And what do I see up in the Indian cigar tree? Bean pods strewn on the ground, like Mama said she and her sisters used to sneak and smoke as girls. The Esso station, its busy hive and ogling men I hurry past when I’m wearing a halter top and Bermuda shorts—men that would sting fearsome if I get too familiar. I’m not sure how, but it’s a clutch in my belly and throat that I shouldn’t know at nine or ten. What else? Used-up tires and rusting car parts, leaking batteries, my stepfather’s bird dog pen farther out. The pup chained to the tree trunk, a shepherd dog with butterscotch brows over her chocolate eyes. The men call her Jackie, after Jackie Kennedy, saying her eyes are horsey, too close together like the president’s wife. I never say stepdaddy—he’s Richard. My real daddy picks me up certain weekends when he’s home from being a traveling salesman. We eat butter cookies and Krystal waffles. Richard says to park in the back; his customers would trade elsewhere if they knew Mama was a divorcee. I try not to rile him. I’d rather be with Grandmama on Russell Street off Woodland than up this tree. Sitting on her porch as the jarflies ratchet higher and wider. Listening to her sweet old words like right smart and yonder. Falling asleep in her lap at the Free Will Baptist. She chases away the thing growing in me, the fearsome thing I can’t yet name. I look for places to blend in. Up and up. When I feed Jackie table scraps and grease at night, the rats skitter off. In a few months, she’ll be gone, given to the twins Sally and Cathy who make fun of living in an Esso station. I still think of that pup, not even a goodbye. I thought she was mine. I think of the eye tooth I was working loose up in that big muscle of tree, all that blood for just a little yank. I know I’m always on the verge of blood coming, one way or another. I practice duck and cover, like in school. I stand at the bathroom mirror and work up to pulling this tooth hanging by a thread. Twist it this way and that, slow, until it lets go on its own. Until it’s another thing gone yonder. And I wonder why I think back when I should think forward, so far yonder that all this will burn through memory like the smoke of Indian cigars, how they stank to high heaven.