Skipped Parts

Copyright

Copyright © 1991 by Tim Sandlin

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sandlin, Tim.

Skipped parts / Tim Sandlin.

p. cm.

1. Teenage boys—Fiction. 2. Divorced mothers—Fiction. 3. Mothers and sons—Fiction. 4. Teenage girls— Fiction. 5. Teenagers—Sexual behavior—Fiction. 6. Adolescence—Fiction. 7. Maturation (Psychology)—Fiction. 8. City and town life—Wyoming—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3569.A517S55 2010

813’.54—dc22

2010020944

Dedication

For Carol and Kyle,

Marian, my editor and friend,

and Sally, my sister

Acknowledgments

I couldn’t live the way I do without a lot of humoring from the people of Jackson, Wyoming, especially Michael Sellett who owns the Jackson Hole News where I work, and the employees of Jedidiah’s Original House of Sourdough, the Valley Bookstore, and the Teton County Library who keep me fed and pointed in the right direction. None of the beauty of life in paradise would mean squat without friends like Lisa Bolton, Lisa Flood, Pam Stecki, Hannah Hinchman, Shelley Rubrecht, and Teri Krumdic. Tina Welling read the manuscript and helped immensely.

Although I never met them, Ed Abbey and John Nichols showed me there is no excuse for not living where you want to live or doing what you want to do—a good lesson to learn while you’re still young.

SKIPPED PARTS

We were as twinned lambs that did frisk i’ the sun And bleat the one at the other. What we changed Was innocence for innocence.

—Polixenes, King of the Bohemians The Winter’s Tale

The two grey kits,

And the grey kits’ mother

All went over

The bridge together

The bridge broke down

They all fell in

May the rats go with you

Says Tom Bolin.

—Nursery Rhyme

1

I remember being way out in right field and my nose hurt. Hurt like king-hell, as if my sinuses were full of chlorine. Now I know that when anyone moves from the South to Wyoming, their nose always hurts like king-hell for two weeks. Has something to do with the humidity, I guess, or the altitude.

But at the time, standing out there in right field pretending to spit in my glove so I could hide my right hand as it pinched my nostrils, I thought Lydia and I were the first Southerners ever lost in Wyoming. I also thought the nose pain meant I had leukemia and would die soon.

“Sam, Sam, can you hear me?”

Sam’s eyes fluttered in weak recognition of his grandfather’s presence.

“Sam, I’m so sorry you’re dying of leukemia, I’m sorry I shipped you and your mom out to the Wilderness when you needed to be home the most.”

Sam tried to raise his hand. It was a noble effort.

“Sam, this is your grandfather, can you forgive me before you die?”

The poor boy’s lips worked, he made the supreme effort, but no words of forgiveness would escape his mouth. Slowly, painfully, he smiled.

***

Back then I often had recurring daydreams of people being sorry when I died.

Out in right field, I was keenly aware that people were watching me. Where they watched from, I wasn’t certain, but I always know when I’m being watched. It makes my butt itch. I have a feeling this deal goes back to the second grade when Lydia told me not to scratch in public because someone was always watching. Lydia’s the kind of mother who would do that to a kid.

Since I couldn’t scratch where it itched and my nose hurt like king-hell, I stood out there in right field kind of