On a hot day, my father rounded up my brother and sister and me and took us for a walk. My siblings and I carried butterfly nets, while our father carried a rifle.

The three of us saw no flashy specimens—no pipevine swallowtails or regal fritillaries—so we had no reason to run across the fields with our nets pumping. Instead, we moved slowly. Sometimes, we let our nets drag on the ground.

When we came to a mud hole, we spotted a snake coiled on the ground. Its skin was metallic brown, with a light-and-dark saddle pattern. “It has a triangular head,” my father said. “It looks like a copperhead.”

He picked up a stick and approached the snake, but the reptile didn’t slide away. Instead, it struck at the stick, slinging its head forward and showing its mouth’s white lining.

My father shouldered his rifle and fired. The snake jerked, then went still. My father draped the carcass over his stick and, holding the assemblage of snake and branch like a divining rod, carried the dead reptile home.

In his studio, he compared the snake to photographs in a guidebook. “It was a water snake,” he announced. “It was harmless.”



I sat on the couch and looked at our aquarium, which sat on a cabinet next to a windowsill. Not much light came through the window, because there was a porch roof right outside. The water level in the tank, I noticed, was only about two inches.

Three guppies, all female, swam among plants my father had collected from the nearby creek. The tufted vines crowded the water.

I picked up a small can of fish food and shook it over the water. The guppies rose and kissed the surface with their tiny, round mouths.



My father wasn’t present for supper, so I sat with my brother and sister at the kitchen table while our mother stood and watched us.

“You have to finish all of your food,” she said. “When I was a child, we had to eat all of our rice. We didn’t eat like people here, with dishes on the table. We held our bowls to our chins and shoveled the rice with our chopsticks. We couldn’t leave a single grain. Each leftover piece of rice was a seed of bad luck.”

I looked at the food on my plate. I had no rice and no chopsticks. Even so, I decided to pick every particle from the ceramic.



At school, I arrived at the cafeteria late for lunch, so I stood at the back of the line. I noticed that the person ahead of me was a girl with cooties, or so I’d been told. I’d never seen a cootie, but I understood that a gathering of the things was something to avoid.

I sneaked up a few places in line, but a cafeteria monitor saw me. He locked an elbow around my neck and began to sand my scalp with the knuckles of his free hand. “Why did you cut in?” he asked.

“I didn’t want to get cooties,” I said.

“That takes the cake,” he said. He kept my neck clamped in his bent arm until he finished grinding my head; then he sent me to the back of the line.

After I’d gotten my lunch tray, I saw there was only one empty seat in the room. I sat next to the girl with cooties and ate along with her.



I went to the school auditorium for a study period. There was no teacher or proctor, so several students were sitting on the stage apron. I found a seat in the audience area.

One of the boys on the stage brought out a pair of handcuffs and passed them around.

“Where did you get them?” someone asked.

“From my father,” the boy said. “He’s a cop.”

One of the girls said, “Put them on me.”

“Why?” the boy asked.

“I want to see how they feel.”

She held out her hands, and the boy clicked the rings shut. She pulled against the metal to see how far her wrists would go.

The boy looked at the rest of us and gestured toward the girl. “Who’s first?” he asked.

“First for what?” someone asked.

“First at her.”



In the evening, a boy came to visit me.

We started to play chess in my bedroom, but after a while the boy said that he wanted to play doctor.

He told me to lie on my stomach. After I did, he pulled down my pants. He took a cork from my chemistry set and pushed the narrow end between my buttocks. “We’ll see if you pass the exam,” he said.

Next, he told me to lie on my back. Using his thumb and forefinger like forceps, he grasped my penis. “I’m going to show you something that feels good,” he said.

He moved his hand like a piston while kneading and pinching my fragile penile skin. My outstretched shaft lengthened and darkened, and the tip started to twitch. My primary care physician varied his angle of motion and bore down on the marrow of my boner. “Come on,” he commanded. “Squirt!”

But my jumping bonal tip stayed dry.



After the boy had left, my father asked what we had been doing
.
“Playing chess,” I said, “practicing the Nimzo-Indian defense.”

My father called to my mother, and she came running.

“What is it?” she asked.

“They were jacking off!” he announced.

“Well, what did you do when you were a child?” my mother asked.

“I didn’t close my door!” my father said.



I went out to the cement porch and rode my bicycle in circles. It was a small area and a big bike, so I had to ride carefully. I cut the front wheel sharply each time I approached a wall.

My father and a friend of his were sitting inside, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.

“I’m going to pull my children out of school,” my father said.

“You should send them to church,” his friend said, “so they can learn how the other half live.”

“My wife is a Confucian,” my father said, “and I was excommunicated.”

I heard a loud sound on the street. I looked and saw that my father’s friend’s car had coasted from its parking spot and crashed through a neighbor’s porch railing.

After the friend had retrieved his car and settled with the neighbors, he came over to me. “Do me a favor,” he said. “The next time you go out, take some condoms with you.”

He reached into his wallet and handed me a silvery, airtight packet. I pocketed the sexware for later examination.



On a Sunday morning, I saw a line of cars heading for the church down the street. As the cars proceeded, I could hear tower bells chiming a hymn.

I got on my bicycle and rode to the white-sided building. As I approached the entrance, I saw a billboard with the quote of the day. “To bear the cross cheerfully is the secret of the saints.”

Everyone in town, except for my family, seemed to be inside the building. Cars filled the parking lot and lined both sides of the road.

A couple of hours later, as I rode my bike in circles, I heard the church bells ring again and saw the same cars driving away, in the opposite direction.