Where do I start, my name is Gordon Ween.

I am seventeen and three-quarters. Three quarters is three fingers out of four fingers, or three fingers over four fingers. Seventeen means that I have seventeen wholes – which I learned is sixteen groups of four fingers out of four fingers.

Mother played cards. There was Mrs. Baker, Mrs. Ging-rinch and Mrs. Lowell. In the afternoon, at a table in my house, they played Yuke Her. I do not know how to play Yuke Her but I watched them every afternoon. When they played they tried to yuke each other, Mother and Mrs. Baker would look at the numbers they held in their hands and add them up and sort the pairs, and Mrs. Lowell leaned over Mrs. Gingrinch and then leaned back and then someone would lay cards down and Mrs. Lowell mumbled a dirty word and Mother scolded her, not in front of Gordon, don’t say those things in front of Gordon, she said. Then the cards were down and Mrs. Lowell and Mrs. Gingrinch would be happy. On the table were cards with coloured shapes and unhappy faces, the shapes of shovels and hearts.

The house? The house was my house. The table was round and pretty, there were red flowers with thick stems on it in a bowl. It was an eating bowl, not a flower bowl. It was low and wide, for soup, but Mother always cut the stems and sat the petals in the bowl so there was no stem. They were coloured little heads, especially when they were tulips, and they got darker and darker until they curled and new heads were on the table for Yuke Her. As the heads turned dark and sad their smell eroded and the bowl dried out. There were four black chairs around the big table, but my chair was by the window looking at the four big chairs. The window drapes were the colour of hedges and there were no dishes in the sink.

There were always bottles on the table, green with purple labels and Mrs. Gingrinch always laughed when she said we almost don’t need the flowers on the table, these bottles are flowers themselves and make us bloom when we drink she said, and she giggled as she looked at me sitting in my chair.

My chair, I sat on a chair beside the table. It was my chair, I always sat in it, and it was red. It fit my back and Mother liked it because it always makes you sit up straight, Gordon, you never sit straight enough. People will not like you if you don’t sit straight, Gordon, what will Mrs. Lowell and Mrs. Gingrinch think of you if you slouch, Gordon.

Oh no, Mrs. Lowell said, don’t listen to her. You know I like you, you know how much I like you, I’ve shown you how I like you you know that. She never said that when Mother was there, when Mother was there she said nonsense, Rette, you’ll hurt the poor boy’s feelings. Gordon is absolutely wonderful, we all love Gordon.

Did you know the pretty parts of flowers are the reproductive organs, said Mrs. Baker.

They’re certainly more used than yours, said Mrs. Ging-rinch, you’re ugly.

I am not, said Mrs Baker, her best friend.

Gordon, said Mrs. Gingrinch, don’t listen to your mother. She’s turning red because all day she loses all she has to us. Terrible. She’s terrible.

Mother glared at her.

See, said Mrs. Gingrinch, she doesn’t laugh at it because it’s true, Gordon. Mrs. Baker and your mother never win to-gether.

I don’t cheat, and we win sometimes, said Mrs. Baker. It’s not true.

You know it is, said Mrs. Gingrinch, you take from Rette too. I never won when I played with you, either. But Rette never stops playing with you and she never understands our faces.

I understand there’s nothing else to understand in your faces, said Mother.

If you understood any faces, you would understand Mrs. Baker’s, said Mrs. Gingrinch. Her face is so plain she cannot lie. Even when she puts on her mascara and makeup you know she is trying to hide her thoughts. When she tries to hide her thoughts you know exactly what they are. But you can’t see that, said Mrs. Gingrinch, and we can so we win.

My face is not plain, said Mrs. Baker.

It is so, said Mrs. Gingrinch.

I do not wear makeup to hide things. I wear it to look pretty, said Mrs. Baker.

Hm, said Mrs. Gingrinch.

Mrs. Gingrinch and Mrs. Baker were best friends. They fought all the time at Yuke Her, Mrs. Baker accusing Mrs. Ging-rinch of cheating and Mrs. Gingrinch calling Mrs. Baker too plain, she said a face that ugly should be much better at hiding things. Mrs. Baker is ugly, she looks like a squirrel I saw a dog catch from a tree. I would never say she looked like a squirrel from my chair because I wasn’t supposed to talk from the chair I was supposed to watch for cheating.

If I talked Mother always told me to stop talking. Every-thing was good until I talked so I didn’t. That’s why I never said that Mrs. Baker looked like a fly I hit with a newspaper – it crawled on its broken legs – or that Mrs. Gingrinch sometimes farted when she took me upstairs to show me every week. Even though I knew what she wanted to show me I wanted to see again and I wanted to tell everyone at the table that all of them, except Mother, showed me the same thing all the time but only Mrs. Gingrinch smelled when she showed me, and I thought that was funny. They looked funny when they climbed on me to show me what they called love. When I talked it was never bad until Mrs. Gingrinch, Mrs. Lowell and Mrs. Baker went home. Then Mother would drink more of the bottles with the purple labels and stand up...