before, but they promised that they’d show me how.
7
They had a girl they wanted me to meet. Extine was her 8
name. She took me, along with Jodie and Byron, on a trip 9
in woods around Southampton that I had never seen.
10
Every inch of those woods is etched in my memory by the 11
pain that saddle inflicted.
12
Jodie and Extine were cousins. Byron was Jodie’s hus-13
band. They lived in the Hamptons every summer and fall 14
and then spent the rest of the year between Aspen and 15
Maui. Their money came from their parents. Who knows 16
where it was before that?
17
Extine had big blond hair and big teeth that she pre-18
sented in a permanent smile.
19
Extine loved horses. She told me that she had ridden 20
every day of her life since the age of twelve.
21
“I love horses’ hair and teeth and eyes,” she told me two 22
minutes after we met. “When I was a girl I’d sneak out of 23
the house at night to sleep in the stables with my mare.”
24
“It’s great that you had something like that,” I said. “I 25
know a lot of people who never had something that they 26
loved so much.”
27 S
I was thinking about myself — about how I had wan-28 R
dered in and out of the same front door for thirty-three
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The Man in My Basement
years without ever knowing which way I should have been 1
going.
2
“Boy just like a housefly,” Uncle Brent used to say. “So 3
busy buzzin’ he don’t see the wall till it smack him upside 4
the head.”
5
“You don’t think I’m crazy?” Extine asked with a sort of 6
wonderment in her voice.
7
“I guess you could say that you were crazy,” I said. “I 8
mean
everybody else, and since you know what you want and 10
most other people don’t have any idea, then they got to 11
call you crazy. But only because they’re jealous.”
12
