ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/p>\n
I spent most of my childhood exploring the Arkansas woods. Occasionally, I would burst into a sudden clearing as if into a snatch of dream: an abandoned pond full of dead fish and floating Styrofoam, the corpse of a horse next to a spurt of water jetting from the earth, a decaying country house full of stained mattresses and nothing else. Once, I broke through some bushes and stepped into a group of three naked teenagers wearing cowboy hats. They had been staring intently at the rotting hulk of a Pontiac Firebird in the creek before I interrupted them.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every Monday morning, he would appear wind-burnt at our door, a dour man with the toughened skin of horned lizards and the inscrutable face of the praying mantis, would appear as if the earth periodically split and spit him out to get certain jobs done. What he had to sell was not sold elsewhere. The eggs – not the blank white plaster eggs of the grocery store but rather tea- colored, elegant alien skulls cool in my palms. These charmed … <\/p>\n