Fatso was a math bully. He hollered the flashcard answer before Anita could open her mouth. 

Photographs and albums were stored in the bottom drawer of Mom's file cabinet. Sometimes, when she felt particularly nostalgic after a martini, she'd invite me to sit beside her on the couch, and we'd browse through her life captured in black and white. Although Mom was an only child, I couldn't help but notice that she had more cousins than she could count, especially when everyone got together for the holidays. I had yet to meet one of them.

On the way to Beardsley Elementary School, I stopped at 7-Eleven on Robert’s Lane to buy some Archie Salt Water Taffy. I’d already spent my weed-picking allowance at Rollerama, so I took a dollar from Mom’s wallet when she wasn’t looking. 

I saw the Boogeyman. His enormous shadow loomed in my doorway like a thunderhead in the distance, yet he never stepped into my bedroom. Each time I encountered him, it was always in the middle of the night when something startled me awake. I'd slowly pull the covers over my head, frozen in my cocoon, hoping that he couldn't see me when I couldn't see him.

I tucked my hair under my daisy-covered swim cap until my scalp stretched so tight my face burned. Mom said I had to wear a rubber swim cap because girl hair clogged pool drains.

Across the street from my trailer, in a small silver Airstream, lived an enormous man named Jerry, his wife, two standard poodles, and a myna bird. They didn't have a chain-link fence around their trailer space like mine, which I considered an open invitation to visit whenever I wanted.

There was a nasty boy who lived in a white double-wide on the east side of Happy Acres Trailer Park. He was obsessed with the radio song “Chick-A-Boom” and wanted to teach me the lyrics so I could sing along.

I wanted to be a Girl Scout but was too young, so I became a Brownie instead.

"You're the dumb one," Brother shot back. "You must've been dropped on your head to be that stupid!"

Elvis Presley lived across the street from the butterfly bush, next to the anonymous neighbor.