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that the person “ … tíene la madre en rasta, ” (“ … has to drag his mother around”), the suggestion being that the person is so poor, he’s got his family in tow, no vehicle. (I learned about the second part to this phrase when I called my father when I was out of work in Seattle, had to admit to being very nearly broken down, very much out of luck and out of work, and said, “ Tengo la madre en rasta. ”He surprised me by chuckling, and finishing the sentence, “ ... y la tía en la manó. ” (…and my aunt in hand.)
    These are timid examples, though. We could get very dirty, very biological, very Aristocrats in our verbal assaults. For me, somehow, because it was in Spanish it didn’t seem wrong, and I got very good at it—especially in Spanish, but also in English. This is what these kids understood at this new school, this is what I was good at among them, and I had developed a reputation as the “put-down” champion, so much so that I could make kids cry or attack in just a few seconds. Normally I’d have an audience, so the attacks were usually thwarted by my friend Arthur, or Agripino and his bunch, led by a kid nicknamed El Chicloso (“gummy asshole”), because he always smelled like poo. (I remember once feeling really, really terrible when this one kid, Teodóro, challenged the position of champion and I annihilated him in one or two rounds during P.E. He was inconsolable when we got back into the classroom, putting his head down and sobbing loudly. The teacher finally attempted consolation, asking, “What happened? What’s wrong? What’s wrong, Teodóro?” He wouldn’t speak, so she finally asked the class what had happened, and my cousin Dora raised her hand and said, “Domingo said his mother’s anus looks like cauliflower,” which was something I’d heard my Gramma say to a police officer a few weeks before. A few years later, I was driving around with Dad and he had some sort of business with a man who turned out to be Teodóro’s father, and as I was sitting in the passenger seat the whole time my father was calling Teodóro’s dad Panocha , which was apparently his accepted nickname, which means “twat.” His dad’s name was “Twat,” and he cried when I said his mother’s anus looked like a cauliflower? I just don’t understand people sometimes.)
    This continued for many months, and I had established myself among these kids in a way that I had not considered myself capable when I first got to Vermillion. I had changed, certainly, but I was able to turn off the vulgarian side of me with an easy, very smart switch, and the minute I stepped off the school bus and entered the house, another switch was flipped and I was clean-mouthed, pissed off and quiet. The minute I got on the bus in the morning, it was showtime: I would be there all week. I still managed my academia to the extent I could—I was the top student, a good athlete, and well-liked by teachers, students, and administrators—but I was also well-respected by the farm kids, who didn’t buy into this American “upward mobility” thing, this “education,” who might have otherwise picked on me, thought me soft. I spoke their language, after all.
    This created a duality in me that left me feeling soiled and conflicted. I remember one lunch I was sitting with Agripino and Arthur, two of my closest friends at the time, and we were trading marbles while eating our lunch when this scraggly curly haired problem white kid named Billy sat directly across from me. Knowing now what we do about learning disabilities, I think it’s likely that Billy was dyslexic and was acting out from his frustration, because there was nothing else really wrong with him except he couldn’t write and couldn’t read. But he had nothing else so he had decided to be tough.
    He sat