I'd say: "Fuck you. You fucker. You fink." And we'd laugh until Miss Tennessee had to go take a shower.

Miss Tennessee worked eight to five in a pediatrician's office and I taught school, although not in the summers. I usually stuck around her house after she left for the day. She wore smocks covered with balloons and clowns that made little boys want to marry her, and I would kiss her goodbye on the porch.

In the mornings, I sat in the backyard and let the sun beat on my face and watched Steve march around. In the afternoons I ran errands. If I was feeling ambitious, I would cook up a pot of gumbo with ducks my brother had hunted and killed near the lakes north of the city. It would surprise Miss Tennessee when she got home, wh

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