When My Father Was in Prison
We had this bird called Smokey that my brother taught to say Nevermore, but he (Smokey) couldn’t ever really do it since he was the wrong kind of bird. Not a talker, my mother said.
There was a girl across the street whose father was a government functionary. My brother made me repeat the words to get the sounds right and when I asked what that was, he said it was almost the same thing as being in prison, except her father slept at home.
